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On (not) Writing Children
Jan. 5th, 2009 08:47 pmSo, while I've been chipping away at the "Unit-00/Asuka" and "Gendo/Sandalphon" fight scenes in the latest chapter of Taking Sights, I've been contemplating other projects.
First, let me say I'm not going to publish anything until one of my current trio of ongoing stories (TS/IFC/DADA) is done. I don't want to be one of those FFnet authors that starts a million stories and never finishes them. But I do look to the future. Sometimes proto-fics I have on file wither on the vine, like my Rei-centric romance/mystery The Stranger, and sometimes, in the mode of Viva Pinata, I cannibalize several of my stories together to create a single, better fanfic. "Doctor Who and the Defense Against the Dark Arts" originally started out as two difference stories: one was a DW/HP crossover, the other was (I Am Not Making This Up, God help me) a Doctor Who / Evangelion crossover.
I know, I know.
It was called Doctor Who and the Children in Need and parts of it might even see the light of day... when the Sun turns fat and red. It started 10 and Rose showing up during the 12th Angel attack, hijinks ensue, and the Doctor ended up being blackmailed by Gendo into becoming NERV's scientific adviser a la UNIT. There was no real plot to it and I had no plan for an ending. But my DW/HP story was stronger overall, especially with the metafiction component to it, and I knew exactly how it would end. Plus I'll take a story with Donna over Rose any day.
So I killed Doctor Who and the Children in Need, looted its corpse, and stuck the best bits into Doctor Who and the Defense Against the Dark Arts.
But I digress. The title of this post is about children. And short skirts. And getting roped into another longass fanfic project.
AFTER I finished one of my trio of stories (or my secret Evangelion lemon I post under another name) I'm moving onto a new longass fanfic project. I'm not sure which but it'll either be in Doctor Who or Harry Potter. Either way it'll be a gender-bender.
See, a couple months ago in a blog post here I mentioned an idea for girl!Harry fanfic. I wrote out a detailed plot outline, the beginning and end, as well as a few key scenes. While I have a few problems with formatting -- like does the internet really need another rewrite of the seven books? -- my biggest concern is writing the children as children.
Sometimes, well, really, most of the time... the cast of HP aren't written very well for their ages (in fanfiction). Usually this comes from either the author not being very good at characterization or from the author wanting to makethemselves Harry a badass wizard who takes guff from no one (especially Dumbledore) and has rockin' sex with Hermione and Draco while on fire atop a dragon.
This latter phenomenon is not entirely unknown in Evangelion fanfiction.
But then fanfic like Stealing Harry comes along and just smacks you upside the head and you realize you're reading children as children, not as mini-adults. And if I'm going to make the "Jamie Potter Series" any decent I need to write like Sam the Storyteller here, because his characterization is simply amazing. And...
...I've lost my train of thought. Damn it! This is why I don't blog. I rant and it morphs into something pointless. Essentially, I suck at writing kids and I need to practice.
Ah well. Back to work on Taking Sights....
Oh, and Happy New Year!
First, let me say I'm not going to publish anything until one of my current trio of ongoing stories (TS/IFC/DADA) is done. I don't want to be one of those FFnet authors that starts a million stories and never finishes them. But I do look to the future. Sometimes proto-fics I have on file wither on the vine, like my Rei-centric romance/mystery The Stranger, and sometimes, in the mode of Viva Pinata, I cannibalize several of my stories together to create a single, better fanfic. "Doctor Who and the Defense Against the Dark Arts" originally started out as two difference stories: one was a DW/HP crossover, the other was (I Am Not Making This Up, God help me) a Doctor Who / Evangelion crossover.
I know, I know.
It was called Doctor Who and the Children in Need and parts of it might even see the light of day... when the Sun turns fat and red. It started 10 and Rose showing up during the 12th Angel attack, hijinks ensue, and the Doctor ended up being blackmailed by Gendo into becoming NERV's scientific adviser a la UNIT. There was no real plot to it and I had no plan for an ending. But my DW/HP story was stronger overall, especially with the metafiction component to it, and I knew exactly how it would end. Plus I'll take a story with Donna over Rose any day.
So I killed Doctor Who and the Children in Need, looted its corpse, and stuck the best bits into Doctor Who and the Defense Against the Dark Arts.
But I digress. The title of this post is about children. And short skirts. And getting roped into another longass fanfic project.
AFTER I finished one of my trio of stories (or my secret Evangelion lemon I post under another name) I'm moving onto a new longass fanfic project. I'm not sure which but it'll either be in Doctor Who or Harry Potter. Either way it'll be a gender-bender.
See, a couple months ago in a blog post here I mentioned an idea for girl!Harry fanfic. I wrote out a detailed plot outline, the beginning and end, as well as a few key scenes. While I have a few problems with formatting -- like does the internet really need another rewrite of the seven books? -- my biggest concern is writing the children as children.
Sometimes, well, really, most of the time... the cast of HP aren't written very well for their ages (in fanfiction). Usually this comes from either the author not being very good at characterization or from the author wanting to make
This latter phenomenon is not entirely unknown in Evangelion fanfiction.
But then fanfic like Stealing Harry comes along and just smacks you upside the head and you realize you're reading children as children, not as mini-adults. And if I'm going to make the "Jamie Potter Series" any decent I need to write like Sam the Storyteller here, because his characterization is simply amazing. And...
...I've lost my train of thought. Damn it! This is why I don't blog. I rant and it morphs into something pointless. Essentially, I suck at writing kids and I need to practice.
Ah well. Back to work on Taking Sights....
Oh, and Happy New Year!
