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Live from my brain
So, haha, hilariously I had thought that once I'd posted the Epic Romance, I'd stop thinking about it and move on.
Like I said, haha.
It's still occupying most of my fannish brain, but I'm okay with that, as it's a pretty great place to be. After all, it's the world and dynamics I custom built for my own glee! So I've half been reflecting on the process of writing it, and how it helped to shift and clarify what I'm interested in; and half in how I'm planning to perpetuate all the fun stuff I set up (and do more of what I like with what I've got, instead of starting again from scratch).
But, I've been kind of plotting a reflective post for a while, so this seems like an opportunity to make it.
The biggest technical thing that stands out to me in reflection is that omg, I wrote a NOVEL, and that's not at all like writing a short story. As verbose as I've got in recent years, most of my pieces are still pretty much single-scene fics, which I basically use to zoom in on one particular idea or dynamic and bam, follow it through. (And more often than not lately, the medium I do that through is porn, but more on that later.)
Novels, duh, have to actually have dramatic tension, and momentum, and pacing that accommodates all that. My first draft, while fun, did not have most of that. It was written like I write short stories, really--with lots of gratification and wallowing in detail. There were at least four more letters that were far more romantic, and the main emotional conflict was resolved pretty much a thousand words after I set it up. (The cut passages linger still in my draft folder, but make little sense along as the whole plot of those parts changed.)
Thank god for my amazing structural beta, who told me exactly where to chop, change and expand to actually give me the tension and pacing it does now. I still don't understand half the technical things she told me, but I figure I'm closer to being on the right track for writing longer stories now than I was before.
The really big thing that's I've come out the other side with, though, is the clarification of what I really want to write about. And how I want to write it.
Porn v. Plot: I have totally been stuck in the rut of writing porn. I do adore it as a medium for exploring character dynamics, and think it can be used to do all kinds of sex-positive things (which I think is really important, as often porn--fannish porn definitely no exception--does lots of 'invisible' sex-negative things). There's also the added bonus of porn being very gratifying to post--people leave feedback on it, and great feedback to boot.
But, BUT. I got into serious porning through my last fandom, Torchwood, and that made a lot of sense--my reading of the pairing I wrote was that a lot of their significant interactions happened through sex. But, that's not quite working with Merlin. I've written a bunch of porn, yes, but there's only so much of it I can write to explore the interactions I want to.
So, what are the interactions I'm interested in writing about?
When I first started reading Merlin fic, I pretty much only gobbled up Arthur/Merlin stories. At the time I didn't feel I was really in the fandom, I just needed some comfort reading, and that classic slash pairing with all its destiny and devotion and OTPness and reincarnation stuff fit the bill for me.
But in terms of writing... I've got nothing to say there. There's an immense body of work that I've greatly enjoyed that explores all kinds of things that revolve around the key themes above. But I don't want to write any of that.
I'm more interested in the breadth of relationships--romantic and otherwise--that are available to write about. And, to be honest, I'm more interested in the relationships and dynamics I've set up in the Epic Romance. Destined love is great, but what I find myself gagging to write is the people who *aren't* dictated by destiny, and how they nonetheless determinedly wedge themselves into the picture. So, in this case, there's Arthur and Merlin on their epic destined partnership; and on the sidelines are Gwaine and Gwen and Lancelot who are choosing to stick with them. And of course, the Destined Ones reciprocating back (which, of course, just makes everything much more complicated). And the relationships between all those individuals, and how they change over time.
Which means, of course, I'm also interested in identity. And I think this is a larger shift/evolution of my general approach to writing fanfic--I feel like I'm at a turning point where I don't just want to write universes where it's uncommented and okay that everyone is gay. I want to write stories where people are queer and this puts them in conflict of the world that makes assumptions about them. And I want to write about gender, too--which I think is also often addressed with the same (faux-)utopic ideology.
TL;DR, I want to write about complex individuals and how they butt up against each other.
Which actually doesn't sound that far from what I've always wanted to write. haha.
SO, MEANWHILE, in mind of all this, I've actually started writing another story in the Epic Romance 'verse (2,500 words and counting!). Part of what's helping this along is being in the UK right now, and walking through this incredible countryside and pretty much constantly shrieking on the inside in inspired glee.
Because, okay, I know this landscape must be pretty yawn, mundane, for a number of you, but I am from Australia, okay? We don't do landscape like this AT ALL. And this is the landscape my 'verse is set in. So it's like stepping right into the world.
Seriously, I wish plein air writing was a thing, where I could just plonk myself down in the woods and start writing a scene set right in front of me.
">
/ramble!
Like I said, haha.
It's still occupying most of my fannish brain, but I'm okay with that, as it's a pretty great place to be. After all, it's the world and dynamics I custom built for my own glee! So I've half been reflecting on the process of writing it, and how it helped to shift and clarify what I'm interested in; and half in how I'm planning to perpetuate all the fun stuff I set up (and do more of what I like with what I've got, instead of starting again from scratch).
But, I've been kind of plotting a reflective post for a while, so this seems like an opportunity to make it.
The biggest technical thing that stands out to me in reflection is that omg, I wrote a NOVEL, and that's not at all like writing a short story. As verbose as I've got in recent years, most of my pieces are still pretty much single-scene fics, which I basically use to zoom in on one particular idea or dynamic and bam, follow it through. (And more often than not lately, the medium I do that through is porn, but more on that later.)
Novels, duh, have to actually have dramatic tension, and momentum, and pacing that accommodates all that. My first draft, while fun, did not have most of that. It was written like I write short stories, really--with lots of gratification and wallowing in detail. There were at least four more letters that were far more romantic, and the main emotional conflict was resolved pretty much a thousand words after I set it up. (The cut passages linger still in my draft folder, but make little sense along as the whole plot of those parts changed.)
Thank god for my amazing structural beta, who told me exactly where to chop, change and expand to actually give me the tension and pacing it does now. I still don't understand half the technical things she told me, but I figure I'm closer to being on the right track for writing longer stories now than I was before.
The really big thing that's I've come out the other side with, though, is the clarification of what I really want to write about. And how I want to write it.
Porn v. Plot: I have totally been stuck in the rut of writing porn. I do adore it as a medium for exploring character dynamics, and think it can be used to do all kinds of sex-positive things (which I think is really important, as often porn--fannish porn definitely no exception--does lots of 'invisible' sex-negative things). There's also the added bonus of porn being very gratifying to post--people leave feedback on it, and great feedback to boot.
But, BUT. I got into serious porning through my last fandom, Torchwood, and that made a lot of sense--my reading of the pairing I wrote was that a lot of their significant interactions happened through sex. But, that's not quite working with Merlin. I've written a bunch of porn, yes, but there's only so much of it I can write to explore the interactions I want to.
So, what are the interactions I'm interested in writing about?
When I first started reading Merlin fic, I pretty much only gobbled up Arthur/Merlin stories. At the time I didn't feel I was really in the fandom, I just needed some comfort reading, and that classic slash pairing with all its destiny and devotion and OTPness and reincarnation stuff fit the bill for me.
But in terms of writing... I've got nothing to say there. There's an immense body of work that I've greatly enjoyed that explores all kinds of things that revolve around the key themes above. But I don't want to write any of that.
I'm more interested in the breadth of relationships--romantic and otherwise--that are available to write about. And, to be honest, I'm more interested in the relationships and dynamics I've set up in the Epic Romance. Destined love is great, but what I find myself gagging to write is the people who *aren't* dictated by destiny, and how they nonetheless determinedly wedge themselves into the picture. So, in this case, there's Arthur and Merlin on their epic destined partnership; and on the sidelines are Gwaine and Gwen and Lancelot who are choosing to stick with them. And of course, the Destined Ones reciprocating back (which, of course, just makes everything much more complicated). And the relationships between all those individuals, and how they change over time.
Which means, of course, I'm also interested in identity. And I think this is a larger shift/evolution of my general approach to writing fanfic--I feel like I'm at a turning point where I don't just want to write universes where it's uncommented and okay that everyone is gay. I want to write stories where people are queer and this puts them in conflict of the world that makes assumptions about them. And I want to write about gender, too--which I think is also often addressed with the same (faux-)utopic ideology.
TL;DR, I want to write about complex individuals and how they butt up against each other.
Which actually doesn't sound that far from what I've always wanted to write. haha.
SO, MEANWHILE, in mind of all this, I've actually started writing another story in the Epic Romance 'verse (2,500 words and counting!). Part of what's helping this along is being in the UK right now, and walking through this incredible countryside and pretty much constantly shrieking on the inside in inspired glee.
Because, okay, I know this landscape must be pretty yawn, mundane, for a number of you, but I am from Australia, okay? We don't do landscape like this AT ALL. And this is the landscape my 'verse is set in. So it's like stepping right into the world.
Seriously, I wish plein air writing was a thing, where I could just plonk myself down in the woods and start writing a scene set right in front of me.
">
/ramble!