She's had to take a backseat for long enough now, she's come back with a vengeance. :) And I'm really glad to hear that, because refocusing on moments and short beats is something that I've wanted to work on. My imagination keeps running away with longer pieces and skipping the little things. Hence the drabbles!
There's an art in compressing a complete story into a tiny little pearl. I force myself to do it periodically just to make sure I don't lose the ability to economize in both language and narrative brush strokes. Why I like 5+1s. (One of my Valentine's things was essentially that.)
You may want to post those little gems into a chaptered collection on Ao3, so they don't get lost! :-)
At one point these were pretty much all I could do - 1k seemed like a mountain! So I wrote many, many drabbles. Now that I'm routinely writing 1k+, your idea of practicing sounds great! :)
I have actually been trying to figure out how to throw all of my drabbles onto AO3. Right now I think the plan is to divide by Clint/Natasha and Others, but maybe a separate Natasha one too? And then probably put several drabbles in each chapter, because posting a single drabble/chapter would take forever. And, and...
I get unreasonably nervous about posting on AO3, so while this has been a project in the works for a while now, I haven't gathered up the courage to actually do it.
Well, yes -- pressing the submit button has a certain ... edginess to it. But honestly, the readers on AO3 don't bite! :-)
If you're looking for a model, have a look at my "story" Moments (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1492090), which is basically a collection of things too little or too odd or too fluffy to post as standalones. I'm up to 17 "chapters" there I think. (I have another one like that, "Things to do with Paperclips" but that has some stuff in it that, in hindsight, probably shouldn't be out there at all.)
Given my low stats I would say you're right - they don't bite at the bait at all. ;) (Although as I write mostly for myself, hits/kudos are a nice bonus rather than the main goal.)
I like your collection layout! The main issue becomes that most of what I would post are typically between 100 - 300 words a piece, which would hardly be anything on a page if I posted them individually. I might organize them in chapters by subject matter - seasonal, obvious AU, tragedy-inclined. I'm thematic/repetitive enough that it stands a chance of working, at least for the Clint/Natasha material.
Well, I wouldn't let stats get me down. Some of my stories get a decent number of hits (albeit about a tenth of what they'd be if I wrote Darcy/Clint or Clint/Coulson, methinks). But my Star Trek Voyager stuff is like a shot in the void, for the most part (it does a lot better on FFN). And still, I stick it up there -- at least people can find it when they come looking! ;-)
As for shortness, yes, grouping little things together works. I think I did one chapter somewhere that's a collection of three-sentence-fics from an ATTF, so talk about short!
There. Convinced yet?? :-) I just clicked the subscribe button, so now I'll know when you posted! ;-)
Lady, you are awesome. <3 Thank you for the cheering and encouragement! Once I think of a witty title (ha, yeah right), you'll see the first collection hit A03. :D
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You may want to post those little gems into a chaptered collection on Ao3, so they don't get lost! :-)
Reply
I have actually been trying to figure out how to throw all of my drabbles onto AO3. Right now I think the plan is to divide by Clint/Natasha and Others, but maybe a separate Natasha one too? And then probably put several drabbles in each chapter, because posting a single drabble/chapter would take forever. And, and...
I get unreasonably nervous about posting on AO3, so while this has been a project in the works for a while now, I haven't gathered up the courage to actually do it.
Reply
If you're looking for a model, have a look at my "story" Moments (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1492090), which is basically a collection of things too little or too odd or too fluffy to post as standalones. I'm up to 17 "chapters" there I think. (I have another one like that, "Things to do with Paperclips" but that has some stuff in it that, in hindsight, probably shouldn't be out there at all.)
Reply
I like your collection layout! The main issue becomes that most of what I would post are typically between 100 - 300 words a piece, which would hardly be anything on a page if I posted them individually. I might organize them in chapters by subject matter - seasonal, obvious AU, tragedy-inclined. I'm thematic/repetitive enough that it stands a chance of working, at least for the Clint/Natasha material.
Reply
As for shortness, yes, grouping little things together works. I think I did one chapter somewhere that's a collection of three-sentence-fics from an ATTF, so talk about short!
There. Convinced yet?? :-) I just clicked the subscribe button, so now I'll know when you posted! ;-)
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