A set of three videos that tell a sweet story of a father and his sons on an Iceland adventure.
Dominion from Hazardous Journeys on Vimeo.
Risk from Hazardous Journeys on Vimeo.
Manhood from Hazardous Journeys on Vimeo.
So on the topic of fandom...
1.) Give me a pairing.
2.) Give me an AU setting.
3.) I will write you a three-sentence fic.
From the ever-lovely whipsy.
So I finally understand what folks say about knowing what the character wants. I've got plenty of characters that never really bother to share that with me and it doesn't bother me writing their stories that they didn't. But when you've got some flash fic that doesn't really want to get fleshed out, there comes a point when you need to know what's going to make it flesh out anyway. Salvation came from my biggest troublemaker of all: Hayley Lamar.
She knows what she wants.
This is a girl that's a troublemaker, has lousy citizenship and academic grades, and has some serious social interaction issues. She doesn't care what a single person thinks about her and she skated into Kailin on a scholarship because she had aptitude. Much desired aptitude. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it, and that's just a little bit scary.
Hayley surprised me quite a bit from the time I've started writing her because, frankly, she's adapted. She started out as a fanfic character in a fandom world, but when I plugged the stories into the Alliance universe instead, I hit a bit of a shock as the characters started changing on me. Now, I've had a character warp on me and become a flavor that could only exist within the premise they appear in, but I've never had a character simply change into someone else altogether. Hayley's doing that and it's awesome to behold.
As I see her starting to take over a story (starting by taking over Jack's favorite haven and turning it into her own personal platform into the most exclusive program in the school), I felt a light little tapping on my shoulder and turned around to find a former bubbly, over-the-top personality now christened Jena Kee wanting to politely inform me that I had her wrong. She's precise, very precise; ridiculously polite with her elders and superiors, but doesn't take an ounce of guff from anyone else. She's an explosive weapons expert and notices everything. Got it?
I kind of stare at my characters and wonder to myself: how in the world did I create such pushy people?
"I'm not at all pushy," Jena protests politely. "I just want my story."
Yeah. That.
So as it so happens, I am apparently lousy at writing summaries (though the person who pointed this out to me, did so kindly). I am requesting a trade: free fiction (the story to be summarized and a new short written to order) in exchange for a summary. I would reserve the right to request one revision if necessary.
The requested fiction can be fandom or original on any topic or to any prompt you wish, but within my general forté. No slash, graphic sex, graphic violence, or swearing.
So I just remembered/realized why I love writing flash fiction and have such a hard time getting it to pass muster with my awesome, wonderful, incredibly stick-me-to-it beta: I write sparse. Always have; probably always will. Oh, joy.
In short, I'm one of those odd and rare writers that sketches in a story and, if I'm wise enough to not consider it done, fill it in later. This usually takes a lot of filling and it's a pain in the butt and I'm often bored with the exercise long before the exercise is bored with me. Cue beta shipping it back to me with a note telling me to "Bake it longer, chica." :headdesk:
This is also probably where my major problem with novel-writing is coming from, and it certainly stems from all my time mucking around in fandom where I can play off a certain set of standard assumptions. I'll be the first to admit (in fact, I already did somewhere) that "Crossing the Barrier" could have been deepened quite a bit. I was nowhere near ready to tackle that kind of work though, didn't have enough interest in the story left to want to, and knew that the story worked without it. So I didn't. It probably would have been good practice.
What about you? Do you write long or short? Do you have to layer in details later or trim the fat?
For every portion of light to come into the world, a certain portion of darkness must be overcome.
Inspire any thoughts? Questions? I'd love the help, just saying. :grins:
And that, folks, is all for the moment!
The Falcon That Does Not Fly
Author's Notes: So this snippet was a contest entry years ago and needs some tweaking, but I see flashes of potential.
The falcon flew.
Finding the things that matter: it's no small feat. Do the things you write about really matter to you? Do the characters matter to you? Does the world matter to you? Why?
Let's not go throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, girlfriend. I know you (being you helps out with that and all), and there's a reason you're writing what you're writing. Now ask the questions about the things you care about.
Ask the right questions. (Reminding me of Ryven, girlfriend. It's always about the questions.) Got that right.
It's not worth doing if it isn't what you love.
So we remake ourselves anew in yet another image: I play with my own masks and faces in ways that surprise myself, in ways that were not expected and yet seem inevitable, only to discard them months later if they are not what I love (it's been a long journey). But like we said in "The Road," a gal has just got to keep walking if she ever expects to reach her destination.
