Ask the Author Meme

[lavanya_six]

Stolen from strawberryburst , via avocado_love


I think it would be fun to talk about stories, but the usual memes are like, "What happens next?" "Tell me about Character A?" Which isn't so much talking about stories as it is writing more of a story. But you know how sometimes you read something and you're like, "I got ___ out of this story, I wonder if I have that right?" or "What on earth was ____ supposed to be?" and it's too awkward to ask the author? Now you could totally ask!

I've heard people say that writing is hard because you have to make decisions, but we never really talk about the decisions we make with stories or why we make them. We talk about plot bunnies, but not about how we actually turn them into a story.

And it seems like a lot more fun to do that than to do working.

So, if you wanted, ask me questions! (Or use this to ask your flist to ask you questions).

What were you trying to do [here]? Why did you decide to ____? This is what I thought about xyz, is that what you were going for? What made you write ____? Why did you decide to do this? And so on.

Comments

[lavanyasix.livejournal.com]

Initially? Just because.

I first wrote the sight gag where Zuko burns his fingers on the run-down match after freezing when faced with an undressed Mai without any solid reasoning for him not using his firebending. Then I thought to myself "Why would a firebender need matches?" and that question evolved into the heart of his character development in Chapter 2.

In "His and Her Circumstances", I'd always planned it to be a pre-series Blue Spirit hooking up with Mai, but it was entirely accidental that the AU's 'nail' turned out to be Zuko giving into despair during his hunt for the Avatar. Unlike in canon, this Zuko's realization that his father was full of crap didn't result in him turning his energies to a just cause. Zuko basically said "fuck it" and walked out on his own life; partly to find himself, partly to avoid having to deal with his own feelings about Ozai. (Because even a clear-headed S3 Zuko was still slipping up and calling his old man "the Father Lord", and HHC!Zuko had nowhere near that emotionally mature or stable when he went AWOL.)

Zuko losing his firebending can ultimately be traced back to the "The Firebending Masters" with how the same thing had happened to him when his fight/passion/stuff had gone out of him. "His and Her Circumstance" was just a more extreme case.

So both my decision to have him lose his firebending on a lark and his organic development as I wrote Chapter 2 kind of fed on each other, culminating in what was on the page.

[yukinoomoni.livejournal.com]

Iiinteresting. I have to admit it's one of my all-time favourite stories, and learning more about it makes it even moreso. Thanks =3