#if you have neocities my name's the same so feel free to try and find it lmao

[duskgryphon]

btw. i’ve been setting up a funny little neocities site finally :]

[ink-flavored]

Introduction

BTS Series: ⬅ Table of Contents - Reworking Pride ➡ Also available on Neocities! P&J Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze @zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales Banner art by @auroblaze

Those of you who have followed me from the beginning of my fanfiction career will know that I’ve always loved writing Alternate Universe or “AU” fics. Taking characters we all know and love and plopping them into completely different settings and scenarios has always been more fulfilling to me as a writer than sticking within the confines of canon. That’s why something like the AU-gust 2022 Challenge was so much fun for me to do—it’s already something I’m familiar with and enjoy.

However, the big downside of AUs is that it’s much easier to lose focus of the characters the story is supposed to be about and end up writing original characters that happen to look the same. I’m plenty guilty of this. Though I always appreciate my readers telling me how strong my characterizations are, when it came to Pride & Justice, the fic I wrote for Day 9 of AU-gust ’22, I really felt myself deviating. The piece was short, written in a single day, and within the constraints of the Angels & Demons prompt, so it didn’t bother me too much. What did end up bothering me was how much the idea stuck in my head, shouting for my attention weeks after I’d written and posted it. When concepts linger around for that long, I know I can’t just abandon them to rot.

The thing is, I knew right away I didn’t want to make it a full-fledged multi-chapter fanfiction. To quote my own AO3 author’s note, the characters I wrote were “OCs in blorbo meatsuits.” Trying to turn something like this into a fanfiction would feel disingenuous—it’s not what my fanfiction audience is here to see, and it’s not fair to my creative drive that clearly wanted to write something original, but would be constrained by the flimsy barrier of fandom that I forced it to uphold. Really, I don’t think it would have held up as a fanfiction. I decided to take a different route, and begin the process of turning it into an original idea for a novel.

A lot of people disparage fanfiction writers turning their ideas into original works, and I think the reasons for outcry are often misguided. Yes, “filing the serial numbers off,” the most common method for publishing a fanfiction as an original work, consists of doing very little outside of changing the names of the characters and some light editing to make sure the plot stays the same. Yes, fanfiction and genre writing are different mediums with different rules. While fanfiction can be structured the exact same way as an original manuscript, it’s very rare. But fanfiction is a genuine artform, a medium for telling a story. Just as a book can be adapted for screen, or a movie can be adapted for the stage, a fanfiction can be adapted for an original work. You just have to treat it like what it is: an adaptation.

I thought I would document my process here, give you a behind-the-scenes tour, of how I’m turning Pride & Justice: the fanfiction into Pride & Justice: the novel. You may have already seen hints of this on my Tumblr, but I’m going to go much deeper than moodboards and backstories here.

You can find every entry in the behind-the-scenes series documented on Ko-Fi for a $6 donation, for free on Neocities, or here on Tumblr!