Comments | spnroundtable: Workshop: Writing casefile stories.

hansbekhart in spnroundtable

Workshop: Writing casefile stories.

Apr 23, 2008 00:36

How to Build a Casefile

Hi there! I’m Hans, and I’m here to talk about casefile!fics.

( A cheese course doesn't have to be elaborate to be inviting. )

workshop

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rei_c April 23 2008, 11:14:54 UTC

We, as a fandom, are lucky as hell. Essentially, we’re working with open source programming; the mythology and legends of the last hundred-some-odd years are completely open to us. We have fifty states and every country in the world, if you view immigrant or international traditions in the same way that canon does (that is, as totally yankable). The whole world is fictionally ripe for our use.

Exactly the way I think of it!

hansbekhart April 23 2008, 16:28:23 UTC

It's the coolest frickin' thing ever, man :D. You can go anywhere, and be inspired by what you see.

rei_c April 23 2008, 17:52:40 UTC

I wanted to ask -- in your experience writing case files, do you usually start with the problem of the myth or the problem of the characters? (Or, another way: do you see some interesting myth/legend and build a story-line around that or do you find the best-fitting myth/legend after you've already thought of a story to tell?)

hansbekhart April 24 2008, 16:51:37 UTC

Hmmmm. It might be cheating, but I think ... I think of my theme first. I think of the point of the story, what I really want to say with it. In BBP, I wanted to showcase local legends - in Skinnybone Tree, I wanted a longfic where the Wincest was central to the plot, not just thrown in on top. In our Big Bang ... well, I can't say too much about it, but we started out with a legend. So I think overall, I'm inclined towards finding a myth/legend and building a storyline around it ( ... )

rei_c April 26 2008, 21:25:13 UTC

What about you? What method do you usually start with? And how do you build your casefiles?

Oh, egads. Tough question, because I don't really ever consider my fics casefiles, per se? But thinking back retroactively, most of my fics start by a random idea that I do a hell of a lot of research on before I ever start thinking about myth or religion or lore. (Except the challenge fics, like Mixing Light to Light or L'Oiseau de feu, because those were given to me.) For instance, I had the idea for the first sentence of Men Enough and then had to figure out what was going on. I wanted apocalypse and silence and a sick, creeping, twisted sense of wrongwrongwrong, and so after all the research I settled on a Kabbalistic frame, then did more research to see how everything else would fit ( ... )

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