Write Every Day: Day 22

[the_siobhan]

Apologies for the late post - I'm having one of those Sundays where I absolutely fail to accomplish anything productive.

I did go out for a short walk though, and on a whim I took some pictures around my neighbhourhood. The photo above is of the south side of a tree, so that confirms there is no validity to that old, "moss only growing on the north side of trees" story. I have to figure out some other way for my characters to make their way when they get lost.

	One of our neighbours have this enormous hedge they keep trimmed into the shape of a rhino standing up with it's arms crossed. At some point they put a mask on it.
	A different neighbour. It's hard to tell from this shot, but their fence is made out of a row of doors set up in a line. They used to be painted with vines, but I think that must have been difficult to maintain and they whitewashed the whole thing over the summer.
	I couldn't get a decent picture of this because it's several years old now and it's too faded to make out, but here's a pic I took back when it was fresh. We also have one on the other end of the street featuring Astro Boy

Part of my story is set in Toronto, and little quirky things like this are very much a part of my setting. But I also have events happening far from home and I'm thinking about ways to make those remote or imaginary settings feel as real as the ones I know so well. I'll probably dig out a map and try to figure out how to base some of the locations on places they could conceiveably get to. (And maybe go visit them in person in the After Times.)

How do you deal with the environment of your stories, whether they be in an established canon universe, a real place or a fantasy setting? Do you describe the background in depth or leave a lot of it "unpainted"? If your story is set in a known location, how do you evoke it for the reader? (A used bookshop in Soho? A Portland brewpub? The bridge of a well-known spaceship?)


Day 22 Tally:
alexseanchai, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, shadaras, brainwane, sakana17, sanguinity, nafs, phrenk, cornerofmadness, lferion, yasaman, auroracloud, shopfront, luzula, ysilme, silveradept, ysilme, iberiandoctor

Day 21:
china_shop, alexseanchai, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, shadaras, silveradept, brainwane, lferion, sakana17, nafs, cornerofmadness, yasaman, phrenk, auroracloud, shopfront, firecat, sanguinity, luzula, iberiandoctor, ysilme

Day 20:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, badly_knitted, luzula, alexseanchai, shadaras, nafs, sakana17, cornerofmadness, yasaman, lferion, phrenk, shopfront, firecat, sanguinity, silveradept, auroracloud, iberiandoctor, ysilme

Day 19:
china_shop, ysilme, shopfront, luzula, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, alexseanchai, brainwane, silveradept, cornerofmadness, nafs, sakana17, yasaman, lferion, sanguinity, alexseanchai, phrenk, shadaras, auroracloud, iberiandoctor


Day 18:
china_shop, alexseanchai, badly_knitted, luzula, sylvanwitch, shadaras, brainwane, marvelouscity, nafs, lferion, cornerofmadness, yasaman, sakana17, sanguinity, phrenk, firecat, ysilme, silveradept, auroracloud, iberiandoctor


Day 17:
china_shop, badly_knitted, luzula, sylvanwitch, shadaras, alexseanchai, sanguinity, brainwane, nafs, cornerofmadness, sakana17, yasaman, lferion, marvelouscity, silveradept, phrenk, iberiandoctor, firecat, ysilme, auroracloud

Day 16:
china_shop, badly_knitted, luzula, sylvanwitch, sanguinity, yasaman, brainwane, firecat, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, phrenk, silveradept, iberiandoctor, shadaras, ysilme, auroracloud

Day 15:
china_shop, alexseanchai, sylvanwitch, badly_knitted, trobadora, luzula, yasaman, sanguinity, shadaras, brainwane, nafs, sakana17, cornerofmadness, phrenk, lferion, silveradept, firecat, iberiandoctor, ysilme, auroracloud

Day 14:
china_shop, ysilme, sylvanwitch, trobadora, badly_knitted, luzula, alexseanchai, shadaras, sanguinity, nafs, brainwane, cornerofmadness, yasaman, lferion, sakana17, phrenk, shopfront,silveradept, firecat, ysilme, auroracloud

Day 13:
china_shop, shopfront, badly_knitted, luzula, shadaras, alexseanchai, sylvanwitch, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, yasaman, phrenk, sakana17, silveradept, ysilme, iberiandoctor, trobadora, sanguinity, auroracloud

Day 12:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, shadaras, brainwane, silveradept, alexseanchai, thevetia, yasaman, zulu, sakana17, sanguinity, cornerofmadness, lferion, phrenk, badly_knitted, saki101, ysilme, iberiandoctor, trobadora, luzula, auroracloud

Day 11:
china_shop, firecat, badly_knitted, luzula, sylvanwitch, shadaras, thevetia, sakana17, brainwane, sanguinity, yasaman, cornerofmadness, china_shop, nafs, lferion, saki101, alexseanchai, phrenk, firecat, shopfront, silveradept, zulu, trobadora, ysilme, iberiandoctor, auroracloud

Day 10:
china_shop, badly_knitted, luzula, sylvanwitch, alexseanchai, shadaras, sanguinity, brainwane, nafs, firecat, yasaman, cornerofmadness, sakana17, saki101, lferion, phrenk, auroracloud, iberiandoctor, silveradept, thevetia, trobadora, ysilme

Day 9:
china_shop, shadaras, sylvanwitch, alexseanchai, sanguinity, saki101, nafs, yasaman, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, phrenk, badly_knitted, ysilme, silveradept, solo, carenejeans, auroracloud, iberiandoctor, luzula, brainwane, trobadora

Day 8:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, badly_knitted, luzula, saki101, silveradept, sanguinity, shadaras, thevetia, brainwane, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, yasaman, phrenk, alexseanchai, firecat, auroracloud, ysilme, solo, carenejeans, iberiandoctor, trobadora

Day 7:
china_shop, shopfront, falkner, badly_knitted, luzula, trobadora, sylvanwitch, shadaras, nafs, brainwane, sanguinity, lferion, yasaman, sakana17, phrenk, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, firecat, saki101, silveradept, auroracloud, ysilme, iberiandoctor

Day 6:
china_shop, ysilme, trobadora, luzula, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, saki101, sanguinity, shadaras, brainwane, nafs, alexseanchai, cornerofmadness, yasaman, lferion, sakana17, phrenk, shopfront, silveradept, iberiandoctor, firecat, solo, carenejeans, auroracloud

Day 5:
china_shop, badly_knitted, luzula, shadaras, sylvanwitch, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, cornerofmadness, lferion, brainwane, saki101, phrenk, firecat, ysilme, shopfront, yasaman, carenejeans, houseof9cats, thevetia, robadora, silveradept, auroracloud, trobadora

Day 4:
china_shop, shopfront, luzula, alexseanchai, shadaras, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, ysilme, sanguinity, saki101, silveradept, nafs, yasaman, thevetia, sakana17, cornerofmadness, lferion, phrenk, solo, iberiandoctor, firecat, brainwane, carenejeans, yasaman, auroracloud, trobadora

Day 3:
china_shop, alexseanchai, alexcat, sylvanwitch, sakana17, thevetia, nafs, lferion, cornerofmadness, phrenk, solo, badly_knitted, luzula, shadaras, yasaman, brainwane, trobadora, ysilme, sanguinity, silveradept, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans, auroracloud

Day 2:
china_shop, shadaras, falkner, luzula, badly_knitted, alexseanchai, trobadora, saki101, sylvanwitch, brainwane, thevetia, lferion, cornerofmadness, nafs, sakana17, yasaman, solo, phrenk, auroracloud, ysilme, sanguinity, silveradept, alexcat, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Day 1:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, luzula, badly_knitted, trobadora, falkner, alexseanchai, silveradept, shadaras, sanguinity, thevetia, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, alexcat, marvelouscity, saki101, yasaman, solo, auroracloud, phrenk, shopfront, brainwane, dreamwriteremmy, ysilme, , iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Let me know if I missed your name at any point. And participation is always open, so jump in with a comment any time.

Comments

[badly_knitted]

I leave everything but the essentials 'unpainted' most of the time, although I'll go into more detail when I'm describing alien planets.

Nov 22nd - 957 words on a challenge fic.

[alexseanchai]

I finished and posted "j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)"!

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

[the_siobhan]

Congrats!

[shadaras]

I love the idea of a hedge animal with a mask!

I either have no particular image of a place beyond the bare bones necessary for the plot or I have a very particular image that may or may not have anything to do with canon/reality. xD; So my descriptiveness wavers back and forth between those two extremes.

Today I wrote ~1.6k. Mostly on my highadrenalineexchange fic, but a little on my MDZS big bang fic that I've been stalled out on because I'm nearing the ending and it's hard.

[sylvanwitch]

I am likely the sort who'd be described, if the describer was being kind, as over-descriptive. I like writing description very much, and I enjoy the little background details of world-building almost as much as I like to write action scenes and snappy dialogue. In fact, I was going to note that the novel broke 100K words with today's 880 words, and I still have at least a third to go, which means, to my mind, somewhere in the earliest chapters there are 20K words that will need to be cut, and some of those will doubtless be lyrical descriptions of places that end up not mattering later on, when I finally got the tempo of the story and a feel for it.

As for places I haven't been, I am a big fan of Google Earth street views, Google image trolling, and reading other books (nonfiction, fiction) set in those places. In fact, sometimes I end up writing a fanfiction based in a particular place because I've just read a book set in that place (or watched something set there), and I still have a vivid mind-sense of it, so to speak.

[china_shop]

I'm extremely handwavy wrt setting. I'll say what I have to and very little more -- which I think works better for fanfic than it does original fic.

23rd: 430 word ficlet, written, edited and posted. And a bit of work on my WIP.

[the_siobhan]

I tend to be minimalist with settings, but I'm leaning towards having people reacting to their surroundings to help with their character development.

That's a great word count, well done!

[the_siobhan]

I obvioulsy need to learn from you. :-) Google earth is a great idea.

Well done on words!

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

[china_shop]

♥

checkin

[brainwane]

I wrote 737 words today -- yay! Basically all of that was during a 25-minute Pomodoro-style writing session videocall with a friend, and I think that's the most I've ever written during one of those, so this feels very good.

[sakana17]

Day 22: 122 words (transition scenes are hard for me... sigh!)

[sanguinity]

Oh, gosh. I write a lot of fic that's mainly set in established-in-canon locations, so I don't tend to spend a lot of time on the settings. That said, my main settings recently have been the ships of the Georgian Royal Navy, so I tend to spend a fair chunk of free time learning about the technology and shipboard life, so that I can populate the stories with meaningful detail. (For example, this year I took a class on the rigging of tall ships, taught by the Flagship Niagara League, which sails a rebuild of an 1812 warship. I don't imagine I'll find much opportunity to use my newfound knowledge of worming, parcelling, and serving, but who knows?)


Today, 500 words or so of that new story. I am somewhat worried that I don't know where this story is going, but I hope to figure that out as I write.

[nafs]

Descriptions are so hard, I leave a lot of it for later, I'm sure I'll curse myself out when later comes. I have done a lot of in-depth research for fanfic so that if I set a scene in Boston I had some idea of the layout of the area my characters were in and could reference an intersection that actually existed and the name of the correct arena for a concert, and a real sports bar not too far from the arena. Google maps, tripadvisor and any friends who are local or who have travelled there are all helpful.

Was uninspired today so Day 22 was all about typing up some of what I have down longhand. I didn't even end up adding more than a word or two as I went along. Some days it's like that, but it's necessary work anyway.

[cornerofmadness]

OMG I love that rhino and your whole neighborhood. Actually I've been debating this a lot with my novella. I am big on putting in real character of the setting (though you can run into dating a story or messing it up because something you thought is still there isn't)

Right now I feel like my novella is getting too down on the area (but it legit has its problems)

I got 2645 words between the novella and the pson story.

[satoyan]

Day 22: 1,050 nano words. Now that I've made it past 50k, I'm adjusting my daily goal to 1,000 in the hopes of not giving up.

[lferion]

Day 22 - 210 words, a drabble that I think is part of a set that will end up my piece for the November-December SWG challenge, and a post. My other main accomplishment today was 4 batches of eggnog and washing all the dishes.

[yasaman]

Day 22: 363 words for me today!

[auroracloud]

OMG, writing suddenly got a lot easier and I wrote over 2,000 words in the day! I finally got to this one pivotal scene I've been writing towards, and suddenly words were coming easily, and I also had a fairly easy time writing the next scene... I hope this keeps up! But even if it doesn't, that was really nice. ETA: So that's checking in for day 22, to be clear.

I still kind of waffle about setting descriptions, sometimes I don't describe anything and sometimes I describe a lot. It depends partly on how clear an idea I have about the setting in my head, and partly on whether it's relevant to the scene taking place, to the mood etc. Sometimes I really like to go into describing the setting as a way of getting into the head of the character (how they view that place), trying to make it symbolize something, or just trying to describe the nice image in my head. At other times my characters can just be talking heads floating in empty space. :D

[shopfront]

I'm another mix of handwavey and little spots of detailed description, also usually fuelled by lots of paranoid google mapping/tripadvisoring etc. for real locations, even when I've been there before *facepalm* I've had betas pull me up on not describing known/canon locations enough for the fic to flow right, so it's not my strongest point and something I'm always trying to keep in mind to find a better balance of.

I had a surprisingly good day yesterday, finished off a fic that was due closer to the deadline than I'd like but did finish it and also still added 4.2k to my nano \o/ Also passed the halfway point on my total manuscript wordcount goal (ie. 30/60k) which feels amazing.

[badly_knitted]

Thanks, it's a miracle my friend managed to get my laptop going well enough for me to use it at all >.

[firecat]

2400 words today. Technically more because I added some and deleted some and that's the net gain.

I lean toward minimalist descriptions of settings, but the recip of a fic I wrote recently said that it seemed as if I lived in LA because I had described several places there so well. It was all smoke and mirrors and TripAdvisor and Google Maps. I was mighty pleased.

Days 18-21

[iberiandoctor]

Thank you for sharing pics of your neighbourhood! It's lovely to see how people live and the lives wit which they surround themselves. Glad the setting of your story is working for you!

How do you deal with the environment of your stories, whether they be in an established canon universe, a real place or a fantasy setting?

I tend to write in historical fandoms, so writing about the environment for me tends to be about copious research; I tend to read around in that time period, so as to get a sense of the times and the milieu. This year my Yule assignment is in a modern canon and set in my hometown, so I get to do a bit of the travel journalist/touristy thing and show off my gorgeous city.

For my Yuletide treat we're back in 19th century France; I ordered a relevant book online, so hopefully that will help with setting! In the meantime, I have, uh, northwards of 5,000 words, and I'm nowhere near done. Yay?

Re: checkin

[the_siobhan]

That's a fantastic number of words! Well done!

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

[the_siobhan]

I am constantly in awe of the amount of knowledge writers will absorb for their stories. :-)

Well done on your words!

[the_siobhan]

It's still progress - well done on all your work!

[the_siobhan]

That's still a lot of words. Well done!

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

[the_siobhan]

Oh man, I love eggnog.

Well done on your words!

[the_siobhan]

Well done!

[the_siobhan]

I love when that happens - I get to a scene where things are clear in my head and the words just flow. Well done!

[the_siobhan]

I was thinking of getting a paper map of the area and just... drawing all over it to help me pinpoint specific locations I want to research and use.

Well done on all your words!

[the_siobhan]

That's a lot of words! Well done and also on your setting.

Re: Days 18-21

[the_siobhan]

I definitely need to do more research. I was thinking since it's not intended to be a realistic setting I could get a bit hand-wavy, but the more I work on my characters the more I think that's not gong to work.

That's an impressive number of words! Well done!

[luzula]

Wordcount for 22nd of November: 1000
Total wordcount on poly fic: 44,000

Oh, I love trying to give a good sense of the background setting. Since I'm writing in a historical fandom which I knew nothing about a year ago, I've been doing a deep dive and reading lots of non-fiction about and from the period, all in the service of trying to improve my setting...

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

The impression I'm getting from everybody who has responded is that the answer is research, research, research. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[silveradept]

I tend to leave out things that aren't important in the setting and background. Most of my camera is tightly on the dialogue or the action and only zooms out if there's something that needs interacting with or something is about to need interacting with. Internal worlds rather than external ones.

Day 22 was some progress on the outstanding assignment, but also some on getting tabs cleared out.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your progress!

[greylock]

I love the hedge, and the fence of doors.
Such quirky.