Your writing style and you.

[lantzblades]

It occurs to me that we've never had a discussion about the whys and hows of writing fan fiction. So I'd like to know why you guys write the way you do. What are your objectives, habits preferred or native styles and characters, settings or genre of stories you like to read and/or write.

in my case a I write for others mostly  I take requests and have a native style of second person as I started writing to be a dungeon master for my friends when we play D&D.

I like writing fun before accurate and love giving lesser known characters moments of awesome.

[Alice]

Tell us how you write, why you write, when you write, what inspires you to write, other fun miscellaneous details, etc.

For me, thus far, I guess.... I tend to have a bunch of ideas, but don't tend to write them out like I should. The reason I haven't produced much in terms of writing stuff I think is because of a serious lack of self confidence. I always fear that what I write won't be sufficient to meet my standards, and more often than not, what I write tends to disappoint me. So sometimes it can be difficult for me to write something unless I'm in the "mood" for it or have "inspiration" hit me. ...I really need to find a way to fix that.

As for brainstorming and stuff, I tend to listen to music. I like video game OSTs for some reason, though a few regular songs and movie OST tracks sneak in there sometimes. My ideas tend to come in bits and pieces, like I'll be able to envision certain scenes at first instead of the whole picture. Sometimes I find it easier to start with a scene I have an easier time writing and then work from there.

I may expand on this more as I get a better handle on my abilities and quirks as a writer. So then, everyone else, testify!

EDIT: Merged topics on account of, while I started writing this before lantz copy pasted his, he got to it before me because mine took longer to write. So we had duplicate topics. This is now fixed.

[Cherry Lover]

Hmm, well, honestly, I'm kind-of similar to you in terms of writing. I have a whole bunch of ideas, but actually getting them written is something I find really difficult. Worse, when I do have inspiration, I'm usually in bed or something, so I can't easily write it down (yes, I do sleep with a notepad, but I don't have a light nearby).

I also have a habit of writing down lots of ideas and never organising them properly, or writing any actual scenes. Most of my main story ideas have hundred-page word documents containing tons of snippets and ideas, but nothing good enough to publish.

[lantzblades]

I don't have any of those issues. I have a problem with depression killing my flow

[Elf]

As to how I write?

Well, during the week I generally write after Roadbuster's gone to work (so he can't disturb me) and keep it up until I go to bed. I have to have music on in the background when I write. Sometimes I'll write a scene to a deliberate set of songs that I'll create a quick playlist out of, and others I'll just have some random mix going on while I work. Now there have been times where I skip through songs because while writing say a fight scene say Rick Ashby's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is going to completely break the mood.

Then again there was that one time where I wrote Saber/Archer porn and my Ipod was suddenly like, "Metalica is the most awesome band EVAH!" and then decided to play "Master of Puppets", "Ain't My Bitch", and "Fuel" while I was writing fluffy porn. Yet somehow it worked so I wasn't going to argue. I did stare at my Ipod in confusion though.

On the weekend if I write, I generally have tea at my side because I don't have to worry about going to bed to go to work the next day.

Now my style of writing is heavily influenced by Joss Whedon (even now I'll go back and watch episodes of Buffy and Angel to get inspiration when stuck on something) and, this may surprise people, a young adult romance novelist named L.J. Smith. I read all of this woman's books when I was growing up and starting to write. Her prose was crisp and easy to follow, she had a good handle on characters, and the romance never felt melodramatic like a lot of teenage romance novels do. Looking at you "Twilight"; seriously, if you want to see a good teenage girl vampire romance handled well, read "The Vampire Diaries" trilogy.

Then as I grew as a writer and read more stuff like Neil Gaiman and of late Clive Barker have really inspired me. Christopher Golden was an author I read a lot of. His Shadow's series was Urban Fantasy before it was even named as a genre. They're being reprinted, so you might want to go check them out.

I tend to a Third Person Limited style. I'll write in Third Person, but the perspective isn't some omnipotent narrator, but focused on what one individual is seeing and thinking. Then when I switch perspectives I'll do a scene break and then go on with the new character.

Now to why I write?

I write to stay sane, and yes, some day I would like to make a career out of it. That's part of the reason I haven't written a fanfic in ages- my original stuff is taking off. However, I will be the first one to attest this.

Writing fanfiction is great practice before you jump into something original.