Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2015-02-05 12:33 am
edenfalling) wrote2015-02-05 12:33 am
Entry tags:
[Meme] Ask me fic-specific questions
I did (am doing?) a meme over on Tumblr where people can ask questions about my stories, to wit:
Drop the title of one of my fics and a number in my inbox, and I will tell you:
1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?
6. Who's my favorite character in the fic?
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
9. Did anyone in the fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?
10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
13. What were my beta's major comments about the first draft of this fic?
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
15. Any other question about the fic!
I'm collecting my answers here on Dreamwidth because Tumblr fails useful archiving forever, whereas Dreamwidth is merely annoying on that front.
And hey, if you want to ask me questions on this site, feel free. I am always game for talking about writing process and stuff. :-)
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curlicuecal asked: Four by Four!
[[You didn't choose a number, so I will improvise a little. First, I will roll one D6 to see how many dice to roll. *rolls* I got a 6, which for these purposes is the same as a 3, so the main question will be answered by rolling three D6. *rolls more dice* I got 5, 5, and 4, so I will be answering question #14. *grin*]]
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
That's a really interesting question in this context, since Four by Four is more a collection of standalone chatlogs than any kind of plot-driven narrative. I mean, chapter 4 should introduce the alpha kids to the beta kids (and trolls?) and hopefully degenerate into a lot of horrified "but how can YOU be Morning/Evening when in MY universe you were the other moiety?!?!?!" shouting and talking over each other. And then I think I want a chapter 5 wherein the beta kids can have their happy post-game reunion and settle down into a stable sedoretu (probably with a bunch of corner relationships, because hey, it's Homestuck and also multishipping is totally still a thing). But the nature of the beast means I could always continue tacking on more chatlogs/chapters, so I don't know how a sequel would make any conceptual sense.
Perhaps if they eventually have kids...?
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geiszlerandgaila asked: I'm sure this is not a surprise but I wanna know about "In Foreign Tongues (Been All Over You)" and "While We Live" either separately or as a unit. And I'm gonna be greedy but please don't feel like you have to answer all of these: 2-4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14. :)
In Foreign Tongues (Been All Over You):
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
The little terminology game I played! Instead of writing about humans and Orions, I wrote about Terrans and humans. Because the story's in Gaila's POV, and obviously every species' own name for themselves will translate as 'human' rather than something derived from English astronomical terminology. There is a tendency for writers to overlook that -- which is only natural, since we don't know any alien species and are therefore writing stories for ourselves -- but I wanted the little blink-and-recalibrate pause I suspect that switch produces in readers.
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
The little bits of Orion culture that inform Gaila's POV.
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
The sex. Porn is not my strong point as a writer. *wry*
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
This is a remix, so I definitely played around with possible directions. I did think briefly of staying in Uhura's POV and keeping the events the same while changing her attitude toward the situation, but that didn't really catch my imagination. And I obviously failed to write the 100,000 word novel of which this would have been a single scene about 40% of the way through. And I suppose I could have gone a totally different route with Orion culture and had Gaila come from a traumatized past as a sex slave, such that she'd either be trying to reclaim her sexuality or doing this as a trained way to appease the people around her... but that's horribly depressing and anyway, I wanted to try something new with Orion culture.
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc.)
I think, in retrospect, the reason the actual sex scene feels flat to me is because Gaila doesn't think of sex as fraught with anything (positive or negative) the way most humans tend to do. It's just a bodily function, no big deal, and so there's no emotional charge to the sex itself. Instead, the emotional weight in the fic is entirely about familial connections. (Which is a decidedly odd thing to say about a fic that centers on oral sex, but hopefully that helps make Gaila feel convincingly like she comes from an alien background.)
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
I think I'd try to elaborate the sex a little bit, probably by adding some more sensory details. Some sounds, some tactile sensations, that sort of thing.
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
Not especially. I was perfectly aware that femslash of a character who's onscreen for all of, what, four minutes? was not going to be the fic that ate fandom. But I did expect people who like Gaila to appreciate having yet another perspective on her and her people. She's inspired some amazing world-building and powerful stories from Star Trek fandom. I am proud to have contributed a little to that trend.
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
Hmm. I kind of did, in a way, since Shelter from the Storm assumes the same world-building as In Foreign Tongues and While We Live. But a more direct sequel would have to deal with Uhura and Spock getting together, and how to negotiate family and romance and sex across three species rather than just two. (Also, Gaila and Uhura would have to finally talk about stuff and realize they've had some wires crossed for a while. They would come out stronger for the discussion, though!)
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While We Live:
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
Well, the terminology switch ('human' meaning Orion rather than Terran) is still there and I still love it. But this whole fic is really an incredibly self-indulgent exercise in world-building. I can't separate pieces of it out. I love the way Gaila's tech background comes from her home planet rather than something she learned after escaping. I love that I worked in variant phenotypes for Orions, including the black hair usually seen in the live-action TV series and the blue skin seen at least once in the animated series. I love that the through-line is about community and connection (which is not surprising, since those are some of my own abiding preoccupations as a writer). I love the idea of a language that incorporates kinesthetics and scent such that translating vocalizations alone misses significant portions of meaning. Etcetera.
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
That I came up with a self-consistent Orion culture that doesn't include sex slavery! I mean, there are some incredibly powerful stories that assume Gaila was a pleasure slave and escaped on her own. But I wanted to write something different. And I made it work.
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
All of it? It's basically four failed attempts at remixing![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
MelayneSeahawk's Talented Tongue that I chopped up, extended, and rearranged into a slightly more coherent order sometime after that year's Remix Redux was over. So the whole thing is a record of frustration and me trying to sneak past my own brain and actually write Gaila and Uhura having sex.
On the other hand, world-building is my bread-and-butter, and the reason I kept trying to sidle up sideways on the sex scene in In Foreign Tongues via backstory about aliens and culture clashes is because I can write that stuff at the drop of a hat. So the actual words came easily; the problem is that they were the wrong words for the story I was trying to write.
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
See above for my answer in re: In Foreign Tongues.
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc.)
Not that I can think of. This one's pretty much WYSIWYG.
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
Well, if I were to rewrite it, it would be the first third of a novel. So it would be at least thirty thousand words longer. You can see why that's not high on my to-do list, considering my pre-existing backlog of interminable WIPs. *wry* (I would also have to research computer programming and hard sf ideas about spaceship construction, to create verisimilitude, and I frankly don't know where to start.)
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
While We Live is definitely one of the ten or twenty most self-indulgent fics I've posted online, I did next to no advertising for it, and it has no romance or action/adventure plot for spice, so I was simply pleased that anyone read it at all. But I'm proud of the world-building, and I'm glad other people who like Gaila and speculation about Orion culture have found my ideas interesting.
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
The next two thirds of the unwritten novel, of course! Those sections would deal with Gaila's progress through Starfleet Academy, her time in Starfleet, her eventual return to House Amet, and the quest of the free Orions to establish a new colony planet without slavery and to extend their new system to the rest of their people. Probably the Enterprise would get involved at some point, because this IS meant to be Star Trek fanfiction and also I like space battles. But mostly it would be an epic about family and culture clashes and friendship and social engineering.
I do not have the time or the energy to write that, but sometimes I wish somebody else would write it for me... *wistful sigh*
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wistfulmemory asked: I would love #1 for "The Way of the Apartment Manager," please. :)
1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
I wrote The Way of the Apartment Manager by accident. No, really!
I was reading Naruto because of Asuka's fic, and I started wondering about the everyday practical realities of Naruto's living situation at the start of the manga. He's on his own in a tiny apartment at age 11, and shows every sign of having been on his own in a tiny apartment for several years, which suggests that he's been effectively independent since he was stupidly young. That didn't make much financial sense, so after some thought I assumed he gets his expenses subsidized by the government in some fashion; Konoha presumably has decent orphan-care procedures given the death rate among ninja.
Once I'd started thinking about that, though, it seemed to me that there ought to be group homes or foster families specifically set up to deal with orphans, and I wondered why Naruto wasn't in one of them. Well, generalized prejudice against the Kyuubi; people probably didn't want him around other kids or in their homes. Okay, but in that case, how and why was anyone willing to rent an apartment to him?
So I set out to write a short one-shot in which Naruto got his apartment because Sarutobi strong-armed a retired ninja into giving the kid living space and keeping a distant eye on him. This would explain how Naruto managed not to inadvertently kill himself before he graduated from the academy, but the ninja's reluctance to get involved would explain why no such character appears in the manga.
That plan worked very nicely up until the moment Yukiko actually met Naruto, at which point she went, essentially, "Oh shit, I kind of like him despite myself," and then I went, "Oh fuck, if she kind of likes him, she's going to get involved in his life and then what am I supposed to do???" and desperately started inventing a plot.
As I've said before, even after I transitioned from planning a one-shot to planning a chaptered fic, I intended to write about seven chapters and then kill Yukiko so as to merge back into canon. (Her cousin Yusuke would have inherited the apartment building, but while he'd have kept Naruto as a tenant -- Yukiko's will would've made that a condition of the inheritance -- he would've stayed well out of Naruto's life.) But the story kept being about friends and families of choice and reclaiming dreams, and killing Yukiko would have utterly destroyed those themes. I angsted over that for a while -- I didn't want to change my plans again -- but eventually I gave up and admitted I was writing an AU, and a fix-it AU at that. I was much happier thereafter. :-)
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heliopausa asked: The Courting Dance, 8 (Unfinished, I know, but as far as you can answer, given that.)
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
There are two major types of romance plots. In one, the obstacles keeping the main characters from happily ever after are internal: maybe one is afraid of love because of a tragic past, or one thinks getting married is incompatible with their career goals, or they had a bad first meeting and don't want to admit they were mistaken in their snap judgments about each other, etc. In the other plot, the obstacles are external: maybe they are spies for warring nations, or there is a huge class difference and the rich/powerful one will lose their inheritance if they marry the poor one, or one of them is engaged to someone else, etc.
The Courting Dance is an external obstacle type of romance. And I have learned that I don't like writing those! They're frustrating! See, I like character development, and therefore it's much more interesting to me if characters have to learn and grow as people in order to achieve happiness; with an external obstacle plot, they're generally already okay on that front and they just need to rearrange their surroundings instead of rearranging their selves.
Now, most romances will have at least some elements of each type of obstacle -- you can't solve an external problem without becoming the sort of person who can successfully stand up and confront that problem, and conversely one's particular internal issues are generally shaped by one's external circumstances -- and it's important that Cor makes a choice to say, "I love Aravis and promised to marry her, and I'm not going to break that promise," just as it will be important later when Aravis does [redacted for spoilers], but their woes are mainly external.
I mean, I like that their particular external problem has to do with culture clashes and prejudice and politics and stuff, but still, it's a more static story than the ones that really catch my heart. (Which is probably why I keep getting distracted by the world-building instead of forwarding the plot. *sigh*)
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cat_i_th_adage asked: The gender-swap Narnia one, please, #6. (Or #7 if you prefer.)
6. Who's my favorite character in the fic?
I'm not sure it's apparent within the component fics of As the Morning and the Night, but Edith is my favorite. Which is not to say I don't love the other three! Just that I really, really, really like the idea of exploring a more mentor-student relationship with Jadis, where Edith almost takes her as a role model in some respects.
(Also, Edmund is and always has been my favorite Pevensie. That is probably not apparent either, at least if you're judging by my Narnia fanfiction output, but it's still true. *wry*)
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
Hmm. Not for the stuff pre-Narnia and during the LWW period. That's largely fixed by the conceit of the AU, which is to maintain the Pevensies' gender-associated archetypes while flipping their sex and gender so they now run against cultural preconceptions rather than fitting perfectly into them. But I could have gone a lot of ways once I hit the VDT era. I wrote Come Close to Your Own World in response to a prompt about Peter (or Mary) "back in England, finding something quiet and ordinary that still matters, even after all those great deeds." And I thought about knitting, and I thought about tutoring, and I thought about cooking, and I thought about gardening, and I thought about all kinds of things but nothing clicked until that search ran up against my meta theory that Mr. Pevensie was involved in the Manhattan Project and it struck me that of course what Mary found joy in was physics and chemistry. (This holds true for my general view of Peter, btw, though he doesn't have Mary's traumatic childhood and has more opportunities for general leadership positions, so I suspect he goes into the military or politics rather than diving headfirst into a new passion.)
I am quite sure if I hadn't been trying to fill that prompt, I would have come up with something else entirely for the VDT era in this AU. I have no real idea what it would have been, but it would never in a hundred years have been Mary fighting herself over whether to allow herself the chance to be happy playing around with mass spectrometers.
(Note: I could also probably have thrown myself completely out of my own story by trying to give Mary a name that was visually/phonetically similar to Peter -- Petra? Patricia? Paula? Pearl? I dunno -- instead of going for something that hit the same sort of thematic notes. But I like thematic echoes better.)
Drop the title of one of my fics and a number in my inbox, and I will tell you:
1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?
6. Who's my favorite character in the fic?
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
9. Did anyone in the fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?
10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
13. What were my beta's major comments about the first draft of this fic?
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
15. Any other question about the fic!
I'm collecting my answers here on Dreamwidth because Tumblr fails useful archiving forever, whereas Dreamwidth is merely annoying on that front.
And hey, if you want to ask me questions on this site, feel free. I am always game for talking about writing process and stuff. :-)
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[[You didn't choose a number, so I will improvise a little. First, I will roll one D6 to see how many dice to roll. *rolls* I got a 6, which for these purposes is the same as a 3, so the main question will be answered by rolling three D6. *rolls more dice* I got 5, 5, and 4, so I will be answering question #14. *grin*]]
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
That's a really interesting question in this context, since Four by Four is more a collection of standalone chatlogs than any kind of plot-driven narrative. I mean, chapter 4 should introduce the alpha kids to the beta kids (and trolls?) and hopefully degenerate into a lot of horrified "but how can YOU be Morning/Evening when in MY universe you were the other moiety?!?!?!" shouting and talking over each other. And then I think I want a chapter 5 wherein the beta kids can have their happy post-game reunion and settle down into a stable sedoretu (probably with a bunch of corner relationships, because hey, it's Homestuck and also multishipping is totally still a thing). But the nature of the beast means I could always continue tacking on more chatlogs/chapters, so I don't know how a sequel would make any conceptual sense.
Perhaps if they eventually have kids...?
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In Foreign Tongues (Been All Over You):
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
The little terminology game I played! Instead of writing about humans and Orions, I wrote about Terrans and humans. Because the story's in Gaila's POV, and obviously every species' own name for themselves will translate as 'human' rather than something derived from English astronomical terminology. There is a tendency for writers to overlook that -- which is only natural, since we don't know any alien species and are therefore writing stories for ourselves -- but I wanted the little blink-and-recalibrate pause I suspect that switch produces in readers.
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
The little bits of Orion culture that inform Gaila's POV.
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
The sex. Porn is not my strong point as a writer. *wry*
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
This is a remix, so I definitely played around with possible directions. I did think briefly of staying in Uhura's POV and keeping the events the same while changing her attitude toward the situation, but that didn't really catch my imagination. And I obviously failed to write the 100,000 word novel of which this would have been a single scene about 40% of the way through. And I suppose I could have gone a totally different route with Orion culture and had Gaila come from a traumatized past as a sex slave, such that she'd either be trying to reclaim her sexuality or doing this as a trained way to appease the people around her... but that's horribly depressing and anyway, I wanted to try something new with Orion culture.
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc.)
I think, in retrospect, the reason the actual sex scene feels flat to me is because Gaila doesn't think of sex as fraught with anything (positive or negative) the way most humans tend to do. It's just a bodily function, no big deal, and so there's no emotional charge to the sex itself. Instead, the emotional weight in the fic is entirely about familial connections. (Which is a decidedly odd thing to say about a fic that centers on oral sex, but hopefully that helps make Gaila feel convincingly like she comes from an alien background.)
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
I think I'd try to elaborate the sex a little bit, probably by adding some more sensory details. Some sounds, some tactile sensations, that sort of thing.
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
Not especially. I was perfectly aware that femslash of a character who's onscreen for all of, what, four minutes? was not going to be the fic that ate fandom. But I did expect people who like Gaila to appreciate having yet another perspective on her and her people. She's inspired some amazing world-building and powerful stories from Star Trek fandom. I am proud to have contributed a little to that trend.
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
Hmm. I kind of did, in a way, since Shelter from the Storm assumes the same world-building as In Foreign Tongues and While We Live. But a more direct sequel would have to deal with Uhura and Spock getting together, and how to negotiate family and romance and sex across three species rather than just two. (Also, Gaila and Uhura would have to finally talk about stuff and realize they've had some wires crossed for a while. They would come out stronger for the discussion, though!)
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While We Live:
2. What's my favorite part of the fic?
Well, the terminology switch ('human' meaning Orion rather than Terran) is still there and I still love it. But this whole fic is really an incredibly self-indulgent exercise in world-building. I can't separate pieces of it out. I love the way Gaila's tech background comes from her home planet rather than something she learned after escaping. I love that I worked in variant phenotypes for Orions, including the black hair usually seen in the live-action TV series and the blue skin seen at least once in the animated series. I love that the through-line is about community and connection (which is not surprising, since those are some of my own abiding preoccupations as a writer). I love the idea of a language that incorporates kinesthetics and scent such that translating vocalizations alone misses significant portions of meaning. Etcetera.
3. What's the part of the fic I'm most proud of?
That I came up with a self-consistent Orion culture that doesn't include sex slavery! I mean, there are some incredibly powerful stories that assume Gaila was a pleasure slave and escaped on her own. But I wanted to write something different. And I made it work.
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
All of it? It's basically four failed attempts at remixing
On the other hand, world-building is my bread-and-butter, and the reason I kept trying to sidle up sideways on the sex scene in In Foreign Tongues via backstory about aliens and culture clashes is because I can write that stuff at the drop of a hat. So the actual words came easily; the problem is that they were the wrong words for the story I was trying to write.
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
See above for my answer in re: In Foreign Tongues.
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc.)
Not that I can think of. This one's pretty much WYSIWYG.
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
Well, if I were to rewrite it, it would be the first third of a novel. So it would be at least thirty thousand words longer. You can see why that's not high on my to-do list, considering my pre-existing backlog of interminable WIPs. *wry* (I would also have to research computer programming and hard sf ideas about spaceship construction, to create verisimilitude, and I frankly don't know where to start.)
12. Did any thing about this fic's reception surprise me?
While We Live is definitely one of the ten or twenty most self-indulgent fics I've posted online, I did next to no advertising for it, and it has no romance or action/adventure plot for spice, so I was simply pleased that anyone read it at all. But I'm proud of the world-building, and I'm glad other people who like Gaila and speculation about Orion culture have found my ideas interesting.
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
The next two thirds of the unwritten novel, of course! Those sections would deal with Gaila's progress through Starfleet Academy, her time in Starfleet, her eventual return to House Amet, and the quest of the free Orions to establish a new colony planet without slavery and to extend their new system to the rest of their people. Probably the Enterprise would get involved at some point, because this IS meant to be Star Trek fanfiction and also I like space battles. But mostly it would be an epic about family and culture clashes and friendship and social engineering.
I do not have the time or the energy to write that, but sometimes I wish somebody else would write it for me... *wistful sigh*
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wistfulmemory asked: I would love #1 for "The Way of the Apartment Manager," please. :)1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
I wrote The Way of the Apartment Manager by accident. No, really!
I was reading Naruto because of Asuka's fic, and I started wondering about the everyday practical realities of Naruto's living situation at the start of the manga. He's on his own in a tiny apartment at age 11, and shows every sign of having been on his own in a tiny apartment for several years, which suggests that he's been effectively independent since he was stupidly young. That didn't make much financial sense, so after some thought I assumed he gets his expenses subsidized by the government in some fashion; Konoha presumably has decent orphan-care procedures given the death rate among ninja.
Once I'd started thinking about that, though, it seemed to me that there ought to be group homes or foster families specifically set up to deal with orphans, and I wondered why Naruto wasn't in one of them. Well, generalized prejudice against the Kyuubi; people probably didn't want him around other kids or in their homes. Okay, but in that case, how and why was anyone willing to rent an apartment to him?
So I set out to write a short one-shot in which Naruto got his apartment because Sarutobi strong-armed a retired ninja into giving the kid living space and keeping a distant eye on him. This would explain how Naruto managed not to inadvertently kill himself before he graduated from the academy, but the ninja's reluctance to get involved would explain why no such character appears in the manga.
That plan worked very nicely up until the moment Yukiko actually met Naruto, at which point she went, essentially, "Oh shit, I kind of like him despite myself," and then I went, "Oh fuck, if she kind of likes him, she's going to get involved in his life and then what am I supposed to do???" and desperately started inventing a plot.
As I've said before, even after I transitioned from planning a one-shot to planning a chaptered fic, I intended to write about seven chapters and then kill Yukiko so as to merge back into canon. (Her cousin Yusuke would have inherited the apartment building, but while he'd have kept Naruto as a tenant -- Yukiko's will would've made that a condition of the inheritance -- he would've stayed well out of Naruto's life.) But the story kept being about friends and families of choice and reclaiming dreams, and killing Yukiko would have utterly destroyed those themes. I angsted over that for a while -- I didn't want to change my plans again -- but eventually I gave up and admitted I was writing an AU, and a fix-it AU at that. I was much happier thereafter. :-)
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heliopausa asked: The Courting Dance, 8 (Unfinished, I know, but as far as you can answer, given that.)8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
There are two major types of romance plots. In one, the obstacles keeping the main characters from happily ever after are internal: maybe one is afraid of love because of a tragic past, or one thinks getting married is incompatible with their career goals, or they had a bad first meeting and don't want to admit they were mistaken in their snap judgments about each other, etc. In the other plot, the obstacles are external: maybe they are spies for warring nations, or there is a huge class difference and the rich/powerful one will lose their inheritance if they marry the poor one, or one of them is engaged to someone else, etc.
The Courting Dance is an external obstacle type of romance. And I have learned that I don't like writing those! They're frustrating! See, I like character development, and therefore it's much more interesting to me if characters have to learn and grow as people in order to achieve happiness; with an external obstacle plot, they're generally already okay on that front and they just need to rearrange their surroundings instead of rearranging their selves.
Now, most romances will have at least some elements of each type of obstacle -- you can't solve an external problem without becoming the sort of person who can successfully stand up and confront that problem, and conversely one's particular internal issues are generally shaped by one's external circumstances -- and it's important that Cor makes a choice to say, "I love Aravis and promised to marry her, and I'm not going to break that promise," just as it will be important later when Aravis does [redacted for spoilers], but their woes are mainly external.
I mean, I like that their particular external problem has to do with culture clashes and prejudice and politics and stuff, but still, it's a more static story than the ones that really catch my heart. (Which is probably why I keep getting distracted by the world-building instead of forwarding the plot. *sigh*)
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cat_i_th_adage asked: The gender-swap Narnia one, please, #6. (Or #7 if you prefer.)6. Who's my favorite character in the fic?
I'm not sure it's apparent within the component fics of As the Morning and the Night, but Edith is my favorite. Which is not to say I don't love the other three! Just that I really, really, really like the idea of exploring a more mentor-student relationship with Jadis, where Edith almost takes her as a role model in some respects.
(Also, Edmund is and always has been my favorite Pevensie. That is probably not apparent either, at least if you're judging by my Narnia fanfiction output, but it's still true. *wry*)
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
Hmm. Not for the stuff pre-Narnia and during the LWW period. That's largely fixed by the conceit of the AU, which is to maintain the Pevensies' gender-associated archetypes while flipping their sex and gender so they now run against cultural preconceptions rather than fitting perfectly into them. But I could have gone a lot of ways once I hit the VDT era. I wrote Come Close to Your Own World in response to a prompt about Peter (or Mary) "back in England, finding something quiet and ordinary that still matters, even after all those great deeds." And I thought about knitting, and I thought about tutoring, and I thought about cooking, and I thought about gardening, and I thought about all kinds of things but nothing clicked until that search ran up against my meta theory that Mr. Pevensie was involved in the Manhattan Project and it struck me that of course what Mary found joy in was physics and chemistry. (This holds true for my general view of Peter, btw, though he doesn't have Mary's traumatic childhood and has more opportunities for general leadership positions, so I suspect he goes into the military or politics rather than diving headfirst into a new passion.)
I am quite sure if I hadn't been trying to fill that prompt, I would have come up with something else entirely for the VDT era in this AU. I have no real idea what it would have been, but it would never in a hundred years have been Mary fighting herself over whether to allow herself the chance to be happy playing around with mass spectrometers.
(Note: I could also probably have thrown myself completely out of my own story by trying to give Mary a name that was visually/phonetically similar to Peter -- Petra? Patricia? Paula? Pearl? I dunno -- instead of going for something that hit the same sort of thematic notes. But I like thematic echoes better.)
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There are two major types of romance plots. In one, the obstacles keeping the main characters from happily ever after are internal: maybe one is afraid of love because of a tragic past, or one thinks getting married is incompatible with their career goals, or they had a bad first meeting and don't want to admit they were mistaken in their snap judgments about each other, etc. In the other plot, the obstacles are external: maybe they are spies for warring nations, or there is a huge class difference and the rich/powerful one will lose their inheritance if they marry the poor one, or one of them is engaged to someone else, etc.
The Courting Dance is an external obstacle type of romance. And I have learned that I don't like writing those! They're frustrating! See, I like character development, and therefore it's much more interesting to me if characters have to learn and grow as people in order to achieve happiness; with an external obstacle plot, they're generally already okay on that front and they just need to rearrange their surroundings instead of rearranging their selves.
Now, most romances will have at least some elements of each type of obstacle -- you can't solve an external problem without becoming the sort of person who can successfully stand up and confront that problem, and conversely one's particular internal issues are generally shaped by one's external circumstances -- and it's important that Cor makes a choice to say, "I love Aravis and promised to marry her, and I'm not going to break that promise," just as it will be important later when Aravis does [redacted for spoilers], but their woes are mainly external.
I mean, I like that their particular external problem has to do with culture clashes and prejudice and politics and stuff, but still, it's a more static story than the ones that really catch my heart. (Which is probably why I keep getting distracted by the world-building instead of forwarding the plot. *sigh*)
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I was reading Naruto because of Asuka's fic, and I started wondering about the everyday practical realities of Naruto's living situation at the start of the manga. He's on his own in a tiny apartment at age 11, and shows every sign of having been on his own in a tiny apartment for several years, which suggests that he's been effectively independent since he was stupidly young. That didn't make much financial sense, so after some thought I assumed he gets his expenses subsidized by the government in some fashion; Konoha presumably has decent orphan-care procedures given the death rate among ninja.
Once I'd started thinking about that, though, it seemed to me that there ought to be group homes or foster families specifically set up to deal with orphans, and I wondered why Naruto wasn't in one of them. Well, generalized prejudice against the Kyuubi; people probably didn't want him around other kids or in their homes. Okay, but in that case, how and why was anyone willing to rent an apartment to him?
So I set out to write a short one-shot in which Naruto got his apartment because Sarutobi strong-armed a retired ninja into giving the kid living space and keeping a distant eye on him. This would explain how Naruto managed not to inadvertently kill himself before he graduated from the academy, but the ninja's reluctance to get involved would explain why no such character appears in the manga.
That plan worked very nicely up until the moment Yukiko actually met Naruto, at which point she went, essentially, "Oh shit, I kind of like him despite myself," and then I went, "Oh fuck, if she kind of likes him, she's going to get involved in his life and then what am I supposed to do???" and desperately started inventing a plot.
As I've said before, even after I transitioned from planning a one-shot to planning a chaptered fic, I intended to write about seven chapters and then kill Yukiko so as to merge back into canon. (Her cousin Yusuke would have inherited the apartment building, but while he'd have kept Naruto as a tenant -- Yukiko's will would've made that a condition of the inheritance -- he would've stayed well out of Naruto's life.) But the story kept being about friends and families of choice and reclaiming dreams, and killing Yukiko would have utterly destroyed those themes. I angsted over that for a while -- I didn't want to change my plans again -- but eventually I gave up and admitted I was writing an AU, and a fix-it AU at that. I was much happier thereafter. :-)
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I'm not sure it's apparent within the component fics of As the Morning and the Night, but Edith is my favorite. Which is not to say I don't love the other three! Just that I really, really, really like the idea of exploring a more mentor-student relationship with Jadis, where Edith almost takes her as a role model in some respects.
(Also, Edmund is and always has been my favorite Pevensie. That is probably not apparent either, at least if you're judging by my Narnia fanfiction output, but it's still true. *wry*)
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
Hmm. Not for the stuff pre-Narnia and during the LWW period. That's largely fixed by the conceit of the AU, which is to maintain the Pevensies' gender-associated archetypes while flipping their sex and gender so they now run against cultural preconceptions rather than fitting perfectly into them. But I could have gone a lot of ways once I hit the VDT era. I wrote Come Close to Your Own World in response to a prompt about Peter (or Mary) "back in England, finding something quiet and ordinary that still matters, even after all those great deeds." And I thought about knitting, and I thought about tutoring, and I thought about cooking, and I thought about gardening, and I thought about all kinds of things but nothing clicked until that search ran up against my meta theory that Mr. Pevensie was involved in the Manhattan Project and it struck me that of course what Mary found joy in was physics and chemistry. (This holds true for my general view of Peter, btw, though he doesn't have Mary's traumatic childhood and has more opportunities for general leadership positions, so I suspect he goes into the military or politics rather than diving headfirst into a new passion.)
I am quite sure if I hadn't been trying to fill that prompt, I would have come up with something else entirely for the VDT era in this AU. I have no real idea what it would have been, but it would never in a hundred years have been Mary fighting herself over whether to allow herself the chance to be happy playing around with mass spectrometers.
(Note: I could also probably have thrown myself completely out of my own story by trying to give Mary a name that was visually/phonetically similar to Peter -- Petra? Patricia? Paula? Pearl? I dunno -- instead of going for something that hit the same sort of thematic notes. But I like thematic echoes better.)
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