On Writing "Full Circle"

[nrgburst]

Wow. Finished at last.
It's both cool and weird at the same time.
Thinking back to when I was first writing Aftermath, with the idea burning in my head amidst the frenzy of wedding preparations, I feel incredibly gratified that the story has come this far. It was just a little Cloud/Tifa fic. They sooo needed a break from what canon was tossing them. And I had a few ideas for other chapters. So in Oct/Nov last year, I sketched out a rough plan- it looks like this:

9 After                                         4 Honey Wedd/Honey
10 Int                                           5 Taste of H
11 Symb                                      6 Summer Hol Vince? Shalua, Barret, Yuffie, Reeve, Cid?
12 Winter                                     7 PtW
1 Adopt?                                      8 PtW2
2 Valentine's? Planning?               Epilogue
3 Wedd Planning

The final product is obviously different from my original skeleton plan, but I thought it would be interesting to share. There were a few  changes: I was inspired by different things throughout the year and wrote new chapters accordingly (Penance, Triangles, Level Up) and I cut a chapter (PtW2) due not only to its content, but also to keep it within the year. There was also the "update, virgin..." incident that caused a big delay in Promises. :( In retrospect, I prefer the wedding and honeymoon split into two chapters, but man, was I angry at the time. Anyway, I hope I've done each month justice. I think filling in the year gap (and having it actually possible in canon) is pretty ambitious and original, so I'm glad it worked out. I'm proud of it. And I know I've learned so much about writing in the process. :)

My first lesson was in formatting and paragraphs. Aftermath used to be mostly gigantic paragraphs of doom until reviewers pointed out just how hard it was to read. I also was unaware of the "line break" tool, and used the chapter system instead. What a fanfiction n00b, eh?

I think Interlude suffers from sophomore syndrome- I basically just needed to show that lovey-dovey stage (without overdoing it) and set up Symbiosis. But since it does accomplish those two things without being too nauseating, I don't hate it as much as I used to.

Somewhere between Symbiosis and Winter Blaze (I still don't really like that title) was when I started really thinking about writing as a craft. Maybe I could really do this in real life, and not just as a hobby... A big part of that was the feedback I got from kimouski .) I also started to read a lot more critically- both my own work, and that of others.

It wasn't until Full Circle got nominated (for which abrogate_nadir  gets eternal gratitude!) that I finally got a beta, though. (Ha! Irony!) It was great to have that second critical opinion of my work. It made me a lot more confident about publishing, and I've actually done few retro-edits to Level Up, Preludes and Full Circle (Epilogue)- something I used to do compulsively for the other chapters.

Actually, I'll still be editing- judging is just around the corner, and I want it to be in the best shape possible before it goes before them. I have no idea when I'll start writing again, but I think "Crucible" will be my next project. A short little 5 chapter fic that will require loads of research. Sounds like fun, right? :)
 

Comments

[wheatear.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you progressed a lot. :D

About the punctuation, they're not really double dashes, although they can be represented that way. The dashes you normally use are actually hyphens. Em-dashes are longer. I can't work out how to show you them both on LJ, so read this handy fanficrants entry (http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/6796424.html) instead. XD

[nrgburst]

Holy detail Batman! Yes, it's clearer now. I was going to check my "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" anyway. :)

[nrgburst]

Thanks! Cloti obviously, but with something else that reminds you of the story, I guess.

BTW, what did you think of it? People don't seem to want to review the ending, and it's making me wonder if they think it was completely inappropriate. :(