Fic Questions Meme

[jedibuttercup]

As my last meme has run out, and I'm trying to keep the journaling habit going this year, I've snagged another one that's been going 'round. (Though I've struck out one question; I'm leaving it in for posterity's sake, but I very seldom actually use a beta.)

Drop the title of one of my fics and a number (see questions below) in my comment box, and I will tell you:

1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
2. What’s my favorite part of the fic?
3. What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?
6. Who’s my favorite character in the fic?
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
9. Did anyone in the fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?
10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
12. Did any thing about this fic’s reception surprise me?
13. What were my beta’s major comments about the first draft of this fic?
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
15. Any other question about the fic!

Comments

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Handle with Care - #2

[jedibuttercup]

The actual story by that name? Or the series I created by that name, following that first story? Either way, good choice. :)

If the former: it's a tossup between that moment when Harry rushes out of his bathroom in a hurry and forgets about the carpet spike strip (oh, that's a ripped from life moment there; all that remodeling bit is, I had a blast writing it) and the bantery bits after Buffy shows up when they're both giving just as good as they get (viz., "Can you fight with that staff," she parried, the corners of her eyes crinkled with silent laughter, "or do you just use it to keep from falling over when the wind picks up?")

If the latter: oh, I do still adore the first story as noted above; but my absolute favorite chapter to write, bar none was "Words Unspoken". Especially the part about how the words never are actually even spoken; and the whole fluffly brotherly dialogue is entirely a leadup to that last little bit: "Ah, but it was such a shame; I developed an allergic reaction to something in her hair..." / "You... what?" I repeated myself as my brain froze up at the implications.

Very rarely do I actually flail at something I write when it pays off properly; that was one such story!

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

I loved the moment when he steps on the tack strip! *winces* I know that pain as well. I like when something happens in a story that brings the characters down to the reader's level. It always makes it a little more real even if the character lives in this fanastical world. :D

Thank you for explaining/sharing! *whispers* Do you mind if through another at you?

[jedibuttercup]

You're welcome. :) And, go ahead!

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* I just realized I wrote through instead of throw. Ha! I need a beta for my comments.

Through the Blue Vault of Varda

[xiorlanth.livejournal.com]

8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)

Re: Through the Blue Vault of Varda

[jedibuttercup]

Surprisingly, no? I mean, I labored over every sentence of that thing; some fic I do dash off pretty quickly and laugh in delight at some detail later, but for a story like that one, I always have a mental image of rolling out dough through multiple kneadings, or running a comb through very wavy hair; catching all the lumps and snags, making sure it all goes in the right direction, being very conscious of all the details. Particularly since canon in both cases here was long since closed; little for later canon to re-illuminate.

Though I do have to say, after seeing the Hobbit movies' interpretation of The Necromancer, it gives me extra creepy vibes regarding what Morgoth might have been like after having been tossed through "The Door of Night" into Pegasus, in this 'verse. Considering the whole comparison setup I have going with the Ascended and the Ori, I mean. I don't know if I want to know where he currently is (or isn't) in that universe; it has all kinds of extra creepy implications regarding the dwindling of the Ancients in Atlantis and maybe why we haven't seen more than one or a few in that galaxy despite the fact that they must've been Ascending for years before the remnants fled back to Earth. *shudder*

I kind of also envision this (not really a theme/motif/whatever, but this is what churned in the back of my head about this story after it was done) as the start of the great united-race renaissance that I always wished would've happened in the Fourth Age rather than the last of the elves fleeing or fading and the Dwarves just burrowing deeper under their mountains after Gimli and Legolas left. There's brief pockets in history - Erebor and Dale, Ost-in-Edhil and Moria, etc. - where the races seem to come together as more than the sum of their parts, but mostly everyone's just trying to defend themselves and hold out against the Great Evils who love to stir up differences between them, and when the Great Evils are finally gone, do they take advantage? No, they give up and leave the world to Men! Sigh. Durin the XVII (or whatever) needs to take note of the Elves sticking their toes back in and go, "hey, is it that time?" also, and then TERRAN EMPIRE HO, forget the Wraith and the Goa'uld, clearly no-one can stop us now. While John Sheppard and team, and Jack O'Neill and team(s), grin with glee and machinate in the center of it all.

Re: Through the Blue Vault of Varda

[xiorlanth.livejournal.com]

Through the Blue Vault or Arda really felt like one of the more finished of your stories which is why I never asked for another piece of it though I really wanted to in the wishlists; it felt like asking you for a really major undertaking rather than a prompt fill. I'm really glad to read that you're considering something.

But the dwarves and other races; yes yes maybe they're waiting for the fifth age (the fifth race!) to come, whole planets sung into visibility, the dwarves and hobbits and elves that didn't leave for Valinor. Can you imagine a dwarf city-ship?

Re: Through the Blue Vault of Varda

[jedibuttercup]

You're not wrong about the fact that it'll be a major undertaking. :)

I do have a habit of deliberately leaving a thread or two untucked, or only telling a scene out of what could be a much longer tale, so long as the scene itself covers all the essentials - it feels more realistic to me than trying to completely tie up something so short, and trying to make all stories long instead would make me crazy very quickly. For a story like this, though. The mood and the subject matter and the fandom - I wanted it to be as polished as possible.

I think I remember reading a story once where Elrohir and Elladan stayed behind with Celeborn and kept ahead of human technology and ended up being responsible for most of the UFO sightings? That really stuck with me. But I think most Dwarves would end up far ahead on the practical/progress side of the advanced technology curve than most elves, given their cultures as presented in canon; yes.

[sulien.livejournal.com]

Through the Blue Vault of Varda, #15: do you think you will be up to the sequel to this one in the next few years? I keep getting tempted to request the sequel in your fic prompts, but I fully understand that this is not something that you can write lightly and I won't request it until you're ready to tackle it.

Once again, this story still just blows me away every time I reread it, which is fairly often. The concentration & memory digging this requires to read makes for a great pain dampener (I'm lucky to be able to focus enough on some toothsome bit of prose to the point that it helps deaden pain). Thank you for this story on every possible level!

[jedibuttercup]

I'll tell you something I haven't really admitted to myself the reason for yet: I've finally started assembling a more complete library of Tolkienesque research materials.

Not this summer. I'm probably not going to be able to get anything else out in Tolkienverse until the really insistent plotbunny in the back of my head about Thorin actually being an incarnation of Durin (who by the way isn't the only dwarf to ever come back according to the Silmarillion, the other six Fathers apparently just don't feel the need to announce themselves by name, so what if Durin doesn't always either, or if there's specific circumstances required for him to remember that for ~reasons~ didn't happen to Thorin .....?) and through one of those one-thing-changes AU divergences, he does realize this just before the Quest.

....It has occured to me that this may be the perfect vehicle to finally connect all those bits of headcanon where Elrond stops looking backward; where the first Quest goes differently; where Moria *does* get retaken because Bilbo; and so on ....

But I can't even think about starting on that until the expanded version of BOFA hits Blu-Ray and I can spend a couple of solid months with my research. So I'm going to clear as much of my other pending stuff as I can out of the way first. And if it does happen; then after that's done. Well. Yes; I suspect this is on the agenda. *crossing all the fingers*

[sulien.livejournal.com]

The idea of you taking Tolkien's characters AU just does not hold the horror for me that Peter Jackson doing so does. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to reading your AU! I'm pretty sure it's because I know in my gut that you actually respect the source material and the spirit of Tolkien's writings, whereas I truly do consider PJ & Co to be nothing but Hollywood hacks, whether they're in New Zealand or not. No, I'm just not forgiving them for what they did to Faramir and Gandalf, as well as Aragorn (yes, he was doubtful of himself and fully aware of everything riding on his shoulders, but he was not the Whinagorn of the films). /rant

*pumps fist in the air* YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll wait as long as I have to for the sequel to "The Blue Vault of Varda"!

Lastly, I am envious of your Tolkien research materials collection! I've still not collected all of the volumes of the History of Middle Earth. *sigh*

[jedibuttercup]

:) There's some things I admit I'm going to have to take from the movies; they're so visually epic in many ways that unless the text directly contradicts, that's always what I picture. And PJ managed to make the dwarves feel like they all had individual personalities and cultural backgrounds and all of that where the Hobbit (owing to its more children-story origins) made them mostly caricatures, so I do owe this whole notion to the fact of the movies' existence; I have to admit that! And one more thing I will give PJ full credit for that a lot of people won't: he did try to give the 'verse more female presence. Even if it was ridiculous at times (love triangles, le sigh; and did he have to erase Glorfindel entirely?) but in general, I totally approve of e.g. Tauriel's existence, and will probably assume her presence in my 'verse.

But Faramir: yeah, that's a major sticking point. I liked movie Boromir a bit more than book Boromir; but that may be down to Sean Bean. And I definitely had an instinctive revulsion to movie Faramir. He wasn't like the one I'd envisioned at all. And Aragorn; argh, I got why PJ did what he did for screen drama, but it did grate. And Haldir dying in Helm's Deep! And, yeah, I'll just stop there before I start going off about all the things that startled and disturbed rather than enthralling me in the films. Which did in fact include the strength of the Ring's influence ... I understood that too, but it makes me a bit nauseous to see some of the themes it's spawned in fanfic.

Anyway. The movieverse and the bookverse are very distinct universes, and where I don't feel strongly about what ended up on screen - in most cases (even in details so small as distances and time passing, PJ got particularly ridiculous about that in the Hobbit trilogy) I'll probably be taking my cue from bookverse, not movieverse. Except where canon leaves room for me to invent something of my own to fill in the gaps, or where Tolkien himself was ridiculous ... I doubt I'll feel the need to stick to that infamous LACE essay, for example!

I haven't acquired all of HoME yet either ... but the ones I don't are on my purchase list for this spring. :)

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Adventures in Rome #1

(I have a soft spot for this one. :D)

[jedibuttercup]

:) I have a soft spot for that one, too. It kind of ground to a halt when I discovered my next chapter would have to cover the confrontation between Imhotep and the OC Medjai, because nerves, and then I got distracted by other things, and realized I'd have to redo my research ... *sigh* Same as most of my WIP issues. But it's on the List. NLB first; then BAH. But maybe one of these shorter-to-wrap WIPs like this or See For Yourself wedged between. *crossing fingers*

Anyway. Checking dates will tell you that this technically wasn't the first story in the Death is Only the Beginning series. But as a matter of fact, I didn't actually realize the two stories of course would be connected until I wrote Chapter Two of Adventures in Rome; and at the time I wrote Chapter One I didn't actually know it was meant to be a WIP! I was in the middle of my TTH100 table at the time, starring Buffy Summers; and one day when I was trolling for additional ideas to tie into the table prompts, I tripped over a TTH Fic-For-All pairing that seemed fortuitous.

The TTH100 prompt? #58 - Villains. The FFA prompt? Not, actually, Buffy/Imhotep; it was "Buffy Summers / Rick/Evy (The Mummy)". I saw that, and then I suddenly visualized the O'Connell's standing in Buffy's apartment in Rome, and then I suddenly knew that Wolfram and Hart were bringing Imhotep back; and that is the entire genesis of the story.

Later, I figured out that the Medjai Xander ran into in my previous one-shot were connected; I rewatched Mummy 2 and realized Imhotep would have no reason to be on Wolfram and Hart's side; and I worked out just how Rick and Evy were still around to begin with, which resulted in the story the over-arching series is named after. And then Jiltanith prompted me with "Data, Rick & Evie or Ardeth; no holodeck; reincarnation"; and I went back and deliberately chained all these bits together in a single continuum.

But it all started with that one idea; Rick and Evy in Buffy's apartment, with Imhotep on the horizon. :)

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Isn't it frighting how one little scene in your head can mutate into a multi-chaptered monster with no end in sight? *coughs* Or is that just me?

[jedibuttercup]

Not just you. :)