One thing I haven't really tried yet, regarding my writing.

[hmpf]

I've said earlier that I know from experience that nobody can really help me when I get stuck, and I think that's the truth, if 'help' means 'take a look at the fic fragments and tell me what's wrong with them/tell me what to do next'. However, I've never really tried talking the fic - its problems and my 'mental blocks' - through with someone. I wonder if that would help? I've noticed that sometimes it's ridiculously easy to develop an idea in conversation, but I've never actually tried to use this as a method to tear down/scale/get around the frequent brick walls in my head.

There's a twofold problem with that approach, though: 1.) you'd need a volunteer who's fairly deeply into the fandom you're writing (and, ideally, probably also into the kind of story you want to write - this may in fact be the more important condition), and 2.) that volunteer will be hopelessly spoiled for the final result, i.e. the actual story, in the process. (Optimistically assuming that the process will actually result in a story.)

Anybody have any experience with this kind of thing? Does it help? (Though of course what may help one writer may be useless for the next, anyway, so I'm not sure asking anybody else about their experiences with any kind of technique actually means anything.)

Comments

This sounds more like beta reading.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

What I was talking about was the possibility of just, well, talking about fic with someone, discussing problems and developing ideas. Possibly this might include showing the fragments of some particular fic-to-be to someone to give them some idea of the tone or something, yes, but it's much too early for anyone to give me useful advice based on that look at a few scraps. All my stories are just a bunch of fragments at the moment. I don't really think anyone could make sense of them, frankly - the shape that they have in my mind is not yet visible in them at all. In fact, even I only have the vaguest idea of the shape they will (or may) end up having, which is one of the things that makes writing them so difficult. I don't know where I'm going. And I don't think anyone can tell me.

But I *may* be better able to figure out where I'm going for myself in conversation rather than just by brooding over it for months or years on my own. May. No guarantees.