Hey y’all. I’m curious as to how you write your ‘solutions.’ Do you think out your ending first, and then build backward from that? Or just start writing, and hope it lands on its feet. Or do you go for what’s entertaining, plot be damned?
I brainstorm, then outline, then write. If I don’t outline it I can forget entirely about one of my four characters (and we wouldn’t want Spikey to feel left out in therapy, now, would we?!)
That makes so much sense. I finished and realized I had nothing for Morgan to do. Going to have to work on that next time.
I agonize a lot about 'em. If you look at previous FSL challenges I’ve written same pretty long and elaborate pieces (thank you to the 3 people who actually read 'em 
).
I try to imagine what interesting (or amusing) actions or dialog would happen if two characters got together (Sarek and Aragorn) (Daniel Graystone and Racetrack) and then I build around that. It’s fun to toss in subtle references that only those paying attention will get a kick of.
This time around I kept more in mind that I’m writing to amuse and catch people’s interest.
For myself I analyze the problem Sean presents to us and come up with solutions to it, and then pick the most unusual or entertaining one. Simply creating the solution will present a number of interesting scenes in and of itself, I then mentally place my characters into these scenes and then sit back and see what they do and then describe it as best I can for the reader.
Of course this will only work if you know your characters VERY WELL, they must be able to come to life in your head. A good exercise is to take a character and put them into various situations and then consider how they would react. One author even said at a panel she will commute in traffic and mentally have her character sit beside her in the car and watch how they react to it.
I do exercises like this at work every day, when I see an interesting situation I will mentally replace certain key individuals with fictional characters and then sit back and watch them go at it. The combinations are near infinite as are the outcomes. And once you get good at it very entertaining, screw commercial TV this sh*t is much better.
I am completely an inefficient writer. I admire Casilda for outlining, maybe I’ll try a more structured approach for the next one. Basically I just open the door and see what happens which is why it is so important for me to know the voice and the universe of the characters, I just let them go and see what happens. Once I have written my draft I put it away for a night and then come back to it fresh, tweaking and fixing. Then I post. Then I find myself continually shaping it over the course of the week. I know I am completely compulsive, but if you were to compare the first posted story with where it ends up at the end of the week you would absolutely notice differences. I find that when I put it up and know other people will be reading it I approach it differently.
Not very exciting, but there you go.
By the way old boy, brilliant work this time around. Nice use of the blog to begin and end it. I am envious of taking the screenwriting style to focus completely on the spoke word. Brilliant. May have to try that for a round.
I’m in agreement - though I suspect that, since all of my work writing is narrative non-fiction, pure dialogue will be much more difficult for me to write! But I definitely want to try it for at least one of the challenges.
I’ve also found (in the whole 5 days or whatever that I’ve had my team together) that I am much more comfortable with the voices of some of my characters than others. I’m blaming part of this challenge on my Cardassian theme (Garak last year, who was fun to write for, and Dukat this year), because I’m really struggling to find a voice for Dukat in these kinds of situations. Maybe the “script” approach will help.
(I like hearing about people’s approaches to working on this stuff - keep the ideas coming, people!)
I brainstorm in the back of my head for a while (usually while at work), then start writing based on my ideas (both for solutions and gags). Of course, sometimes, putting it down on paper either gives me a better idea or makes me realize that my original idea wouldn’t work. Like on this tribble one, originally the chemical Chloe came up with would only sterilize the tribbles. When I started writing it, I realized that still having the sterile tribbles alive would make finding the non-sterile ones more difficult, so I changed it to kill most and sterilize almost all of the rest.
Thanks Man! Seemed to work for me this time-- the dialog style. Good way to boil things down to their essence. For your team it’s worth trying next time–cuz Dr. Evil, A Powers, Cartman, Kyle—they’re all about the great dialog–the banter back and forth, right?
I don’t think I’ll be able to do that screenwriting style every time though. Indiana Jones is thinking-man’s action hero, but still primarilly he’s an action hero. So if I don’t give him some cool Indy-style action eventually it’ll be a disservice to the chartacter. I dunno. We’ll see. Rule number 1: Don’t be boring
Anyway. This is fun!
Last FSL, I overthought it and it caused me to stop playing. I didn’t understand what the purpose of it was and was actually working on a story arc with my team (Team Moppet) in which Micah would be concocting this plan to get them home, figuring out who was behind it and how to stop them. Toph was going to be his power house and add some sarcastic wit to the story, while I would also have a side story of Laura crushing on DARYL that eventually either turned into a kindred spirt/bff thing or an innocent romance. Once the FSL got rolling, though, I realized it was more about just coming up with interesting or innovative ways of approaching the problem and trying to be funny and I just couldn’t make the shift. I bailed after the first challenge.
This time, I had a better understanding going in so I think I’ll have a lot more fun. For the entry that I just posted today, I did a little brainstorming just to get an idea of bullet points I wanted to hit and then ran with it to see where it would go. If I’m handicapped this time it will be simply because no one knows who the hell my characters are. I hope it inspires a few people to watch the source materials at least, because they are truly bad and I love them both.
This is all great advice, everybody, to the point that I now feel a little intimidated (mostly kidding…mostly) 
I will indeed step up my game next week.
That is so not the papa smurf I remember from my childhood. Damn, Papa Smurf.
Thanks UCHI!!! Cards are beautiful.
Re: writing
I think the things I enjoy most about FSL is reading all the awesome entries people have written…so I don’t really give too much thought in constructing my own stories and just sort of write whatever comes to mind as long as it’s fun to write! Heh. It’s fun just to participate.
Now that I think about it, there is definitely a progression from concentrating on pure solution to fun wanking with my characters with each FSL. But I have a tendency to choose at least one or more not very powerful characters in my team, so much of the fun for me comes from figuring out a somewhat logical solution to whatever task at hand.
Whoohoo, updated my banner! (Got sidetracked for about two hours reading up on the Fables stuff that I haven’t caught up on yet, but… still!)
My method last year, and what seems to be carrying over this year, is to find something that makes me giggle and run with it, whether it’s a solution, a conflict, a mental picture, a funny line of dialog that I want to use, or even just a framing device that strikes me as particularly interesting. It’s all about entertaining myself.
And seeing what/who everyone else comes up with! I love seeing that so much.
That’s exactly what I’m trying to do this time around. I didn’t participate in the last 2 FSLs, but I listened to the 'casts and read some of the forum responses, and even created by own team in my head and kind of played along.
I think the challenge for me will be to be adaptable to each scenario and still have character development. With the “nemesis/invasion” premise I’m thinking it may actually work. My goal is to be true to the characters and make it dramatic and interesting within the framework of the challenge. I cheated a little with the first challenge and tossed out the “therapy” aspect, focusing instead on bringing the characters together organically. I also left off on a cliffhanger. The challenge was complete, but the characters are still in conflict with each other, and that will carry over into the next challenge. Hopefully it all works out!
Question for Omra.
What are those pics of those cylinder things at the start of your FSL story?
I’m not Omra, but they are royal guardians (AI and tree based) in Tenchi (anime series). They have weapons and various shield abilities.
Fastcart is right, and they contain the personalities of the two greatest knights of Jurai’s past, Azaka and Kamidake. I put the pics there to help readers try and visualize how ludicrous they would look with Ayeka’s attempts to disguise them with sunhats, sunglasses and hawaiian shirts.
Shooter, I’m watching Robotech for the first time with my husband, and I have an all-new appreciation for your post in “Tribbles On the Water.” Kudos to you.
Thank you very much. I was worried I had missed the boat a little. How far into Robotech are you?
~ Shooter Out
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I’ll admit that my submission to the first scenario was pretty weak. I had an idea for Blue Hands to basically annihilate everything, which is really what the character(s) is known for, and I had very little time to write, so I basically made each character perform a single action that would be like them to allow for my end result. I was surprised to see Sean single this out, and I’m not sure if it’s good, but more sure that it is bad.
This week was a tricky one. I tried to play the role reversal as how the characters perceive eachother, rather than how the characters really are. Wolverine and Sabertooth are very similar on the outside so the role reversal was thin on their part, which I self reference briefly with Wolverine’s internal dialogue on Sabertooth’s “bub” suffix. I mostly eliminated them from the scenario and focused on River and Blue Hands. Removing the brain melting stick from play (at Sean’s request), lent itself to making Blue Hands directionless, and to just loaf about like River generally does. River, on the other hand, not only acts more like Blue Hands (not much more), but also takes a distinct leadership role, which is the role Wolverine starts the scenario with.
While I had a lot more time to write this week, I still felt pressure between story elements and length. The addition of Shepard and crew is pretty thin, and was really just an excuse to use the trigger word “Miranda.” I know that Miranda isn’t actually the trigger for River (I rewatched Serenity last night for more inspiration), but I figured that it was close enough, and because she was also roleplaying a souless suit wearing killer, it would be believable enough that it would trigger her rampage power. I toyed with how to work the Oatey Bar commercial in, and then having Simon show up to use the deactivation word, but I didn’t want to run too long or have too many tangents. Plus, with Sean singling me out in the synopsys, and then putting our teams into a Mass Effect scenario, I felt compelled to link the two.
I’ve tried to set up elements that carry forward through each scenario as well, like how no one on the team actually witnessed River take down the trolls, and they assume it was Shepard and company. Not sure if this will come in handy at all but I guess that’s to be seen.
Moving forward through the scenarios expect to see team Amnesia wholesale slaughtering their foes and just about anyone else. This isn’t as much to do with lack of creativity, but more because my team is stacked with killing machines.