#and. backstory. setup. actually there's a post I drafted about that I should post it

[egginfroggin]

Really, Stan should have just stayed out of it. “… You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered, and she cocked an eyebrow, lifting her chin. “I’m not, actually –” “A teenager,” he continued over her, shaking his head and wincing at the sting of his headache. “I got taken down by a damn teenager.” This was just embarrassing.

I have no excuse and words

Sure was fun to write though

[callipraxia]

Things I Learned This Morning:

1) Using print instead of script, which would be faster but less tidy, I may hand-write not far under 1300 words per hour when things are going well. (The exact number was 1267 words)

2) My brain harbors an irrational hatred for the number 4 apparently? (I kept almost skipping it and having to go back and erase the little number above fourth words because I wrote 4 as 5, for instance, going straight from 223 to 225 before I caught myself.)

3) Taking a pencil and individually numbering every word you wrote takes a really long time.

4) Apparently my brain also cannot handle writing a series of numbers that consistently go above two digits. I transpose digits, forget the first digit, write 8 instead of 3, write 5 instead of 8, write 2 instead of 9….I made it through the first 1000 but counted the remainder in blocks of 1-100 in the interests of staying tolerably sane.

5) My print is indeed much more legible than my script, but also, oww, my elbow feels like it’s about to crack right now and my hand feels all twisted up inside, ow ow ow.

(Backstory: I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while, so I decided to say “what the heck” and try to force myself to write a rough draft of one of my fanfic ideas for NaNoWriMo. I’m printing because I am currently Resolved to write a complete rough draft and then revise it, all before posting anything. Then, in theory, I’ll post it by chapter on an actual *posting schedule*. However, since I have never managed to muster the kind of discipline needed to keep working on a project nobody has seen and praised some part of for that long in my entire life…we’ll see. Plus, it might be easy enough to make it to the word count minimum today, but I only just finished the setup phase of the first scene, getting Pacifica from “the alarm clock rang” and through “Pacifica reflects on what mornings in Northwest Manor were like compared to her new life” to the point of “Pacifica has gotten out of bed.” That kind of writing is super-easy for me, but the kinds where things actually happen can be…much slower going. Which means I’ll have to apply even *more* discipline to make quotas on some days. So basically I, a deeply scattered and undisciplined person, am basically attempting to overhaul my personality for at least a month, lol. Wish me luck, folks….

For my GF peeps, I hope that you’ll enjoy the results if this project does amount to anything, even though it is a bit of a departure from my ‘usual’ material. You see, I have a lifelong, deep-seated love for books set in schools/based around school years, and I have decided to combine that with my desire to write some post-canon material. We’re picking up very shortly after the finale, with the first day of school in Gravity Falls - the Pineses should have some involvement, here and there, but mostly via phone and Internet. I’m sufficiently addicted to the “greater scope” that I don’t think I‘ll end up with something that is purely YA or a “girls’ book,” but it will involve focusing on more girls and therefore “girl stuff” than canon/anything I have written previously - Pacifica, Wendy, and Candy are all projected to be narrators, with Grenda also at least being an important character and possibly a fourth narrator. Compare to FWJB, where the narrators consisted of ten dudes, Bill, and Mabel��and although I put him in his own category, Bill does seem to use he/him pronouns when interacting with English-speaking mortals, and so one could very reasonably argue that the narrators consisted of eleven dudes plus Mabel. Soos may well get some narrator time, but this one also seems on course to primarily focus on the kid characters. Gulp. We’ll see how it goes….)

[durotoswrites]

For the writing meme thingy: 🍄how do you get yourself in the mood to write? 🍑 do you/would you write smut? 📒 any fics planned?

🍄 How do you get yourself in the mood to write?

Getting in the mood to write and actually wanting to sit down and start writing are two very different things, but they're connected, so I'll explain both.

To set into “creative mode” it helps me to do these things:

Listen to music that makes me think of a character/situation in my story/stories. I've got playlists separated by character and pairing. Sometimes I also just work on curating those playlists for fun and get my brain going.

Bounce overall ideas off of my friends and husband/editor (but he's my best friend, too 💗)

Reread old chapters or recent ones and future snippets based on what I want to do.

Once I actually want to put words down, I get a little more strict with myself. I get distracted verrrry easily sometimes and I have to fight the urge to open a million more tabs when researching a small detail.

I move to instrumental music (I have playlists for different moods like “emotional”, “soft”, “sad”, etc. I usually listen to “soft” as a general soothing background sound, as I can get pretty dang emotional when I write, especially with the stuff I've been churning out lately.

So, yeah, I need tissues within reach if I get upset. (Wow, I'm not making this sound fun at all, lmao)

After sound has been established, I like to eat a snack (something with protein) because I can be under for hours, lol. Eat it and finish it. Otherwise, I get distracted.

I also like to have drinks available. I always have a bottle of water, but I also like having a hot cup of tea. I think it's the time of year for me to switch to cold barley tea.

I write while seated on a recliner with my feet up. I have my laptop on a lap desk and it's a pretty cozy setup.

I basically try to remove any excuse I have to get up once I start writing, because I am the worst procrastinator I know.

🍑Do you/would you write smut?

Heheh... heck yeah, I do. Waaaaay more than most people realize. Stuff I've actually posted? It's pretty limited. I posted a couple pieces (Let Me Love You and You're Like the Sunshine) a few years ago, but I've been practicing ever since. One of my planned stories literally has what I refer to as a “smut dump” in the draft where I've been experimenting with writing different moods. I like the intimate scenes to play a role in the overall plot or have it be a bonding experience.

Despite that, I do have a shameless Gray x Mary story I should just get out there that has zero plot, just two cuties in love. In my mind it's so naughty and kinky and I get flustered thinking about it (Mary is hot, okay?), but it's probably hella vanilla, lmao. I really am grateful that people have been really supportive about my writing smut despite what I usually write, and they've been so encouraging, too! I honestly feel like the smut I've posted is really stilted because I was so self-conscious about it. I don't feel like they are terrible for first attempts, but I have definitely grown more comfortable writing it.

Will The Shy Newcomer become explicit? I kinda really want it to, but I might separate the chapters for those who don't care for that content. Overall, I'd like to write more and post more, and I want to write more than just male x female smut as well. I have some of those in my planned pieces (more about them later).

📒 Any Fics Planned?

Firstly, I'm super tickled more than one person was interested in this. I copied the answer I wrote earlier.

Short answer: Yes. I also plan to bring more of my stories over from ffn to Ao3.

Long answer under the cut, heheh. I rambled quite a bit.

Ask me about my writing processes and stories!

I have so many WIPs that haven’t been touched in years that I’d like to finish, so new planned fics aren’t posted yet. Some of them have more adult themes than most of the stuff I’ve been writing, so I get flustered sharing them. I’ve been at a crossroads, as I feel that you can’t have growth without changing things up. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of my readers associate my works with a specific “wholesome” feel-good mood. It’s kinda nice to be known for something, although that might just be my ego talking, thinking that people recognize my work as a “type”.

Regardless, in the end, I feel growth is necessary.

I don’t want to leave a lot of unfinished WIPs waiting because they stress me out and I have too many of them already, so I’d like to have a bulk of my new stories with a good chunk written before I decide to post them.

Among those include:

A longfic featuring Pete’s farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley (A blend of HMDS with the FoMT plugin and AWL). It takes place in the same universe as The Shy Newcomer (Claire in Mineral Town) and there are a few overlapping moments, although Pete’s story starts first. Pete’s personality is verrry different from Claire’s, and his story was kind of supposed to be the yang to TSN’s yin. Pete’s best friends in his story are Ruby (not sure if I’m adding Tim yet), Nami, and Rock. Readers will be treated to a poorly-socialized pre-Mineral Town Cliff (if you think he was bad at the beginning of TSN, well… heh… he’s a wreck here).

Another planned unpublished story is a crossover of Harvest Moon and the movie “In This Corner of the World”, based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno. It was written as a gift for a friend. I have the entire outline figured out and have slowly been filling it in. My friend asked for an AU where Claire and Cliff have an arranged marriage and live with his family in Akiyama, the hometown I had created for Cliff in The Shy Newcomer. I took the opportunity to expand the characters in his family. I have it written during the same time period and society as “In This Corner of the World”, but had decided to write a spreading disease as an allegory for war, but then COVID happened and some parts of it just got really hard to write. There are also a lot of sexually explicit content as Claire slowly grows and learns from her spouse that it’s okay to express what she wants despite sex being a taboo issue. If there’s enough interest in the story, I’ll post it, but I worry it’s a little too niche for there to be many people into it.

Pastor Carter and Doctor Trent are one of my favorite rare pair ships. I’ve had a partial draft for a story about them for a few years now, especially focusing on Trent growing up and acknowledging that he has an unhealthy addiction for things that he knows he can’t have. There are some more adult/sexual themes in this piece, too, including the main character lusting after a married woman (who also happens to be his patient) and some lemons. (Does anyone call it that anymore or is it just referred to as “smut” nowadays? Haha) I always feel so bad for neglecting the folks at the clinic in-game and wanted to write a piece that focused more on them, Trent specifically. It’s a multi-chap fic, but I don’t think I’m going to let it get as long as some of my other pieces.

I also really want to write a short romantic oneshot for every marriage candidate in Mineral Town, around 1,000 words each. So far, I have one for Cliff and one for Gray. I want to write Claire with everyone, because I think it would be fun to explore all the different personalities.

I have more installments planned for A Single Day, including a day in the life of the following characters, all with drafts in varying degrees of progress:

Anna

Doug

Nora (yes, I’m writing from the point of view of the cat living at the inn)

More to come – I think Lillia and Thomas would be especially interesting to explore

I do still have that Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask piece I’ve been pondering where Link befriends the soul of the deku scrub child while possessed by the mask. I don’t have much written about it, but I really love the world of Majora’s Mask. Such a fun game.

I also think about the lead carpenter’s son in Ocarina of Time and that weird side quest involving the blue chicken and the son being lost to the forest. Then that unique-looking kokiri girl explaining that all who get taken in the lost woods become stalfos. Like, did the guy die? Was he sick? Did he want to die? There’s just so much going on there that would be fun to explore.

I also have played OMORI recently and have like… A LOT of feelings about it. I don’t know what I’d write, but I’m still damn impressed at how well the characters are developed in such a short game.

Other games I’ve had vague ideas about writing for include the following:

The Flame in the Flood: I’m thinking a survivalist/action story fleshing out Scout’s backstory a bit more and her thoughts as she’s traveling. I feel like she’s a very lonely person, but isn’t given the chance to really dwell on it.

Night In the Woods: I’d love to write more about Mae’s dreams and what they mean to her. She doesn’t really talk to anyone about them openly, so it’s really hard to tell her feelings about them in some regards. We know that she’s distressed about them, but I’d like to dive a little deeper. Do the nightmares end after the games does? What about Bea’s new nightmares?

Hades (Supergiant Games): I think it would be fun to write more about the events that take place before the game starts, like Zagreus’s duties in the house of Hades, and expand on the strained relationship with his father.

[sweet-star-cookie]

For the ask thing: 15 and 22

HELLO I ALMOST FORGOT TO POST THIS OOPSI’m so sorry I wrote way too much again RIIIIIP

15. An OC that is hard to draw / write / RP

Hmm… that’s an interesting one! Drawing mycharacters consistently isn’t as hard for me as itused to be since I finished art school and gotmy skills up, but that doesn’t mean I don’t havea hard time! As for writing, I find villains moredifficult to write in general, because I’m muchbetter at creating protagonists instead. Theideologies and general demeanour of a “goodguy” come more naturally to me, but I do enjoythe challenge of trying to write a good villain! Ironically however, I have one character who has given me trouble in both aspects before, and that would be Snowy here (I love my owl son though fgfdghsdga). 

His design (aside from his armour) has changed quite a bit over time, because of both style development and the fact that he ages throughout his story. Getting his face right was the biggest challenge at first, as the original version of him ended up very close to other characters I’d made at the time. Theimage you see here is the one I am satisfied with as far as his aged up versions are concerned,but it’s all very much in development still.

Speaking of which, writing him is another interesting challenge. A character like Cassie iscloser to what you’d think a typical young fantasy adventure protagonist would be: upbeat,colourful, extroverted, a go-getter. Snowy, on the other hand, is much more reserved, level-headed and methodical. That’s not to say that I’d want Snowy to be any different though, andthat’s also not to say that he isn’t motivated either. The challenge comes in understanding howhe would react to certain things, including his motivations. He shares the “silent sufferer” trait that I have whenexperiencing trauma, but he does not possess the same rampant anxiety as I do, so I oftenhave to re-write scenes based on that. He’s not one to immediately panic or have extreme emotional reactions to things, at least not on the outside.

His backstory shaped this in him; he grew up knowing it was best to keep his head down andwork through the pain, but that gets much harder for him to do later on as the stakes gethigher. Even the strongest warrior can only deal with so much when people’s lives are in peril 9times out of 10, much less a young recruit like Snowy. He may not have rampant anxiety, but he does have rampant heroism like hisfather, finding a problem to solve wherever he goes, whether he can solve it or not. But unlikePrince Arvais, he doesn’t do it for the sake of flourish or fame, and therefore doesn’t care muchfor the spotlight. His inherent desire to help does wear on him as he learns of the realities ofbeing a knight, and his wings carry a lot more societal weight than he first realized. I can definitely relate to certain aspects of this setup, but if I were in this situation I would react very differently, and that’s what I have to consider with Snowy’s character.

Another challenge comes in not making him boring either. As I said earlier, having a morereserved character doesn’t always lend itself as easily to an interesting protagonist, but I knowit can be done. It is possible that the other characters with more outward personalities mightseem more interesting than Snowy anyway, but as long as I still give him a well-developed andwell-rounded character, he should do just fine. ;u; I want to do him justice as best I can, even if it requires more re-writes than usual.

22. An OC you didn’t expect to love

Honestly I love all of my OCs by default, but there is one that I wasn’t expecting to getattached to as much as I did, and that would be my boy Scorpio here. :D

I already loved him for his design and concepts of course, but the more I developed hisbackstory in relation to Ophiuchus and his dynamic with Cassie, I ended up making him a moresignificant character than he was in earlier drafts of the story. I am a sucker for the “edgelordmeets the cinnamon roll” dynamic and his slow transition from reluctant mentor to protectivefather/older brother with Cassie is so fun to write. :’D

He’s actually a bit hard to write too, as, like Snowy, I have to really think about how he wouldreact to certain things with a more reserved personality. But in Scorpio’s case, the contrast in personality between him and Cassie lends itself to a lot of good character moments, especiallywhen she can break down his walls a bit and show the lesser-known parts of his personality.Scorpio’s actually a bit of a prankster when in the right mood, so you can be sure he andCassie bond over that once she gets to know him (probably pranking Aries like Capricorn does,or Libra like Gemini does).

I also love writing the initial encounter stuff too, so I think having both is really what made mefall in love with Scorpio’s character as a whole. How he reacts to meeting Cassie does tie intohis connection with Ophiuchus, but that isn’t apparent until much later. Both Cassie’s Starglassand the one that Ophiuchus had give off the same “aura”, so before Scorpio even sees Cassiehe assumes hostility, sensing its presence. But on first impression, one assumes that Scorpiois hostile simply because that’s who he is, a stone-faced scorpion with a deadly glare and evendeadlier weapons. Taking one look at him would give anyone that impression, and Cassie isunderstandably terrified of him at first. This is amplified even further when she finds out he isher mentor, and thus the dynamic begins.

I really enjoyed the idea of Scorpio mentoring Cassie, as that gives Scorpio’s backstory acyclical nature. Ophiuchus was once Scorpio’s mentor, so having a similar job passed to himwith something as important as the Starglass, you can bet Scorpio’s got some extra baggagewhen it comes to that. Scorpio is also on the younger end of the spectrum in terms of agecompared to the rest of the zodiac (in his 20s, I’d say), so even he has some learning to dowhen it comes to teaching others. His zodiac companion, Scutum, was initially assigned to himas a sort of mentor in his early days as a sign as well, and it wasn’t all smooth sailing either.Despite his cool demeanour, Scorpio’s origins paint him as a lot more volatile than one mightthink. Though in the timeline of this story, that volatility only really shows in moments of trueperil, which is definitely present in the final climax. I’ve been fleshing out that part again lately,so it’ll be cool to have it come to light eventually. :’D

[spidermanifested]

not to do Universal Steve Discourse on main in 2019 but....... i did genuinely enjoy the season finale and i want to like. express the reasons why? in a really really really long drawn-out and needlessly convoluted manner probably because this is being typed on mobile and im tired

first of all i know the main thing people dont like about how things have gone in general is the fact that its less You Gotta Beat the Bad Guys and more You Gotta, Talk to the Bad Guys Until They Stop Being Bad, which is not very often a realistic approach to stopping actual horrible people in our real human society from doing actual horrible things

and i get it!! but honestly the way the finale goes about resolving conflict (or specifically how steven goes about resolving conflict), while flawed, feels more like. a mediatorial power fantasy id have as a kid than anything else. like....... for once, things not having to end with the strongest person coming out on top. making the other side just sit there and listen for a few minutes, and force them to realize that their actions have consequences for the rest of the world and the people they claim to care about. that no, their idea of whats best isnt always helpful! that theyre ignoring everyones actual needs in favor of an idealized and selfish narrative!

every time i would watch a show featuring superheroes or anything similar when i was younger id hate that it always had to resolve itself with violence instead of just TALKING to each other, and maybe su and the homeworld arc in particular isnt an accurate portrayal of successfully navigating interpersonal conflict with stubborn assholes or of fighting systemic oppression or a fascist government colonizing everybody else and suppressing all dissent through any means available or whatever but. sometimes metaphors dont work as a direct 1:1 comparison to things happening in real life, and thats, okay i think? sometimes? i dont know it just feels good to see everybody UNDERSTAND each other. it reminds me that its. actually possible once in a blue moon to convince someone to treat the people around them with respect. and it just feels good honestly. its a fantasy show and Everybody Goddamn Finally Getting Along is a Common and Valid Fantasy to Have Especially If Youre a Kid in a Bad Place

also: though in a lot of scenarios this way of approaching the diamonds wouldnt be feasible at all, steven in the show is not just a random human whos magically able to change the minds of alien dictators. hes the son of maybe the one person they had any compassion for, and they treated him like he was still her, which even then Wasnt Great because the diamonds were not a healthy familial setup by any measure. but at the very least they could SOMETIMES be swayed by pink. and he used that to its advantage by showing them how much they hurt her, and then by extension how much they hurt everybody else, even if they didnt particularly care about the rest of their “flawless” gem society. and maybe they still dont!!! maybe theyre just making reparations to honor pink. but when it comes down to it their feelings dont matter. their motivations dont matter. their ACTIONS matter. in stevens words: “you did this, and now you have to fix it”.

he used his foothold in their good graces (again, relatively) to make them take a closer look at their actions, and thats what makes it more rational to me. because of course they wouldnt listen if he was some random half-alien kid. if he really was unrelated to the diamonds he would have HAD to use force. you dont get people to listen to your viewpoint by just talking when theyve already convinced themselves youre below their consideration and itd be useless to pretend otherwise, yes!! but to use another characters metaphor- the best character in the whole show (bismuth)- if you are a lion, you can safely enter the lions den. use your respected-as-a-peer status to convince the people around you to be better. obviously everybody being affected by oppression can fight with everything theyve got and it makes a huge difference, but what also makes a difference is people in positions of privilege standing up for other peoples rights and magnifying their voices, and the burden of breaking out from an unjust system shouldnt NEED to be placed on the downtrodden. we should fight, but we shouldnt HAVE to fight. its not our fault things are this way

and giving up on galactic conquest doesnt suddenly make the diamonds good people. not once to my memory do they ever actually verbally apologize (at least white diamond definitely didnt) but like i said before, that doesnt really matter to the people they hurt. the damage is done and any apology offered would just look flimsy and performative. instead steven has them just shut up and fix the things theyre able to fix. nobody says “i forgive you”, they arent suddenly given tragic backstories to make the audience sympathize with them, theyre just... the same close-minded egotistical royalty, but being forced to look at everybody else from a different angle for the very first time, directly after coming to grips with the fact that their awful caste-based society pressured one of “their own” into faking her own death and later dying for real just so she could experience life outside of the constricting role she was born into. thats their thing. that isnt a redemption arc so much as a “hurray we made them pay for their reprehensible actions in a constructive and viable manner” arc

i think thats... cool? less focus on Punishing Wrongdoers and more focus on Fixing Problems. we need that. in a lot of ways

but yes i also wholeheartedly believe that you should not argue or debate or converse with fascists in real life unless youre somebody they have to take seriously. like. their dad, or something. and dont do it anywhere public where they can perform for the audience instead of addressing your words. and also dont do it on the internet where they can screencap and mock you with their friends instead of being serious. but if youre their dad i dont know why youd need to be doing that. anyways this post is long enough so thats the end of my ‘Punching Nazis is Very Morally Good and Also Fun and Im Not About to Say Otherwise in a Million Years’ disclaimer

the tumblrmobile refuses to post this so ive had to save it as a draft and come back on my laptop to add tags good website great design functions as intended

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month (and year!!), which means it’s time for a Coming Attractions post!

(This has been crossposted to my new Dreamwidth fic archive here.)

So, overall analysis--I didn’t get as much done as I would’ve liked, either over the past month or the year as a whole, but I think I did produce some decent content, so there’s that!

Precipice:

Yep, I’m super behind where I wanted to be, lol…Arc Six took me almost the whole year, damn. Uh. I think what I’ve learned from this experience is next time I plan out an arc, however plot-necessary, that is going to be 99% fluff, I need to re-evaluate my life choices and not do that because this is really super not in my wheelhouse. Not on that kind of sustained level, at least. Saw is also not particularly easy for me to write, so hiding in the other half of the plotline wasn’t really an option either. It probably didn’t help that I changed where I was going with that half partway through (in my original version, he was actually behind the bombing/kidnapping attempt, but then I realized that that made absolutely no sense while he still has custody of Jyn…). Ah, well. At some point, I should probably sit down and reread the entire arc because maybe the finished product, with some distance from the uber-frustrating process, won’t feel as forced/not-good as it does to me now…

Anyway. Now that my whining is out of the way...there’s one more chapter in this arc! It should go up sometime in the next couple days. Featuring the Jedi reuniting and comparing notes; and Padme finally reading her parents and sister in on a few important details. And then we get to Arc Seven, which has had like five working titles over the past month, and I still haven’t settled on one, lol…This arc will pick up roughly three years after Arc Six, and involve more Infernalis, a key turning point with Luke and Lavinia, and Anakin and Leia probably going to Jedha to achieve a specific milestone. (Because I decided to stick closer to canon than Legends on this particular topic and I don’t want to straight-up invent a planet…should be fun!)

As I think I’ve mentioned before, after Arc Seven, (which I’m guessing will be roughly 15 chapters; as amusing as it would be to end these first seven arcs on Chapter 75, there’s way more to cover than I can fit in nine chapters), I’m going to split the fic into another document. Partly for length/convenience--this thing is going to be over 200k by the time I’m done with Arc Seven, I’m 99% sure--and partly because there’s something of a tone/focus shift for arcs 8-14. Also, there’s a longer timeskip than usual--six years between Arcs Seven and Eight. (Which, if you’re counting, you can probably guess what’s behind the shift… :D )

Also, as per usual, I’ll probably do a couple bonus fics this year--not sure when, exactly, or under what context, but I like bonus content.

Other Fanfic Projects:

I’m hoping to actually get back to Distaff and/or Auxiliaries and/or Phoenix!Verse this year. And put out some more Valdemar AU, probably--I do still need to write, at minimum, Hera, Obi-Wan, and Ezra getting Chosen--maybe some more Handler AU, too. Plus an AU outline or two--finishing Let’s Go Steal a Crossover; adding more to Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience; a few other concepts kicking around in my head...

In terms of other long-form/fulltext projects, I am participating in SWBB again this year, but I’m now finding myself without a plot. I was going to do either our faces like a mirror or the Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic, but over the past few days I’ve come to the conclusion that these are both massive undertakings and I am vanishingly unlikely to finish even a rough draft of either by the time said rough drafts are due. So, as much as I’d like an extra Incentive to finish OFLAM before the new Clone Wars episodes air and potentially Joss significant chunks of it, this is not going to be it.

The reason for this is that, for OFLAM, I have to do a lot of buildup if I want the ending to pay off. Plus, I have a whole bunch of white space to fill in during the eight years between when Bo comes back to Sundari after the civil war ends and when she leaves to join Death Watch. …most of which would involve that buildup. I mean, I could probably finish the first chunk, which covers Bo-Katan’s experiences while she’s on the run/actually during the civil war, but that doesn’t feel like a complete story to me? (Also, 95% of it would basically be Bo-Katan and miscellaneous OCs, with a brief appearance by Pre Viszla and maybe Jango Fett will turn up? Anyway, I’m not sure that kind of setup is appropriate for challenge purposes.) So I’m reluctant to do that.

(The title for this project, for anyone who’s curious, comes from Vienna Teng’s “Antebellum.” The first verse doesn’t entirely fit, but all the rest…)

As for the Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic, it, uh. Look, the timeline diverges 25+ years before AOTC. I actually have a lot more of the plot worked out for this one, but it involves a) a crapload of worldbuilding and b) a primary-focus courtship narrative, which is also not super in my wheelhouse. I can do it, I just don’t think I can do it in the couple of months I have, you know? Especially since about half of what I’ve written so far deals with the backstory around the breakpoint, mostly focusing on Bail. The other half does deal with the main plotline, but…yeah.

So, yeah. I’m working to come up with a new concept that is simple enough for me to finish in time but engaging enough to keep me Invested without wandering off into too many recursive AUs, lol. One possibility would be to turn my Bail Unfucks the Timeline AU outline into a fulltext fic, but it doesn’t really have an ending, even in my head…ah, well. I’ll pick something, hopefully soon, and get it done. I do pretty well when I’m working to an externally-imposed deadline, at least…?

Anyway. As a bonus, some teasers for OFLAM and the Untitled AU Epic!

Satine wasn’t in the main audience hall, or our father’s old study. She was, as it turned out, in the little cramped closet of a room she’d always liked, when she was doing homework or writing letters or whatever she decided she needed privacy for.

I took a breath, wondering exactly what I’d find--if she’d changed as much as I had, if she’d…

I shook it off, raised my hand, and tapped on the door four times quickly, then twice slow, just like I always had. To let her know it was me.

I didn’t wait for her to answer, because I couldn’t bear the suspense anymore. (Also, I had never really waited for her to answer, why start now?)

Satine had half risen behind her desk, even paler than usual, and--stars above, her face was a little leaner, her eyes a little darker, but that was my sister. Still my sister, my beautiful, charismatic, powerful older sister.

My Duchess.  -- our faces like a mirror

“Look, you need someone to break into places, I’m your guy. And Ahsoka fits into ventilation shafts,” [Anakin] went on, before Obi-Wan could actually object. “I may not have tried anything as complicated as an Imperial prison, but I can do this. And you’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

“Face it, Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka said. “You don’t get to do the noble lone-wolf Tragic Hero thing on this one. You’re stuck with us.” -- Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic [based on this prompt from @obianidalasuggestion]

Original Fiction:

Definitely hoping to do more in 2019 than I did in 2018. Starting with writing stuff outside of the big Summer Challenge on rainbowfic…

Goals:

Last year, my goals/New Year’s Resolutions were:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates, complete Arc Seven by the end of September. …yeah, this one, uh. Didn’t happen. 2. Write at least 15k of original fiction Closer to 2k…Lux and Farglass Cycle archives. …nnnnope.

And here are my 2019 goals:

1. Finish Precipice and at least one full arc of Protectors/Precipice II. 2. Write at least 7.5k of origfic content. 3. Start posting OFLAM and/or Untitled ObiAniDala Epic AU. 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic (Distaff or Auxiliaries or Phoenix!Verse) 5. Update Lux and Farglass Cycle archives, and transfer tumblr archive to DW. 6. At least for AU outline installments of some kind. 7. Complete BB submission, and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges/whatever.

[drizzitwrites]

AU Writing Progress--Week 4, Day 1

I didn’t post this yesterday, and I haven’t done today’s writing yet but I’m having a dilemma (not really, I know the answer) and I wanted to share.

First, I wrote 1585 words yesterday AND we have finally gotten to me writing something I actually LIKED! I mean, this is a normal process for the first draft, especially on a big AU project like this. You sort of just have to get it all down and use words that you know aren’t right and just let everything be flat and lacking in description and power through it (more on this in my dilemma). That’s fine. But yesterday I was  doing a bit of backstory for one of the supporting characters (along with one of the main characters) and it slid into this mini flashback scene and I was like wow this is GOOD like...I’m contemplating expanding this and just making it an actual scene later on in the fic if I can make it fit into the narrative. Like, it was the first time that I was like ohhh there is a STORY here. But I’m still in the setup phase right now (yes, I know, 25,000 words of setup phase...who else could pull that off but me? spoiler: I’m not pulling it off!)

Which brings me to the dilemma. As I was thinking about what I needed to do today, an idea came to me for how to revise the part that’s written and in essence combine two scenes to tighten things up and hopefully cut down the word count a bit. So I’ve got all these thoughts like...oh if you just splice here and then rewrite and then switch this characterisation to this and eliminate this, you could accomplish in one scene what’s currently taking two. Which is fine, except I’m now stuck at this junction of do I just write the next part (which is still part of one of the scenes getting spliced together and/or the scene just after the scene getting spliced together...which would then mean I had to change up some things in that scene because I currently had it coming after one scene which will now be moved to an earlier spot in the fic, so I’d have to do even more edits to make things cohesive later) and leave myself detailed notes on my thoughts on revision or do I not create new words today and just work on the edits to the other part so that when I get to this next bit I have to write it makes sense in the flow and I probably won’t have to make as many changes later?

I was leaning towards the former since just getting the words down seems the most important thing right now and I think changing the order of a few things at the beginning won’t have HUGE trickle down effects on the rest of the fic beyond these three or four scenes, but also I have a lot of ideas for fixing things and I wonder if I should use my creative energies where they lie and also (hopefully?) save myself some work in revisions later when I’m like...ugh these scenes are out of order now.

Thoughts appreciated. I do feel like I need to write SOMETHING today, but we’ll see...

[plotlinehotline]

I'm having some problems to get a character from a place to other. Basically, her parents died a while ago and she's living somewhere else. She lived in their parents' manor, now she lives at a relative's, and has just discovered a (magic) artifact that may belong to her mother, but she doesn't give it much importance. I want her to go to the manor but don't know how to set up the necessity. A young naughty girl may activate the artifact and raise questions, but don't know if it's good enough.

Unmovable Plot Facts (or what I like to call Very Important Facts - V.I.F.)

This sounds like a case of: “I need event B to happen, but it can’t happen unless event A happens, but event A has no logical reason to happen.”

It’s rare that we ever plot stories in a linear way, that is, we hardly ever plot our stories out in order. We often get ideas for much later in the story, and then we have to backtrack to figure out how we make those ideas happen. And this can be really difficult to do when our ideas don’t seem to fit together. So how do we fix it?

Assume NOTHING about your plot.

When we’ve been working with a story for a long time, there are certain facts and details that have been part of the story since the beginning. These facts are so cemented in our minds that we don’t even question them anymore. Things like: So-and-so’s the villain, the story takes place in a forest, my character is new to all this crazy phenomena. 

But what if so-and-so wasn’t the villain? What if the story took place in a desert? What if your character is a seasoned pro to the extra-terrestrial or paranormal? 

Whenever a story fact is proving to be inflexible and immovable, to the point where your story can’t operate around it, it’s time to make a change.

And it can be scary to make that change, especially when we’ve been plotting the story for so long with these facts in mind. But if we need event B to happen, and the event supposedly causing event B to happen (event A) is a longshot, then maybe we need another event to cause event B. 

TO MY ANON: What that means is, rather than coming up with a reason to get her to the manor, why can’t she already be there? Isn’t it possible that after her parents died, they willed her the home, and she moved back in? Could she have found the artifact while cleaning out an area of the house as she was moving back in? Or even years later when she suddenly needs the extra storage space/living space?

When changing one fact, you might argue that you can’t change said fact, because then you’ll have to change another fact, and what if you end up changing the whole story? Maybe you will, I don’t know. The goal is figuring out what facts of your story are most important, and if you can’t work out how to make other facts work with those Very Important Facts (V.I.F.), then those less important ones will have to change. 

Examine the V.I.F. itself and decide if it truly is a V.I.F.

So in my last point, I talked about changing event A entirely to work with event B (our V.I.F.), and in the case of the anon, event A is our character returning home, and event B is the character finding the magical artifact. She cannot find the artifact unless she goes home. If you can’t come up with ideas for how to get her to the manor, and you can’t really change the fact that she no longer lives there, then you have to examine what event B is actually doing for your plot, and decide if perhaps there is another V.I.F. that events B/A are getting in the way of.

In this step, ask yourself: what is my story’s conflict? And once you’ve defined that in one sentence, determine how many different paths there are available to getting there. Is event B directly tied to your conflict? Or is it merely one option of jumpstarting the real V.I.F.? 

For example, if the conflict of our anon’s story had to do with our protagonist inadvertently activating this artifact and then becoming involved in some epic quest to stop a great evil, there are actually numerous ways of getting there. Some questions we might ask:

Does the artifact have to be a family heirloom?

Does she have to discover it after her parents are deceased?

Could the artifact have been passed down to her years ago, got lost in a box, and resurfaced at the onset of our story?

Could she find it in an antiques store?

Could a friend find it and give it to her as a gift?

The important part of this story may not be how she comes by the artifact; instead, it could be what happens as a result. In which case, you could explore other options for getting it in her hands and activating it. 

For a rough draft, skip A entirely. Focus on B, because B gets you to C.

My last option for solving this problem is basically to ignore it. If you’re working on a first draft, or even a second draft of the story, and you can’t get over this one problem, then solve it by ignoring it. For our anon, if you can’t come up with a reason for her to go to the manor, then simply say: “She decided to go to the manor,” and let that be the end to it...for now. 

Because allowing yourself to skip event A enables you to focus on fleshing out event B - something you seem much clearer on- so you can move forward with the story. When we’re working with drafts, it’s best to work on the parts that exist most vividly in our minds, and then work on stringing them together in whatever haphazard way we need to. Cohesion and structuring will come later on, once we know a little more about what we’ve created. 

One last note to my anon: Try not to get too stuck on this detail. Change the setup if you need to, in order to make it work, or gloss over it until you’ve got more of the meat of the story written. As you’re writing the middle, you might come up with some amazing backstory detail that helps explain how everything started, and it may have nothing to do with her going to the manor. 

I hope this wasn’t a confusing post! I tried my best, but I think what it comes down to is accepting that your plot should be flexible, and you should be willing to change details to work with other details, rather than trying to force them to work together when they don’t. 

-Rebekah