Writing Update: shit gets real
After a hiatus of about two months, I've started working on my fic again.
At the beginning of December, I'd gotten really frustrated with things. I'd had a flurry of meeting a daily word count goal of 750 words, but it kept getting harder because that was too much to expect from myself every day. I kept writing anyway; the writing got a little shittier. And then I realized I wouldn't meet my 2012 goal of 75,000 words, so I stopped entirely because I was so upset.
I've written 4 almost-complete chapters (4 needs a solid final scene), about half of a fifth one, and maybe 8,000 words of parts of scenes that will come later.
I worked on addressing comments/suggestions given to me regarding chapter 2 by
wintercreek. Late last night, my friend S. had started looking at chapter 3.
I really, really like lots of things in chapter 3, but it has a lot of issues, which she rightly pointed out in notes. MOSTLY these are plot problems.
As I joked on Twitter, turns out it's NOT EASY to make your plot make sense when you're trying to reconcile a main plot of CIA stuff & guns with...Glee kids. It'd be a lot easier if I could just not care, BUT I DO CARE.
When I'm writing, I care a lot about the emotional arcs of the characters. How they feel about things. I'll write an entire scene having only a vague impression of what the character is reacting to, but knowing exactly what they think/feel about what's happened.
While I'm trying to get those true notes of feeling (& sometimes dialog) down, I don't care about the plot of if it makes sense.
So I get all of these scenes and have a rough idea of the arc of the chapter, and then I try to stitch it all together & get 2-D villains who talk like they're in a spaghetti western (I blame my father).
S. will give lots of character notes, like, "Kurt would not say that," or "There's no way RACHEL BERRY would just say, 'Okay' in response to that sentence from Santana," or etc. Those are fine. Also typical word-choice issues, but generally the narration is okay & I think the pacing is pretty good. RHYTHM, I LIKE IT.
It's just that there are these huge plot holes, both in like THE ACTUAL PLOT & then also like, there are people in a scene who talk & argue & fight with fists, only to reveal at the very end of the scene they've got weapons (WHY WOULD THEY NOT HAVE USED THEM SOONER?!).
Those things are hard enough - I'll have to rewrite a lot to figure out & then fix the plot holes.
But what ALSO sucks is figuring out that the stuff I'm relying on for storytelling is actually super cliched & misogynistic. I have clear arcs for most of the characters, including Rachel, but now I'm realizing that she is a huge victim. In a really cheap way, in this chapter, too.
I also basically treat every male character (Glee kids aside) as potential sexual predators, which. No.
And when I try to have Santana try to step up & be strong, she's both extremely paternalistic and possessive of Rachel.
idk. It's a super gross feeling to have. I am glad I'll be able to figure all this shit out before posting it!
But it's still kinda, "Huh, so you're one of those, eh, self?"
On a lighter note, it's fun to have S. nitpick things like, "Artie wouldn't answer the phone like that" or "Kurt would not own sai knives," & I can be like, "No, that actually happened in canon," to which she said, "jesus christ the least realistic things in your fic are actually from glee."
Last night, I reread chapters 3 & 4 & all the other scenes I've written so far through the end of the fic, and it was a nice feeling. I like lots & lots of what I've written.
I have lots of work to do to beat it into a coherent story that's post-able.
I wonder if it's always this hard with a first hella long story?
I hope it's not this hard every time.
At the beginning of December, I'd gotten really frustrated with things. I'd had a flurry of meeting a daily word count goal of 750 words, but it kept getting harder because that was too much to expect from myself every day. I kept writing anyway; the writing got a little shittier. And then I realized I wouldn't meet my 2012 goal of 75,000 words, so I stopped entirely because I was so upset.
I've written 4 almost-complete chapters (4 needs a solid final scene), about half of a fifth one, and maybe 8,000 words of parts of scenes that will come later.
I worked on addressing comments/suggestions given to me regarding chapter 2 by
wintercreek. Late last night, my friend S. had started looking at chapter 3.
I really, really like lots of things in chapter 3, but it has a lot of issues, which she rightly pointed out in notes. MOSTLY these are plot problems.
As I joked on Twitter, turns out it's NOT EASY to make your plot make sense when you're trying to reconcile a main plot of CIA stuff & guns with...Glee kids. It'd be a lot easier if I could just not care, BUT I DO CARE.
When I'm writing, I care a lot about the emotional arcs of the characters. How they feel about things. I'll write an entire scene having only a vague impression of what the character is reacting to, but knowing exactly what they think/feel about what's happened.
While I'm trying to get those true notes of feeling (& sometimes dialog) down, I don't care about the plot of if it makes sense.
So I get all of these scenes and have a rough idea of the arc of the chapter, and then I try to stitch it all together & get 2-D villains who talk like they're in a spaghetti western (I blame my father).
S. will give lots of character notes, like, "Kurt would not say that," or "There's no way RACHEL BERRY would just say, 'Okay' in response to that sentence from Santana," or etc. Those are fine. Also typical word-choice issues, but generally the narration is okay & I think the pacing is pretty good. RHYTHM, I LIKE IT.
It's just that there are these huge plot holes, both in like THE ACTUAL PLOT & then also like, there are people in a scene who talk & argue & fight with fists, only to reveal at the very end of the scene they've got weapons (WHY WOULD THEY NOT HAVE USED THEM SOONER?!).
Those things are hard enough - I'll have to rewrite a lot to figure out & then fix the plot holes.
But what ALSO sucks is figuring out that the stuff I'm relying on for storytelling is actually super cliched & misogynistic. I have clear arcs for most of the characters, including Rachel, but now I'm realizing that she is a huge victim. In a really cheap way, in this chapter, too.
I also basically treat every male character (Glee kids aside) as potential sexual predators, which. No.
And when I try to have Santana try to step up & be strong, she's both extremely paternalistic and possessive of Rachel.
idk. It's a super gross feeling to have. I am glad I'll be able to figure all this shit out before posting it!
But it's still kinda, "Huh, so you're one of those, eh, self?"
On a lighter note, it's fun to have S. nitpick things like, "Artie wouldn't answer the phone like that" or "Kurt would not own sai knives," & I can be like, "No, that actually happened in canon," to which she said, "jesus christ the least realistic things in your fic are actually from glee."
Last night, I reread chapters 3 & 4 & all the other scenes I've written so far through the end of the fic, and it was a nice feeling. I like lots & lots of what I've written.
I have lots of work to do to beat it into a coherent story that's post-able.
I wonder if it's always this hard with a first hella long story?
I hope it's not this hard every time.