Nailing Down Snakes

[rallamajoop]

Unlike a lot of the rest of fandom, I’ve never personally picked up much attachment to the whole ‘plot bunnies’ way of talking about ideas. However, jaseroque and I have come up with our own fun little writing analogy which we’re quite proud of, and which I wanted to share in the vague hope of getting others to try it out.

This all began at a writing panel at a Swancon a few years back, where one of the panellists (Paul Kid, a sort of minor local BNF, and generally good value at those sort of panels) commented that he felt writing a story was a bit like nailing down a snake. He suggested that a good approach was to get the head and the tail nailed down first (the start and the end, so to speak), and then you’ve just got this angry mass whiplashing back and forth in the middle to be pinned down in some shape or other as best you can (with running commentary to the effect of “wait, how did he get over there?” and “no that character isn’t gay!” to demonstrate just how much trouble that part can cause XD). As analogies for the writing process went it worked entertainingly well. We liked it, anyway.

We’ve been bringing it up now and then ever since, but it pretty much stayed in that format until late last year when, while stuck in the middle of a seething mass of WIPs, I commented to jaseroque that my own approach to writing had become something rather more like aiming a nail gun into a box of snakes while blindfolded. I never knew what I was going to hit. If I was lucky, I’d hit the same one enough times that it’d be worth getting out the hammer and going down there to get the rest of it nailed into some kind of shape. However, there was still the danger that one of the others would come along and bite me while I was doing it, so I’d have to go and nail that one down just to keep it out of the way – and you can see where this is going. Before long, I’d be lucky if I could even remember where I’d been nailing the first one down to begin with.

The final objective of getting a snake nailed down is, presumably, so you can cut some of the box away around it and mount it up on your walls for others to admire – maybe even artistically arranged with a display of other snakes from the same species, depending how productive you’ve been in the snake-nailing department. If there are too many other snakes down there biting you, however, even that last little part can be hard to get done. Of course, if you start by nailing down the head and the tail far enough apart, everything in the middle will be stretched out to the point that nailing it down will be a walk in the park, but all you’ll have to show for it at the end is a snake that’s perfectly straight and really quite dull, and no-one wants to see any more of those.

Nailing down story snakes doesn’t actually kill them, just makes them stay put. They’re well known to keep on growing even when you thought you had them half nailed down already, and they can go right on spawning new snakes long after you thought you had them fully immobilised. They’re entirely capable of pulling nails loose with all their wriggling, or forcing you to pry those nails out yourself and find somewhere better for them. But that’s all part of the process. There’s no point nailing down a dead snake, it’s only going to make you look lame.

Naturally, plot snakes come in all sizes, colours and varieties, and some are far more vicious than others. Not only do they breed like rabbits, they’re also known to eat each other on occasion. With some of the particularly long ones you can wind up nailing down a bit here and bit there without realising those were two parts of the same snake until much later. Don’t even ask about the ones with two heads or two tails, or the ones that try eating their own tails, or the trouble you can get into when you wind up nailing two of them to each other by mistake. Fanfic might be snakes that come with a nail or two in them to begin with, though you really shouldn’t expect them to be any less vicious for it. Do not doubt for a moment that plot snakes have teeth.

What you can write is mostly down to what you find in your snake box when you take off the lid. It’s horribly depressing to discover that it’s empty, or that the only snakes in it are so fast that getting even one nail into them is nearly impossible. The other end of the scale, where all you can see is a seething mass of coils, so thick you can’t even tell what you’d be nailing them to, isn’t much better. One or two relatively docile, medium-sized snakes is probably the ideal.

There’s plenty of room for other people to help you out in the snake nailing process. They can point out places where the nails are looking a bit loose, suggest where new nails should go for best practical or aesthetic effect, and even trade you unused plot snakes of their own. If you’re really lucky, someone might even be helpful enough to hammer a few helpful nails in themselves.

Starting with the head and the tail isn’t the only nailing strategy out there by any means. Organised people often start at the tail and gradually work there way up to the head in increments. Myself, I often tend to just fire a couple of nails in somewhere around the middle at random and try to work outwards from there.

So, how do you all go about nailing down your snakes? ^_~

Comments

[iambickilometer.livejournal.com]

Snakes are much better for nailing purposes.

And yes. Ideas are never cute and loveable. They're scaly and slippery and tend to lash out when cornered.

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

You do get the odd one that is cute, friendly and cooperative. But if they were all like that, it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying to get them nailed down.

[iambickilometer.livejournal.com]

I've yet to meet one of those. [sighs] Mine tend to be the venemous or strangling sort. That is true, though. Nothing like nailing down an anaconda to make one feel empowered. Better than coffee.