#gtkys

[the-wip-project]

Getting to know your story (through writing it)

Welcome, writerly friends! We're having a new project to start the new year.

I'm going to give us a few days of grace to get into the new year, and then we'll start on the second Sunday in the new year, which is the twelfth of January 2025. Going through January and all the way to the end of February will give us 48 days. 

If you're wondering about the title "Getting to know your story (through writing it)", this should be something that works especially well for discovery writers, so called pantsers. I picked this up from Rachael Herron (http://www.howdoyouwrite.net/episodes/479), who says that the story will tell you what it is about, as you write the first draft. That really spoke to me. Have you ever looked at a story you wrote and wondered about a recurring theme cropping up? How the story took turns you did not foresee and it brought out a theme you never thought of? This is what I want to focus on because it happens to me all the time.

We will write as consistently as we possibly can. Maybe aim for 200 daily words? It's up to you, what you want to achieve and what is realistic. Every week we will look back and think about what the story tells us and how our process worked. What theme, what message, what kernel of truth is the story telling us? What do we learn about ourselves and our stories as we write it? How did our schedule work and when did we write best?

It's difficult to get engagement from you all and I know I always keep losing most of you along the way. But these projects are for you, not just for me. If you write about your writing, if you make a little post once a week, that accountability will give you a boost. It will help you analyse your process, it will be something to look back upon, to help you find your own process.

What you'll work on is up to you, you can continue a WIP, start a new story, finish several fanfics and start new ones. That's all up to you. Just set yourself a realistic goal. What we'll focus on is what your stories tell you. What is it you want to say? What kind of story lives inside of you and wants to come out?

Getting to know your story (through writing it). 

Start: 12th of January 

End: 28th of February

Suggestion: 

Write at least 2000 words per week 

Make a post at the end of the week about your process (the tags are #getting to know your story and #gtkys)

how you felt

what the story tells you

what you want to focus on for the next week

If you want to do this, and if you really mean it, interact with this post (not just liking it) and I'll put you on the list for nagging and reminding.

--

Ongoing, Masterpost with the current posts.

[crimsonshadetress]

Another year, another fun little event by @the-wip-project to participate in. This time it's #gettingtoknowyourstory, and, miraculously, I'm not late with the update, hehe. Starting off with laying out the basics — I'm going to be working on Project Sasin for this event, althought it is already an on-going something. Don't mind the number in the intro post, it's false as I'm re-writing the beginning, lol.

The real update though: time is close to non-existent for writing in my area too, but if you don't have it, then make it, right? So I've came back to the good old "writing on the road" habit I needed to shed when I had my workplace 20-30 minutes away. However, with the new job in the horizon, I need to travel about an hour, which gives me time, surprising (or not, given the past experiences when I wrote whole chapters on the go) motivation and space for writing. I could kick off the event around 2k words because of that, so bless.

I'm currently re-writing the prologue, which is now from a character's POV who was not inteded to be in the first try. So, it's kind of a knew territory, but I love her very much. Trying to get into her head, I realised that being a veteran, kinda leader doesn't mean you don't care about a single thing. My character is worried despite being experienced, and gives surprisingly much leeway for people who want to just mess things up. I still need to find why, though, so hopefully that's where we're going next.

I also got a boost from this very fine article about turning off the tv brain while writing, and switching the prose brain on. Which helped me realise why I hated my writing in the last few month — only the tv was on. And now that I could switch a little bit, I feel like I got more into this POV too. Refreshing.

[incognitajones]

February 23 - My accountability this week is to finally get started!

I knew that I'd be behind on this project, since I had competing deadlines up until last weekend. But now the last one has passed, so I'm committing to working on my novel for 20-30 minutes a day this week - starting slow by re-reading the entire (extremely rough) draft and then fleshing out the second chapter.

@the960writers

[wickedwitchofthewilds]

Getting to Know Your Story (Week One)

This is my weekly check in for the event run by @the-wip-project (Thank you, @barbex)!

Note: I am also cross-posting my check-ins to my newsletter since I am working on my original fiction and I want to keep a better record of my progress

Characters

I am participating in an event on tumblr that is focused on getting to know your writing through writing. Geared mostly towards discovery writers and yet, I have been looking for an excuse—a challenge—to kick myself into a higher gear where UNTETHERED is concerned. While I have the entirety of it outlined, I don't know everything about my WIP. First drafts are where my characters show me who they are and because of that, things I have outlined are very much subject to change as my characters interact with the world I've crafted.

How apt that this week's theme was characters…

Underhill has a cast of characters that have shown up throughout the first two books with focus on a few, and UNTETHERED will be no different. However, this is also where I introduce my final protagonist and arguably, the most important to what is going to come in the last book and the rest of the series.

Deirdre

Deirdre is my first genderfluid character (using he/she pronouns) and I am eager to explore that in the context of the story and what they will become by the end of this series arc. For thirty years, Deirdre has believed she is human and nothing really special. She has worked in a diner for years to help support her mom, Fia, and foster siblings but the diner is dying a slow death and she has no idea what exists for her after. Being fat and gay in a small town means Deirdre has swallowed down a lot of hatred from others and tried to make herself smaller and agreeable in the hopes that people will find her more…acceptable. Deirdre yearns for acceptance so when she is told she just might be special after all, of course she jumps at the chance no matter how terrified she feels. This also means she takes failure very hard.

Claimed by the Morrigan, wanted by Reluvethel, seen by a divine entity that wishes to return to Underhill.

Everyone else has plans for Deirdre. For what his destiny is to be. But what about what he chooses for himself? I already know but now I have to guide him there. I have to push him beyond wanting to be liked and wanted, to believe in himself enough to take control of his life. But sometimes, believing in oneself begins because someone else believes first…

Selanna

Selanna has appeared in the first two books as a minor character. Sister to Odhran. Friend of Eletha and Senna. What is she beyond that? Selanna is the eldest child of Valeria, a hunter of beasts by trade, and strives to live in opposition of whatever her mother wants. She tries to protect her siblings, throwing herself on the pyre if she has to, and is angry with herself when she can't. After Meralith's injury while hunting, Selanna has burdened herself with the blame. Guilt eats away at her but she hides it. While she does not have to get involved with the plight of the witches and their potential destruction if Reluvethel wakes, she knows a genuine threat when she sees on. Not to mention, she has a certain affection for the ones she keeps crossing paths with.

When she meets Deirdre, she finds someone with low self-esteem trying to make sense of what's happening around them but not giving themselves time to actually understand. Deirdre throws himself into trying to prove himself and Selanna watches him get frustrated with his own failure over and over again. While she is impressed that Deirdre doesn't seem to give up no matter what, progress is slow coming when he won't address his fear. She offers herself as someone to talk to, and then as his protector when circumstance pushes them into the thick of things.

An offering Deirdre will repay when Selanna is the one in need.

Weekly Word Count: 1757

I had hoped for more this week. My original goal was to shoot for 500 words a day, but unfortunately, there were some outside things (insomnia) that were out of my control. All I can do is pick myself up and hope for better next week.

[fontainebleau22]

OK, Week 1. Kicking off the project

What I'm writing: a story for a Big Bang challenge.

What it's about: it's a time-travel story (another one).

Progress so far: I have an outline of the whole thing, and have written some of the first section.

The above makes it sound like it's not a story for the challenge if it's all sketched out already, but there are some big underlying issues with it. First of all, I had the idea for the story, and usually when that happens I go into a writing fugue and start scribbling down scenes as they come flowing out, until I've reached a critical mass and can start editing and adding to the draft. But that's not been the case with this story. I'm struggling to write little sections, and I'm not experiencing the usual rush of inspiration.

I know what's happening in the story, but I realised that the events aren't really the engine of it - the story has to be about relationships, and that part of it is still missing. So at the moment I have events, but no drive that's making them happen. And then when I started thinking about relationships, I realised that I don't actually know what's going on between my characters. I can't decide on the status of their relationships at the outset, and because of that they're not reacting to each other - the narrative is just empty. So there is work for me to do to find out (a) where the characters are starting from and (b) how that affects their reactions to the freaky events which ensue.

So that's my plan for this coming week: write at least 200 words a day to get rolling on it, and decide the opening situation, in the hope that a lot of reactions will flow from that.

@the-wip-project, thank you for the challenge!

[iressails]

Week 1 of Getting to know your story through writing it, organised by @the-wip-project and led by @barbex.

The project: Two romances set in a hospital, one is paramedics in love mm grumpy/sunshine the other is age gap wlw. I don't know how to reconcile it into one story writing two seems ambitious not that I'm not hypomanic.

Not a big lot of writing progress but did a big review of all the sections of Paramedics in love WIP. Fewer words than I expected but enough good ones for it not to matter.

Went through each section one by one highlighting character motivation and goals. Most of them were "sex" and then occasionally "sex" and "attitudes to patient care" "mental health and working to deal with the mental health system" (didn't know this was a theme, but it sort of explains lots) and "processing trauma (due to job)" "children and child care" and not a motivation but a big dash of third act breakup of the romance. As a pantser I have no idea why theyre broken up, just that they are...

Forgot about the diabetes plotline, needs lots of research as I don't know the first thing about dealing with diabetes.

Some interesting side characters are popping up like mushrooms, created them for function but they might have an intriguing back story that I want to know about.

Hoping to have a more productive week for the remainder of the holiday next week but feeling good as this is the first time I've read these sections of scenes since I wrote them.

Hope everyone is making progress!!!

[hiraethwritings]

Getting to Know Your Story - Final Thoughts

So, safe to say that I didn't finish this fic. It's nowhere near complete yet (then again, I was mainly transcribing the story from paper to computer), but I progressed by adding in scenes that felt right. Mainly having a secondary character become more prominent than just a name in the background.

I'm hoping to get a better idea for what comes next, because I have an idea of some of the bigger parts but the connecting pieces are tougher. I am excited for those bigger scenes! And while it won't be a huge burst of an ending, it's one of those that feels like rot seeping in. Definitely feels like a good way to end this story.

In the meantime, this made me excited to write for this pairing even more. Yes, I started thinking of another fic please don't ask I think I'm starting to enjoy writing for this fandom now!

I can't wait to see where this fic goes!

(Tagging @the-wip-project for their reading pleasure!)

[exceedinglyfilledwithfolly]

i did not write 2000 words this week, partially because of a flare but mostly because of low motivation. i will work on that. also because i wasn't sure which wip to focus on for this or for the class i'm taking and so struggled to get started until i knew where to start. i was just procrastinating, probably, but now i have a direction! wet concrete!

i did do some exploration of my characters and their relationships. i took notes on it and everything! i did this for the two projects i was considering, but that does mean that i also did it for wet concrete so cat, john, and spider all are now a bit more fleshed out in my mind. there were also some worldbuilding and plot notes! none of this has been prose so far, but that's the focus next week!

it's good to have a direction. now i just hope i can stick with it! at least for the duration of this challenge and for the slightly longer duration of the class, i think i will. and we can see how far that gets me!

next week, like i mentioned, i want to focus on getting some prose out. i'm going to try not to care where in the story that prose lives because apparently i don't do very well just writing from the beginning. so that should be fun, at least!