New fics - Vorkosigan Saga
Just breaking the silence for a couple of things :)
The first is that I now have an archive of our own account, where I've uploaded a couple of new fics for the Vorkosigan series that haven't been uploaded here.
White Knights is an Ivan-centric story, based around an AU where Simon Illyan and Alys Vorpartil marry when Ivan is five. Multi-chaptered work in progress.
In this Valley of Dying Stars focuses around Simon Illyan, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, and the spectre of Emperor Ezar. One-shot.
The other thing is - remember that fic, Empire, that I started in 2005? Man that was a piece of crap. Then remember my attempt to fix it by starting a re-write in 2007? Man, that too is a piece of crap, but it's saved by the fact that it's only 1 chapter long. Well, I attempted to continue the re-write lately, and then it grew. And grew. And Empire is now - I wouldn't say it's a completely different creature, because the setup is the same, the themes that I threw in in 2007 are the same, and the end point is the same (although the actual ending has changed. Again. But it's a variation on a theme. But anyway) - the number of themes and issues that it deals with have multiplied several times.
When Empire first started in 2005, it was my first venture into the FF7 fandom at a time when I had no concept of characterisation, or complex planning. Or any planning. I dove in headfirst with a starting scene and a vague notion of doing something with it, in a haphazard attempt to continue where Advent Children had left off.
About a year or more later and a lot more chapters in, I finally settled on a plot, an ending, and - because I had clued in somewhat by then, on a real theme that wasn't just getting characters from one end of the fic to the other. And it was pretty good. But by then, I was already incredibly hampered by the bad start, and quite dissatisfied with it - although my main source of dissatisfaction was really the fact that by now there was a huge discrepancy in the quality of the writing between the early chapters and the latest ones.
Then I hit that long lull where nothing was being written, and then I decided that the beginning was as good a place to start as any. So I sat down, fired up Google docs, and really started working the themes that had emerged in 2007 into the fic from the get-go. And then I read Synecdochic's completely amazing fic, Lullabye for the New World Order (Synecdochic is also known for The Conscience of the King, which is THE quintessential Shinra piece), and had a chat with her about characterisation, and realised that holy Bahamut on a stick, I've come a long way from 2005 but my characterisation and world-building still suck.
And because it's been so long since I wrote a piece for FF7, I started by really doing my world-building properly, instead of just depending on audience knowledge. And that gave me the chance to really sit down and think about the post Advent Children world, and what it would be like, and what the characters would be like, and how they would each react to the new world.
And what unfolded was a state of political anarchy, with this massive power vacuum that is only very tentatively plugged by the WRO, and with Shinra, and anti-Shinra, and everyone else in it vying for a slice of the pie. And the original Empire hints at this, but only as backdrop to getting Rufus and Cloud running away from explosions, when in truth it should be so much bigger.
But because Empire is, ultimately, a story about Cloud, and his struggle to find his feet in the new world (and this is one of those things that only really emerged much later on, in late 2006), and a story about Rufus, who effectively acts as a foil to Cloud by apparently having no problems whatsoever adapting to the new world (the foil role will be enhanced and fleshed out in the revision), all of this is still backdrop. But what a backdrop.
And to effectively hammer the backdrop into place, the revised Empire expands from Rufus and Cloud to include, as major secondary characters (so major, in fact, that they're practically primary characters, and only fall short because the two golden boys love to hog the limelight so), their SOs - Tseng and Tifa. Both of whom were relegated to unfairly and (more importantly) unrealistically small roles in the original, because, well, bad characterisation.
This is entirely the fault of Tifa, whose viewpoint I borrowed in order to portray a sympathetic third party view of Cloud, and who promptly stole something to the order of 5,000 words from me, and then proceeded to take over the entire damn fic.
In the course of this, I skimmed through the existing work for Empire. I had every intent of re-using as much material as I could, which meant everything from Chapter 5 onwards, except with a bit of touching up. But I'm starting to realise that it's impossible. In the course of bringing the political state of the world post-Meteorfall into focus, the timelines for many, many things have to be ripped out and replaced, and the battlefields have to be redone, the Shinra-WRO-and-other-dissidant clashes need a lot more thought and work. The fundamental plot is still the same, the idea is still the same...
...I'm starting to realise that the execution is going to look a helluva lot different. (And because I am as lazy as hell, the thought of throwing all of the already-written stuff away makes my heart spasm. Because I actually think a lot of the later stuff is acceptable.)
I am incredibly excited about this. More excited about it than about anything I've written for a very long time, in fact! Please excuse the babble - the unfortunate fact of the matter is that I only really do any serious writing while I'm on holiday (which means planes and trains and buses and people around me and I don't write where people can see my laptop screen), and being on the move means that I'm storing a lot of things in my head, and all of it is just dying to be put down. Including all the plans and all the things I've discovered for this fic, the one that I love and hate and abhor and am utterly ashamed of and yet will not give up on, because of everything I've ever written, the sheer scope and potential in it is enormous. And I want to see that ending.
I would love to post something, but I'd need to start from the beginning, and Chapter 1 needs a whole lot more scene-setting (and character-setting and world-setting) before it can even hope to connect to the 8000 word long chapter 2 that I've scribbled up. But watch this space - if all goes well, it will be coming to a livejournal near you very soon! :)
Wish me luck - I'm going to try and Nanowrimo this. Not officially, because I have commitment phobia, and because anyone who has to be available to work 70 hour weeks on no-notice can't make that kind of commitment, but-- I do hope to try my best :)
Also, while I'm at it, if you're so inclined, tell me what you like / don't like about the current Empire - this would be the best time as any to get it changed!
The first is that I now have an archive of our own account, where I've uploaded a couple of new fics for the Vorkosigan series that haven't been uploaded here.
White Knights is an Ivan-centric story, based around an AU where Simon Illyan and Alys Vorpartil marry when Ivan is five. Multi-chaptered work in progress.
In this Valley of Dying Stars focuses around Simon Illyan, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, and the spectre of Emperor Ezar. One-shot.
The other thing is - remember that fic, Empire, that I started in 2005? Man that was a piece of crap. Then remember my attempt to fix it by starting a re-write in 2007? Man, that too is a piece of crap, but it's saved by the fact that it's only 1 chapter long. Well, I attempted to continue the re-write lately, and then it grew. And grew. And Empire is now - I wouldn't say it's a completely different creature, because the setup is the same, the themes that I threw in in 2007 are the same, and the end point is the same (although the actual ending has changed. Again. But it's a variation on a theme. But anyway) - the number of themes and issues that it deals with have multiplied several times.
When Empire first started in 2005, it was my first venture into the FF7 fandom at a time when I had no concept of characterisation, or complex planning. Or any planning. I dove in headfirst with a starting scene and a vague notion of doing something with it, in a haphazard attempt to continue where Advent Children had left off.
About a year or more later and a lot more chapters in, I finally settled on a plot, an ending, and - because I had clued in somewhat by then, on a real theme that wasn't just getting characters from one end of the fic to the other. And it was pretty good. But by then, I was already incredibly hampered by the bad start, and quite dissatisfied with it - although my main source of dissatisfaction was really the fact that by now there was a huge discrepancy in the quality of the writing between the early chapters and the latest ones.
Then I hit that long lull where nothing was being written, and then I decided that the beginning was as good a place to start as any. So I sat down, fired up Google docs, and really started working the themes that had emerged in 2007 into the fic from the get-go. And then I read Synecdochic's completely amazing fic, Lullabye for the New World Order (Synecdochic is also known for The Conscience of the King, which is THE quintessential Shinra piece), and had a chat with her about characterisation, and realised that holy Bahamut on a stick, I've come a long way from 2005 but my characterisation and world-building still suck.
And because it's been so long since I wrote a piece for FF7, I started by really doing my world-building properly, instead of just depending on audience knowledge. And that gave me the chance to really sit down and think about the post Advent Children world, and what it would be like, and what the characters would be like, and how they would each react to the new world.
And what unfolded was a state of political anarchy, with this massive power vacuum that is only very tentatively plugged by the WRO, and with Shinra, and anti-Shinra, and everyone else in it vying for a slice of the pie. And the original Empire hints at this, but only as backdrop to getting Rufus and Cloud running away from explosions, when in truth it should be so much bigger.
But because Empire is, ultimately, a story about Cloud, and his struggle to find his feet in the new world (and this is one of those things that only really emerged much later on, in late 2006), and a story about Rufus, who effectively acts as a foil to Cloud by apparently having no problems whatsoever adapting to the new world (the foil role will be enhanced and fleshed out in the revision), all of this is still backdrop. But what a backdrop.
And to effectively hammer the backdrop into place, the revised Empire expands from Rufus and Cloud to include, as major secondary characters (so major, in fact, that they're practically primary characters, and only fall short because the two golden boys love to hog the limelight so), their SOs - Tseng and Tifa. Both of whom were relegated to unfairly and (more importantly) unrealistically small roles in the original, because, well, bad characterisation.
This is entirely the fault of Tifa, whose viewpoint I borrowed in order to portray a sympathetic third party view of Cloud, and who promptly stole something to the order of 5,000 words from me, and then proceeded to take over the entire damn fic.
In the course of this, I skimmed through the existing work for Empire. I had every intent of re-using as much material as I could, which meant everything from Chapter 5 onwards, except with a bit of touching up. But I'm starting to realise that it's impossible. In the course of bringing the political state of the world post-Meteorfall into focus, the timelines for many, many things have to be ripped out and replaced, and the battlefields have to be redone, the Shinra-WRO-and-other-dissidant clashes need a lot more thought and work. The fundamental plot is still the same, the idea is still the same...
...I'm starting to realise that the execution is going to look a helluva lot different. (And because I am as lazy as hell, the thought of throwing all of the already-written stuff away makes my heart spasm. Because I actually think a lot of the later stuff is acceptable.)
I am incredibly excited about this. More excited about it than about anything I've written for a very long time, in fact! Please excuse the babble - the unfortunate fact of the matter is that I only really do any serious writing while I'm on holiday (which means planes and trains and buses and people around me and I don't write where people can see my laptop screen), and being on the move means that I'm storing a lot of things in my head, and all of it is just dying to be put down. Including all the plans and all the things I've discovered for this fic, the one that I love and hate and abhor and am utterly ashamed of and yet will not give up on, because of everything I've ever written, the sheer scope and potential in it is enormous. And I want to see that ending.
I would love to post something, but I'd need to start from the beginning, and Chapter 1 needs a whole lot more scene-setting (and character-setting and world-setting) before it can even hope to connect to the 8000 word long chapter 2 that I've scribbled up. But watch this space - if all goes well, it will be coming to a livejournal near you very soon! :)
Wish me luck - I'm going to try and Nanowrimo this. Not officially, because I have commitment phobia, and because anyone who has to be available to work 70 hour weeks on no-notice can't make that kind of commitment, but-- I do hope to try my best :)
Also, while I'm at it, if you're so inclined, tell me what you like / don't like about the current Empire - this would be the best time as any to get it changed!