[Check-In]

[kalloway]

Just a reminder - this is your community, too. Feel free to use it to ask for advice, vent, commiserate, celebrate, etc.


This is a weekly check-in! You do not have to check in, of course, but if you would like to comment on the last week, feel free!


If you have a deadline coming up, you can do it! If you need a deadline, feel free to ask!


(If anyone would like a Brainstorming Post, feel free to ask!)

Comments

[kalloway]

Yay for getting the assignment of your dreams~!

[the_rck]

I've been poking at a couple of things, trying to get to the point that I can finish something.

One thing I tried ended up grinding to a halt because I couldn't match the voice of the books (first person narrator) due to deciding to tweak the backstory for the main character in a way that doesn't counter canon but does counter the author's intentions/assumptions.

The other thing still might go forward, but I realized that it was going to run straight into a big DNW for me-- Bad things happening to kids. I might be able to work around that or to work my way through it, but I'm not sure I'm sufficiently interested in the story to go there. I have about 750 words that work as a ficlet even if I don't go further.

[kalloway]

For the first, could you just consider it a re-imagining or consider the canon as an unreliable narrator and go from there with the tweaks?

[the_rck]

The difficulty for me is that I can't get the new version of the character to sound even remotely like he does in canon. The words he uses in canon don't fit with the new, tweaked backstory, and I have trouble accepting something that doesn't sound like the old version as right. I think that the main problem is that I've mostly written this for Yuletide which has meant working very, very hard to keep the voice right.

Right now, I'm letting that one sit while I try to figure out how to rework it. I may simply need time to become comfortable with the character having a different voice than I'm used to and with the idea that the canonical author didn't really want anything that happened to the character to have actual repercussions.

[gehayi]

Writing: I wrote a Chronicles of Narnia AU (no Shasta, and Rabadash is after Aravis, not Susan) about Aravis and Hwin entering Tashbaan. Aravis is telling her own story; I'm finding this pretty interesting.

Editing: I have managed to slog to page 235 of 500 (page 500 so far--the length keeps expanding as I keep editing, which is discouraging in itself) in a quest fantasy that is progressing at a glacial pace. (The characters just set off on their quest on page 220, if that gives you an idea.)

On top of this, I just got another manuscript back; the author changed the ending (this was needed, in my opinion, but I don't yet know what she changed it to) and added 8,000 words to it, which means that I can't just approve or reject edits with tracking changes. I have to read the whole thing AGAIN to see if the rewrites make sense and fit with the rest of the book.

[kalloway]

\o/

(That is a bit of a long time to get moving on a quest, yes...)

Good luck with everything!

[lassarina]

I successfully edited two chapters of the thing I'm trying to finish and send out this year, and pieces of plot are starting to hang onto a premise bunny I wrote down last year and shoved into a box because I didn't have time.

[kalloway]

\o/ Awesome!