Fic Talk > General Discussion
2 Writing 2 Thread
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 07:32:39 PM ---Thanks! Same to you!
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I accidentally deleted this. I meant to say thanks as well. We've got this! We'll just keep boosting and inspiring each other and everybody else who joins our fun little discussions.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 08:52:59 PM ---LOL No. But I never thought Broken or BMS would be as long as they were! However many chapters it takes me to tell the story I want to tell is how long it will be.
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That's a fair point, but you can bet I'll try my best to cap them at a certain amount if I can, haha.
During my little rewrite, I found that I'd glossed over stuff that seemed like filler, but could have been great additions to the story. Do you ever do that or do you include just about everything in your stories?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 09:00:59 PM ---Did you watch that mermaid "documentary" Animal Planet did a while back? It was called "Mermaids: The Body Found." It was fake, but it was so fascinating. Great science fiction that almost made it seem possible for mermaids to be real.
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I didn't! That does sound interesting! I love stuff like that, but I also like just believing that mermaids could be a possibility. The Smithsonian channel is the one I like watching those little documentaries from the most.
All those legend type things are really fun, because it's fascinating, but also shared cultural history. I'm working on little scene now that talks about the Altair and Vega legend and including it was a happy accident because of one of those "seemed like filler" things I glossed over before, but now it feels like it could be some fun foreshadowing for what's to come.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 09:36:36 PM ---That's a fair point, but you can bet I'll try my best to cap them at a certain amount if I can, haha.
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Do you have a certain limit you like to cap them at? Like 50 chapters?
The only time I try to cap myself is if it would make the difference between ending on a nice round number or not. Usually that's a matter of either combining shorter chapters or dividing longer chapters more than actually editing myself LOL.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 09:36:36 PM ---During my little rewrite, I found that I'd glossed over stuff that seemed like filler, but could have been great additions to the story. Do you ever do that or do you include just about everything in your stories?
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Broken and BMS have quite a bit of filler, which explains their length. I went a little subplot crazy with BMS because I was worried I would get bored with the main romantic storyline LOL. But at the same time, it was nice to have some comic relief and some cute, fluffy scenes amid all the drama, and that was how I worked the other guys into it more so it wasn't just all about Nick and Claire.
That being said, I have learned to cut back on filler and just focus on scenes that move the plot forward. Every scene should have a purpose, besides just being cute or funny. That has helped me to be a bit more concise.
I think the biggest thing that affects the length of my stories is the amount of time they cover. Broken and BMS (350 chapters together) took place over a period of about five years. SAMS and Curtain Call (80-90 chapters) both covered about a year. AHTIM (50 chapters) covered about a month. Bethlehem (22 chapters) covered about a week, and Heroic Measures (10 chapters) covered a few days. A lot can happen in a few days, but generally, the longer the time period, the more events there are to write about.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 09:36:36 PM ---I didn't! That does sound interesting! I love stuff like that, but I also like just believing that mermaids could be a possibility. The Smithsonian channel is the one I like watching those little documentaries from the most.
All those legend type things are really fun, because it's fascinating, but also shared cultural history. I'm working on little scene now that talks about the Altair and Vega legend and including it was a happy accident because of one of those "seemed like filler" things I glossed over before, but now it feels like it could be some fun foreshadowing for what's to come.
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I bet you would like it. I looked for it on YouTube, but I only found short clips. It's probably on Discovery+ if it's streaming anywhere. It introduced me to the aquatic ape theory, which is a theory (considered pseudoscience) that during our evolution, a group of human ancestors adapted to living in water instead of on land. That's how the existence of mermaids was explained. It was a neat theory, even if it's not true. I love all the cryptozoology stuff. I know we already talked about the Loch Ness Monster, but I would love for Bigfoot to be real too.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 10:22:50 PM ---Do you have a certain limit you like to cap them at? Like 50 chapters?
The only time I try to cap myself is if it would make the difference between ending on a nice round number or not. Usually that's a matter of either combining shorter chapters or dividing longer chapters more than actually editing myself LOL.
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Not necessarily. But my life plan is to keep each story in PBox's series around fifty chapters. We'll see what happens the closer I get to the end of this one, haha. I also split the long ones in the initial run of PBox to get to fifty when I realized that I didn't have fifty chapters, I had forty-eight. Of course, then I edited and now have six more ridiculously long chapters at the end. Oh well! This one feels like I'll be able to wrap it up nicely in fifty chapters, at least once I realized that the end of this story wasn't going to get to the actual end of the whole story. When I thought they were the same, I was panicking about how long it would be.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 10:22:50 PM ---Broken and BMS have quite a bit of filler, which explains their length. I went a little subplot crazy with BMS because I was worried I would get bored with the main romantic storyline LOL. But at the same time, it was nice to have some comic relief and some cute, fluffy scenes amid all the drama, and that was how I worked the other guys into it more so it wasn't just all about Nick and Claire.
That being said, I have learned to cut back on filler and just focus on scenes that move the plot forward. Every scene should have a purpose, besides just being cute or funny. That has helped me to be a bit more concise.
I think the biggest thing that affects the length of my stories is the amount of time they cover. Broken and BMS (350 chapters together) took place over a period of about five years. SAMS and Curtain Call (80-90 chapters) both covered about a year. AHTIM (50 chapters) covered about a month. Bethlehem (22 chapters) covered about a week, and Heroic Measures (10 chapters) covered a few days. A lot can happen in a few days, but generally, the longer the time period, the more events there are to write about.
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You know, I think the subplots were fine, especially since you don't consider yourself a main genre romance writer. You wanted to tell their story and you wanted to make sure you finished it. It just took a little longer to get there.
Those purposeful and funny/cute scenes are money. As Team Dark, we get to say "see it's not all bad here, have a cookie." And then it continues to be "all bad here" afterward, sometimes in the same chapter. I'm looking at you Frick&Frack Piggyback!
I think time does play a big part in length! I would say PBox is about the same as AHTIM, a month maybe two, I just never wrote down every waking minute of it. The amount of time the characters spend walking during that time is abysmal (for them); luckily for the reader, I did not expand on it except in snippets where they made sense. I also think there's a difference in days for a Heroic Measures or a Bethlehem versus typical days. No one wants to read a ten chapter story about what I did the past few days, for instance, lmao.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on February 20, 2021, 10:22:50 PM ---I bet you would like it. I looked for it on YouTube, but I only found short clips. It's probably on Discovery+ if it's streaming anywhere. It introduced me to the aquatic ape theory, which is a theory (considered pseudoscience) that during our evolution, a group of human ancestors adapted to living in water instead of on land. That's how the existence of mermaids was explained. It was a neat theory, even if it's not true. I love all the cryptozoology stuff. I know we already talked about the Loch Ness Monster, but I would love for Bigfoot to be real too.
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Oh, I've heard of that theory! It's really interesting. Nessie would be great, Big Foot, unicorns would be cool, some deep dark cave where dinosaurs still roam... As a member of Team Dark, I feel like I gotta throw out the Chupacabre if for nothing but the chaos.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 10:53:44 PM ---Not necessarily. But my life plan is to keep each story in PBox's series around fifty chapters. We'll see what happens the closer I get to the end of this one, haha. I also split the long ones in the initial run of PBox to get to fifty when I realized that I didn't have fifty chapters, I had forty-eight. Of course, then I edited and now have six more ridiculously long chapters at the end. Oh well! This one feels like I'll be able to wrap it up nicely in fifty chapters, at least once I realized that the end of this story wasn't going to get to the actual end of the whole story. When I thought they were the same, I was panicking about how long it would be.
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That makes sense to want to keep stories in the same series around the same number of chapters.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 10:53:44 PM ---Those purposeful and funny/cute scenes are money. As Team Dark, we get to say "see it's not all bad here, have a cookie." And then it continues to be "all bad here" afterward, sometimes in the same chapter. I'm looking at you Frick&Frack Piggyback!
--- End quote ---
Hehe! Yeah, things can't get too light and fluffy on Team Dark without some horrible happening soon after. You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on February 20, 2021, 10:53:44 PM ---I also think there's a difference in days for a Heroic Measures or a Bethlehem versus typical days. No one wants to read a ten chapter story about what I did the past few days, for instance, lmao.
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LOL! Yes, definitely. When the story takes place across a few days, those days are probably important, whereas when it spans several months or years, you try to capture the highlights and skip through the time in between.
RokofAges75:
Has anyone else seen the new story on AO3 called "A Modest Proposal"? Some troll tagged like every popular fandom there is and posted the text of "The Great Gatsby" in the tag box so it created a giant wall of tags that takes like a full minute to scroll past. I clicked on the "story," and it technically does seem to contain a random reference to the various fandoms tagged. BSB is tagged and mentioned once, which is why it shows up on their page. Super annoying, but also kind of funny, especially considering the only character tagged is "Original Male Dog." That cracked me up when I saw it.
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