#I also did a proof of concept dread pirate Roberts that may never see the light of day

[almost-good-at-cosplay]

fuck

so yeah... no pictures till I can get this sorted out, cause awkwardly screenshotting a discord call ain't gonna cut it

[pocket-anon]

10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked

After answering these questions for A Fairytale Beginning, @kmomof4 rewarded me by prompting me to answer these same questions for The Long Way Home.  She’s too nice to me, you guys.  Here we go!  As with the other post, spoilers abound.

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

See my previous answer.

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in The Long Way Home?

Definitely the scene where Killian realizes he’s in love with Emma while staring up at the stars.  I just love the visual and all the delicious angst of that moment.  Killian being flummoxed by Emma’s first climb up the mast comes in a close second.

3. Which part of The Long Way Home was hardest to write?

The hurricane scene was probably the hardest to write simply because it involved so much research into how a square-rigged vessel could try to survive a storm and I had to try to describe it using enough jargon to be realistic and yet not so much that readers would be overwhelmed. That’s a difficult line to walk. You can get away with a TON of jargon in the movies/TV (pay attention the next time you watch Pirates of the Caribbean; I checked a transcript of one of the battle scenes for inspiration, and I barely understood anything), but it’s harder to get away with the same level of jargon in fic because readers are less likely to just shrug it off.

4. If you could change anything in The Long Way Home, what would it be?

Mmph.  This is a hard question to answer about a fic I just finished.  I probably would have made the story longer - thrown in another incident/adventure or just thrown in more fluff.  One of the most common comments I got from readers was that they didn’t want the story to end (goodness, you people are so sweet).  If I hadn’t been limited by the CSBB deadline and if I’d known how much people would enjoy this story, that’s probably what would have happened.

ADDENDUM: In retrospect, I should also have made what was supposed to be emotional context for Killian’s vigil for Emma a little less subtle.  I had him mention how his mother died in order to give people some insight into how much more torturous it must have been for him to wait for Emma to wake up.  I’m pretty sure zero people picked up on this.  LOL.  I really should have included a line of dialogue about it.  :p

5. Did you make an outline for The Long Way Home? Did you stick to it?

Yes, and yes (mostly), though the outline it was very general and many scenes that ultimately ended up in the fic were not plotted out ahead of time (eg, Emma’s scene in the tavern attic, Emma and Killian’s entire day in the Southern Isles, the whale watching, Emma pulling away from Killian after realizing she’s in love with him, etc.).   A lot of those scenes got thrown in later after writing the pre-planned scenes; this fic was unique for me in that it was not written linearly - I had holes to patch all over the place for a while!  It was a mess.

The order of the events also changed.  Originally I had the hurricane happening immediately before the encounter with the slavers; ie, they meet the slave ship after Emma saves the Jolly and Killian declares his feelings for her but before their TLK.  Reordering those events was probably the biggest deviation from the original outline (and SUPER frustrating, because I had to ditch several days’ worth of words making that transition).

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in The Long Way Home?

The only scene that got cut was related to the reordering of events mentioned above.  It was a scene where Emma waits for Killian to come back from the slave ship and worries she won’t be able to be the princess Misthaven needs without her memories or her control of her magic.  She tries to do more magic and gets frustrated when she can’t, and when Killian returns, he encourages her and that conversation ultimately results in the TLK.

As for scenes that were added, there were a ton.  See my answer to #5 for examples.   

7. Who was your favorite character to write in The Long Way Home?

Killian - he’s usually my favorite to write, and this fic is largely (in my mind) about his transformation from Captain Hook back to Killian Jones; it’s more about him finding his home than about Emma finding hers.  Writing a lot of the ensemble cast (Maggie, Roberts, Smee, and Charming) was also a blast, though!

8. Which came first, the title or the fic?

The fic always comes first for me.  I had a short list of candidate titles but didn’t settle on one until I was getting ready to email the fic in for the final CSBB check-in, LOL.

9. Which idea came to you first in The Long Way Home?

I actually started this fic two years ago, back before I’d joined the fandom (before I was even aware of the fandom), when I was just writing for personal pleasure.  I came up with this Captain Duckling AU (I didn’t even know the fic terminology back then) involving Princess Emma under a memory curse and Killian kind of Sherlock Holmes’ing his way to discovering her identity.  That concept and Emma’s encounter with Blackbeard were basically all I started with; I had no idea where it was going at the time, and I certainly never intended for it to become a complete story that other people would read!

10. What are some facts readers may not know about The Long Way Home?

- I didn’t actually intend for this fic to be an Anastasia AU, but one of the CSBB mods labeled it as such after reading the plot, and it just stuck.

- This was by far the most frustrating fic I’ve written to-date in the sense that the nature of the CSBB made me as obsessed with word count as anything else.  It was also difficult for me to only have the feedback of a handful of people to go on during the process - I had so much anxiety about whether this story was any good and whether I could pull it off the way I wanted.  Still, this fic would probably not have happened at all without the CSBB, and I’m very glad to have participated!

- My CSBB artists @giraffes-ride-swordfishes and @waiting-for-autumn helped me design all of Emma’s non-canon wardrobe for this fic.

- Topics I researched for this fic include historical pirating and aspects of that lifestyle, 18th century ships/sailing/navigation, 18th century clothing, 18th century soap recipes, the average size/speed of hurricanes, and swords (types, parts, sword fighting techniques, care, etc.).  My Pinterest boards for my fics always include research references as well as visual inspiration; the board for this fic has 175 pins.

- The number of pictures of the Jolly Roger/Lady Washington I saved for reference - OMG.  

- Killian’s line about the Dread Pirate Roberts is an obvious homage to The Princess Bride, which, in addition to being part of the inspiration for Hook’s character on the show, is one of my favorite movies.  The Jolly’s quartermaster is always named Roberts in my fics (see also A Fairytale Beginning) in honor of the movie.

- Killian and Emma’s dancing was largely inspired by Rose and Jack’s dancing in Titanic and Rapunzel and Flynn/Eugene’s dancing in Tangled.

- The cut on Killian’s cheek is a reference to Colin O’Donoghue’s scar.

- For any medical-types out there, Alec suffered from a wound infection which progressed to sepsis and was complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulation, pulmonary embolism, and delirium.

- Emma’s thoughts on Liam’s ring came from a mini-crisis I had trying to figure out what color the stone was on OUAT.  I posted about it at the time to try to find group consensus.  Ultimately, we did find proof that the stone is actually red, and this sappy little metaphor about it being like Killian’s heart popped into my head, and there you go.

- I thought about putting Emma in the silver princess dress from canon for the wedding, but I’d already used this dress in A Fairytale Beginning, so I nixed the idea.  I tried coming up with a custom design, but ultimately I went with an existing dress I found while looking for inspiration.  It’s the dress I used to Photoshop this picture.  I wanted feathers on the dress both because Emma was nicknamed “Swan” and because Snow also had feathers on her wedding dress.

There you are.  Much more than any of you ever wanted to know, I’m sure.  Thanks to those of you who made it to the end (of the fic and this post), haha!  You guys are the best.