[LJ Story] Part 7 & mad plot bunnies?

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

I've posted part 7 of my story on my journal and would be very grateful if people could take a look... it's an conversation that reveals some backstory that will be important later on. But I tend to be heavy-handed with dialogue so if anyone could tell me how to improve and how to make this sound more natural... well, I will love you forever!

http://thorarosebird.livejournal.com/5534.html

Rating: PG
Genre: Fantasy
Length: approx 2000 words

And to make this more than an advertisement, I've been struggling to keep to one project for years, and it's even cropped up now. My question is, how do you deal with multiple, tantalising plot bunnies when you should be concentrating on one? Share your experiences and techniques with the pesky things. ^_^

thorarosebird

Comments

[katherineokelly.livejournal.com]

it's an info-dump conversation that reveals some backstory that will be important later on.

Don't be surprised if your wording above scares people off from clicking or commenting. "Info-dump" is typically a bad thing, meaning too much info piled on the reader all at once instead of weaving it smoothly into the story. Ditto on the "backstory that will be important later on"--it seems to make chronological sense to put backstory early on, but you've got to hook readers with the present and tantalize them with present circumstances enough to make them want to read pages of backstory. If it's not important now, it'll probably come across as boring, possibly make your reader put the book down before she gets to the later section and goes, "Ohhh, that's why!"

Avoid all info-dumping. Trickle relevant past informations throughout your story in tiny sips. Use foreshadowing instead of a block of info that "will be important later." Tease your readers with current intrigue to make them want to hear that backstory that lead to it.
Otherwise a huge chunk of info-dump in the past is really more like an author's notes to herself to include in the future, and that wouldn't be something polished enough to share and ask for criticism.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll take another look at this and see if I can work some of it in later on.

[polkadot-cat.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, why do you always just post links to your story, and never put the actual story behind a cut?

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

I prefer any comments to go to my journal entry so that when I edit or revise the parts later, all critique is in one place and I don't have to find all my posts in the comms trying to remember what people said.

If it's a problem I can post it here.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

Although other people use fake cuts to their journals..?

[polkadot-cat.livejournal.com]

Then I'd have the same question for them. But you seem to do it the most often, since you're writing an ongoing story at a rather fast pace, so that's why I just asked you.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

Sorry if it's noticeable. I'll be posting in the comm rather than linking in future. :)

[polkadot-cat.livejournal.com]

Don't you get an e-mail every time someone comments on a post you make, with the comment in it? So even if the comments are all over lj, you still have them in one place in your e-mail? You could even make a file in your e-mail specifically for comments.

I don't think it's a problem, I just think it's a bit odd to not put actual pieces on a writing community to get critique. I was wondering what the reason was.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

Lol I'll see if I can try that.

[starlight83.livejournal.com]

No one else has, so I thought I would comment on the handling more than one project aspect of your post.

Personally, I find it really difficult to work on more than one thing at a time. I do know some people who do it well, but they either have insanely better time management skills than I do or are really good at keeping separate head spaces for each project. I hit walls in my stories every once and a while where I'm struck with horrible doubt, and I start thinking that it will never be what I want it to be, it's crap, whatever...and if I have another project to move onto that seems bright and shiny and full of possibility...those bumps can be really hard for me to get past.

So I try my best to work on only one project at a time. When I have an idea for something new, I note it down, and then move on. I figure that whatever the idea is, it has to be good enough to hold my attention for the months it will take to write. And if it fades away and loses my interest before I can even finish what I'm working on presently...it's probably not something that would have panned out in the long run anyway.

If I know that my new idea will take a long of ground work to get going though, like a lot of research, I'll sometimes start on that at the same time that I'm working on my first project. Helps keep the idea fresh and makes me feel like I'm paying attention to it, but it doesn't take too much time and energy away from what needs to be finished first.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like me, with the "getting distracted by the new, shiny story". I find it hard to just ignore them, though. I don't put any great deal of thought into them, just ponder about them.

I like your technique of doing research for one and writing another. It's not too committed, that way.

[starlight83.livejournal.com]

My absolute weakest moment for this is actually right after I finish something and am deciding what to work on next. I'll start on about five different projects that I've had floating around in the back of my mind, and then they fight to the death until only one is left. It's like...literary Darwinism.

I think that every story hits patches where writing it just plain sucks and it's so tempting to drop it and move on to something else. That's one of the challenges of novel writing.

[thorarosebird.livejournal.com]

Ugh, especially in the middle parts where the story may sag. And I can imagine having five stories fighting for your attention easily. And I tend to leap into the shiniest one of them and fine that, actually, there's no story there.