#and having tons of new insight in how to rework a story that's a retelling of cinderella and three different austen novels

[fictionadventurer]

Have I mentioned lately that creating AUs is the most fun thing ever? You get to take a story you love and then mash it against another type of story you love and fit all their pieces together like they're a jigsaw puzzle. You get to find all the unexpected points of similarity where the stories fit together really well, and see the places where their differences change and make commentary on the original stories/genres in really interesting ways.

And then once you fit the pieces together, you get to look at the new world you've made and see how these characters in this specific world have different conflicts and explore new themes, and you get to play with another level of puzzles as you figure out what this means for this story.

It's the most fun ever. It's my favorite game.

[fictionadventurer]

WIP asks: 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 24

5. Where did you draw inspiration from?

I’ve already talked about my direct literary influences (my philosophy for this story is ‘shamelessly steal from everything’ and it’s great), so I’ll talk about some more general sources of inspiration. I’ve gotten a lot of aesthetic inspiration from Pinterest, worldbuilding inspiration from European history, and some physics help from my brother. When brainstorming, I tend to get inspiration about plot structure from writing podcasts, and get character insight from listening to music (I’ve only just noticed the distinction).

I’m also doing research into the flight aspects via the James Holzhauer method--reading children’s books. It’s already been so helpful that I don’t know why I haven’t done this before. Rather than getting 300-pages-minimum of highly technical and specific information that largely doesn’t pertain to my work, I get 30-40 pages of very general, easy-to-understand information that provides a great knowledge base and tons of pictures! (Did you know that there was a pedal-powered plane that successfully crossed the English Channel? Do you know how perfectly something like that would fit into this book’s aesthetic?)

6. Is your WIP part of a series or standalone?

It’s a standalone story within a wider universe. The original “lost library” idea that sparked this world still has potential if I can ever figure out a coherent plot/character arc, and I have nascent ideas for Beauty and the Beast, The Princess and the Pea, and Goose Girl retellings in this universe. I’m also considering the possibility of reworking A Beautiful Tomorrow and setting it here.

7. What genre is your WIP in?

Though I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it, it’s fantasy romance. You wouldn’t think I’d be surprised by this, given that it’s directly Austen-inspired, but I was so focused on the fact that I’m weaving together Austen and Cinderella plot points with the details of this world that it wasn’t until later that I stepped back and realized, “This is a romance.” But I’m aiming for a classic-novel romance where romance is just one part of life, rather than romance-genre romance where the feelings and emotions and attractions are the point of life.

9. Who is your favourite character to write?

Based on my usual character preferences and the fact that he undergoes the most significant character arc, I would guess it would be my prince character (I keep avoiding his name, so I think I need to change it). However, he’s a bit too unpleasant early on, and I think his character arc’s going to be difficult to write. So if he’s not my favorite character to write, I’m hoping it’s Lisette, because we’re going to be in her head the whole time and I want her to be a character worthy of that focus. It’ll probably be a side character though. Maybe the fairy godmother, if I can decide exactly who’s filling that role.

10. Do you have an outline? Do you stick to it?

I’m going to have such a detailed outline. I’m getting tired of having intriguing beginnings that never get finished because I hit roadblocks. However, I’m using an outlining process that plays to my discovery writer strengths. Rather than filling out forms and making charts and making sure that every scene has all the Required Points of Conflict, I’m just...writing. Writing quick sketches of scenes in the plot and adjusting them as brainstorming reveals better directions. Sketching out a character’s life story rather than filling in slots in a checklist. I’m building my story piece by piece and fleshing it out, so that by the time I get to the drafting stage, I’m going to stick to it because I’ve already figured out that this structure works.

11. How do you structure your plot?

I’ve got the fairy tale to guide the first half of the story, and I’m just figuring out the big scenes that need to happen and filling in the gaps between them. For the second half, I reintroduce the characters, set up their new situations, and figure out the points that believably lead to a happy ending. I’m probably going to throw seven-point structure over this at some point. And I’m trying to figure out ways to have parallels between the two parts of the story.

12. What part is the hardest to write in your WIP?

Again, not drafting yet, but I think the hardest part is going to be making the two halves feel like they’re both part of the same story. Both my mains undergo a lot of character growth during the time they’re apart, so they feel like two sets of characters in two separate books. It’s going to be a big challenge to make their older selves feel like believable developments of their younger incarnations.

15. Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

No lines yet from this project, but there’s a line from the planning document that’s necessary to all Cinderella retellings: “As long as you’re back by midnight, you’ll be fine.”

16. Give a spoiler for your WIP.

I’ve already given away most of the spoilers I know. Oops. Well, here’s a minor one: It rains on the night of the ball.

24. Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

There are very few that are entirely abandoned, because aside from extremely minor ideas that never got past a page or two of brainstorming, there’s always at least a chance I could return to an old project someday.

One of the few major projects that I’ve permanently abandoned is actually another Cinderella retelling. It was a space fantasy on a planet where storms had strange effects on people. I abandoned it because  I decided the premise of the world was really dumb. And because there was no real narrative drive--my Cinderella character just wandered through her world having things happen to her. I may reuse some of the character dynamics in other projects, though.