Where Edge of Sorrow goes off Canon-compliant and becomes AU...
I've been struggling with the S6 resurrection scene in the next chapter(s) of Edge of Sorrow, Heart of Truth (previous chapters on AO3 and at LJ), and I just realized at least one reason behind it.
This is the first scene in my story that exists in canon that I'm purposely deviating from, with notable significance. Everything I've written so far for Edge of Sorrow has been more or less canon-compliant, involving filling in missing scenes (e.g. the funeral in Chapter 4), and doing character studies (e.g. Willow's research into the spell; Giles and Spike reaching an understanding; Spike&Dawn friendship).
But I've always known that I want the resurrection scene to go down differently. This is where I approach something that resembles plot, and about time too. The rest of the story kind of hinges on it. But the thing is, I need to write this Canon-divergent scene as if it were the most natural next step of my Canon-compliant previous chapters. This ties up my hands a bit. I can't invent a convenient plot device I haven't set up before. It'd be too contrived. I can't do a retelling of Canon, because first of all, that's boring, and I've always hated writing plot summaries of books I've read even for school assignments.
Also, the outcome--the non-spoiler spoiler: Buffy gets resurrected, hardly surprisingly--will seem Canon-compliant at first, so that I can do a big reveal later. And the proceedings of the spell-casting are not really all that interesting to me, but are necessary for the story. Which means, much of the chapter (or more likely, chapters, because I'm up to page 18 in my Google Doc) is all setup and no relief, because the punch line, at least the way I see it, is delivered much, much later.
So...I'm nervous about writing this part because it's a big-deal pivot point in my story; I'm disinterested in the scene because it's not a new scene I've created, just a changed scene loosely based on Canon, and then I feel constrained by all that I cannot do and the fact that I have to do this resurrection scene and, well, it's hard, you know? :P
The second I have to write something, no choice, it stops being fun and becomes work. And the motivation's out the window and the Muse falls asleep. And originally I was excited to be able to tell the story from Willow's perspective. I wanted to describe the thrill of magic, the cold confidence in her abilities and the warm friendship turned into pain that Buffy's death created; how it was absolutely The Right Thing to do. Then I realized that because things go wrong and need to stay confusing, I need an unreliable narrator, an outsider, someone with incomplete knowledge about what's happening vs. what's supposed to happen, a magical illiterate. So now the scene's from Xander's perspective. Sigh. (I mean, the way I use him, Xander's great for comic relief, but I was really looking forward to exploring Willow's emotional range and magical abilities.) So I feel a bit cheated. It's what the story needs, I think, but it'd be a lot of fun to write about Willow doing magic, don't you agree?
On top of that, I had to write some gore (which, again, I think is necessary), and this whole thing just turned into the opposite of what I wanted to write.
Dumb writer that I am, I've just realized, belatedly, that writing AU would be (and would have been!) much, much easier. You don't have to fit this brand new puzzle piece you've just created into a finished picture and make it work, somehow. Whatever happened in Canon is not your problem to worry about, but what has been established in Canon (character traits, for example) is all free for the taking for your own world-building. The more you make your world different, the less you're constrained by Canon. Maybe this is why there are so many all-human high school fanfics.
Dreamwidth crosspost. Reply or view the
comments there.
This is the first scene in my story that exists in canon that I'm purposely deviating from, with notable significance. Everything I've written so far for Edge of Sorrow has been more or less canon-compliant, involving filling in missing scenes (e.g. the funeral in Chapter 4), and doing character studies (e.g. Willow's research into the spell; Giles and Spike reaching an understanding; Spike&Dawn friendship).
But I've always known that I want the resurrection scene to go down differently. This is where I approach something that resembles plot, and about time too. The rest of the story kind of hinges on it. But the thing is, I need to write this Canon-divergent scene as if it were the most natural next step of my Canon-compliant previous chapters. This ties up my hands a bit. I can't invent a convenient plot device I haven't set up before. It'd be too contrived. I can't do a retelling of Canon, because first of all, that's boring, and I've always hated writing plot summaries of books I've read even for school assignments.
Also, the outcome--the non-spoiler spoiler: Buffy gets resurrected, hardly surprisingly--will seem Canon-compliant at first, so that I can do a big reveal later. And the proceedings of the spell-casting are not really all that interesting to me, but are necessary for the story. Which means, much of the chapter (or more likely, chapters, because I'm up to page 18 in my Google Doc) is all setup and no relief, because the punch line, at least the way I see it, is delivered much, much later.
So...I'm nervous about writing this part because it's a big-deal pivot point in my story; I'm disinterested in the scene because it's not a new scene I've created, just a changed scene loosely based on Canon, and then I feel constrained by all that I cannot do and the fact that I have to do this resurrection scene and, well, it's hard, you know? :P
The second I have to write something, no choice, it stops being fun and becomes work. And the motivation's out the window and the Muse falls asleep. And originally I was excited to be able to tell the story from Willow's perspective. I wanted to describe the thrill of magic, the cold confidence in her abilities and the warm friendship turned into pain that Buffy's death created; how it was absolutely The Right Thing to do. Then I realized that because things go wrong and need to stay confusing, I need an unreliable narrator, an outsider, someone with incomplete knowledge about what's happening vs. what's supposed to happen, a magical illiterate. So now the scene's from Xander's perspective. Sigh. (I mean, the way I use him, Xander's great for comic relief, but I was really looking forward to exploring Willow's emotional range and magical abilities.) So I feel a bit cheated. It's what the story needs, I think, but it'd be a lot of fun to write about Willow doing magic, don't you agree?
On top of that, I had to write some gore (which, again, I think is necessary), and this whole thing just turned into the opposite of what I wanted to write.
Dumb writer that I am, I've just realized, belatedly, that writing AU would be (and would have been!) much, much easier. You don't have to fit this brand new puzzle piece you've just created into a finished picture and make it work, somehow. Whatever happened in Canon is not your problem to worry about, but what has been established in Canon (character traits, for example) is all free for the taking for your own world-building. The more you make your world different, the less you're constrained by Canon. Maybe this is why there are so many all-human high school fanfics.
Dreamwidth crosspost. Reply or view the
comments there.