Ah...the writing process.
Oct. 22nd, 2005 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agilebritOkay, my last fic (don't click the link unless you've seen Serenity; major spoilers ahoy!) was an interesting experience. For anyone who doesn't know, it's Firefly fic with a River/Jayne sort of pre-shippy pairing.
Let me say at the outset that River/Jayne squicks the hell out of me for a host of reasons. Number one, she's crazy. Number two, she's underage. Number three, even if she wasn't underage, he'd still be too old for her. Number four, while I'm thinking she might be good for him, I'm not sure the opposite is true. And number five...she sliced him open with a big-ass knife. Such an action does not make for a good, trusting relationship.
I had the format for the thing all picked out. It was going to be three parts. First part would be first person Jayne, ruminating about himself and his relationship with the women on the boat. Third part would be first person, Jayne POV, ruminating about what just happened in the fic. The middle part is what gave me fits, because it flat would not behave.
First it decided it needed to be TWO parts. Then the second part of the middle decided it wanted to be Jayne's POV, which I didn't want. I wanted the middle part of the fic to be all River. About midway through editing the second part of the middle, I realized that the entire fic would be better if I told it in present tense. Whee! Another massive edit. And, heh. Anyone need a pie chart yet?
Then, I realized that, while the first, second, and fourth parts were okay, the third part still kind of sucked. River was just reacting to what Jayne was thinking instead of having any of her own thoughts. Argh. So that entailed, first, figuring out just what she was thinking, and second, attempting to shoehorn it in among the Jayne thoughts.
I've gotten so used to writing third person limited that writing third person limited from the POV of a psychic was a little unnerving. Especially since I'd already done his POV and was trying to get her POV in there some way that made sense, without canning what I'd already written...because I liked what I had written, dammit.
Well. I suppose it came out all right. They've made it plain that they're going to wait a bit before they jump into anything, which is kind of shiny. I may do something more with this little 'verse, later. And this entire entry probably isn't interesting to anyone but me. But I'm writing it anyway, because I think the process is interesting, and now anyone out there who wants can see something of what went into the writing of that particular fic.
Grahr.
Let me say at the outset that River/Jayne squicks the hell out of me for a host of reasons. Number one, she's crazy. Number two, she's underage. Number three, even if she wasn't underage, he'd still be too old for her. Number four, while I'm thinking she might be good for him, I'm not sure the opposite is true. And number five...she sliced him open with a big-ass knife. Such an action does not make for a good, trusting relationship.
I had the format for the thing all picked out. It was going to be three parts. First part would be first person Jayne, ruminating about himself and his relationship with the women on the boat. Third part would be first person, Jayne POV, ruminating about what just happened in the fic. The middle part is what gave me fits, because it flat would not behave.
First it decided it needed to be TWO parts. Then the second part of the middle decided it wanted to be Jayne's POV, which I didn't want. I wanted the middle part of the fic to be all River. About midway through editing the second part of the middle, I realized that the entire fic would be better if I told it in present tense. Whee! Another massive edit. And, heh. Anyone need a pie chart yet?
Then, I realized that, while the first, second, and fourth parts were okay, the third part still kind of sucked. River was just reacting to what Jayne was thinking instead of having any of her own thoughts. Argh. So that entailed, first, figuring out just what she was thinking, and second, attempting to shoehorn it in among the Jayne thoughts.
I've gotten so used to writing third person limited that writing third person limited from the POV of a psychic was a little unnerving. Especially since I'd already done his POV and was trying to get her POV in there some way that made sense, without canning what I'd already written...because I liked what I had written, dammit.
Well. I suppose it came out all right. They've made it plain that they're going to wait a bit before they jump into anything, which is kind of shiny. I may do something more with this little 'verse, later. And this entire entry probably isn't interesting to anyone but me. But I'm writing it anyway, because I think the process is interesting, and now anyone out there who wants can see something of what went into the writing of that particular fic.
Grahr.
