fic talk: halfway there? maybe?

[sword_logic]

i had a big breakthrough for this fic on monday! i had originally planned to have a specific plot point happen at about the one-quarter mark because i feel like i haven't seen a lot of writing do this kind of plot point at this point in the plot, but i was really struggling to pace the rest of the fic. as it turns out, you don't see this kind of timing for this kind of plot point for a reason. who'd'a thunk!

the reason i chose the sort of one-quarter/one-third mark is because i didn't want to have this particular thing out in the open right from the get-go, but i also didn't want it to be, like, The Big Reveal or anything, so i put it into a midway spot and uh. clearly that didn't work. i'd still like to play with this, but i think it'll have to be in a fic that's shorter, so that i've got more leeway with pacing (rather paradoxically, i guess). this plot point is now... sort of the big reveal? but also, because i'm alternating POVs, it's coming at the same time as something else, so i think it's going to work out much better where it is as a combined "X and Y both [plot point]" thing.

i said this in a different post, but this fic has been a really, really interesting challenge in teaching myself how to let go. it's particularly interesting to compare it to no quarter, where i let myself be painstakingly meticulous when writing—everything is very precisely placed and described, and that suits both the POV character and the vibe i was going for (i.e., the things i like most about the halo novels as near-future sci-fi). by contrast, oda plays very fast and loose with the world of one piece (and he is so insanely good at this, i could write a whole 'nother post just about the way oda constructs his narrative) in a way that is totally foreign to me, and trying to embrace that in my own writing while working on something long has been deeply illuminating. this fic also heavily features a character that i've never really thought of as one that i like, per se, but this character is particularly convenient for my needs, and it has been really interesting to write a character that isn't, like, The Character. i don't have Blorbo Emotions about this one, it's just the most convenient option for what i need. this will make sense at some point, i promise.

i feel like i've always been pretty good at recognizing when i need to cut things out of my own writine—getting too lost in a concept, a section needs to go elsewhere, this isn't relevant, etc.—but as i've been writing this fic, i find myself cutting a lot of passages where i'm trying to... establish the physical setting, i guess? establish where point A is so that characters can go to point B. it's been really interesting to consistently cut that out and consistently realize that it really isn't necessary (at least, not for this fic). it's very different from what i usually do and i'm curious to see how i'm going to feel about this fic when i'm done with it. it's both freeing and deeply challenging to say "eh, whatever" about Plot Details, because i am in no way naturally wired to say "eh, whatever' about Plot Details, and this has shown me that i do rather torture myself about it occasionally, and i should probably cut myself some more slack.

and on that note, i am about halfway done..... at 27k words. i really did not think this fic was going to be this long, but here we are. i've planned for it to be 10 chapters (alternating between two POVs, so five from each POV) and yesterday i got my fourth chapter into "first draft that will need significant editing" shape, with later chapters each having some amount of writing done for them. looks like my chapters are gonna shake out to be about ~5.5k each if i keep going at this rate, which is an interesting contrast no quarter again—NQ's word counts are all over the place (from 2,733 to 7,261), which is mostly due to the POV not alternating regularly. plus, you know, that's Action Genre whereas this is deeply Rom-Com Genre. similar to how i ended NQ, i'm considering an extra epilogue/coda chapter from someone else's pov mostly because i will take any excuse to write outside POV, but we'll see how i feel once i get closer to actually writing the ending.

NQ ended up being 51,766 words (per AO3), and it's a little alarming that this fic might end up being longer than that. like, NQ is actiony! so much stuff happens! it's 51k of tight plotting and pacing! and this fic (which still has no title, much to my annoyance; it also needs a tag here on DW...) is like, hey, what if these guys had to fake being married for a really dumb reason. which is exactly what i want to read! so here i am writing it. (well, here i am writing this post instead of writing the fic. but whatever. nobody's counting.)

things i've been having fun with in this fic!

• talking about menswear (funny considering that sanji is dressed disastrously in canon and color spreads about 60% of the time)
• talking about Sword (extra fun as i learn new things in iaido, currently trying to think of how to shoehorn in tatehiza)
• making sanji miserable
• making zoro miserable
• making [redacted] miserable

ok. break over. back to writing. i would love to finish this before the end of the year. wish me luck.

Comments

[larissa]

I may not be in your current fandoms, but I love reading about how you're doing with writing, so I'm thrilled to see this post 💗 I can totally relate to having to rethink your approach to something because the story just doesn't need that kind of thing.

Good luck coming up with a title, also!! I swear that's the hardest part sometimes.

I might take a page from your book and make a post like this myself to talk through my current writing project... I'm deep in revision hell right now and it is a Struggle.

[sword_logic]

istg that Work Title (Required) field is the final boss.

it’s a lot of fun to write up a how-it’s-going post! whether it’s thinking out loud or just recording where your at, it’s fun to write and it’s really fun to look back on after finishing a fic. there are times i’ve re-read old posts like this and been like “wow i totally cut out the whole thing that this post was about” or “that inconsequential thing? i was stressing about that?!” plus it’s also just fun to relive whatever i was writing.

selfishly, i also love reading process notes and extended author’s notes and DVD commentaries and the like for a fic i’ve enjoyed, so part of writing these is also to, like, put that energy out into the world so it comes back to me.

tl;dr totally recommend, would love to see these kinds of posts from you as well!! 💖

[larissa]

💗!! i will give it a shot, perhaps! i have been noodling on many things as i work on revision (MY NEMESIS) so it'd be nice to get them out.