I've mentioned it here before but sometimes characters write themselves. I always thought authors were ... not really kidding but using hyperbole when they said that, but I'm telling you, that shit is for real. You'll find yourself writing something with absolutely no idea where it's coming from. The story will take off in a direction you never intended. They may be your fingers flying over the keyboard but the words don't seem like they're yours at all.
It can be ... disconcerting, to say the least. Disconcerting and yet, most of the time, awesome as all get-out.
The most recent example I have of this is the latest chapter of my current Once Upon a Time story. It's a series of sequential mid- and post-ep one-shots chronicling Emma finding a place to belong over the course of the first season. Little unseen moments between the scenes.
This conceit of mine became an issue when I got up to "Hat Trick." We spent most of the episode with Emma so unseen moments were few and far between, but there was too much good material within the episode for me to bypass it entirely. I rewatched the episode, found my span of unseen time, and started to write.
And what came out ... that was all Emma and Mary Margaret. It was not me at all. Believe me, I know how it sounds when I say things like that. These people don't really exist, and even if they did exist, they most certainly would not choose to have their conversations through, you know, me. But it does happen, and I don't know that it's something you can fully understand until it happens to you.
I certainly didn't understand it. Hell, it's happened to me more than a few times and I still don't understand it. But it's a real thing that happens and what it results in can be really cool.
Don't believe me? Check out the chapter below, entitled "Family By Choice." And believe me when I tell you that I have no freaking clue where this came from.
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Saturday, December 01, 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Ficlet: All Is Said and Done (1/1)
I've gotta say, I've missed being able to do little things like this. Being able to think of something silly like writing a ficlet for the premiere of Once Upon a Time and actually doing it. Oh, inspiration, please never leave me again.
Title: All Is Said and Done
Summary: Regina didn't know where she was running. She just knew that she had to run. She had to find somewhere to hide.
Word Count: 910 by Works' count.
Spoilers: Takes place during 1x22, "A Land Without Magic."
Characters: Regina Mills, with mentions of Henry, Snow, Emma, and Gold.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for safety. Possible trigger warning.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. It's not my fault they created characters that are so much fun to play around with, but I'll return them unharmed!
Author's Note: Happy premiere day! I thought I'd celebrate with a little ficlet. Title and lyrics in italics from "All Is Said and Done" by Vertical Horizon. Enjoy!
Running in heels was a skill that, even after twenty-eight years, Regina Mills had not perfected. She had simply never seen the need. People ran from her, not the other way around. Now, though, she wished she’d practiced running in heels every once in a while.
She slowed just long enough to pull off her shoes. Much better.
Regina didn’t know where she was running. She just knew that she had to run. She had to find somewhere to hide. Everyone would be searching for her now. The citizens of Storybrooke would be forming a mob any minute now, one perhaps minus the pitchforks and lanterns, but a mob nonetheless. An angry mob out for vengeance, out for blood. Out for her blood.
For the first time in decades, she was scared. Really, truly, curl-up-under-the-covers-and-ride-out-the-storm frightened.
The stitch in her left side forced her to slow down and then stop completely. It took her a moment or two to realize she’d stopped in front of her house. The house she’d spent the first eighteen long years in alone. The house she’d spent the next ten years in with her son. A house, she thought with a pang of sadness, but not a home.
It used to be a home once. Or perhaps it never had been. She wasn’t sure anymore.
With a shaky breath, Regina headed up the walk and climbed the stairs to her front door. Her house was surely the first place everyone would look but … well, to be honest, she didn’t care. Let them come. She’d lost Henry. She’d lost, period. There was nothing left for her anyway.
Losing Henry was bad enough but losing him to Emma Swan, of all people, was devastating. How had Henry come to eat that turnover instead of Emma? What the hell had happened? Oh, gods, Regina had almost killed her own son. She had killed him. If not for Emma, that little boy would be dead right now.
Emma had saved him with true love’s kiss. On the one hand, Regina was forever grateful. On the other hand, she was absolutely disgusted.
She opened the front door, thinking of all the times Henry had slammed it on his way in or out. He’d never slammed the door in anger that she could recall, just in exuberance. Even still, she’d always spoken to him harshly, reminding him that she’d told him countless times to stop slamming the door.
What she wouldn’t give to hear him slam it right now.
She eased the door closed and leaned back against it, closing her eyes for a brief moment. She inhaled deeply. She could still smell a hint of the apple turnover in the air. The aroma she had not long ago equated with eternal victory now turned her stomach.
Somewhat on auto-pilot, she pushed herself away from the door and headed up the stairs, running her hand over the railing. It was only her imagination, she knew, but the railing still felt slightly warm from the last time Henry had grasped it.
When he ran down the stairs and out the door to go to her.
Up the stairs and down the hall she went. Without even realizing where she’d been headed, Regina found herself in Henry’s room. She ran her hand over the dresser, the top of the headboard, and finally his pillow. The pillow smelled like him. She picked it up and held it to her nose. She took a deep breath in and let the tears come.
She’d lost everything. With Henry gone and the curse broken, she’d lost her own chance at a happy ending. Goddamn Snow White and her family! What had Regina ever done to that woman to justify everything she and her child had taken from her? First Snow had taken Daniel and then her father. Then Emma had come along and had taken Graham and now Henry. Everyone she’d ever loved was gone now, ripped from her.
There was nothing left to fight for, and Regina had resigned herself to her fate. She would spend her last moments here, in her son’s room. Maybe being around his things would bring her a tiny bit of solace before the end.
As she set the pillow down, something out the window caught her eye. Something … abnormal. Something that shouldn’t be here, in this land.
Sniffling, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the window. She pushed the curtain aside and squinted. Was that … no. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Then it came into focus and she saw that it was. That sneaky little bastard. Gold had taken the egg from Emma, the egg that contained the one bit of magic he’d managed to smuggle into this land. She recalled the tone of his voice when she told him about giving up the rest of her magic to obtain the apple from the Enchanted Forest. Just like she had, he’d made magic from magic.
A grin curled onto her lips as she watched the cloud of pure magic writhe and rush forward, enveloping everything in its wake. She’d thought it was over. She’d thought she’d lost.
She was mistaken.
All was not said and done. Oh, no. It was just getting started.
Her grin grew wider. Let the battle begin.
Title: All Is Said and Done
Summary: Regina didn't know where she was running. She just knew that she had to run. She had to find somewhere to hide.
Word Count: 910 by Works' count.
Spoilers: Takes place during 1x22, "A Land Without Magic."
Characters: Regina Mills, with mentions of Henry, Snow, Emma, and Gold.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for safety. Possible trigger warning.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. It's not my fault they created characters that are so much fun to play around with, but I'll return them unharmed!
Author's Note: Happy premiere day! I thought I'd celebrate with a little ficlet. Title and lyrics in italics from "All Is Said and Done" by Vertical Horizon. Enjoy!
-----
Oh, are you tired of running for your life,
When there’s no one left behind?
Just the chaos in your mind.
-----
Running in heels was a skill that, even after twenty-eight years, Regina Mills had not perfected. She had simply never seen the need. People ran from her, not the other way around. Now, though, she wished she’d practiced running in heels every once in a while.
She slowed just long enough to pull off her shoes. Much better.
Regina didn’t know where she was running. She just knew that she had to run. She had to find somewhere to hide. Everyone would be searching for her now. The citizens of Storybrooke would be forming a mob any minute now, one perhaps minus the pitchforks and lanterns, but a mob nonetheless. An angry mob out for vengeance, out for blood. Out for her blood.
For the first time in decades, she was scared. Really, truly, curl-up-under-the-covers-and-ride-out-the-storm frightened.
The stitch in her left side forced her to slow down and then stop completely. It took her a moment or two to realize she’d stopped in front of her house. The house she’d spent the first eighteen long years in alone. The house she’d spent the next ten years in with her son. A house, she thought with a pang of sadness, but not a home.
It used to be a home once. Or perhaps it never had been. She wasn’t sure anymore.
With a shaky breath, Regina headed up the walk and climbed the stairs to her front door. Her house was surely the first place everyone would look but … well, to be honest, she didn’t care. Let them come. She’d lost Henry. She’d lost, period. There was nothing left for her anyway.
Losing Henry was bad enough but losing him to Emma Swan, of all people, was devastating. How had Henry come to eat that turnover instead of Emma? What the hell had happened? Oh, gods, Regina had almost killed her own son. She had killed him. If not for Emma, that little boy would be dead right now.
Emma had saved him with true love’s kiss. On the one hand, Regina was forever grateful. On the other hand, she was absolutely disgusted.
She opened the front door, thinking of all the times Henry had slammed it on his way in or out. He’d never slammed the door in anger that she could recall, just in exuberance. Even still, she’d always spoken to him harshly, reminding him that she’d told him countless times to stop slamming the door.
What she wouldn’t give to hear him slam it right now.
She eased the door closed and leaned back against it, closing her eyes for a brief moment. She inhaled deeply. She could still smell a hint of the apple turnover in the air. The aroma she had not long ago equated with eternal victory now turned her stomach.
Somewhat on auto-pilot, she pushed herself away from the door and headed up the stairs, running her hand over the railing. It was only her imagination, she knew, but the railing still felt slightly warm from the last time Henry had grasped it.
When he ran down the stairs and out the door to go to her.
Up the stairs and down the hall she went. Without even realizing where she’d been headed, Regina found herself in Henry’s room. She ran her hand over the dresser, the top of the headboard, and finally his pillow. The pillow smelled like him. She picked it up and held it to her nose. She took a deep breath in and let the tears come.
She’d lost everything. With Henry gone and the curse broken, she’d lost her own chance at a happy ending. Goddamn Snow White and her family! What had Regina ever done to that woman to justify everything she and her child had taken from her? First Snow had taken Daniel and then her father. Then Emma had come along and had taken Graham and now Henry. Everyone she’d ever loved was gone now, ripped from her.
There was nothing left to fight for, and Regina had resigned herself to her fate. She would spend her last moments here, in her son’s room. Maybe being around his things would bring her a tiny bit of solace before the end.
As she set the pillow down, something out the window caught her eye. Something … abnormal. Something that shouldn’t be here, in this land.
Sniffling, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the window. She pushed the curtain aside and squinted. Was that … no. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Then it came into focus and she saw that it was. That sneaky little bastard. Gold had taken the egg from Emma, the egg that contained the one bit of magic he’d managed to smuggle into this land. She recalled the tone of his voice when she told him about giving up the rest of her magic to obtain the apple from the Enchanted Forest. Just like she had, he’d made magic from magic.
A grin curled onto her lips as she watched the cloud of pure magic writhe and rush forward, enveloping everything in its wake. She’d thought it was over. She’d thought she’d lost.
She was mistaken.
All was not said and done. Oh, no. It was just getting started.
Her grin grew wider. Let the battle begin.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
On Process, and Changing Things Up
Back when I started on the fanfic train, I had a very simple process: write, edit, post. I've mentioned before that I used to do a lot of handwritten work. Mostly that was because I grew up in the Dark Ages before everybody and their mother had a laptop. However, as a college student traveling to and from school on trains and buses four or five days a week, you know what I did have? Waiting time and lots and lots of looseleaf paper.
I'd pull sheets of paper out of the binders I used for class and write on the train or at the station. I would then do a bulk of the editing when I typed up what I'd written. My first drafts are typically very dry; the embellishments come during editing so the handwritten drafts were pretty much just guideposts. So I would write whenever I could, type it up once I got enough written to make it worth it (because this was also back in the Dark Ages when an entire family actually had to share one computer), and then give everything a once- or twice-over before posting it to ... wherever I posted things to. A couple of mailing lists, I think, and a forum community.
Then I joined up at fanfiction.net and they had this nifty little system to divide your story by chapters. So my new process became write chapter x, edit chapter x, post chapter x, write chapter y, edit chapter y, post chapter y. And so on. Which is all well and good but then once in a while I would run into a situation where, three-quarters of the way through the story, I'd get stuck.
Getting stuck now presented a new issue. Since I had been posting works as complete units before, I'd never felt pressure when I got stuck. I'd set it aside for a couple of days and brainstorm and figure a way out of it. Now, though, people were reading my stuff as I wrote it. I didn't want to leave them hanging for too long. Because there are fewer things more frustrating than being really into a story and the author either taking forever to update it or never updating it again.
I mean, I get it. Most fanfic authors are doing this as a hobby. They all have lives outside fanfic and the muse can be extremely fickle. Just because you have inspiration for something now doesn't mean you're going to have inspiration for it a week from now when the show completely screws your plot to hell or your everyday life demands more of your attention. But at the same time, I felt a responsibility to my readers to give them some kind of closure. So I would just ... write an ending. It wouldn't be the ending I really wanted to write, but it was the only ending I could write at that point in time.
After that happened two or three times, I started waiting until I had a few chapters written before I started posting a new story. That way, I would always be a couple chapters ahead of myself, so if I did get stuck, I could release a new chapter on schedule without the undue pressure on myself to get around the stumbling block omgrightnow.
And then, as it happened, I got writers' block. The real and serious writers' block where nothing comes out the way you want and you hate everything you try to write. It lasted close to two very long, very excruciating years. By the time I was ready to try another multi-chapter story, I was afraid of getting a block again, so I decided to change my process yet again. This time, I'd write the whole thing, then edit chapter x, post chapter x, edit chapter y, post chapter y.
At first, that was a really difficult change to make. A large part of the fanfic process for me, especially if I'm writing a story for a new fandom, is the feedback. I love hearing when I'm doing things correctly, obviously, but I also want people to tell me what I'm doing wrong. It helps to refine my writing, and it helps me get a better handle on the characters. "You know, I don't think Sam would really say that to Dean" is just as helpful to hear as "Oh, that was so Sam! Great job!"
Doing things this way, I still got the feedback as I was doing the edits, so I could tweak things that weren't quite working in -- or add things that were working to -- future chapters. It just made the actual drafting phase very tense because I had no idea how it would be received.
With my Once Upon a Time fic, for whatever reason, I've pretty much been throwing caution to the wind. My first story, as I chronicled here, was "Breaking Point." I don't usually write multi-chapter epics the first time out. It's easier for me to get a handle on characterization with oneshots, so I usually do a couple of those first before tackling a multi-chapter, plot-heavy story.
My latest story, "Navigation," was supposed to be a oneshot. The reader response to it was overwhelming, and pretty much everyone asked me to continue it. So I did. I completely flew by the seat of my pants, going back to the write chapter x, edit chapter x, post chapter x process.
I was terrified I wouldn't be able to find a way to tie it all together (because this was not a story I'd intended to continue, there really was no laid-out plotline to follow and I only had a vague notion of what I even wanted to do with it), but apparently what I came up with worked, because the readers seemed to love it.
*whew*
So, yeah. That was an interesting exercise. And by interesting, I mean terrifying, of course. I had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, and the readers were fantastic and made me feel wonderful. It was maybe just a touch too on-the-spot for comfort. At least going outside my comfort zone presented a nice challenge!
I'd pull sheets of paper out of the binders I used for class and write on the train or at the station. I would then do a bulk of the editing when I typed up what I'd written. My first drafts are typically very dry; the embellishments come during editing so the handwritten drafts were pretty much just guideposts. So I would write whenever I could, type it up once I got enough written to make it worth it (because this was also back in the Dark Ages when an entire family actually had to share one computer), and then give everything a once- or twice-over before posting it to ... wherever I posted things to. A couple of mailing lists, I think, and a forum community.
Then I joined up at fanfiction.net and they had this nifty little system to divide your story by chapters. So my new process became write chapter x, edit chapter x, post chapter x, write chapter y, edit chapter y, post chapter y. And so on. Which is all well and good but then once in a while I would run into a situation where, three-quarters of the way through the story, I'd get stuck.
Getting stuck now presented a new issue. Since I had been posting works as complete units before, I'd never felt pressure when I got stuck. I'd set it aside for a couple of days and brainstorm and figure a way out of it. Now, though, people were reading my stuff as I wrote it. I didn't want to leave them hanging for too long. Because there are fewer things more frustrating than being really into a story and the author either taking forever to update it or never updating it again.
I mean, I get it. Most fanfic authors are doing this as a hobby. They all have lives outside fanfic and the muse can be extremely fickle. Just because you have inspiration for something now doesn't mean you're going to have inspiration for it a week from now when the show completely screws your plot to hell or your everyday life demands more of your attention. But at the same time, I felt a responsibility to my readers to give them some kind of closure. So I would just ... write an ending. It wouldn't be the ending I really wanted to write, but it was the only ending I could write at that point in time.
After that happened two or three times, I started waiting until I had a few chapters written before I started posting a new story. That way, I would always be a couple chapters ahead of myself, so if I did get stuck, I could release a new chapter on schedule without the undue pressure on myself to get around the stumbling block omgrightnow.
And then, as it happened, I got writers' block. The real and serious writers' block where nothing comes out the way you want and you hate everything you try to write. It lasted close to two very long, very excruciating years. By the time I was ready to try another multi-chapter story, I was afraid of getting a block again, so I decided to change my process yet again. This time, I'd write the whole thing, then edit chapter x, post chapter x, edit chapter y, post chapter y.
At first, that was a really difficult change to make. A large part of the fanfic process for me, especially if I'm writing a story for a new fandom, is the feedback. I love hearing when I'm doing things correctly, obviously, but I also want people to tell me what I'm doing wrong. It helps to refine my writing, and it helps me get a better handle on the characters. "You know, I don't think Sam would really say that to Dean" is just as helpful to hear as "Oh, that was so Sam! Great job!"
Doing things this way, I still got the feedback as I was doing the edits, so I could tweak things that weren't quite working in -- or add things that were working to -- future chapters. It just made the actual drafting phase very tense because I had no idea how it would be received.
With my Once Upon a Time fic, for whatever reason, I've pretty much been throwing caution to the wind. My first story, as I chronicled here, was "Breaking Point." I don't usually write multi-chapter epics the first time out. It's easier for me to get a handle on characterization with oneshots, so I usually do a couple of those first before tackling a multi-chapter, plot-heavy story.
My latest story, "Navigation," was supposed to be a oneshot. The reader response to it was overwhelming, and pretty much everyone asked me to continue it. So I did. I completely flew by the seat of my pants, going back to the write chapter x, edit chapter x, post chapter x process.
I was terrified I wouldn't be able to find a way to tie it all together (because this was not a story I'd intended to continue, there really was no laid-out plotline to follow and I only had a vague notion of what I even wanted to do with it), but apparently what I came up with worked, because the readers seemed to love it.
*whew*
So, yeah. That was an interesting exercise. And by interesting, I mean terrifying, of course. I had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, and the readers were fantastic and made me feel wonderful. It was maybe just a touch too on-the-spot for comfort. At least going outside my comfort zone presented a nice challenge!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
On Striking a Chord
I've been writing for a good long time now and I've been posting my stories for people other than me to read for over a decade. And yet, having one of my stories be really well-received still shocks the hell out of me.
As is obvious from my last few posts, I have been very into Once Upon a Time fanfic lately, both writing and reading. The most recent story I wrote, a little three-chapter deal titled "Can You Help Me," turned out, to my surprise, to be one of the most popular stories I've ever written.
The idea for the story was simple, really. It came from a song by the same name by Vertical Horizon that became one of my favorite songs of all time pretty much the first time I heard it. It's a lovely song, and as I was driving to work one day, the lyrics in the chorus gave me this little inkling for a post-curse Once Upon a Time story with a hurt and guilty Snow White trying to reconnect with a defensive and walls-up Emma.
It was just supposed to be a one-shot -- a complete story told in a few thousand words -- but as I wrote, it grew too long to post as a one-shot. I quickly decided to make it a three-parter and wrote the whole thing in about a week and a half.
I posted the first chapter less than two weeks ago, and the reader response to it has been overwhelming. It's been put on more alert subscriptions (which meant the readers wanted to be notified via email when I updated it) than any of my others, and it is the 4th most-favorited story I have on the ff.net archive.
To put things in perspective, I've been posting to ff.net since 2001. The three stories that are ahead of it in terms of being favorited are "Sorry" and "Locked Out," two Supernatural stories I wrote in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and the magnum opus for SVU, "The Heart of the Matter," which I wrote in 2005.
To have a story take off this quickly is flippin' insane to me. I'm thrilled to pieces, don't get me wrong, but it's insane.
It's just that it surprises me what strikes a chord with a readership. Like I said, "Can You Help Me" was a little idea I got on the drive to work. "Sorry" was based on, no lie, a real game of Sorry that happened in my family that I translated into a cute little pre-series Supernatural story, and "Locked Out" was an idea about a preteen Dean locking himself and Sam out of the motel room during a rainstorm that came quite literally out of nowhere. And "The Heart of the Matter"? I still have no idea why that story is so popular. It's a half-casefile, half-personal relationship, slow-burn Casey/Olivia story that I really don't think is anything super-special. Apparently, though, it is, for reasons completely unknown to me.
But things like that that also give me confidence. Having something that I don't think is in any way special resonate with an audience is an amazing feeling.
As is obvious from my last few posts, I have been very into Once Upon a Time fanfic lately, both writing and reading. The most recent story I wrote, a little three-chapter deal titled "Can You Help Me," turned out, to my surprise, to be one of the most popular stories I've ever written.
The idea for the story was simple, really. It came from a song by the same name by Vertical Horizon that became one of my favorite songs of all time pretty much the first time I heard it. It's a lovely song, and as I was driving to work one day, the lyrics in the chorus gave me this little inkling for a post-curse Once Upon a Time story with a hurt and guilty Snow White trying to reconnect with a defensive and walls-up Emma.
It was just supposed to be a one-shot -- a complete story told in a few thousand words -- but as I wrote, it grew too long to post as a one-shot. I quickly decided to make it a three-parter and wrote the whole thing in about a week and a half.
I posted the first chapter less than two weeks ago, and the reader response to it has been overwhelming. It's been put on more alert subscriptions (which meant the readers wanted to be notified via email when I updated it) than any of my others, and it is the 4th most-favorited story I have on the ff.net archive.
To put things in perspective, I've been posting to ff.net since 2001. The three stories that are ahead of it in terms of being favorited are "Sorry" and "Locked Out," two Supernatural stories I wrote in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and the magnum opus for SVU, "The Heart of the Matter," which I wrote in 2005.
To have a story take off this quickly is flippin' insane to me. I'm thrilled to pieces, don't get me wrong, but it's insane.
It's just that it surprises me what strikes a chord with a readership. Like I said, "Can You Help Me" was a little idea I got on the drive to work. "Sorry" was based on, no lie, a real game of Sorry that happened in my family that I translated into a cute little pre-series Supernatural story, and "Locked Out" was an idea about a preteen Dean locking himself and Sam out of the motel room during a rainstorm that came quite literally out of nowhere. And "The Heart of the Matter"? I still have no idea why that story is so popular. It's a half-casefile, half-personal relationship, slow-burn Casey/Olivia story that I really don't think is anything super-special. Apparently, though, it is, for reasons completely unknown to me.
But things like that that also give me confidence. Having something that I don't think is in any way special resonate with an audience is an amazing feeling.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Ficlet: Faith and Fantasy (1/1)
Another response to a Facebook prompt: "Once Upon a Time - Indescribable." I'm not publishing it as an exercise because this is actually the second version of the piece and as such, I've done a more intense editing than I usually do for the exercises. That said, it's a little less polished than normal for me, but I kind of liked the rough way it was reading.
Title: Faith and Fantasy
Summary: That was when her streak of taking things in stride for the sake of the mission had come to a crashing halt.
Word Count: 1011, so sayeth Works.
Spoilers: The following takes place during 1x22, "A Land Without Magic."
Characters: Emma Swan, with mentions of Regina, Mr. Gold, Henry, and August.
Rating/Warning: PG for brief language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I borrowed the characters for a bit but I'll return them when I'm done!
-----
Title: Faith and Fantasy
Summary: That was when her streak of taking things in stride for the sake of the mission had come to a crashing halt.
Word Count: 1011, so sayeth Works.
Spoilers: The following takes place during 1x22, "A Land Without Magic."
Characters: Emma Swan, with mentions of Regina, Mr. Gold, Henry, and August.
Rating/Warning: PG for brief language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I borrowed the characters for a bit but I'll return them when I'm done!
-----
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Writing Excercise #11
I haven't done a writing excercise in a dog's age, but I asked for prompts on my Facebook page and this is a response to one of them. Couple of things:
1) Once again, completely original, not connected to any other universe, mine or otherwise.
2) Also again, it's in first person and I so very rarely do first person. I can write it for the short things, but I find it very hard to maintain over the course of a longer story. It's also present/past tense instead of past/past perfect, which as a rule I don't like and have never written. I think I caught all the tense issues, but there may be a couple here and there.
3) The prompt will probably make no sense outside of a select few. The fact that you may not understand the prompt does not necessarily matter. :)
Prompt: DJK
Fandom: original
-----
My name is Ashley, and I have the Boss From Hell.
I know most people say that, but I’m full-on serious about this. The man is the Tasmanian Devil. He swoops in, muddies the waters to the point of sit-at-your-desk-with-your-head-in-your-hands stress, and then swoops back out, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.
He creates chaos like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Now, Ashley, you’re saying, he can’t really be that bad. You want an example? Okay, try this one on for size.
We had some people coming in for an interview. Staffing has never been a problem but we’d found ourselves with so much work that I needed help running the front office. So I was pleased as punch when I’d learned that he’d agreed to not only find a couple of new recruits to help me out but also that I was getting a promotion to Office Manager. Which, not to toot my own horn or anything, I already was. But at least now I’d get the title, the pay bump, and the staffers to manage instead of doing it all myself.
After weeks of work, I had whittled down the stack of potential candidates (who knew we were in such high demand?) to the two I felt would do the best job. I’d just gotten the potential recruits comfortable with some beverages when Mr. Chaos himself stormed out of his office, all fire and brimstone and ranting about how none of us know what we’re doing and how we’re all holding him back.
Now, his rants are part and parcel of working here. I’m so used to them that I pretty much tune him out the second I hear that particular intake of breath and that particular tone in his voice. He rants and raves and then calms down and a second or two later, he’s forgotten he was even angry. Maybe he has too much on his mind. Or maybe he just needs the release. I don’t know. The point is, it’s normal and I was unfazed.
My recruits, however, were very much fazed. They both glanced at each other and took off running before I had even realized what happened. If it had been a cartoon, they would have left little puffs of smoke in their wake.
My boss looked from the chairs the recruits had been occupying to the door and then to me. “Was it something I said?”
I simply sighed. All those hours of work and I still had no new demon staffers to show for it. But I suppose these are the kinds of things that happen when you work in Hell’s Front Office, running interference for the Bossman himself. At least the office is never cold.
1) Once again, completely original, not connected to any other universe, mine or otherwise.
2) Also again, it's in first person and I so very rarely do first person. I can write it for the short things, but I find it very hard to maintain over the course of a longer story. It's also present/past tense instead of past/past perfect, which as a rule I don't like and have never written. I think I caught all the tense issues, but there may be a couple here and there.
3) The prompt will probably make no sense outside of a select few. The fact that you may not understand the prompt does not necessarily matter. :)
Prompt: DJK
Fandom: original
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My name is Ashley, and I have the Boss From Hell.
I know most people say that, but I’m full-on serious about this. The man is the Tasmanian Devil. He swoops in, muddies the waters to the point of sit-at-your-desk-with-your-head-in-your-hands stress, and then swoops back out, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.
He creates chaos like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Now, Ashley, you’re saying, he can’t really be that bad. You want an example? Okay, try this one on for size.
We had some people coming in for an interview. Staffing has never been a problem but we’d found ourselves with so much work that I needed help running the front office. So I was pleased as punch when I’d learned that he’d agreed to not only find a couple of new recruits to help me out but also that I was getting a promotion to Office Manager. Which, not to toot my own horn or anything, I already was. But at least now I’d get the title, the pay bump, and the staffers to manage instead of doing it all myself.
After weeks of work, I had whittled down the stack of potential candidates (who knew we were in such high demand?) to the two I felt would do the best job. I’d just gotten the potential recruits comfortable with some beverages when Mr. Chaos himself stormed out of his office, all fire and brimstone and ranting about how none of us know what we’re doing and how we’re all holding him back.
Now, his rants are part and parcel of working here. I’m so used to them that I pretty much tune him out the second I hear that particular intake of breath and that particular tone in his voice. He rants and raves and then calms down and a second or two later, he’s forgotten he was even angry. Maybe he has too much on his mind. Or maybe he just needs the release. I don’t know. The point is, it’s normal and I was unfazed.
My recruits, however, were very much fazed. They both glanced at each other and took off running before I had even realized what happened. If it had been a cartoon, they would have left little puffs of smoke in their wake.
My boss looked from the chairs the recruits had been occupying to the door and then to me. “Was it something I said?”
I simply sighed. All those hours of work and I still had no new demon staffers to show for it. But I suppose these are the kinds of things that happen when you work in Hell’s Front Office, running interference for the Bossman himself. At least the office is never cold.
Friday, July 06, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Twelve (12/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: Coming in at 56 pages and a final word count of 24,728, according to Works, "Breaking Point" is the second-longest fanfic I've ever written. Posting this last chapter is rather bittersweet for me. It's been ages since I've written something this long and this challenging, so seeing it through to completion feels amazing. And yet, I'm kind of sad that it's over. From inception to finish, this thing was an absolute blast.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: Coming in at 56 pages and a final word count of 24,728, according to Works, "Breaking Point" is the second-longest fanfic I've ever written. Posting this last chapter is rather bittersweet for me. It's been ages since I've written something this long and this challenging, so seeing it through to completion feels amazing. And yet, I'm kind of sad that it's over. From inception to finish, this thing was an absolute blast.
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Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Eleven (11/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I can't remember if I mentioned it in one of my previous author's notes or not, but Mary Margaret and Emma are the heart of this show for me. If the plotting of the story had allowed for it, I could easily have written the whole twelve chapters with just the two of them. I loved the period of time in the show between Mary Margaret telling Emma Henry thought she was Snow White and Emma telling Mary Margaret that Henry thought she was Emma's mother because I liked Emma knowing Henry's theory re: their connection while Mary Margaret didn't. I played with that a bit here.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I can't remember if I mentioned it in one of my previous author's notes or not, but Mary Margaret and Emma are the heart of this show for me. If the plotting of the story had allowed for it, I could easily have written the whole twelve chapters with just the two of them. I loved the period of time in the show between Mary Margaret telling Emma Henry thought she was Snow White and Emma telling Mary Margaret that Henry thought she was Emma's mother because I liked Emma knowing Henry's theory re: their connection while Mary Margaret didn't. I played with that a bit here.
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Saturday, June 30, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Ten (10/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I've written a few therapy session scenes in my time, but none of them came out quite as easily as this one. Once again, what you see below is not the direction I intended on taking when I started writing the scene. It happened as I wrote, and I decided I liked it a lot better than my original plan of Emma faking her way through the session. Also, I'm beginning to see why there's so much Regina/Emma fic out there. Their back-and-forth is really fun to write.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I've written a few therapy session scenes in my time, but none of them came out quite as easily as this one. Once again, what you see below is not the direction I intended on taking when I started writing the scene. It happened as I wrote, and I decided I liked it a lot better than my original plan of Emma faking her way through the session. Also, I'm beginning to see why there's so much Regina/Emma fic out there. Their back-and-forth is really fun to write.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Nine (9/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: My original intention for this chapter was fluff for fluff's sake. Every story needs a little bit of fluff, and this one has been so heavy, I thought it would be nice to have some fun, just as a release. Well, the story itself had other ideas, and the chapter ended up being pretty crucial to the plot. Having Emma and David spend time together was fun but a challenge since the two of them didn't have a lot of hanging-out screentime.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: My original intention for this chapter was fluff for fluff's sake. Every story needs a little bit of fluff, and this one has been so heavy, I thought it would be nice to have some fun, just as a release. Well, the story itself had other ideas, and the chapter ended up being pretty crucial to the plot. Having Emma and David spend time together was fun but a challenge since the two of them didn't have a lot of hanging-out screentime.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Eight (8/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: The Henry/Emma dynamic is really fun, and Henry just kind of writes himself. I love when characters do that; it makes my job so much easier, hee. August/Emma is also kind of a blast. I love how August is one of the only people that Emma feels she can really bounce her ideas off of. Having August be the one to help her figure out her next step was a natural choice, and I thought his suggestion was a neat little Easter egg for his true identity.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: The Henry/Emma dynamic is really fun, and Henry just kind of writes himself. I love when characters do that; it makes my job so much easier, hee. August/Emma is also kind of a blast. I love how August is one of the only people that Emma feels she can really bounce her ideas off of. Having August be the one to help her figure out her next step was a natural choice, and I thought his suggestion was a neat little Easter egg for his true identity.
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Friday, June 22, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Seven (7/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: This is probably the shortest chapter in the story, word-count-wise, and yet it's the one I've spent the most time on in edits (so far). It's such a pivotal chapter that I really felt like it needed the attention. The original version of this, Emma was more emotional rather than angry (actually, my first-draft Emma was a lot more emotional in general, which is something I had to reel in during the editing process) and I ended up adding a lot more inner monologue to the narrative.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: This is probably the shortest chapter in the story, word-count-wise, and yet it's the one I've spent the most time on in edits (so far). It's such a pivotal chapter that I really felt like it needed the attention. The original version of this, Emma was more emotional rather than angry (actually, my first-draft Emma was a lot more emotional in general, which is something I had to reel in during the editing process) and I ended up adding a lot more inner monologue to the narrative.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Six (6/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: One of the things I really love about the Emma/Mary Margaret dynamic is that Emma's so closed off, but Mary Margaret instinctively knows what she has to do in order to reach her. I've tried to inject that in this chapter, with Mary Margaret wanting desperately to do something but knowing she has to do it Emma's way. Also, Regina is still ridiculously fun to write.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: One of the things I really love about the Emma/Mary Margaret dynamic is that Emma's so closed off, but Mary Margaret instinctively knows what she has to do in order to reach her. I've tried to inject that in this chapter, with Mary Margaret wanting desperately to do something but knowing she has to do it Emma's way. Also, Regina is still ridiculously fun to write.
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Saturday, June 16, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Five (5/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I wrote the first section of this chapter at 11:30 one night and truthfully, I didn't change it all that much during edits. I mostly added clarifications because whipping something out in twenty minutes at 11:30 pm does not lend itself well to clarity. Trying to get a handle on poor Emma's emotional state after a night like that for the second section was a blast.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: I wrote the first section of this chapter at 11:30 one night and truthfully, I didn't change it all that much during edits. I mostly added clarifications because whipping something out in twenty minutes at 11:30 pm does not lend itself well to clarity. Trying to get a handle on poor Emma's emotional state after a night like that for the second section was a blast.
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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Four (4/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: The Regina/Henry dynamic is really interesting to explore, and I'm kind of bummed that the plotting of this story didn't allow me to do more of it. I may have to do a oneshot or two to play around with it a little more. Not that I'm complaining about that, ha.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: The Regina/Henry dynamic is really interesting to explore, and I'm kind of bummed that the plotting of this story didn't allow me to do more of it. I may have to do a oneshot or two to play around with it a little more. Not that I'm complaining about that, ha.
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Three (3/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: This was another fun one but this time the fun came from trying to hit all the appropriate emotional notes. From Mary Margaret's confusion and fear to Emma's panic and anger, it was all kinds of enjoyable.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: This was another fun one but this time the fun came from trying to hit all the appropriate emotional notes. From Mary Margaret's confusion and fear to Emma's panic and anger, it was all kinds of enjoyable.
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Thursday, June 07, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter Two (2/12)
Title: Breaking Point
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: You have absolutely no idea how much fun this chapter was to write. It kind of frightens me how much fun I have with Regina. She's hard to find but when I do finally find her, she's a blast.
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Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: You have absolutely no idea how much fun this chapter was to write. It kind of frightens me how much fun I have with Regina. She's hard to find but when I do finally find her, she's a blast.
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Monday, June 04, 2012
Writing Challenge: Breaking Point, Chapter One (1/12)
So! I've gotten Writing Challenge to the point that I'm ready to start posting now. Picture me squealing like an ecstatic teenage girl. (No, seriously. You have no idea how fun this was. Or how exciting it is for me to actually be excited about having something to post. No writer's block on this sucker!)
And, yeah, it's fanfic. But it was friggin' fun fanfic. I had a total blast with this story. So, without further ado:
Title: Breaking Point
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: As with Harper's Island before it, I was most emphatically not going to write Once Upon a Time fic. And then hiatus happened. Mad props to ViciousCircle on the TWoP forums for suggesting the basic plot for this story and to Aliasscape for suggesting someone turn it into a fic. I took it as a challenge. My first time writing in a new fandom is always very nervous-making for me, so feedback is much appreciated. Enjoy!
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And, yeah, it's fanfic. But it was friggin' fun fanfic. I had a total blast with this story. So, without further ado:
Title: Breaking Point
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Summary: Emma leaving town was out of the question, and that was perfectly fine with Regina. As a matter of fact, Emma absolutely must stay in Storybrooke for a long, long time. And she knew just how to accomplish that.
Spoilers: Up through 1x19, "The Return."
Characters: Mostly Emma, Regina, and Mary Margaret, with special appearances by Henry, August, Archie, David, and Dr. Whale along the way.
Rating/Warning: PG-13, mostly for language.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox. Please don't sue me! You won't get much.
Author's Note: As with Harper's Island before it, I was most emphatically not going to write Once Upon a Time fic. And then hiatus happened. Mad props to ViciousCircle on the TWoP forums for suggesting the basic plot for this story and to Aliasscape for suggesting someone turn it into a fic. I took it as a challenge. My first time writing in a new fandom is always very nervous-making for me, so feedback is much appreciated. Enjoy!
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
Writing Challenge
A little while ago, a couple posters on a message board I frequent suggested a writing challenge. Well, actually, one poster jokingly suggested the plot go a certain way, other posters added to it, and a final poster suggested someone actually go write the fanfic because it sounded awesome. My original response was that I would try it myself save for the crippling case of writer's block I had going on.
But then, as it happened, the challenge got into my head. I started thinking of various ways to go about it but at first it was just flights of fancy. When I began dreaming about it at night, I decided it was time to start seriously thinking about trying to write it.
I had a couple of plot details to work out but I got one bit of inspiration from an earlier episode of the show and a final bit of inspiration out of the clear blue sky. So yesterday afternoon, I went out and bought a new notebook, some new pens, and set to work.
I decided to start on paper because, well, paper is my roots. I always used to start my stories in a notebook and do a bulk of the editing when I typed the story up later on. In more recent years, I've been writing strictly on the computer for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included the ease of transferring the file from home computer to work computer and back again. Plus, I type a lot faster than I handwrite, so it saved a lot of time.
But the big problem with writing on a computer, especially when you have writer's block, is that it's so freakin' easy to just backspace and/or delete if you don't like something. Then you get into a constant cycle of writing and deleting and writing and deleting and you never make any progress. Of course with a notebook, you can certainly white-out, but there's more of a thought process there than just, "Eh, I don't like this. *presses Delete*"
I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening and almost all of today writing. It's not coming out as easily as it used to but it is coming out and I like it a lot better than anything I've written in the past year or so. And more importantly, I am having an absolute blast! It is indeed a challenge, but I'm having a ton of fun attempting to rise to it.
Perhaps this is what I really needed. Something completely new. Something to kickstart the creative juices again. I'll keep y'all posted!
But then, as it happened, the challenge got into my head. I started thinking of various ways to go about it but at first it was just flights of fancy. When I began dreaming about it at night, I decided it was time to start seriously thinking about trying to write it.
I had a couple of plot details to work out but I got one bit of inspiration from an earlier episode of the show and a final bit of inspiration out of the clear blue sky. So yesterday afternoon, I went out and bought a new notebook, some new pens, and set to work.
I decided to start on paper because, well, paper is my roots. I always used to start my stories in a notebook and do a bulk of the editing when I typed the story up later on. In more recent years, I've been writing strictly on the computer for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included the ease of transferring the file from home computer to work computer and back again. Plus, I type a lot faster than I handwrite, so it saved a lot of time.
But the big problem with writing on a computer, especially when you have writer's block, is that it's so freakin' easy to just backspace and/or delete if you don't like something. Then you get into a constant cycle of writing and deleting and writing and deleting and you never make any progress. Of course with a notebook, you can certainly white-out, but there's more of a thought process there than just, "Eh, I don't like this. *presses Delete*"
I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening and almost all of today writing. It's not coming out as easily as it used to but it is coming out and I like it a lot better than anything I've written in the past year or so. And more importantly, I am having an absolute blast! It is indeed a challenge, but I'm having a ton of fun attempting to rise to it.
Perhaps this is what I really needed. Something completely new. Something to kickstart the creative juices again. I'll keep y'all posted!
Sunday, April 01, 2012
A Small Epiphany, But I'll Take It!
I need to know how to like my own writing again.
I mean, I do like my own writing. I read stuff I've written and I enjoy it. In all honesty, sometimes I forget I even wrote it and just get lost in the story. I'm not looking at it in terms of "this sentence structure is good" and "this dialogue didn't really work the way I thought it would." I'm just ... reading it. Like I would be reading a book I bought at the store.
And then I wonder why I can't do that again. If I could do it three or four or five or whatever years ago, I should be able to do it now.
And yet I can't.
I know that it's me. I'm gripping, and I know that I'm gripping. I totally recognize that what I'm writing doesn't really suck and that I don't really need to just delete everything and start over. As a matter of fact, I was reading over one of the rewrite projects I started and subsequently abandonded because it sucked out loud omg, and it really isn't that bad. I just ... don't like it.
I'm not happy with it. Any of it. Not just The Witch of November, but anything. I start something and I stop. That fanfic I posted a couple weeks ago? That was a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite. It took me something like three weeks to get it to where I wanted it, and I'm used to being able to whip short little one-shots like that out in a matter of days.
It is inordinately frustrating.
That all being said, however, I think I came up with a small epiphany for my prologue. I was having trouble hitting the correct emotional notes, partly because I felt it was too heavy to start out the book. Maybe "heavy" isn't the correct word, but the prologue was reading as more depressing than I really wanted it to.
So I came up with the idea of having Lillian totally into the idea of the seance instead of choosing to do one because it was a last resort. That way, the prologue reads are more anticipatory than desperate, which I think will help with the tone issue I was having.
At least, I hope so.
So, y'know, cross your fingers for me.
Oh, and one more quick thing: I've mentioned using the Social Security Administration website to get an idea on popular names in various time periods. I've also found a website that will tell you what day of the week any given date was.
(This all came about because I wanted Millie and Lillian's seance to be held on a Friday in August of 1877. I freely admit that I'm a dork.)
I mean, I do like my own writing. I read stuff I've written and I enjoy it. In all honesty, sometimes I forget I even wrote it and just get lost in the story. I'm not looking at it in terms of "this sentence structure is good" and "this dialogue didn't really work the way I thought it would." I'm just ... reading it. Like I would be reading a book I bought at the store.
And then I wonder why I can't do that again. If I could do it three or four or five or whatever years ago, I should be able to do it now.
And yet I can't.
I know that it's me. I'm gripping, and I know that I'm gripping. I totally recognize that what I'm writing doesn't really suck and that I don't really need to just delete everything and start over. As a matter of fact, I was reading over one of the rewrite projects I started and subsequently abandonded because it sucked out loud omg, and it really isn't that bad. I just ... don't like it.
I'm not happy with it. Any of it. Not just The Witch of November, but anything. I start something and I stop. That fanfic I posted a couple weeks ago? That was a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite. It took me something like three weeks to get it to where I wanted it, and I'm used to being able to whip short little one-shots like that out in a matter of days.
It is inordinately frustrating.
That all being said, however, I think I came up with a small epiphany for my prologue. I was having trouble hitting the correct emotional notes, partly because I felt it was too heavy to start out the book. Maybe "heavy" isn't the correct word, but the prologue was reading as more depressing than I really wanted it to.
So I came up with the idea of having Lillian totally into the idea of the seance instead of choosing to do one because it was a last resort. That way, the prologue reads are more anticipatory than desperate, which I think will help with the tone issue I was having.
At least, I hope so.
So, y'know, cross your fingers for me.
Oh, and one more quick thing: I've mentioned using the Social Security Administration website to get an idea on popular names in various time periods. I've also found a website that will tell you what day of the week any given date was.
(This all came about because I wanted Millie and Lillian's seance to be held on a Friday in August of 1877. I freely admit that I'm a dork.)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Fanfic: SVU: A Night at Casey's
Title: A Night at Casey's
Summary: What on earth could two well-behaved, lovely kids possibly do to run Casey so ragged? Three minutes later, Olivia found out.
Word Count: 4298, so says Works.
Spoilers: None.
Pairing: None.
Rating/Warning: G. No real warnings to speak of, but you might want to be careful of the saccharine and the silliness.
Disclaimer: Casey Novak and Olivia Benson belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. I borrowed them when they weren't looking, but I promise to return them when I'm done!
Author's Note: Lynn and Stephanie Novak have appeared in "Stalemate", "A Day With the Cole Brothers", and "A Day at the Mall" and are completely un-canon. Since no one ever bothered to give Casey a canon family, I figured I was allowed to give her one myself.
Author's Note 2: I've never really given a strict timeline to this little series of stories, but in my head, "Stalemate" took place in the early part of season six (so, late 2004). The two following one-shots take place about a year and a half later, with "A Day at the Mall" ahead of "A Day With the Cole Brothers" by a couple of months. The following is set during the same year (2006), a few weeks before "A Day at the Mall."
Author's Note 3: This is what is known as a majorly insistent plotbunny. It just lodged itself in my head and would. not. leave until I indugled it. I apologize if this isn't up to my usual standard, but the fact that I like something enough to post is kind of a big deal right now. And finally, the following is ridiculously silly. Have fun!
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Summary: What on earth could two well-behaved, lovely kids possibly do to run Casey so ragged? Three minutes later, Olivia found out.
Word Count: 4298, so says Works.
Spoilers: None.
Pairing: None.
Rating/Warning: G. No real warnings to speak of, but you might want to be careful of the saccharine and the silliness.
Disclaimer: Casey Novak and Olivia Benson belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. I borrowed them when they weren't looking, but I promise to return them when I'm done!
Author's Note: Lynn and Stephanie Novak have appeared in "Stalemate", "A Day With the Cole Brothers", and "A Day at the Mall" and are completely un-canon. Since no one ever bothered to give Casey a canon family, I figured I was allowed to give her one myself.
Author's Note 2: I've never really given a strict timeline to this little series of stories, but in my head, "Stalemate" took place in the early part of season six (so, late 2004). The two following one-shots take place about a year and a half later, with "A Day at the Mall" ahead of "A Day With the Cole Brothers" by a couple of months. The following is set during the same year (2006), a few weeks before "A Day at the Mall."
Author's Note 3: This is what is known as a majorly insistent plotbunny. It just lodged itself in my head and would. not. leave until I indugled it. I apologize if this isn't up to my usual standard, but the fact that I like something enough to post is kind of a big deal right now. And finally, the following is ridiculously silly. Have fun!
-----
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Kicking Writer's Block In The Pants
Okay, you remember how I wrote in all my previous posts about various fanfic projects? (It's okay if you don't, because I totally fail at updating this thing.) Yeah, pretend I didn't write those posts, because I never finished the fics.
I'm not entirely sure why. It could be because I'm up to my arse in Writer's Block Argh-ness. (Yes, I just made that up. Stop looking at me like that.) It could be because my fandom tastes have changed. It's very hard to go back and write fic for a fandom you haven't written for in quite literally years.
But this post is not meant to be about fanfic and certainly not about fanfic projects that never got off the ground. This post is about how I maybe possibly am kicking my writer's black in the pants.
I'm not willing to call it conquered yet. But I am willing to let it know that I am finally ready to fight back with all I have.
A huge part of my issue with the beginning couple chapters of The Witch of November is that I just don't like it. How can I expect anyone else to like it when I don't like it?
How did I get to a point where I don't even like my own writing? I don't really know. But I think a large part of it was because I was trying to write it with the judgments of any potential readers who aren't me. Essentially, I was trying to write for some imaginary panel of judges rather than for myself.
The only problem is you have to write for yourself. It just comes out better that way. I have to tell the story in the way that I want to rather than the way I think someone else might want to read it.
So you know what? Screw the imaginary readers. The only reader who matters (at least right now) is me. The more I write for me, the more I'll like what I've written. And maybe then we can get the confidence level back up enough to edit properly instead of deleting things over and over because I think they suck.
Want a snippet? This is what ten minutes with headphones and writing for oneself can do:
If anyone had told Lillian Blackstone a year ago that she’d be standing in her own parlor with an old card table acting as a makeshift altar while Mildred Albertson arranged candles on top, she would have laughed in that person’s face.
She’d been so young then, so naïve. So unaware that her comfortable, blissful life could be taken away in an instant. So unconcerned about the cruel ocean and what it could take from her. Her entire twenty-three years had been spent in a fishing town, but she’d believed that she and Josiah would beat the odds. Their marriage would last forever, immune to the ravages of winter storms and rough seas.
She’d been so stupid.
Life as she knew it ended on November 23, 1876, the night that a sudden storm had claimed the love of her life. After just barely eight months of marriage, Lillian was a twenty-three-year-old widow. For the past three months she’d done nothing but cry for the life she’d never share with her husband.
The day Mildred Albertson stopped by to offer condolences was the day that Lillian’s life had taken another turn. It was Millie who told her that death didn’t mean the end. It was Millie who offered her hope.
See? Much better. We'll just see if I like it this much tomorrow, ha.
I'm not entirely sure why. It could be because I'm up to my arse in Writer's Block Argh-ness. (Yes, I just made that up. Stop looking at me like that.) It could be because my fandom tastes have changed. It's very hard to go back and write fic for a fandom you haven't written for in quite literally years.
But this post is not meant to be about fanfic and certainly not about fanfic projects that never got off the ground. This post is about how I maybe possibly am kicking my writer's black in the pants.
I'm not willing to call it conquered yet. But I am willing to let it know that I am finally ready to fight back with all I have.
A huge part of my issue with the beginning couple chapters of The Witch of November is that I just don't like it. How can I expect anyone else to like it when I don't like it?
How did I get to a point where I don't even like my own writing? I don't really know. But I think a large part of it was because I was trying to write it with the judgments of any potential readers who aren't me. Essentially, I was trying to write for some imaginary panel of judges rather than for myself.
The only problem is you have to write for yourself. It just comes out better that way. I have to tell the story in the way that I want to rather than the way I think someone else might want to read it.
So you know what? Screw the imaginary readers. The only reader who matters (at least right now) is me. The more I write for me, the more I'll like what I've written. And maybe then we can get the confidence level back up enough to edit properly instead of deleting things over and over because I think they suck.
Want a snippet? This is what ten minutes with headphones and writing for oneself can do:
If anyone had told Lillian Blackstone a year ago that she’d be standing in her own parlor with an old card table acting as a makeshift altar while Mildred Albertson arranged candles on top, she would have laughed in that person’s face.
She’d been so young then, so naïve. So unaware that her comfortable, blissful life could be taken away in an instant. So unconcerned about the cruel ocean and what it could take from her. Her entire twenty-three years had been spent in a fishing town, but she’d believed that she and Josiah would beat the odds. Their marriage would last forever, immune to the ravages of winter storms and rough seas.
She’d been so stupid.
Life as she knew it ended on November 23, 1876, the night that a sudden storm had claimed the love of her life. After just barely eight months of marriage, Lillian was a twenty-three-year-old widow. For the past three months she’d done nothing but cry for the life she’d never share with her husband.
The day Mildred Albertson stopped by to offer condolences was the day that Lillian’s life had taken another turn. It was Millie who told her that death didn’t mean the end. It was Millie who offered her hope.
See? Much better. We'll just see if I like it this much tomorrow, ha.
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