the story direction that wasn't
*laughs* No wonder I feel like I've been working on request fics forever--I did the meme that invited them last April. >.>
Meanwhile, because writing about writing is much more fun than *actually* writing . . .
I like writing dialogue--it's the framework that's a bitch. ^^ I was just going through my 'cut' file (no, I don't throw writing away--do you?) and found a scrap that I wrote for the Rin and Yuki piece that I posted yesterday. When I wrote this, I'd already written the story's second scene, which is from Yuki's POV, and I really liked some things about it . . . but it didn't seem to want to go ANYWHERE, and I disliked jumping from her perspective to his for only one scene. (Since I write fanfiction in chunks, I also had some random bits of the rest of the story written.) So I spent a little while in a state of denial over the story, and decided to just chop everything after the first scene so I could stay in Rin's POV.
This is all well and good, except that the story immediately tried to go in a totally different direction, and I wound up switching back. So this little fragment is all that was written of that other story, which would have been nothing like the finished product--except that about a third of the dialogue in this chunk is the same in both versions. When I find myself retaining dialogue and rewriting the frame it's in, that usually tells me what the heart of the story is (although it also goes in the face of the advice that says if a piece of writing isn't working, you can often fix the problem by cutting the piece you love most).
*****
cut fragment from "Voices in the Dark"
*****
I'm cold. She wasn't sure if it was the cold water pooled around her or the tentative hands on her shoulders that woke her, or the voice.
"Rin?" Yuki's voice. Water. Stiff muscles protesting when she tried to move. "Are you--"
"Don't touch me." Rin forced her eyes open through a wave of dizziness, tried to slap his hands away and get to her feet. Neither attempt worked, and his grip tightened painfully when her knees buckled under her. "Don't--"
"Right, I'll just leave you unconscious in the shower until Shihan gets home, and let him worry about how to move you on his own. Good plan." Yuki's eyes flickered away from her. "I was waiting for him to get back, and the shower was going for way too long, and then you didn't answer me."
"I take long showers," she muttered.
"I was in the living room for almost an hour."
"That doesn't mean you can touch me."
*****
Now I'm just thinking "out loud", so there's no tidy structure here:
One thing I keep finding in my Furuba fic is the notion that the 12shi don't get freaked out too badly by each other's bodies. There's the obvious canonical difference where Kyo yells at both Haru and Kagura to "put some clothes on!" the second they revert to human shape, but other than Ritsu (who's embarrassed and freaky about *everything*), Kyo seems to be the most easily-flustered Sohma we come across.
The other thing is that--in my head--Rin and Yuki are weirdly fascinated with each other, and running with that notion is fun. They don't *like* each other (and while we've seen Yuki making an effort with her, I'm fairly sure that isn't a carry-over from their childhood), and they obviously don't understand each other in the slightest. Or, no--they understand each other intellectually very well, judging from their dialogue. They can probably both say, "oh, that reaction is because of such-and-such", and it shows up in vol. 12 when Yuki's busy being intuitive about Rin and she dodges by knowing *exactly* how to shred him. But there's no sense of emotional comprehension or empathy on either side, even when every single note between them rings true. It's very different from Rin's dynamic with Kyo--fighting without that sense of detachment or even of dislike.
Right. Fascination. I think Rin and Yuki both know that they don't 'get' each other at all, and ordinarily I doubt either of them loses any sleep over it. But their shared connection through Haru--however you interpret Haru's feelings for Yuki--means that it keeps coming back up, even when they don't see each other.
. . . lately my brain has decided that its preferred brand of totally-unwritable-crack!fic would be to try writing Rin/Haru/Yuki fic, except that I can't even begin to work out how it would work believably. The emotional logistics are a nightmare, boiling down to a) Rin and Yuki don't like each other and b) if Yuki's not at least 95% straight, I'd be very surprised. (I tend to operate under the theory that most people are probably some degree of bisexual, but that it's usually weighted very heavily in one direction. So in my head, let's say Yuki's probably about 95%/5%, while Haru's probably more like 60%/40%. Or pansexual. It's an interesting difference, but I'm not sure which way I'd interpret him.)
Anyway, yes. Crack!fic, definitely, and very unlikely. >.> But I think maybe a bit of that shows up in the story (even as it was written, not as it might have been). And that leads to the question of whether it's possible to project things onto your own writing that aren't there, or whether it just means you buried it too deeply if no one else sees it. *laughs* (Anyone? In this case, I really don't know what's going on in there . . . )
Meanwhile, because writing about writing is much more fun than *actually* writing . . .
I like writing dialogue--it's the framework that's a bitch. ^^ I was just going through my 'cut' file (no, I don't throw writing away--do you?) and found a scrap that I wrote for the Rin and Yuki piece that I posted yesterday. When I wrote this, I'd already written the story's second scene, which is from Yuki's POV, and I really liked some things about it . . . but it didn't seem to want to go ANYWHERE, and I disliked jumping from her perspective to his for only one scene. (Since I write fanfiction in chunks, I also had some random bits of the rest of the story written.) So I spent a little while in a state of denial over the story, and decided to just chop everything after the first scene so I could stay in Rin's POV.
This is all well and good, except that the story immediately tried to go in a totally different direction, and I wound up switching back. So this little fragment is all that was written of that other story, which would have been nothing like the finished product--except that about a third of the dialogue in this chunk is the same in both versions. When I find myself retaining dialogue and rewriting the frame it's in, that usually tells me what the heart of the story is (although it also goes in the face of the advice that says if a piece of writing isn't working, you can often fix the problem by cutting the piece you love most).
*****
cut fragment from "Voices in the Dark"
*****
I'm cold. She wasn't sure if it was the cold water pooled around her or the tentative hands on her shoulders that woke her, or the voice.
"Rin?" Yuki's voice. Water. Stiff muscles protesting when she tried to move. "Are you--"
"Don't touch me." Rin forced her eyes open through a wave of dizziness, tried to slap his hands away and get to her feet. Neither attempt worked, and his grip tightened painfully when her knees buckled under her. "Don't--"
"Right, I'll just leave you unconscious in the shower until Shihan gets home, and let him worry about how to move you on his own. Good plan." Yuki's eyes flickered away from her. "I was waiting for him to get back, and the shower was going for way too long, and then you didn't answer me."
"I take long showers," she muttered.
"I was in the living room for almost an hour."
"That doesn't mean you can touch me."
*****
Now I'm just thinking "out loud", so there's no tidy structure here:
One thing I keep finding in my Furuba fic is the notion that the 12shi don't get freaked out too badly by each other's bodies. There's the obvious canonical difference where Kyo yells at both Haru and Kagura to "put some clothes on!" the second they revert to human shape, but other than Ritsu (who's embarrassed and freaky about *everything*), Kyo seems to be the most easily-flustered Sohma we come across.
The other thing is that--in my head--Rin and Yuki are weirdly fascinated with each other, and running with that notion is fun. They don't *like* each other (and while we've seen Yuki making an effort with her, I'm fairly sure that isn't a carry-over from their childhood), and they obviously don't understand each other in the slightest. Or, no--they understand each other intellectually very well, judging from their dialogue. They can probably both say, "oh, that reaction is because of such-and-such", and it shows up in vol. 12 when Yuki's busy being intuitive about Rin and she dodges by knowing *exactly* how to shred him. But there's no sense of emotional comprehension or empathy on either side, even when every single note between them rings true. It's very different from Rin's dynamic with Kyo--fighting without that sense of detachment or even of dislike.
Right. Fascination. I think Rin and Yuki both know that they don't 'get' each other at all, and ordinarily I doubt either of them loses any sleep over it. But their shared connection through Haru--however you interpret Haru's feelings for Yuki--means that it keeps coming back up, even when they don't see each other.
. . . lately my brain has decided that its preferred brand of totally-unwritable-crack!fic would be to try writing Rin/Haru/Yuki fic, except that I can't even begin to work out how it would work believably. The emotional logistics are a nightmare, boiling down to a) Rin and Yuki don't like each other and b) if Yuki's not at least 95% straight, I'd be very surprised. (I tend to operate under the theory that most people are probably some degree of bisexual, but that it's usually weighted very heavily in one direction. So in my head, let's say Yuki's probably about 95%/5%, while Haru's probably more like 60%/40%. Or pansexual. It's an interesting difference, but I'm not sure which way I'd interpret him.)
Anyway, yes. Crack!fic, definitely, and very unlikely. >.> But I think maybe a bit of that shows up in the story (even as it was written, not as it might have been). And that leads to the question of whether it's possible to project things onto your own writing that aren't there, or whether it just means you buried it too deeply if no one else sees it. *laughs* (Anyone? In this case, I really don't know what's going on in there . . . )