navel-gazing writing blather, feel free to skip.
I will say, the nice thing about having three active WIPs is that I can kind of bounce between them depending on my mood and write little bits and bobs here and there and still feel like I'm making some kind of progress. Which is nice, because the Steve fic is at about 7000 words right now and probably not even halfway done yet, and that's freaking me out a bit, so it helps to focus on the other ones instead.
I'm actually making decent headway with the final Queen's Gambit chapter, which is a strange feeling all its own. I think I've gotten used to having it hanging over my head like the Great Unfinished Project Of Doom. And now I'm...gradually wrapping up all the loose plot threads. I'm definitely never, ever, ever going to post a WIP fic chapter-by-chapter like this again, but at the same time, if I hadn't started posted it way back when, would I ever have found the motivation to finish it now, years later? I've abandoned a few unposted WIPs before -- some that had over 10k words written -- and I always regret it afterwards. At least I know this one WILL be finished in the near-ish future. So there's that.
Juggling a large multi-POV cast is definitely a challenge. This one has more POV characters than Boden's Mate did, and it's gonna be about 10k words longer once it's done (around 90k total). And Boden's Mate really just had the Charles/Erik arc as its primary emotional arc -- in the end, that was the main thing that needed resolving, plus little nods to other character's resolutions (Moira joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Alex and Hank tentatively teaming up with Raven). But for Queen's Gambit -- ugh. Raven has the primary arc, and it's more of a coming-of-age story for her than anything else, and that's closely tied in with Angel searching for her in Limbo. But I've also got to resolve the ramifications of Charles's actions in violating his own moral code, and Alex got his emotional resolution already in the dream but I have to tie up his loose ends with Hank's emotional resolution, and there's a bit with Moira getting closure that I want to include in the mix, and oh, yeah, I still have to finish up the actual PLOT. And then I worry that I'm neglecting my other POV characters somehow, but Logan finished off his emotional arc in the dream, and Emma has already gotten what she wanted, and Sean never really has any emotional investments in my fics so oh well, off he goes. Does Coulson need an arc? I really hope not.
And now I'm procrastinating writing a sex scene between two characters I don't personally ship, but christ, I've given Alex/Hank a slow-burning romance arc that's dragged on in the background for about 170,000 words now, so it kind of behooves me to actually let those crazy kids finally hook up. (I guess it helps that although Alex/Hank is very much NOT MY SHIP in canon, I've spent a lot of time shaping these AU versions of their characters into people I wouldn't mind seeing get together.) And then I'm gonna feel weird about giving THEM a particularly slashy scene when I haven't given my actual OTP much to do, but technically Charles and Erik are supposed to be taking a backseat in this fic -- they got Boden's Mate pretty much all to themselves -- and really, Raven and Alex are my two main characters in Queen's Gambit, so they're the ones who deserve a bit of TLC at the end. I think writing this fic might have been easier if I'd decided to make them the endgame pairing, actually, but nope nope nope. Although, crap, that reminds me that their FRIENDSHIP is in fact a relationship that needs as much resolution as any of the romantic ships in this fic. Fuckses. Okay, yeah, I've still got a bit of writing to do.
(It does amuse me a bit that I'm unintentionally paralleling DOFP by having the emotional arc of the story hinge on Raven's choice, although everything else about the plot is totally different. And I've got an unintentional CA:TWS parallel happening in the final chapter as well, which was planned actual years ago and well before I had any idea what was going to happen to SHIELD. At least my version doesn't involve HYDRA.)
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.
I'm actually making decent headway with the final Queen's Gambit chapter, which is a strange feeling all its own. I think I've gotten used to having it hanging over my head like the Great Unfinished Project Of Doom. And now I'm...gradually wrapping up all the loose plot threads. I'm definitely never, ever, ever going to post a WIP fic chapter-by-chapter like this again, but at the same time, if I hadn't started posted it way back when, would I ever have found the motivation to finish it now, years later? I've abandoned a few unposted WIPs before -- some that had over 10k words written -- and I always regret it afterwards. At least I know this one WILL be finished in the near-ish future. So there's that.
Juggling a large multi-POV cast is definitely a challenge. This one has more POV characters than Boden's Mate did, and it's gonna be about 10k words longer once it's done (around 90k total). And Boden's Mate really just had the Charles/Erik arc as its primary emotional arc -- in the end, that was the main thing that needed resolving, plus little nods to other character's resolutions (Moira joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Alex and Hank tentatively teaming up with Raven). But for Queen's Gambit -- ugh. Raven has the primary arc, and it's more of a coming-of-age story for her than anything else, and that's closely tied in with Angel searching for her in Limbo. But I've also got to resolve the ramifications of Charles's actions in violating his own moral code, and Alex got his emotional resolution already in the dream but I have to tie up his loose ends with Hank's emotional resolution, and there's a bit with Moira getting closure that I want to include in the mix, and oh, yeah, I still have to finish up the actual PLOT. And then I worry that I'm neglecting my other POV characters somehow, but Logan finished off his emotional arc in the dream, and Emma has already gotten what she wanted, and Sean never really has any emotional investments in my fics so oh well, off he goes. Does Coulson need an arc? I really hope not.
And now I'm procrastinating writing a sex scene between two characters I don't personally ship, but christ, I've given Alex/Hank a slow-burning romance arc that's dragged on in the background for about 170,000 words now, so it kind of behooves me to actually let those crazy kids finally hook up. (I guess it helps that although Alex/Hank is very much NOT MY SHIP in canon, I've spent a lot of time shaping these AU versions of their characters into people I wouldn't mind seeing get together.) And then I'm gonna feel weird about giving THEM a particularly slashy scene when I haven't given my actual OTP much to do, but technically Charles and Erik are supposed to be taking a backseat in this fic -- they got Boden's Mate pretty much all to themselves -- and really, Raven and Alex are my two main characters in Queen's Gambit, so they're the ones who deserve a bit of TLC at the end. I think writing this fic might have been easier if I'd decided to make them the endgame pairing, actually, but nope nope nope. Although, crap, that reminds me that their FRIENDSHIP is in fact a relationship that needs as much resolution as any of the romantic ships in this fic. Fuckses. Okay, yeah, I've still got a bit of writing to do.
(It does amuse me a bit that I'm unintentionally paralleling DOFP by having the emotional arc of the story hinge on Raven's choice, although everything else about the plot is totally different. And I've got an unintentional CA:TWS parallel happening in the final chapter as well, which was planned actual years ago and well before I had any idea what was going to happen to SHIELD. At least my version doesn't involve HYDRA.)
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.