#so if parts of this don't quite make sense please ask for clarification bc I still don't have all my braincells today 😅

[racingliners]

HELLO i'm asking two fic asks i hope that's okay!

✑ PROCESSING for The Rules of Strategy and ♡ SMALL THINGS for Slowly And Then All at Once please🥰

it is ALWAYS okay to ask me to yell about more than one of my fics!!!

✑ PROCESSING: pick a fic and I’ll tell you what it was like to write it!

Oh my beloved TRoS... (ao3 link)

So one thing to know about is that because I'm autistic I will research the shit out of anything. And while I watched the 2017 season at the time, there was a lot of Mercedes-centric things I missed out on. So a lot of my research for each race weekend chapter consists of tag surfing here on tumblr for pictures and video clips (mainly to see what Lewis was wearing on a specific day if I need it, and if there was anything notable that happened across the weekend), looking up free practice/quali/race reports, and also watching the Mercedes strategy debrief videos so that when I'm writing Strategist!Seb, I have a really good idea of what I'm talking about. In a couple of instances (Bahrain, China and Spain) I've also watched the full races back just to get a proper feel for when writing the race sections, and for any team radio clips.

Then, I'll get writing. I'd actually planned out the vast majority of the chapters many months ago based on the season results and what I could remember from 2017, as well as the various relationship development points. But I do the above stuff to get my brain into the frame of mind for whichever specific race chapter I'm writing (I like to do a balance of actual racing and mushy romance bc that's just how my brain works, and because in a way they both influence each other in the plot).

Sometimes I'll be going about my day and I'll have an idea drift into my head for a future chapter, or even a bit of dialogue, so I'll write it down in whichever relevant notes doc I have so I have it on hand for later.

Obviously when I actually get to writing things will change a bit in terms of what scenes I do end up including. I have my notes as a guide and just go with the flow in terms of what feels best for the development of the story. The only exception when I've done a complete 180 for what I originally had planned was the Monaco chapter, which I ended up setting post-race at the Mercedes factory and at Seb's house. IRL it was a rough weekend for Mercedes and I felt like I'd already written that to an extent with the Bahrain chapter, so I opted to change it and I'm really happy with how it ended up turning out.

♡ SMALL THINGS: pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favourite minor detail from it!

I am SO happy someone asked me about this fic bc I just love it so so much! (ao3 link)

I'd say I'm definitely a very detail orientated writer, so I just love sprinkling little things in here and there in the hope that someone else notices them and loves them as much as I do.

One of which was definitely in the hotel room confession scene towards the end, where I very specifically had Jenson wear a mint green shirt (what was about to become Team Brackley aka Mercedes colours) to foreshadow him and Shov getting together.

He adjusted the fabric of his shirt, a mint green button down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and slowly walked over towards Shov. The best case scenario of them going to be at different teams in a couple of months’ time meant that if what Jenson was about to say completely blew up in his face, it would be somewhat easy for neither of them to see or speak to each other ever again. As painful a prospect as it was.

Team colours are such a huge identifier, especially in F1 where every team has their own distinct colour scheme, so it's something I love to play around with a lot for the symbolism of it all (I did a very similar thing in Life In the Fast Lane where I had Sophie and Benedikt wearing each others helmet colours, also to foreshadow their romantic relationship). And at this point in 2009, Jenson had already signed his contract to join McLaren in 2010, so it was because of that I had Jenson wear a Mercedes colour (instead of BrawnGP white or yellow) to signify to the reader that they're about to become each other's person as he and Shov only had a very short about of time left at the same team.

fic ask game