I can haz brain back nao?
So, I haven't been around much the last two weeks (or so) because I've been working a story for the next Valdemar anthology. It's a lot harder to keep someone else's creation in your head than your own. Your own creation that is. You should pretty much stick to keeping things in your own head.
Where was I?
Oh yeah...
One of the biggest problems with writing in another person's world is that it takes some serious research to get the facts of the world right. (good fanfic writers -- and lets not argue about this because yes there are -- either have a serious case of OCD or spend as much time researching details as writing) Yes, there is the Valdemar Companion and, while it's helpful, it doesn't have useful lists of say, types of money or cuss words by country. (I personally find it very important that one gets the profanity right.) This means that the books had to be hauled out and scanned for those barely remembered throwaway lines that contain the specific detail the story requires. If said specific detail could occur in any of thirteen books, it will be the thirteenth one you check. Yes, it will. It's a rule.
The other problem was that I didn't exactly have a story. I had an idea. I had a character -- because I went with the continuing adventures of Herald Jors (the beloved pointed out that writing about Heralds just complicates things which is why she stays away from them as much as possible. I pointed out that it wasn't the Herald cussing.) -- and an ending. So I wrote 2,500 words of a maximum 7,000 then chopped off the first 1,000 and doggedly continued constructing plot as I went until I hit that afore mentioned ending. During editing, I deleted the whole climactic section and rewrote back up to the ending from scratch. (I'm sure there's a perfectly good smutty comment in here about being multi-climactic but I can't be bothered to come up with it right now.)
It was due the 15th and I sent off 6,440 words at 11pm last night. FTW! \o/
Anyway, that's why I haven't been around. You know, in case you were wondering.
Where was I?
Oh yeah...
One of the biggest problems with writing in another person's world is that it takes some serious research to get the facts of the world right. (good fanfic writers -- and lets not argue about this because yes there are -- either have a serious case of OCD or spend as much time researching details as writing) Yes, there is the Valdemar Companion and, while it's helpful, it doesn't have useful lists of say, types of money or cuss words by country. (I personally find it very important that one gets the profanity right.) This means that the books had to be hauled out and scanned for those barely remembered throwaway lines that contain the specific detail the story requires. If said specific detail could occur in any of thirteen books, it will be the thirteenth one you check. Yes, it will. It's a rule.
The other problem was that I didn't exactly have a story. I had an idea. I had a character -- because I went with the continuing adventures of Herald Jors (the beloved pointed out that writing about Heralds just complicates things which is why she stays away from them as much as possible. I pointed out that it wasn't the Herald cussing.) -- and an ending. So I wrote 2,500 words of a maximum 7,000 then chopped off the first 1,000 and doggedly continued constructing plot as I went until I hit that afore mentioned ending. During editing, I deleted the whole climactic section and rewrote back up to the ending from scratch. (I'm sure there's a perfectly good smutty comment in here about being multi-climactic but I can't be bothered to come up with it right now.)
It was due the 15th and I sent off 6,440 words at 11pm last night. FTW! \o/
Anyway, that's why I haven't been around. You know, in case you were wondering.