Whispers

So I'm writing this fic for geckoholic and have been for a ridiculous amount of time and it's Hawkeye and Hawkeye angsty, Kate gets hurt stuff. And I can't finish it. Anyone up for a bounce off their inbox that isn't gecko?

Sidenote: I need an icon for Kingdoms and Thorn.

Main note:

I've finished a decent draft of chapter two out of three, and now just have roughly 5K more to do on the last chapter to make everything to come together in a satisfying way before end of Friday so I can post before end of Sunday and there's actually no time for a real beta.

:tries not to hyperventilate:

As you were, and may your writing be less down-to-the-minute than mine.

So I was just talking with hiddencait the other day about scanning poetry metrically and syllabically and now I have to do it. I forgot how painful it can be.

I was flipping between iambs and trochees with the occasional anapest or dactyl for good measure and willy nilly between tetrameter and pentameter. The only thing I'd settle on was trimeter for the last line of each stanza.

:headdesk:

I think I'm going about this all wrong. Poetry isn't the thing like prose, where I get it down and then I can make something of it. No, I have to get something good down and tweak or get it down all over again. It took seven tries to get "Name Me." Of course, that poem was also pages long.

Side note: I am soooooo excited about the MCU Ladies Fic Exchange. I've been peeking at the tagslist for the currently approved stories, tielan's been awesome, and I am super surprised and pleased with what I've written so far for the exchange. I don't often write what I term "agressively gen" fics, but I did for this one. I also wrote something mildly shippy, but that was also fun.

Now, if I can wrap this one last treat.

I had a nice simple hurt/comfort plot bunny and the sucker exploded on me. :headdesk: I finally resorted to what I had to do to get "Catch My Breath" moving along on the last possible day to write it. I hit the saved fanvids and music videos I've got bookmarked until something started inspiring me past the stallouts. Thankfully, this time I have three days to finish instead of one. I'd tell you the song, but that'd give away the fic on story reveals, so I'll keep it close to my chest and pray to heaven I pull off this story because there's no way I have the chops for it, so I'm going to have to grow them. I didn't ask for epic plotbunny, but it came along anyway.

:headdesk:

Speaking of which, treating is open to anyone, signed up for the exchange or not. There are some super awesome requests, and the treats collection is open for submissions.

Original Fiction Sprawl

I finished loading in my two big original fiction projects to Scrivener last night and doing the first pass of canon review, which amounted to a light skim and no further, not enough I could even write a drabble yet, but girl, was it revelatory.

I think I figured out how these epic fantasy series sprawl so badly because there's 150K words that don't get where they need to go; they barely get anywhere at all.

During the course of a story, there's movement from point A to point B. Writers have two ways of adding motion: the characters do something or something happens. Doing something generally moves the plot/story arc in the right direction toward resolution. Something happening generally derails or provides an obstacle to the path toward resolution, thus is rather convenient when you need to open things up.

The first third of the book is usually all about opening things up and lots of things "happen." The second third is usually all about moving things forward, so whatever "happens" is usually either a direct reaction to the characters or directly shoving them into the action the author needs to get the story to point B. The final third is usually all about closing things down and things stop "happening" and it's all that direct causal chain with the characters.

When a writer feels the story pace start to lag and it's time for an event, they'll either make something happen, which drags the characters away from their goal, or they'll make the characters do/learn something, which drags the characters toward their goal.

Ladies, in this 150K, there's a whole lot of stuff happening and I can see why I kept trying to grind to a halt and plot so they would do things instead. I'm a writer that generally allows very little to "happen," which is probably why I also have very few stories longer than 3.5K.

Lessons learned. Let's see what I can do with this baby.

Learning from Writing to Order

Most people in the original fiction world learn these things from writing to guidelines and submitting, but I couldn't do it because rarely did the guidelines fit anything I wanted to write. I'm learning from writing in gift exchanges and bangs and challenges, and I've been focusing on writing fics longer than 5K heading toward 10K because I have a whole slew of original fics I want in that general territory.

In doing this, I've learned several things, some of which build upon stuff I already knew about my writing.

I've known for a while now that I write best when I have two prompts/ideas/sources of inspiration mingling into a single story. For example: Kingdoms and Thorn didn't happen until I combined the idea of mind-wiped, specially gifted, military operatives getting their freedom as young adults with the idea of a bunch of nations in a single city. Just one or the other wasn't enough to actually do it for me. For a fanfic example, let's go with "Monsters and Daisychains," an Agents of SHIELD fic that grew out of my reactions to the winter finale. It couldn't happen until I mixed the idea of what happened to Mack to what happened to Skye and how their point of similarity in that is her father. So yeah. I need two ideas generally.

How does that apply to what I've been learning lately? I hit Hawkeye comics and I blame a combination of Yuletide and geckoholic. It certainly wasn't because I wanted to go there. I deliberately put off reading or dealing with Fraction until I was sure my concept of MCU Clint Barton/Hawkeye was solid and not going to get character bleed. Interestingly enough, it too required two concepts to come together. I'll hit a theme and a storyline or a premise and a concept, such as the Hawkeyes sharing minds and then Hawkeye itself being an AI ship in a space AU. To write a sequel or a new fic, I have to go beyond the original premise and add something else to it. In this case, I've got two sequels bumping around in my head, competing for space. They'll probably both get written. In the case of my soulmates AU for Clint/Natasha, I have no second idea to add to the sharing lifeforce concept that I've got left from the first three fics. Sequel will probably not get written.

So there's that.

Also, did you know I write out of order? I did but I didn't. To write more than 5K, I can't write in order very well. I just can't. If I story develop and don't write it as I go, I don't get the rest of the story. If I do get the rest of the story, I lose the ability to write the first part right because I waited too long. What works best for me is to write the things I know and bridge between them. Thematically, I'll know this scene happens and that needs to happen and this is what starts them on that path. How did they get to that starting point? How do they get from this point to that one?

I have finally renounced my linear writing ways I had before. They don't work for me. And I think that's going to be key to getting these big original fics done.

So I'm off to go write Purim Gifts fics and maybe get a start on trovia's fic again while those Hawkeye fics percolate in the back of my brain. Have fun, y'all!

So I don't plan everything, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Most of my creative work just happens between the nooks and crannies of my life. For example, this morning, I was thinking that I never write any song lyrics anymore and thought of Jemma and Fitz and next thing I know I have a song.

( Siamese Hearts (lyrics) )
So I'd actually like to set this music and the whole gig too (I did record myself singing it :winces: ), but no time for that right now.

Then there's crossposting. I have my own website off of LJ where I was posting quite well and letting it crosspost here. But I generally don't post all my fandom stuff there and Yuletide hit. I have to rebuild the habit of putting content over there. Whoops. I'll get right on that. Next week. Maybe.

Yesterday, I also fired off a fic by accident. I need to have more of these accidents with fic that's actually on the docket. :headdesk:

Hope everyone's doing fairly well. :hugs and prayers and blessings to all of you:

...you realize your fic has thematically led to your next chapter needing to be that canon moment everyone in your fandom, self included, has written to death.

Gah. No. :headdesk:

Made huge progress on fusion fic at last. Love you alphaflyer and in_the_blue for the encouragement right when I needed it.

Updated ficlist with a link to my 52 fills on a 6-word promptathon.

See y'all tomorrow!

So morbane was taking questions and tossed this one back my way: What makes the difference between something you love and something you'd write fic for?

It's something I noticed a long time ago, that not everything that made my favorite list made the ficcable list. There are a few reasons and I'll start with the obvious exception. I generally don't fic sacred writings, by that I mean MY sacred writings. I adore mythology and always have and I adore reading Biblical fiction, but for some reason, it is very difficult for me to write, probably because it's not all that fictional to me. I have a certain irreverance toward the canon I fic. The more perfect it is, the less likely I am to write fanfic for it.

That goes beyond just sacred writings. One of my favorite books is Mister God, This is Anna. Never gonna happen. If I know a writer and their work is gobsmackingly amazing and perfect and I know they're going to write more that will be perfect (I'm looking at you, in_the_blue and haikujaguar), then I probably won't fic it. It's too good, too intimidating, and the author's going to write more that will be better than what I could come up with even if I dared to come up with something.

Thus far, when I don't fic something. But what about when I do?

Someone asked me once how to make their fiction amenable to ficcing, and the first thing I told them was you must leave icebergs. What makes me want to fic something is when there are little peeks in the canon begging for exploration, when there are questions and backstory and interesting, rich material between the lines, when a character says something like "love is for children" that I have to go and reconcile, when there are questions mixed in with the satisfaction, when I want and need more and don't see any signs of getting it. That's what makes me reach out and write it myself. That's what makes me fic.

I need to have something to say.

Some people write reviews. I write fic. Fanfic is how I interact with the text, explain it to myself, explain my theories to others, play with it because I want more and just ran out of canon. It's how I process canon.

Stories that I love that don't need extra processing, that don't make me ask questions or want to rant or rave or just plain talk back, don't get ficced. It's just about as simple as that.