Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)
mare:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 13, 2021, 07:39:24 PM ---It is never random! If you brought this up two weeks from now, I may have forgotten the original discussion, but not when we talked about it on Thursday.
I can't remember, Mare, did you switch between the POVs evenly or were they skewed toward one of the Boys (I assume Nick if that's the case)? I don't feel like your stories were ever confusing because of it, regardless.
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On the ones that are all five points of view, it was never really focused on any one person. At least I never intended it to be. Nick seemed to have the most dramatic chapters because Nick was always the most dramatic lol but I always gave them equal time and an equal amount of chapters.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 13, 2021, 09:14:13 PM ---It's weird that there's only about 1,400 BSB fanfics on AO3. I guess it makes sense since AO3 didn't exist in our fanfic heyday, but I know there's way more than 1,400 BSB fanfics out there. And it's weird to think about when fanfiction.net removed all its RPF fandoms and so we all had to go rogue, haha. One Direction and BTS fans are lucky they didn't have to deal with that. (I also have found that there are 66 fanfics about TSwift's Bad Blood music video?)
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Yeah, I think it's just because AO3 is newer. There are way more than 1,400 BSB fanfics out there, but the majority of them were written in the late 90s or early 2000s and are either still out there on Angelfire or Tripod sites that haven't been updated in 20+ years or went down with Geocities. I'm sure AC has the largest collection of them on one site.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 13, 2021, 09:14:13 PM ---I also found out "face f-ing" is a tag? And that story is tagged "fantasy" in a way the genre is not intended (I assume, I didn't click on it) in addition to "sexual fantasy" that might be valid?
I guess our "Additional tags" section included more things that I would call genres and the other two had more subtags for sex (as I noted above with anal sex being listed for all three fandoms in the "additional tags" section) or character related tags. So we might define our work by genre more than the other fandoms do? I also realized I didn't initially look up historical fiction and added it in. And then I realized it was 8pm and I hadn't eaten dinner yet.
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The tags! Everything is a tag there LOL. It honestly drives me nuts. I guess I can see why you might like to search out stories tagged "kidnapping" (there are 14 BSB fics with this tag) or "bus crash" (none!!), but hello spoilers! That's the reason I didn't tag most of my stories as medical dramas specifically - unless it's obvious in the summary or happens in the first chapter, that's a spoiler! Judging by the tags, readers on AO3 seem to care more about the character pairings and sexual positions than genres or plot points though.
I mostly tagged mine with characters and genres because that's how I'm used to classifying them, both here on AC and on my site. I guess that's mainly what I look at after the summary when I'm browsing for stories to read - what's it about, who's it about, and what kind of story is it? I definitely don't need to know if there's anal sex in it or not LOL. If it's a slash, I'm going to assume there is. But maybe this is just us being old-school. The whole concept of tags is a newer thing; we didn't have those back in the day LOL.
Thanks for doing all that research! Holy shit, there's a lot of BTS fanfics! I wonder how many BSB fics there would have been on AO3 if it had been the main place to post fanfics back in the late 90s. I also wonder if they would have been overwhelmingly slash like they are now. Somehow I don't think so. Slash has always been around, but I think het romance was more popular in the peak days of BSB fic.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---I asked the age question because I was curious to see how many of us were around the same age when we had that leap in writing development. I was also 17 when I started Broken, so we are alike in that way!
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I was curious too (for science), so I'm glad you did! I hope other people write long diatribes about their novels too! :) Or short diatribes. Y'all know I'm long-winded.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---Wow, that is some friend! Was it hard to hear "this sucks" from her then, or did you welcome the harsh but honest feedback? I'm glad it helped you look at your writing through another lens and learn from her constructive criticism.
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The amount of times we edited the first chapter was insane! It hurt a little at the beginning, because I don't think anyone likes to hear that something they wrote sucks? I assume this is universally true? But I'm also grateful that I had that frame for constructive criticism early. In my mind, no one is going to give constructive criticism from a bad place, it all comes from a good place of wanting to get the best story out of it. Especially when it is someone close to you who also cares about your stories or how your writing is going. Similar to how a teacher will only tell you to fix something before a final draft because they want you to get the best grade you possibly can. I definitely think it gave me a thicker skin earlier while also showing me that there's always things to improve, even on something you love. I was definitely better for it in the long run, especially knowing that after reworking things, I usually got "this is much better/more interesting/makes more sense" in that case. So I figured that something like that was true in all cases.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---Yeah, it's definitely easier to use characters who already exist, whether they're people we know in real life or celebrities. It can be fun to base characters on people, too, but it's also fun to create your own. I think the problem with most of the teenybopper Mary Sue stories back in the day was that if the writers created an original character instead of a self-insert, they focused more on her external traits, like her appearance and clothing, than internal traits, so they ended up with this flat drawing of a pretty girl who everyone seemed to love even though she had no substance, rather than a realistic, three-dimensional character. The ability to create one of those comes with experience, so self-inserts may have been a better choice for beginning writers.
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I think Mary Sue characters are fairly flat in general, or their flaws aren't really flaws (I'm looking at you "clumsy, but in an endearing way.") There was also a danger in the self-inserts that they also lacked flaws because I feel like it's harder to admit your own flaws, let alone write them down for the whole world to see. But at least self-inserts had a little more personality to them in general. Even if the Boys cared more about Nick's relationship with Gypsydoodle than they cared about their own problems.
I feel like we've had this conversation many times, lol.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---Just don't crash the bus, Nick! Or do, and then we can get another fanfic out of it.
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LMFAO! He doesn't technically know what a bus is, but I guess he's fine because it's a metaphorical bus? Maybe that's what PBox related writer's block is, Nick crashing the bus. Hopefully the others do something useful and Howie doesn't spend the whole time winking. lmao
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---I can relate to this too. Broken doesn't seem that dark to me now, but it is certainly angsty and depressing in parts. Back when I was writing it, I had a lot of angst over the impending amputation. I don't know why because I had already put the Boys through all kinds of tragedies in my earlier stories, even killed some of them... but for whatever reason, chopping off Nick's leg felt like a really big deal to me. But it was also a compelling enough idea that I committed to it, and that is when I learned to take risks, cross lines, embrace the darkness, and run with it. The fact that Broken doesn't seem that dark and chopping off Nick's leg doesn't seem like a big deal to me now just shows me how much darker I've gotten since then LOL. As we've talked about before, it's good to occasionally cross lines and write things that make you uncomfortable because by stepping outside your comfort zone, you're more likely to learn and grow. That being said, there's still a place for comic relief and flashes of light in a dark story, and there's nothing wrong with fun-fest jokey writing when it fits the story. I don't know if "Death by Snail" fits your definition of fun-fest jokey writing, being more of a dark humor, but I'm looking forward to it!
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I can see why chopping off Nick's leg made you feel angsty, especially if it was around the time your writing improved. It's easy enough to say "And he died and everyone was sad, but then they moved on and there was a wedding" or whatever, but it's harder to portray a character's emotions about a dark thing happening to them. Which I know I didn't have pre-Gobosei and still didn't refine until going through PBox. If Broken was your breakout piece, you had to make sure that Nick's feelings about being an amputee were adequately explored, shark dreams and all. ;) :) I agree with all of that! I'm grateful PBox gave me a chance to grow and push boundaries. I knew the potential for dark was there, but the stories never felt like the right place to commit to the dark. I guess with PBox, I just finally thought, "cool, let's get dark?" I think we've discussed before that it's equally important to have those comic relief moments and flashes of light in a dark story; even in dark situations, nothing is always all dark.
Edited to Add: I meant to comment on this and forgot. I'd say, overall "Death by Snail" has a little more of the "fun-fest jokey" type stuff, at least in the beginning.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---I'm always impressed by the level of research you do, as well as your attention to detail when it comes to building worlds and creating characters. I know we've already discussed the strange things we've looked up for stories, but another question could be, "What random knowledge have you acquired thanks to fanfic?" Like parts of weapons and the rules of fencing!
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Thanks! It has been extensive, but it helps that I like learning about random things, haha. The internet has only made it easier. I love that question! I'll have to come up with a more detailed list. On the topic of parts of weapons, it has always bothered me that "gripped" is one of my go-to verbs, because I cannot properly call the part of a sword's handle that is held the "grip" rather than referring to the whole thing as a "hilt" because variants of "gripped the grip" sound ridiculous. And I know there are other verbs, but "gripped" the verb!
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---I also admire how much thought you put into your characters and their actions and words. It's one thing to come up with all little quirks, like Nick always standing with his back against the wall in the beginning, but then to write them in such a subtle and nuanced way so that your readers may not even notice that or realize why... That takes a certain level of sophistication . When you spend a lot of time researching and crafting a character or world, it's tempting to want to include every detail you know in the actual story. I struggle with that temptation of wanting to over-explain and include details that don't really need to be in the story just because I find them interesting.
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Thanks again! I'm super touched by these nice compliments about my hard work researching and character crafting! :bighug: I work really hard on it, even if it doesn't all end up in the narrative. That's why I like chatting here, because I can share all these interesting facts and details in the context of our discussions without the story feeling bloated from them.
I joked that I wanted to add a chapter called "castles are super f-in interesting," because... well castles are really interesting, first of all, and then I'd have a spot to really explain why the capital of Safaiananpou is a walled city surrounding a castle and the other countries' capitals aren't that way. The short answer is that castle compounds typically house what the sovereign deems essential to running their empire, which typically does not include the average citizen of their empire, but obviously Howie would consider everyone and everything to be essential. Which then leads to the rest of the country being fairly sparse, untouched natural elements and the inherent problems with housing your entire country in the same place (chiefly that it's fairly easy to wipe your entire civilization out if it's in one spot and you're not constantly prepared for that threat, but it's also a choice based directly on an earlier event in universe, so... I digress again).
However, I don't think I've quite obtained Victor Hugo status to natter on about things that interest me for many pages and include it in the narrative, but I also thought it was fascinating to learn all about the Paris sewer system from him (I don't think everyone has this same opinion, haha). I think we all just need to create companion books titled "All the super interesting things I learned while researching x story," then there might be less temptation to bog down the narrative with it? Because I feel you, I also would love to include so much of my research because I find it fascinating (clearly, I wrote a whole story that required me to find it), but I agree that there's places for it in the narrative and there's places where it really doesn't need to be.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:15:05 PM ---With description, I think it's important to find a balance between "not enough" and "too much." Obviously, description is needed to help bring a story to life in the reader's head. But too much description can bog down the story, bore the reader, and put you in purple prose territory. With fantasy, I think it makes sense to save your longer descriptions for things that don't exist the same way in our world. That helps the reader picture and understand the world you've created for your story. They don't need a detailed description of every leaf on a tree. They also don't need constant reminders of what the Backstreet Boys look like, although I never mind a description of their pretty eyes or smiles. Or hair!
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"The tree had many leaves, they all looked the same: green, jagged, slightly oval. Just like you would imagine a tree looked. They were also next to this building you've never heard of, but we can't talk about that next time. This magnificent specimen of natural beauty was..." lmao. This is why I don't bother describing terrain aside from "surrounded by a forest" unless knowing something specific about it is important or that same element pops up later for some reason. I'll say that I spend 0.05% of my time waxing poetic about some natural feature because I felt like it; it's not there often, but it is there sometimes. "Gardens of an estate" fall into the same category as "buildings that exist in the imagined world of PBox" for me, so I don't count them in that 0.05%.
Same. Eyes, smiles, hair, Kevin's eyebrows, facial hair. I assume most of us feel the same, so I never feel bad including it or waxing poetic on it (within reason). I won't call it totally purple, but possibly periwinkle prose.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:36:25 PM ---Definitely! I'm sure it helped that I was already about halfway through BMS when I started student teaching, so it wasn't like I was writing a new story. I already knew those characters well and was committed to telling the rest of their story, so it was easy to stay inspired and write when I had time.
This was also before smartphones and social media, which have really hurt my focus. The only thing I had to distract me at that time was IM, but even that was usually helpful in the same way this forum is. Most of the people I chatted with were fellow fanfic authors or at least readers (who were reading my story), so we could encourage each other and bounce ideas off each other. There were plenty of nights when I'd have an IM window open with a friend who was also writing, and we would just use it to occasionally check in on each other. "How's the writing going?" "I've written two pages so far! You?" Then we'd send each other chapters to read and give feedback on before we posted them for the rest of the world. We never called it beta-reading, but that's basically what we were doing.
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Also true! It's definitely harder to start something new when you feel busy and have to plan or research without feeling committed to the characters or story yet.
Oh, I miss IM and just having it open in the tray while working on something else, it was nice to occasionally check in and get some quick feedback if you needed to bounce something. I often wish that I had joined twitter when it started so I could be twitter famous. I like to think I'm funny, but I just never got super into it.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:36:25 PM ---This is always me toward the end of a novel, too. Sometimes I know (or think I know) what idea I'm going to write next, and I get so excited about it that it's hard to stay focused on finishing the in-progress story. Other times I have no idea what idea I'm going to tackle next, and the uncertainty is what interferes with my focus. And it's dumb because even when I think I know what idea I'm going to work on, that doesn't always end up being the one I really do write next. I always figure it out eventually though.
I'm glad you're feeling better and hope the two coffees help!
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It's pretty much me deciding whether to keep going through the next book or take a break and do something different. I think Nick's deliberately pouting right now because he knows what needs to happen in the story and supports his decision, but simultaneously hates it and doesn't want it to happen. So he's being agonizingly silent to stall the inevitable. Stop being complicated like a real person, Nick, and fix whatever broke on the bus so you can keep driving! I don't know if I'm super excited about any of the next ideas yet (other than writing pieces of the next novel of the series), but it's definitely crossed my mind.
If nothing else, the two coffees helped me in my quest to figure out genre numbers for similar fandoms, lol. Which is a different kind of productive?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 13, 2021, 08:36:25 PM ---I didn't write much on any of those days - maybe Monday, which is I think when I finished Chapter 5. I only had like two paragraphs written for Chapter 6 before today. Now I'm up to 1500 words, which is fairly productive for me these days. But it's taken me the better part of the day to get to that point. I wrote all morning, then took a break to shower, eat, watch TV, and do a bit of cleaning, and then wrote more this afternoon. But I am definitely into it, which I'm happy about - I wasn't sure how that would go for my first Kevin story LOL.
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Woo! 1,500 words plus personal needs, breaks, and home needs! I'm glad your first Kevin story is going well and you're into it. :)
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: mare on March 13, 2021, 09:19:39 PM ---On the ones that are all five points of view, it was never really focused on any one person. At least I never intended it to be. Nick seemed to have the most dramatic chapters because Nick was always the most dramatic lol but I always gave them equal time and an equal amount of chapters.
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Nick is the most dramatic.
Mare is so wise and balanced. Teach me your ways, Mare. I keep finding myself saying I should have listened to you a long time ago, lol!
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