wherein Liz bitches about themes and story length and stuff

[edenfalling]

I finished the rough draft of "An Ounce of Prevention" chapter 23 tonight, and made a start on the real epilogue (am still undecided about an omake epilogue, btw, but I'm leaning toward 'yes'). Anyway, that's all well and good, but I think I need to go back and tweak the early chapters of the story so they line up thematically with the ending of the story.

This is the trouble with doing a continuation of a one-shot. You write something small and self-contained, and then when you extend it, you have to find a different structure to carry the weight of the extra words. And while the theme of the original "An Ounce of Prevention" was basically 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if diary!Tom ran into someone who was a match for him?' the theme of the chaptered story turns out to be more about ethics, the nature of betrayal, and Sakura growing up.

So. I need to go back and 'start' the story I finished.

*sigh*

I hate writing. The trouble is, I can't stop telling stories, and I hate not writing even more. (And okay, when it's good, it's the best thing in the world.)

Comments

[lanoyee.livejournal.com]

I hate writing. The trouble is, I can't stop telling stories, and I hate not writing even more. (And okay, when it's good, it's the best thing in the world.)

I agree with that SO HARD.

[edenfalling]

It's an addiction, I swear to god. :-)

[lanoyee.livejournal.com]

Must be. There is no other way. :)

[lynati-1.livejournal.com]

and the trouble with doing a one-shot is also the trouble with writing something broader, sometimes. I hold off posting anything on the off-chance the later parts will change, and so have little to show for years of world-building except for outlines. (World and plot-building is fun. Making it work on paper...less so.) Writers like you who actually manage to get things out- things that are consistently awesome and well-written- just amaze me.

Also, I've been loving "An Ounce of Prevention" about as much as "Lemonade," which I think was the first fic of yours I read. I can't wait to see what comes next.

[edenfalling]

Don't feel bad -- when it comes to original fiction, I have fifteen years' worth of world-building and hardly any finished stories to show for it.

I think I write fanfiction faster because I post it serially. That means I have to outline it, to keep the story minimally coherent, which means I waste much less time meandering around plot cul-de-sacs. Now and then I attempt to apply the same outline style to original work, but I've yet to really establish good habits for that half of my writing.

(And even with outlines, my fanfiction writing speed is VERY SLOW. I am terribly easy to distract, after all!)