Yuletide fanfic retrospective
Dec. 21st, 2018 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWe haven't had the reveal yet, but how did writing yuletide go? This was my fourth year, and third year of doing nanowrimo as well, after which yuletide always feels a lot more possible :)
This year I managed another fairly short story, by which I mean I crammed as much stuff I loved about the characters as possible, but didn't try to write much of a plot.
In retrospect, my first story (Ivan, By and Illyan), which out of all my stories felt like it had the most "stuff" in it, was only 6,000 words, whereas last year's (Cordelia, Gregor and Ivan), which I'd expected was going to turn out about the same, was actually much longer, about 16,000 words.
Escape from the Orc Lair of Unnecessarily Revealing Armour in the second year was the shortest, only 2,000 words, partly due to the "script for comic" format instead of prose. I thought I could have added more scenes but I felt like they wouldn't have added that much.
Somehow how "dense" a story feels is different to how long it actually is. I don't know if that's just a story being "better", or if it's more quantifiable than that. It's something like the opposite of writing a story which is so formulaic you forget it as soon as you've read it, but not completely.
The first story focused on lots of emotional themes I really liked: Ivan's relationship with Illyan as a sort-of father, Ivan coming into his own as an adult, Ivan's awkward friendship with Byerly, By being By, what a BDSM and/or LGBT club gentlemen's club on Barrayar might look like. And touched on stuff revealed in Red Queen, which I hadn't actually read at the time. And dwelt on ImpSec, how all those senior military intelligence operatives actually interacted with each other, how day-to-day capital spying actually worked, how it felt to be By, when he was enjoying his persona and when he wasn't.
I think that's why it worked so well. And it so happened I manage to cram them into a fairly short slice of reminiscence and action, when I could have included perfectly good but not necessary stuff that padded it out into a proper plot. The third story was a bit more like that: I had a core of stuff I really liked, about Gregor being Gregor, and Cordelia being Cordelia, but I overshot on the plot a bit.
Whereas in the first story, I was quite nervous how it would come out because I hadn't written any fanfiction except a couple of unfinished pieces a decade before, so I hesitated a lot, but also sank a lot of effort into "can I make this better?" that I think translated into finding extra ideas that could be crammed into the same space. I should try to do more of that :)
Like how HHGTTG or Foundation are really short by modern standards but don't feel short.
I've slowly evolved some habits in responding to prompts. Something like, look at the prompt, fish around for potential ideas (both above stories were basically generated from "all the characters in this prompt are great, I just want to write about all of them") which often involves mulling on it for a few days. Then think of specifics, instigating incidents, etc, and other things I might like to cram in. At this point I usually have too many things I *want* to do (often "I know, a crossover as well!") and I have to be ruthless and pick the best idea I think I'm fairly confident of actually being able to do. I can always bring in ideas later if they feel like they fit, but my perfectionism always wants me to use ALL the ideas and I have to be firm in rejecting that.
Then there's some writing. Then I usually find that everything is a bit "off", that I had an idea of what I wanted the characters to do, but what I wrote is a bit out of character, and I need to rejig it -- someone complaining wearily instead of complaining angrily, character A asking "Do you feel X?" instead of character B spontaneously coming out with it, removing or adding some slapstick style humour where it was forced or would fit without being cringy. This needs a couple of days off to let everything "settle down". I've got better at doing it quickly as a lot is the same skill of letting go of ideas I wanted but don't work, but time is still the best way for me.
And then we have a story and I move onto the next thing!
This year I managed another fairly short story, by which I mean I crammed as much stuff I loved about the characters as possible, but didn't try to write much of a plot.
In retrospect, my first story (Ivan, By and Illyan), which out of all my stories felt like it had the most "stuff" in it, was only 6,000 words, whereas last year's (Cordelia, Gregor and Ivan), which I'd expected was going to turn out about the same, was actually much longer, about 16,000 words.
Escape from the Orc Lair of Unnecessarily Revealing Armour in the second year was the shortest, only 2,000 words, partly due to the "script for comic" format instead of prose. I thought I could have added more scenes but I felt like they wouldn't have added that much.
Somehow how "dense" a story feels is different to how long it actually is. I don't know if that's just a story being "better", or if it's more quantifiable than that. It's something like the opposite of writing a story which is so formulaic you forget it as soon as you've read it, but not completely.
The first story focused on lots of emotional themes I really liked: Ivan's relationship with Illyan as a sort-of father, Ivan coming into his own as an adult, Ivan's awkward friendship with Byerly, By being By, what a BDSM and/or LGBT club gentlemen's club on Barrayar might look like. And touched on stuff revealed in Red Queen, which I hadn't actually read at the time. And dwelt on ImpSec, how all those senior military intelligence operatives actually interacted with each other, how day-to-day capital spying actually worked, how it felt to be By, when he was enjoying his persona and when he wasn't.
I think that's why it worked so well. And it so happened I manage to cram them into a fairly short slice of reminiscence and action, when I could have included perfectly good but not necessary stuff that padded it out into a proper plot. The third story was a bit more like that: I had a core of stuff I really liked, about Gregor being Gregor, and Cordelia being Cordelia, but I overshot on the plot a bit.
Whereas in the first story, I was quite nervous how it would come out because I hadn't written any fanfiction except a couple of unfinished pieces a decade before, so I hesitated a lot, but also sank a lot of effort into "can I make this better?" that I think translated into finding extra ideas that could be crammed into the same space. I should try to do more of that :)
Like how HHGTTG or Foundation are really short by modern standards but don't feel short.
I've slowly evolved some habits in responding to prompts. Something like, look at the prompt, fish around for potential ideas (both above stories were basically generated from "all the characters in this prompt are great, I just want to write about all of them") which often involves mulling on it for a few days. Then think of specifics, instigating incidents, etc, and other things I might like to cram in. At this point I usually have too many things I *want* to do (often "I know, a crossover as well!") and I have to be ruthless and pick the best idea I think I'm fairly confident of actually being able to do. I can always bring in ideas later if they feel like they fit, but my perfectionism always wants me to use ALL the ideas and I have to be firm in rejecting that.
Then there's some writing. Then I usually find that everything is a bit "off", that I had an idea of what I wanted the characters to do, but what I wrote is a bit out of character, and I need to rejig it -- someone complaining wearily instead of complaining angrily, character A asking "Do you feel X?" instead of character B spontaneously coming out with it, removing or adding some slapstick style humour where it was forced or would fit without being cringy. This needs a couple of days off to let everything "settle down". I've got better at doing it quickly as a lot is the same skill of letting go of ideas I wanted but don't work, but time is still the best way for me.
And then we have a story and I move onto the next thing!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-22 11:14 pm (UTC)I'm enjoying your december days posts! Did you do yuletide, did it go ok this year?
no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 02:01 am (UTC)Here's hoping you're recipient loves the work.