Two questions

D'Alaire asked a great question and in attempt to reduce fic taxes, I'm pasting my response below for your reading (dis)pleasure. She asked:

What is the most difficult part about writing a story?

What is the easiest part about writing a story?

My response:

Hmmm, as a writer, the most difficult part of the story for me is getting the character to change and make it believable. And through the whole process, I don't want to whack the reader 'side the head with where I'm trying to go - so that's what I find difficult. Being subtle and at the same time, making the motivations of the characters and their reactions to a situation believable.

I also have problems with what a friend refers to as the 'placement fairy' - ie where are the characters? What are they doing? How are they saying something? I'm not always paying attention to the descriptions and in the editing process, I have to go back and look at what the characters are doing more carefully since I usually get carried away with things other than placement.

The easiest part of a story... oh that's hard. Some stories just naturally flow and they're there. Those are easy - I don't have to think about those. I think dialogue is the easiest part of writing for me. Conversation just comes. I can hear the words as I type them sometimes and it's like this whole conversation is happening in front of me and I'm just the transcriber.

The other thing that comes to me easily are stylistic issues. When I work out a story, I know instinctively the style it's going to be written in, whether first person or second person, past tense or future tense, alternating POV or omniscient. Once the style is determined, it's so easy to write and I can't ever think of writing the story in a different way or style.

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