lavanya_six | Year in Review: 2009 (Reply)

Well, it's almost 2010. Let's look back on the year behind me and the year ahead, fanfiction-wise, and what I learned.

LOOKING BACK: What I Wrote in 2009

The Broken Masquerade

One of my most important fics was one that I never published and never even completed. In April, between Taking Sights entering its coma and Facing Fearful Odds being born, I had an idea for a Harry Potter AU novel. It was going to be a project where I did things differently. I was going to have betas help me through the whole fic, I was going to finish it all before I published chapter 1. This was the first time I practiced what I've come to think of as The Rules. TBM died a slow death as I realized that while I had it had an interesting premise -- the Wizarding and Muggle Worlds merging together -- it lacked a compelling character story. TBM did consolidate The Rules into a concrete set of guidelines for me.

They are, as follows:

1. I will not publish a long-form fanfic until every single chapter has been written, beta'd and edited.
       1-b. Not every story idea has the strength to last. Sometimes it will die out after two chapters, sometimes it will take ten. It's better to know a story won't survive before you publish Chapter 1. The internet doesn't need more deadfics.
2. I will always use a beta reader.
       2-b. I am not my own best beta reader.
3. I will not show excerpts from a story ahead of time.
4. Only work on one long-form fanfiction project at a time.

As you'll see in the following entries, all my writing projects for this 2009 tie back into the creation of The Rules.

Taking Sights

This year saw TS grind to a halt under the weight of bad planning, a lack of interest, and me discovering Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've previously talked at length about the pacing/plotting problems that have hurt TS so I won't repeat myself here. With eleven chapters remaining, I'm not looking forward to finishing it. Mind you -- I will finish it, if only because I really like the ending I have planned and I want to finally see it published.

And the Gods Danced in the Night

A Twilight fanfic seen through the eyes of the Mythos. It was supposed to be a five chapter story, like the old HP Lovecraft tales, but I had trouble writing it because I needed to be in a weird mood to get the narrator's First Person POV just right.

Realpolitik

My nasty little Star Trek XI fic. I had a lot of problems writing it in the first person POV, something which embarrassed me greatly when I prematurely published it with tense errors. Realpolitik taught me my most important writing lesson this year: always always ALWAYS have a beta reader. Unless I leave a story alone for three or more weeks, I'm too close to it to see the errors.

The Ineffable Crossover

Just so you know, when I do get around to finishing the next chapter I'll be deleting the last one. I was originally going to do a giant Take That to The WH40K/NGE mega-crossover fic "The Open Door" but it crossed the line from parody to outright meanness. I don't want that. I might find the characters in The Open Door detestable bastards but it's not something to base a light-hearted comedy fic around.

Better Luck Next Time

I'm beginning to think that I have some issues because, as I look over this list, all my one-shots and short stories for 2009 were very mean-spirited stories (with the exception of my AtLA stuff). I started this story sometime in 2008 and never finished it until, when I was browsing through my hard drive, I accidentally found the text file with it. Some reviewers on Fanfiction.Net have remarked that this story is a slam against Crazy-88's "Once More With Feeling." It isn't. It's a slam against all the cliches of Evangelion fanfics that I kept seeing; not only in the Peggy Sues, but in the "Shinji was raised by a Jedi/Chaos Space Marine/Generic Badass" fics. "Once More With Feeling" might use those same cliches, but damn if it doesn't use them well.

I was absent from the Evangelion fandom for several years, from about 2003 to 2008, and I really didn't (and still don't) like the treatment of Shinji's canon characterization in the stories I found after I returned to it. Just because Shinji's a weak person doesn't mean he needs to be turned into a hot blooded badass. Hell, Shinji's meant to be a deconstruction of the typical giant mecha protagonist. If you want to turn him into a strong-willed, decent human being, then show me that through character development, not through wish fulfillment AU. Better Luck Next Time is me venting about that.

Facing Fearful Odds

According to the oldest file time stamp, I started FFO on Wednesday, May 20th. So in eight months I've written about 150,000 words if you count what I've worked ahead in Book 2 and 3. I've written at length about FFO on this livejournal so I'll spare you from more retrospectives... save that I've really enjoyed writing FFO in a way that I never did with Taking Sights.

The Siege of the South

My first AtLA one-shot. It received pretty positive feedback, which fed my ego nicely. After the hell that was Chapter 6-A of Facing Fearful Odds, I wrote Siege as an experiment in a minimalist, fast-paced style.

   Praise Be to Nero's Neptune

My failed NaNoWriMo novel, an AtLA AU. This story suffered from me being distracted by the needs of FFO. It also failed because I can't write a damn thing in the present tense unless there's a single viewpoint character with a strong voice. Present tense works for a one-shot like Siege of the South but it doesn't for a multi-character epic.

   Persona 4 Kink Meme

I wrote several stories for the Person 4 Kink Meme. Some of them even weren't porn. The two long-form prompt fills I started got to be too much and were abandoned in place. The kink meme seems to be petering off as more time passes from P4's publication date, but I enjoyed writing for it immensely. Both filling prompt and seeing prompts I wrote filled was very cool.

LOOKING AHEAD: Projects for 2010

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 - (Various)

I've got several finished and unfinished fills from the Persona 4 Bad Bad Bathhouse Kink Meme that I'm planning on polishing/completing and posting under my Lavanya Six handle.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor - (Unknown)

I got Devil Survivor as a present for Christmas, so it's my one video game for the next six months. Good game, btw, if not as entertaining as Persona 4 was. The story is a little simplistic, I hate the MC's hacker buddy (which suck 'cuz he's the only member of your party who sticks around for the whole game) and every female in the game is drawn to be rack-tacular. Apparently a C-cup is the new A-Cup in Japan. Who knew?

That said, I dig the "Tokyo under lockdown" setting of the game and a few of the characters are mighty interesting. I have a few plot bunnies hopping around that I might write about. Nothing super-long like FFO or TS, but maybe a one-shot or two. I've pretty much stuck with writing PG-13 fanfics and I'd like to do one project that's a hard R. Something with sex and graphic violence. Devil Survivor's setting seems perfect for that kind of experimentation.

And the Gods Danced in the Night

I'm planning to finish this story in the first quarter of 2010. I'll probably do a revision of the already-published Chapter 1 just to make it match up with the ensuing 4 chapters.

Taking Sights: The Final Chapters

The last 10 1/2 chapters of Taking Sights. Watch this livejournal for when I start working on it. There will be monthly progress reports like with FFO.

Sequel to Taking Sigths

Originally I had it planned to be a 10 chapter fic but I'll probably be changing the format, either into many small chapters or into one or two giant one-shots. I can't talk about the premise or actual titles because it's a spoiler for the events of the final chapter of Taking Sights.

Facing Fearful Odds: Book 1 - Walk the Earth

Originally FFO was going to just be called "Book 1: Earth" but there are dozens of AtLA fanfics that use the elemental subtitles. So for a little originality -- though not too much -- I changed the subtitle to "Walk the Earth." It fits the story's theme because that's what Avatar Katara and Zuko (and the other main characters) are doing in Book 1... wandering the world, trying to find themselves and their place. Expect it to start being posted publicly in March or April. Since it'll be all done ahead of time, I'll be updating it every week -- or maybe every two weeks, just to make the bridge of time between Book 1's end and Book 2's publication shorter.

There are 10 chapters to FFO, and those 10 chapter break down into 26 individual sections because I don't want to post chapter 20~30,000 words long.

Facing Fearful Odds will run for 6 months if I go with weekly updates. It'll also run for one year if I go for bi-weekly updates. I'll make a final decision on this once I approach the start of publication.

Facing Fearful Odds: Book 2 - Fire and Rain

~~Probably~~ Won't be ~~published~~ finished until 2011 but I'll be starting it this year. I've got portions of the first and last chapters already written. If you're curious, yes, it's named after the James Taylor song of the same name. Without going into spoilers, it's thematically appropriate. And it plays off the original elemental subtitle, "Book 2: Fire", that refers to the bending element Avatar Katara will be learning.