Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)
RokofAges75:
I saw a thread on Reddit today about "fanficiony names" (which I would call Mary Sue names), so I wondered, what's the most fanfictiony name you've put in a story?
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 09:11:16 PM ---I saw a thread on Reddit today about "fanficiony names" (which I would call Mary Sue names), so I wondered, what's the most fanfictiony name you've put in a story?
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Can't wait to hear Mare's contributions, lol.
I feel like I always used lame normal names like Victoria or Jessica or something like that. Maybe Minako is the most fanfictiony name I have? And it's only "weird" because I (and likely most of my readers) are English-speaking. I literally can't think of a fanfictiony name I've ever used.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 01:06:08 AM ---Yep, totally agree. I love Lancybassy and Drums, but I don't think NSYNC fans would. And yeah, I'm with you on the definition of a true crossover. I'm not a big fan of them in general, but the two I've written that I would tag as crossovers (ER and Harry Potter) had an equal balance between fandoms, and anyone reading them would be able to tell I'm a fan of both.
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Drums, thank you. I couldn't remember what we named Justin, lol. I think a crossover could be fine if the story is more genre blind as well. As long as you don't need to know a bunch ahead of time about whichever one isn't your fandom, it's probably more enjoyable for everyone.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 01:06:08 AM ---Wow, good for you! Five more chapters to go! You sound like me with upping the word count LOL. I always underestimate how many chapters/words it's going to take me to finish. I'm glad you're still on track to finish in June!
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I blame myself for including my editing word count too. I probably didn't need as many words as I have, but they're also getting longer than I think they would be, so maybe it's a combination of both. I derailed myself yesterday and tried to edit a tiny bit because that was all I could muscle out was examining old words instead of new words. I got 18 of them, but the streak is alive! We're starting the process of fertility testing (part of why I was in a wonky mood last week and a little MIA) and got some blood drawn yesterday morning. Then I was filling in for an absent teacher in our summer camp for the day and due to the lack of available bathrooms, I had the bright idea to limit my water intake on a hike. So of course, I was very dehydrated and tired by the end of the day with the worst headache and could not figure out how I ended up that way! lol I'm an idiot, basically. I was pretty bummed that I didn't get much writing done, but hopefully I can pick it back up tomorrow. I clearly needed another week of vacation.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 01:06:08 AM ---Mine went... better than yesterday? I at least added on to the one sentence I wrote yesterday and got a little further into my Kevin chapter. I did not write as much as I thought I would, but that's on me for letting myself get distracted. I made a book cover for Bethlehem and Heroic Measures for when I convert them to ebook format for my site. Then I got the bright idea to run grammar check on the stories I did not have it turned on for and see what crazy suggestions Google would come up with. I spent at least an hour editing all the mistakes it found in AHTIM alone... and now that I've realized how many missing words and similar mistakes I still didn't catch in my many read-throughs of that one, I feel like I need to do it for all my stories. So there is my new boredom project now that I'm done backdating LOL.
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How's the Kevin chapter going over the past couple of days? I know you said you did non-writing things today, but I hope it's going well overall.
Are your ebook covers very different from your banners? Is the process the same overall or is it pretty different?
I enjoy your new boredom project. Hopefully I caught most of them in Bethlehem, though I'll admit that reading in the wee hours of the morning is not conducive to catching grammar mistakes! (Or at least more subtle ones.)
How's the response to SAMS so far?
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---I have no idea. I've technically had an account on AO3 since 2015, but I never really went there until last year. I started putting my stuff up last spring during quarantine and suggested others do the same as a backup because AC had gotten so glitchy, so Mare and Steph followed suit. Tracy, Rose, and others from AC had already been posting there.
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What made you decide to get an account on AO3 back then? Exposure in a different place? Seemed busier? I guess this is a question for everyone who cross posts, what was the appeal of moving back to the ff.net-esque websites?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---Yeah, agreed. If it's not going to have a happy ending, it should at least have a happy beginning or a happy middle LOL.
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I think so too! I'm not a big fan of "Dead Dove. Don't Eat." stories, but as I said, I'll still read them. (A reference to a scene from Arrested Development that essentially means "this is horrifying from start to finish with really dark content. I have warned you, don't complain if you hate it.")
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---I only track according to my Docs revision history, so it's not accurate as far as actual time spent writing vs. time spent researching or getting distracted. I spend a lot of my writing time not-writing, which is why my average speed is so low. I'm sure it would be higher if I only counted the time I was actually writing, but I focus fail so often, it would just waste even more time to track it that accurately LOL. I spent almost three hours writing this morning, and my total came out to less than 300 words. But I probably spent at least half that time researching and watching YouTube LOL.
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I didn't used to track it so meticulously either. I would just count the total time I spent staring at the computer, which was often hours. I typically go to NaNo and open a "update stats" pop up, then set the time I start writing and then if I focus fail, I'll write down when the top says "x minutes since last change" and adjust the start time later (or right then if I'm on top of it.)
You do say you're always looking for boredom projects though, lol.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---Yeah, it really is frustrating. I'm sure that's why there are so many unfinished fanfics online, because it happens to the best of us, and forcing ourselves to finish it is easier said than done. Thankfully, this one was short for my novels, only 25 chapters, so I wrote the majority of it over one summer and was able to finish it. I hate leaving things unfinished, especially when they have the potential to be great stories. I won't forget about Guilty Roads because I still feel guilty about that one LOL. I also have an unfinished Harry Potter crossover to try to finish at some point.
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Oh easily! Sometimes there's an idea you can't let go of and you just gotta write it right then, but then once it's on paper... Poof! I wish I felt more inclined to finish my unfinished things. I'm also not happy to be seen as someone who doesn't finish things, but I also disappeared for several years, so maybe there's no expectations for me. Which is honestly freeing! Maybe everyone's new opinion of me is "cared enough to come back." I'll take that, lol.
So I hear you saying that the path to finish Guilty Roads may be your own guilty road. Hopefully it leads to endless love and you have some control. ;) I'll see myself out.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---LOL! Seriously. 4,500 is one solid chapter or maybe two short ones. My 9,106 word novel would maybe be three chapters now, but it was sixteen then! It was probably still the longest thing I had ever written at that time.
Mine was on Geocities, but apparently Angelfire was the BSB of late 90s free website hosting sites because it's still around. I wonder if your Angelfire site is still online? Do you remember the name or anything about it?
I was curious so I googled and found this: https://web.archive.org/web/20010501233041/http://www.geocities.com:80/orlandostory/orlando1.html Is that your Orlando Story??
Yeah, but that shows how fickle most teenyboppers were back then. No warning or explanation or anything; they just randomly stopped updating it. Same with so many other sites from that era. I always vowed I would at least let people know if I decided to stop writing or updating my site.
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Same! I'm glad we got a little more prolific, though how nice to read an entire novel in like twenty minutes, lol.
LMAO at "the BSB of late 90s free website hosting sites." I remember nothing! Just that it existed. But as you know, I save everything, so it's possible when I go back to cleaning the house, I'll find it. I vaguely remember writing down my usernames and passwords on a piece of paper at some point and obviously saved that because how could it not be important!
I'm so unoriginal, lol. No, that's not my story. You'd probably be better off googling the first line or something if you want to deep dive into Angelfire. I cringe so hard at this story and my terrible spelling, oh to be eleven again and have a Romeo and Juliet-esque story about Nick in my heart, lol:
I was sitting in my room doing nothing at all and being very bored. My mom and dad occasionally went past, but that was it. I would have been eating dinner if it weren't for my brother and Benevolant.
You're totally right and that's very admirable of you.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---I know! I found it hard to follow the [I think they're] elves' love story at first because I was so distracted by all the other random, non-Christmas-related stuff, like the pandaskunks and the submarine and the rocket LOL. That's the kind of stuff I wove into my story.
We haven't had the Boys actually riding on the pandaskunk's back yet on a shirt, although that would be amazing! If you feel like drawing that, that would be awesome! The best I could do was photoshop the pandaskunk pulling Santa's sleigh and the Boys riding in that. http://absolutechaos.net/viewseries.php?seriesid=259 It's on the banner for the second story.
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Elves makes sense. LMAO! It was the weirdest video, what do all those things have to do with Christmas?! I'm starting to wonder if I should have done drugs before I watched it. Would it have made sense then? lol
When do I have? Until 2022? I can figure that out by then probably. I still owe you some word chickens. They're almost done, just not quite up to my vision.
LMFAO! I love these banners so much. Is this series better at Christmas time?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---Very true. I just feel like kids today are growing up in a totally different world from the one we grew up in. But I'm sure high school drama is still high school drama. Some things never change. Or I could always set it in the 90s or early 2000s. That's actually not a bad idea because it would save me some time researching. Seeing as how Broken was written 18 years ago, I'm sure there have been medical advancements made with both cancer treatment and prosthetic legs. Nick's top of the line C-leg is probably not considered top of the line anymore. I'm just speaking hypothetically here because yes, I have moved on from Broken and don't have the desire to write OF or try to get a novel published at the moment. But at least I know I have an idea if I ever get that itch again.
I don't think age makes as much of a difference now that we're all adults, but it does seem easier to write a character who's younger (especially when he's a real person you can go back and watch footage of at that age to remind yourself how he acted) than writing one who's significantly older than you. Writing 41-year-old Nick as a 14-year-old would definitely have been a challenge LOL.
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Also true! Maybe we need a panel of high schoolers to tell us what they think of their novel. Do high schoolers still text each other? Do they have gym class? Would they jump at the chance to hang out with demons in a mythical world? Would they love our favorite PTSD amnesiac with a hair-trigger temper like I do? What if they hate the boyband vibes of our protagonists? Maybe I've made a mistake getting back into this story ten years later, lol.
Ooh, yeah, I think the medical advancements would be the harder thing to update than the "high schooler vibe." At least it's there if you want to revisit it.
Thank goodness we have old footage to remind us! But then I get sucked into the nostalgia instead of focusing on Nick's behaviors and speech patterns, lol. Alas. Now I want to read stories about 41-year-old Nick's married with children life written by a 14-year-old! This sounds judgy, but I just want to appreciate the naivety. I wonder what types of problems he would have... I just know how much I struggled with making Kevin a full dimensional character at that age and he was only in his late twenties/early thirties.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---That is interesting! I had never heard the thing about people getting up in the middle of the night to do stuff in the dark and then going back to bed. That sounds similar to the habit I got into toward the end of this school year with my evening naps, followed by 3 hours of doing stuff before I went back to bed for the night. I actually like waking up in the middle of the night and realizing I can go back to sleep for a few hours before my alarm goes off. I have a much easier time falling back to sleep than falling asleep in the first place. Although I've gotten better at that ever since I started listening to podcasts or documentaries as I fall asleep.
Your ideal sleep times are what mine usually are during the school year. I rarely make it past 1 a.m. on a weekend because I'm so tired, and I usually wake up around 7-8 a.m. (and then go back to bed and sleep until 9-10.) It starts to creep later and later in the summer.
LOL The neighbors would probably assume I'm burying a body in the backyard and call the cops.
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Yes, that did remind me of it too! I was impressed that you could nap and then function. If I nap past a certain point, I am useless. It's hit or miss for me. Sometimes I can fall back asleep and sometimes I can't.
Same. Once it hits 1am, I am a mess. Unless I got into a crazy writing focus, then I won't even know what time it is until I look at the clock and then it hits me all at once how tired I am. I think 11am is the latest I'll wake up? 9-10 is pretty average for a weekend.
LMAO! Yes they would! I don't want to judge your body burying techniques, but I'm inclined to say that if it involves a lawn mower, you might be doing it wrong? lol
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 01, 2021, 12:52:54 AM ---Yeah, it does, but you're right - that doesn't bother me as much as AO3 because it's not as noticeable. I just need to not do prologues anymore, but sometimes they feel necessary. Like in SAMS, the prologue is actually a flash-forward to a later scene in the story, so it makes more sense as a prologue than a first chapter.
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Ooh, that's fun! Kicks off the action right away. I don't typically do prologues, but I know that would bother me a lot if a prologue pushed the chapter numbering in a bizarre way.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 02, 2021, 11:12:53 PM ---I blame myself for including my editing word count too. I probably didn't need as many words as I have, but they're also getting longer than I think they would be, so maybe it's a combination of both. I derailed myself yesterday and tried to edit a tiny bit because that was all I could muscle out was examining old words instead of new words. I got 18 of them, but the streak is alive! We're starting the process of fertility testing (part of why I was in a wonky mood last week and a little MIA) and got some blood drawn yesterday morning. Then I was filling in for an absent teacher in our summer camp for the day and due to the lack of available bathrooms, I had the bright idea to limit my water intake on a hike. So of course, I was very dehydrated and tired by the end of the day with the worst headache and could not figure out how I ended up that way! lol I'm an idiot, basically. I was pretty bummed that I didn't get much writing done, but hopefully I can pick it back up tomorrow. I clearly needed another week of vacation.
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Oh no! I wondered what was up with you. I hope you get some answers - fingers crossed that they are the kind of answers you want to hear! No wonder you haven't been on as much. I always get a headache when I don't drink enough water too. I hope you rehydrated and are feeling better today! Glad you were able to keep the streak alive!
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 02, 2021, 11:12:53 PM ---How's the Kevin chapter going over the past couple of days? I know you said you did non-writing things today, but I hope it's going well overall.
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Today was busy, so I didn't write anything until I got home tonight and wrote a sentence just to keep the streak alive. I may try to add more before I go to bed; we'll see. But yesterday was the first really good writing day I've had in a while - definitely since my summer started. I wrote over 2000 words, which is what I need to do more of if I want to make my goal by the end of the month.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 02, 2021, 11:12:53 PM ---Are your ebook covers very different from your banners? Is the process the same overall or is it pretty different?
I enjoy your new boredom project. Hopefully I caught most of them in Bethlehem, though I'll admit that reading in the wee hours of the morning is not conducive to catching grammar mistakes! (Or at least more subtle ones.)
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Most them are similar to the fanfic banner, but not exactly the same. The dimensions are different (more like a real book cover), so what works on a banner doesn't always work with the book cover. I actually just started making new, more minimalistic covers that don't include pictures of the Boys - that way, if people do want to download them to read on Kindle or whatever, they don't look like fanfic. Once I finish grammar-checking all these old stories on Google Docs, I'll remake and repost the ebooks.
I think I had turned on the grammar check by the end of Bethlehem, so hopefully Google caught most of them too.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 02, 2021, 11:12:53 PM ---How's the response to SAMS so far?
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Better than for Unsuspecting Sunday, its short story predecessor. It has a few kudos, and one person has commented so far. She had an awesome reaction to the first shocking moment of the story, which was fun to read. It's been so long since I started that story, I forgot how much I looked forward to reactions like that. It's fun having people read it for the first time.
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