After the Whales Came Fic - Really long Fic
There's nothing quite like working somewhat obsessively on a 13 chapter fic, slowly posting and checking parts of it into A03 over an evening (to the detriment of my ComicCon prep), and then realizing that I'd somehow posted chapters 1 and 12, and couldn't seem to load the pages to say post chapters 2-11, and 13. And had planned to sleep on whether it was time to post.
The universe said, time to post.
Okay, so, about two months ago, I posted an Omegaverse fic, to much chagrin and fluttery hands. OMG, explicit fic. The vapours. Oddly, clicking to refreshingly, wow really, it has far and away the most hits for anything I've written. Which to be fair, I've written some pretty odd/obscure fic.
The thing is, I was also simultaneously wanting to write several more, as I have an idea for what is essense a tryptic, with a coda.
The idea is to take this AU, which is already an opportunity for all sorts of characters study on real and imagined gender tropes, and write the same base characters three different ways. Playing with the ways different life events, and darker/lighter experiences of the verse, might take them.
So I'm essentially writing the same story 3 times. 3 different ways. Each story commenting on and referencing some events that are in common. Some not.
Having Irene as a main character helped a lot with the Omegaverse unease, because it meant that the women aren't disappearing if I write/wrote another Omegaverse. There she is. This is also why Lestrade doesn't appear much in contrast to some of the other female characters. It's not that I don't like him, but with 2 male POV, I wanted to weight this story (and this verse) with interactions with women.
In any case, I've written the first 2 story ideas now: "Gordian" (Hope) and "Stars in a Phrygian Sky" (Faith). I plan on writing "Nameless zygote of a story in which all is flipped" (Charity). With a coda/followup actually titled "Faith, Hope, Charity" (or some such thing) returning to certain characters from each of the fic. And okay, one idea for a story for a pairing that I've never seen a fic for. That one might not happen. Heck someone might write that pairing and my mood will change.
Anyway, wow, if I thought "Gordian" was rough, "Stars" just kept going and going and going. The first couple of weeks, after I got back from my vacation, I thought it would be a much shorter story, so I let myself wake up at 4am to write (2 hours being optimal for a thought to play out), but after a couple of weeks of, please let me sleep/I feel like a pancake, that had to stop. With the attendant, every night coming home from work wanting to do nothing but write, because I couldn't all day, but not really having the opportunity (i.e., shun housemates or write - given the no end in sight - no shunning). In between, writing ideas on scap paper and in notebooks, except when I took out the notebook to type up the idea, and then forgot it and back to the scrap paper.
Since this is a 3 POV story, I also spent some time making sure everyone roughly balanced in each section. i.e., the boys didn't out talk Irene and leave her with nothing interesting to do. This led to some interesting races/expansions of sections. As well, as editing sections down.
Sherlock insisted on writing himself very verbose. Using twenty long words, because that's more precise. Or just fun to use certain words. Good lord the research. I really must donate to Wikipedia. I've gotten more than enough use out of it. Sherlock's also the one abusing parthenticals, which baring mouseovers was the only way I could think to get at overlapping simultaneous ideas. Lots of fragments.
John came out the briefest. I tried to get at negative space through his words and language. His meaning is often in what he does not say. How he doesn't say it. Using, as much as possible, simple sentences without clauses.
Irene came in somewhere in the middle with a fair number of sentence fragments and some leaps. Hopefully the transition in her early robust language to her more inverted descriptions works with how she's trying to control herself and environment, based out of being out of control at such an early age. Her end started out wildly different, but well, funny. But there's that sad moment when you realize that although, you like something you've written, the tone is all wrong. There were whole sections of that I removed. But that's writing. Mostly removing the things you've written.
Mystery 4th character - She got to be a blend, and was kind of the point of writing the story. Also, the reason that I used Science fiction titles for the chapters. So, I could use "Stars My Destination" as the final title.
While not overtly science fiction, I felt myself as writing science fiction as I wrote this. Exploring the normal by putting it in a different context. Also, aided with the science fiction titles, which I chose based on if the stories dealt with themes of societal convergence, complex gender scenarios, and okay, I could come up with a relevant quote.
Scents - While in Gordian, Sherlock had a very science approach to scent, I decided that everyone experiences what they smell in their own way. Thus each view point character approaches smells differently.
"Stars" felt like writing "Empire Strikes Back" after "Star Wars"/"Gordian". For a variety of reasons, everyone's experience of this verse was quite a bit darker. The next one may well be lighter. Hopefully. At the very least, I'll hopefully be watching a lot of caper movies/shows to get in the right mood.
Hmmm... anything else, well, I can see why NaNoWrimo doesn't really work for me. I need at least two months to write a novel. The problem is a matter of timing. NaNo is immediately followed by Yuletide, where I crank out another novels worth of separate stories, but they aren't that story. It's incredibly difficult to get back into a story flow once I've lost the moment. Or rather, I've got a writing hangover in January, and then I get new ideas, and trying to get back to that, "wow this needs to be edited and half of it chucked" isn't terribly appealing. Oh, look, shiny new thing. Something to think about.
Also, that kind of sustained effort is very difficult. But I think possibly the only way to write something that length.
Stars is not the most complex thing I've written. That honor still goes to "The Fifth Sun" with it's six POVs, renaissance AU fantasy setting, actual historical characters (with worked in actual quotes), Aztec/Mayan (yes, I know they're not the same) apocalypse. That story originally came in at 190k (before I knew how long that was) and required a flow chart (until I got it down to 70K) for even me to follow. That took years and many trips to the library.
But umm, three POV is three POV with alternative biology/history.
The other reason I want to reuse the universe is I have a fair number of ideas that I couldn't get across in any one story. Stars (based off of 1k for Gordian) has 4k (and I haven't decided yet if I'll post my list of links) of notes.
I think that's enough for now. I have Comic Con prep to do. Neon flashing alien outfits won't complete themselves.
In any case, the fic
Title: Stars in a Phrygian Sky
Fandom: Sherlock BBC, ACD Sherlock
Rating: Mature/NC-17
Pairing: Everyone and the cat (okay, not the cat, Toby was unmolested)
Sherlock Holmes/John Watson,Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes,Irene Adler/Molly Hooper,Irene Adler/Sally Donovan,Irene Adler/Jim Moriarty,Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty,Sherlock Holmes/Canon Male Characters, John Watson/Original Female Character, John Watson/Original Male Character(s), Irene Adler/Original Female Character, Irene Adler/Original Male Character
Length: 64690 words (well, 60,000ish + 4kish of notes)
Warnings/Tags: Spoilers S2, Omegaverse, angst, Dubious Consent, mpreg AU, Beta!John, Omega!Sherlock, Alpha!Irene, Language, Porn-porn, Underage Sex both between underage (adolescent) and adult/underage (adolescent), BDSM, Includes pairings of: M/M, F/F, M/F
Summary:
Sherlock got rid of everything that he had ever known about the stars when he was nine years and five months old, which given his plans to be a pirate in the West Indies, the importance of astral navigation for a pirate, and given that he was him, that had been quite a lot. He didn't give away his mariner's astrolabe until much later.
When Irene was ten years old, she fell in love with the most beautiful, perfectly-perfect amoral Omega woman ever. Which is to say, she read Steinbeck's "East of Eden".
John stayed up one particularly nasty March night until 2:32 am reading "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom". Hail rattled against the window. To John, it was the sound of desert sand on dry canvas.
The universe said, time to post.
Okay, so, about two months ago, I posted an Omegaverse fic, to much chagrin and fluttery hands. OMG, explicit fic. The vapours. Oddly, clicking to refreshingly, wow really, it has far and away the most hits for anything I've written. Which to be fair, I've written some pretty odd/obscure fic.
The thing is, I was also simultaneously wanting to write several more, as I have an idea for what is essense a tryptic, with a coda.
The idea is to take this AU, which is already an opportunity for all sorts of characters study on real and imagined gender tropes, and write the same base characters three different ways. Playing with the ways different life events, and darker/lighter experiences of the verse, might take them.
So I'm essentially writing the same story 3 times. 3 different ways. Each story commenting on and referencing some events that are in common. Some not.
Having Irene as a main character helped a lot with the Omegaverse unease, because it meant that the women aren't disappearing if I write/wrote another Omegaverse. There she is. This is also why Lestrade doesn't appear much in contrast to some of the other female characters. It's not that I don't like him, but with 2 male POV, I wanted to weight this story (and this verse) with interactions with women.
In any case, I've written the first 2 story ideas now: "Gordian" (Hope) and "Stars in a Phrygian Sky" (Faith). I plan on writing "Nameless zygote of a story in which all is flipped" (Charity). With a coda/followup actually titled "Faith, Hope, Charity" (or some such thing) returning to certain characters from each of the fic. And okay, one idea for a story for a pairing that I've never seen a fic for. That one might not happen. Heck someone might write that pairing and my mood will change.
Anyway, wow, if I thought "Gordian" was rough, "Stars" just kept going and going and going. The first couple of weeks, after I got back from my vacation, I thought it would be a much shorter story, so I let myself wake up at 4am to write (2 hours being optimal for a thought to play out), but after a couple of weeks of, please let me sleep/I feel like a pancake, that had to stop. With the attendant, every night coming home from work wanting to do nothing but write, because I couldn't all day, but not really having the opportunity (i.e., shun housemates or write - given the no end in sight - no shunning). In between, writing ideas on scap paper and in notebooks, except when I took out the notebook to type up the idea, and then forgot it and back to the scrap paper.
Since this is a 3 POV story, I also spent some time making sure everyone roughly balanced in each section. i.e., the boys didn't out talk Irene and leave her with nothing interesting to do. This led to some interesting races/expansions of sections. As well, as editing sections down.
Sherlock insisted on writing himself very verbose. Using twenty long words, because that's more precise. Or just fun to use certain words. Good lord the research. I really must donate to Wikipedia. I've gotten more than enough use out of it. Sherlock's also the one abusing parthenticals, which baring mouseovers was the only way I could think to get at overlapping simultaneous ideas. Lots of fragments.
John came out the briefest. I tried to get at negative space through his words and language. His meaning is often in what he does not say. How he doesn't say it. Using, as much as possible, simple sentences without clauses.
Irene came in somewhere in the middle with a fair number of sentence fragments and some leaps. Hopefully the transition in her early robust language to her more inverted descriptions works with how she's trying to control herself and environment, based out of being out of control at such an early age. Her end started out wildly different, but well, funny. But there's that sad moment when you realize that although, you like something you've written, the tone is all wrong. There were whole sections of that I removed. But that's writing. Mostly removing the things you've written.
Mystery 4th character - She got to be a blend, and was kind of the point of writing the story. Also, the reason that I used Science fiction titles for the chapters. So, I could use "Stars My Destination" as the final title.
While not overtly science fiction, I felt myself as writing science fiction as I wrote this. Exploring the normal by putting it in a different context. Also, aided with the science fiction titles, which I chose based on if the stories dealt with themes of societal convergence, complex gender scenarios, and okay, I could come up with a relevant quote.
Scents - While in Gordian, Sherlock had a very science approach to scent, I decided that everyone experiences what they smell in their own way. Thus each view point character approaches smells differently.
"Stars" felt like writing "Empire Strikes Back" after "Star Wars"/"Gordian". For a variety of reasons, everyone's experience of this verse was quite a bit darker. The next one may well be lighter. Hopefully. At the very least, I'll hopefully be watching a lot of caper movies/shows to get in the right mood.
Hmmm... anything else, well, I can see why NaNoWrimo doesn't really work for me. I need at least two months to write a novel. The problem is a matter of timing. NaNo is immediately followed by Yuletide, where I crank out another novels worth of separate stories, but they aren't that story. It's incredibly difficult to get back into a story flow once I've lost the moment. Or rather, I've got a writing hangover in January, and then I get new ideas, and trying to get back to that, "wow this needs to be edited and half of it chucked" isn't terribly appealing. Oh, look, shiny new thing. Something to think about.
Also, that kind of sustained effort is very difficult. But I think possibly the only way to write something that length.
Stars is not the most complex thing I've written. That honor still goes to "The Fifth Sun" with it's six POVs, renaissance AU fantasy setting, actual historical characters (with worked in actual quotes), Aztec/Mayan (yes, I know they're not the same) apocalypse. That story originally came in at 190k (before I knew how long that was) and required a flow chart (until I got it down to 70K) for even me to follow. That took years and many trips to the library.
But umm, three POV is three POV with alternative biology/history.
The other reason I want to reuse the universe is I have a fair number of ideas that I couldn't get across in any one story. Stars (based off of 1k for Gordian) has 4k (and I haven't decided yet if I'll post my list of links) of notes.
I think that's enough for now. I have Comic Con prep to do. Neon flashing alien outfits won't complete themselves.
In any case, the fic
Title: Stars in a Phrygian Sky
Fandom: Sherlock BBC, ACD Sherlock
Rating: Mature/NC-17
Pairing: Everyone and the cat (okay, not the cat, Toby was unmolested)
Sherlock Holmes/John Watson,Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes,Irene Adler/Molly Hooper,Irene Adler/Sally Donovan,Irene Adler/Jim Moriarty,Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty,Sherlock Holmes/Canon Male Characters, John Watson/Original Female Character, John Watson/Original Male Character(s), Irene Adler/Original Female Character, Irene Adler/Original Male Character
Length: 64690 words (well, 60,000ish + 4kish of notes)
Warnings/Tags: Spoilers S2, Omegaverse, angst, Dubious Consent, mpreg AU, Beta!John, Omega!Sherlock, Alpha!Irene, Language, Porn-porn, Underage Sex both between underage (adolescent) and adult/underage (adolescent), BDSM, Includes pairings of: M/M, F/F, M/F
Summary:
Sherlock got rid of everything that he had ever known about the stars when he was nine years and five months old, which given his plans to be a pirate in the West Indies, the importance of astral navigation for a pirate, and given that he was him, that had been quite a lot. He didn't give away his mariner's astrolabe until much later.
When Irene was ten years old, she fell in love with the most beautiful, perfectly-perfect amoral Omega woman ever. Which is to say, she read Steinbeck's "East of Eden".
John stayed up one particularly nasty March night until 2:32 am reading "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom". Hail rattled against the window. To John, it was the sound of desert sand on dry canvas.