What was hard to write?

[pmmg]

I have layered plot motivations and it's been a nightmare to iron out. I think I've almost got it, but geez.
I've got boots-on the ground good guy motivations and what they know, same with the bad guys.
But then I've got this high level chess match type plot where there is a good guy and a bad guy who are using pretty much everybody in the book to try to check mate each other. The why and how of that, how to show the reader exactly enough and foreshadow appropriately but not too much, so the ending is still wild.... I probably should have had it all up on the wall with red thread running everywhere by now, but I keep trying to compartmentalize each characters motivation in outline format. It feels like trying to do calculus with crayons when I couldn't do algebra with a calculator.

This sounds to me like something you write out ugly and fix in the rewrite when you can see how all the pieces all fit together. Not really knowing that makes guessing at the consequences of things we write now, hoping they fit in right later. Since you seem like the type who would want an outline, maybe outline it all the way to the end, then come back an adjust. You may find, along the way, stuff sifts out that gives opportunities to make it even stronger and cooler.

 

[pmmg]

For me it's crossing the street. Literally, getting our characters from one place to another is my Achilles' Heel. I can get stuck for days on just transitions alone. Give me violence, give me sex. Give me conflict, for pity's sake, but do not tell me our determined protagonists have to cross a bloody street.

In my own story, I have areas where I know the travel is impossible. Character needs to get to someplace, which on the map is 2 weeks away, but I need them to arrive in like 3 days. I fudge quite a bit with that, and currently am leaving it for the rewrites on the 2nd and 3rd books. I dont think the reader would really notice (or care), but I do. Actually, I think I fixed it in book 2, but book 3

I don't mind writing the travel scenes. Some of the best ones are characters in the in between connecting scenes, but...lets just say the map is intentionally left vague in places.

 

[pmmg]

True, at least for me, I try to keep my characters in parties of 2-3, sometimes 4, anytime convos HAVE to happen beyond a few words about some topic. For some action scenes, having more of the cast around is convenient for pacing for the way I write, especially because normally there's the Main Action and people causing Side Action so the Main Action isn't interrupted by evil henchman or the military.

We usually run with something like 7 - 9 POV protagonists in any given book, and we also have a habit of having big 'council' meetings, like in The Fellowship of the Ring only with more brawling. The trick to writing conversations with a ton of characters involved is to make sure to bring all of them - their quirks and issues and personality and conflicts - into the conversation with them, and that will help to make them all sound differently from each other. And also work those tags. Speech tags are the best way to explore characters while also conveying information and moving the plot forward. Said isn't dead. Everything is in your toolbox. Work it.

While I too have many POV characters in the whole tale, I try not to have too many speaking people in scenes. Limiting them if I can to just two or three. Makes the clarity and flow easier. In the bigger jumbled scenes (Of which there are few), another thing I do, is re-describe things, so the reader would not be like "Who is that again?". So, if a character has a Red Beard, for instance, I might mention that detail when he speaks to keep him from becoming confused with other characters, and keep him more cemented.

 

[pmmg]

I once nearly gave myself nightmares by trying to write a scary enough scene to scare my imagined readers.

I have a hard time even imagining reading something and feeling legitimately scared or horrified by it. Its like my brain knows its just a book. I'd be interested to see if this was able to get me. In fact, I would be quite pleased if it did.

 

[pmmg]

One is in line with the sort of thing you'd expect, and I mentioned somewhere here on the site recently. My father-in-law reads my books. Writing scenes that would be hard for him to read (think violence, swearing, etc) are hard to write, just because I'm aware that a respectable 70-year old I know will read the thing and talk to me about it. I have to give myself permission to write those parts and be true to the characters.

I used to be excited if someone, friend of family, wanted to read my stuff, but now...I dont want them too. Probably not for the same reason's as you, but its not their thing, and I know it, and they know it, but they feel obliged to show interest. I just dont let them know anything is ready anymore.

But if it was their thing, I would be interested in their opinion on it.

 

[Jackarandajam]

This sounds to me like something you write out ugly and fix in the rewrite when you can see how all the pieces all fit together. Not really knowing that makes guessing at the consequences of things we write now, hoping they fit in right later. Since you seem like the type who would want an outline, maybe outline it all the way to the end, then come back an adjust. You may find, along the way, stuff sifts out that gives opportunities to make it even stronger and cooler.

Yeah, I've kinda done both, and I think they were both necessary in the end, at least for me. I've written out several iterations of most of it, which drew out alot of the plot holes. Now I've outlined again and very thoroughly, getting started on the prose.
Planning on it being a trilogy, so I've written all three outlines so the story has the best overall arc I can give it.

Kinda like making a puzzle.
When I don't outline I feel like I'm painting individual pieces, just hoping they look alright when they're back together.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I have a hard time even imagining reading something and feeling legitimately scared or horrified by it. Its like my brain knows its just a book. I'd be interested to see if this was able to get me. In fact, I would be quite pleased if it did.

Again from Faerie Rising, I actually made myself gag a few times writing a description. Everyone has their 'thing,' that one thing that triggers auto-yuck. This involves mine. I had to write it, now you get to read it.

~~

Etienne checked the slide on his Glock and nodded to his team.

Someone screamed.

Etienne whipped his head around. It hadn’t been one of his people, but rather a human guard. What the fuck…?

“Summer’s Get!” The voices were thick with mucus and gave Etienne a terrible urge to clear his throat. “My dread lord, Midir, desires your presence.”

Fuck. Etienne raised his head to look. He couldn’t not.

Tall enough to brush the ceiling with its head—the humanoid one—a nuckalevee advanced toward them. An unholy, skinless nightmare of horse and rider fused together at the rider’s naked, legless hips, the veins across its crimson, glistening shoulders were open to view and pulsing with effort. Exposed muscles flexed and contracted over white bone and tendon and each skeletal, eyeless face spoke in unison. Drying seaweed and slime dropped from its haunches to leave a trail behind it. What the hell was it doing here? Waiting to be turned loose in the Pacific?

The human guards were scrambling away from the Unseelie horror and converging on their position. Scoithín drew his sword.

 

[pmmg]

Pretty nice creature. Definitely from a horror show. I like the name Nuckalevee too. Hope you made it up entirely.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Pretty nice creature. Definitely from a horror show. I like the name Nuckalevee too. Hope you made it up entirely.

And now comes the part where I rock you to sleep. Nope. This puppy isn't one of mine. I think its Scottish and it's a water creature, like a Kelpie only not quite so dapper. You can image search the thing. I did for this. Do Not Recommend.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Anything I ever decided to post on 4 chan...

Joking aside I don't like writing violence for the sake of it (as in Gratuitous violence, like Equalizer) I can do epic anime magic fights of nonsense just fine, but actual brutality for the sake of it is entirely out of my wheelhouse. And Honestly I'd rather keep it way, my stories tend to have zero need for gore of that level.

I also get cold feet writing romance. I often cop out and fade to black after the 'lead up' part of the scene.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I also get cold feet writing romance. I often cop out and fade to black after the 'lead up' part of the scene.

I think this is perfectly respectable.

Not a popular opinion, but unless you're Abercrombie and like to use sex scenes to show how gross particular humans can be, I can think of very few instances that the scene itself did much storywise. Some people enjoy that payoff, granted.
I find the fade to black a classy touch.

 

[pmmg]

And now comes the part where I rock you to sleep. Nope. This puppy isn't one of mine. I think its Scottish and it's a water creature, like a Kelpie only not quite so dapper. You can image search the thing. I did for this. Do Not Recommend.

Well its a strange creature. Almost like rider and horse both sank in a swamp and died together. Something must have inspired it.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I think this is perfectly respectable.

Not a popular opinion, but unless you're Abercrombie and like to use sex scenes to show how gross particular humans can be, I can think of very few instances that the scene itself did much storywise. Some people enjoy that payoff, granted.
I find the fade to black a classy touch.

For me it's more a principals thing, plus a lot of the time one of the characters has shape shifting capabilities and at least one of them isn't shy about her guilty pleasures. Most of the time I like to demonstrate to the reader what they are capable of for 'normal' uses. Then leave it up to the reader to go 'oh....wait...huh...I'm kind of glad I didn't have to read that.' after they read the lead up scene. It's also more fun (personally) to let the reader do the hard work because you never know what they'll come up with. It's like those fake ghosts in old horror movies, they are way scarrier than CGI nonsense cause you could barely see them.

I always groan in annoyance at sex scenes in movies (Even spy films) because I'm like 'dude, I get it, the characters are horni for each-other, but you also only have about an hour left in the movie for the cool shit some of us came to see' lol

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Well its a strange creature. Almost like rider and horse both sank in a swamp and died together. Something must have inspired it.

My money says bog bodies had a lot to do with it.

 

[Queshire]

And somebody being drunk.

 

[Prince of Spires]

And somebody being drunk.

This is always a good explanation of the human condition...

I used to be excited if someone, friend of family, wanted to read my stuff, but now...I dont want them too. Probably not for the same reason's as you, but its not their thing, and I know it, and they know it, but they feel obliged to show interest. I just dont let them know anything is ready anymore.

But if it was their thing, I would be interested in their opinion on it.

He enjoys the books and I like talking to him about them. So it's not so much the fact that he reads them in general. It's more specific things it influences. Like having a character violently and graphically tortured to death. Or having a main character who swears and curses a lot. For these I have to put aside the knowledge that he'll read them and just write the pieces

 

[LittleOwlbear]

Pacing and not infodumping, or putting information about the world naturally into the text and dialogues.
I also like bit slower pacing and all, but it shouldn't be too slow.

Translating my texts into english. It's not difficult, I just need to kick my lazy ass to do so.

 

[Gurkhal]

Scenes where I think I haven't done the proper research are hard to write. It don't matter if I've done sufficient research or not. If its a subject I feel like I don't know enough I get hung up on details, if I've misunderstood something and so on and on.

 

[Devora]

For me it's setting description. I have difficulties imagining places in vivid detail. In my head, rooms are a blur.

 

[Gurkhal]

For me it's setting description. I have difficulties imagining places in vivid detail. In my head, rooms are a blur.

Speaking of it I feel this too.

Its like, people are living in blank spaces in my stories and when I try to flesh it out I'm like "now what...?"