I have a slight issue with The War Within. I was writing some of the next chapter last night and I have a pov crisis. The scene would be so much more powerful and relevant from Snow’s pov. However, I just can’t do it, I can’t get into her headspace.
When I continue writing tonight, I’ll try again. If I can’t manage it, then I will have to try and show her feelings through the dialogue and Regina’s observations. That won’t be as good but needs must.
Maybe you can watch some Snow scenes on YouTube. That might help you get into her head.
Hmm that’s a good idea actually. I was rewatching the show. I got to about episode 6 of season 2 and then neflix added all the Star Trek shows and I got a bit distracted. Plus with the amount of writing I’ve been doing lately, I’ve barely watched any TV at all.
Yeah, I’ll go find myself some Snow fanvids or something. Thanks! 🙂
I’ve read books about writing to market but I’ve never experienced that phenomenon myself. It’s actually really interesting, or at least I find it interesting.
I started posting The War Within, my alternate season six fic on June 21st. It’s got 6 chapters, it’s 26k so far and will be approaching novel length by the time it’s done. I have 18 kudos on it, I usually get a couple of comments and 6-9 notes on tumblr per chapter.
I posted the first chapter of Painting Layers of Love last night. The first chapter is about 5k, I have no clue what the final length will be as I haven’t planned it out. I have 21 kudos on it, 2 comments and 14 notes on tumblr.
So it’s like 18 kudos in a month vs 21 kudos over night – writing to market at work perhaps? Now this is just a random observation, not a complaint or a criticism. I thought it was interesting, it sort of ‘proves’ (as much as anything can be proven with such a tiny sample size) that what you write, has an affect on the response.
Although this isn’t really much of a revelation. I mean there is a reason that the romance section of the market is so huge, romance sells. If that is true generally, then it is likely to be true in a a microcosm as well. However, I don’t think I could ever write to market on purpose. So this observation isn’t going to affect what I write because I write what I love. Obviously, I hope other people will enjoy it but I can’t control that. I learnt a long time ago to write for me first and foremost, there’s less disappointment that way.
Anyway, that’s my random observation for the day. You know I think I will have to try writing a variety of fics and compare the response. Ok, I admit it, I find this slightly fascinating. Well, that’s kinda why I wrote this post because it’s so interesting. You know it’s too bad AO3 doesn’t have a genre filter because I would totally put my statistics hat on and analyse that.
I think that the “market” for fanfictions is really different from the market for printed books. Of course romance always sells, but personally I’ve read very few strictly romantic books, while 95% of fics I’ve ever read were centered on one of my OTPs. I think many read fics because of shipping, so they may be more focused on strictly romantic ones than whole season rewritings.
Length is also a factor. As much as we might despise it, we can’t spend the whole day reading fics. Personally, I find it very frustrating when I’m reading a really good fic but I have to stop because it’s too long and I don’t have time. That’s why I only read long fics when I discover them early on, because I don’t want to find myself with 100K words to read. Knowing that a fic is a season rewriting gurantees that it will be a long thing; maybe someone doesn’t want to get invested in a really long fic, and would rather read something shorter and/or less complicated, like a story that starts off a prompt.
I hope I made at least some sense XD
Ooooooh yes! You made perfect sense 🙂 I hadn’t thought of those points. That is so true!
I want to reiterate I wasn’t complaining, I’m just fascinated by the difference. I might also be procrastinating. I’m supposed to be working and randomly wondering about stuff was a lot more interesting /hides.
You see your points are actually one of the reasons why I don’t attempt to write to market. It’s so complex, there are so many reasons why people do things that trying to puzzle them out and do things “right” is a bit like trying to hit a bullseye on a moving target.
Yeah, I only start reading a long fic if I know I have time to read a chunk. There are so many RCIJ fics I haven’t got to yet because I read some of the shorter ones first, and then I haven’t gone back for the longer ones yet. I will do eventually but I feel vaguely guilty. I didn’t read the shorter ones first because I liked them better, I just haven’t had time. It is no reflection on the authors I haven’t read – promise!
Synopsis: Belle French lives alone and she likes it that way. She’s lived alone ever since the terrible car accident which killed her mother and claimed her eyesight. Belle spends her days painting, in complete solitude, until one day she wakes up and hears movement outside. Somebody has moved into the cottage next door. She had grown comfortable in her solitary existence until Mr Gold crashes into her life. Now her future is uncertain, like a blank canvas, waiting for her to apply the paint and decide what kind of story she is creating.
Note: I wrote a ficlet for this inspiration picture and it seemed to strike a chord. I was asked what happened next so I decided to turn it into a real fic. Well it’s turned into something rather longer than I intended. This first chapter goes no further than the ficlet but it’s been significantly expanded as well as cleaned up.
I seem to have accidentally created a new WIP – oops. Anyway, I have a set posting day every week for my main WIP. I’m not going to do that for this because there are only so many hours in the week. However, I will do what happened next as soon as possible.
“There is
something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that
is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning
and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the
end they are all uniquely different.” – Piper Payne.
Oh my god, this was so WONDERFUL – I’m crying! Thank you!
I love how Belle isn’t perfect, that she’s bitter (understandably so) and taking it out on Gold……….I love that she’s guilt-ridden and broken. I love that Gold is irritated, but intrigued………… I sense an epic Rumbelle romance!
Wow thank you! 🙂 Yeah I hope I can do it justice.
Just as a sidenote. If you or anyone else has any prompts for this verse, they will be very gratefully received. A prompt is what started this fic, it only seems fitting that prompts help finish it.
EEEEEEEEEEEE I LOVE IT!! Thanks so much for tagging me!!
Yay! I’m so happy you love it. I’m always a bit nervous tagging people so I’m glad you didn’t mind 🙂
I’m hoping I’ll be able to do chapter two for next Friday but next week is shaping up quite busy, it might have to get pushed to the following week. To be honest I still haven’t worked out what is happening in the next chapter, I have a few images in my mind but if anyone has any prompts, I wouldn’t say no 🙂 Anyway, I will do my best.
Don’t worry about writing chapter 2 – whenever you get to it is just fine with us !
This isn’t really a prompt, but I was thinking that down the line Rumple might want to introduce Belle to sculpting – not as a replacement for painting, just as something different. I think he’d believe she’d be good at it because she could work with her hands and feel the material (later on, I foresee sexy, Ghost-like times)….
Also, maybe Gold might bring one of his art-loving clients to see Belle’s work – with her permission, of course. The client would love her work and he’d suggest a showing …..
Thoughts?
I love both of those! They are good prompts. I will definitely use them, not in the next chapter, they have a way to go first but later on.
This verse is totally outside of my comfort zone. I’ve never written anything like it before, so the prompts are very helpful to me because it’s like points on a map. I can draw a line from A to B, but if I don’t know where B is, then it’s hard to get anywhere from A. Not sure if that makes sense.
Actually that’s true. Anon had a good idea, especially as you just helped run RCIJ for us all. It would be like part-reward, part-medicine. You deserve something nice. So what would you like? Got a prompt you want to see written?
Another week, another Tuesday 🙂 Ask my characters anything, ask me anything about my fics. You can send me a word and if it’s in my WIP doc then I’ll post a teaser snippet. I accept prompts.
How exactly am I supposed to study when there’s a billion awesome RCIJ fics waiting for me?
They will still be there when you are done studying 🙂
Try bribery, it tends to work for me reasonably well. Except I have this tendency to forget to have my reward and then I make myself do even more work to earn it. Don’t be me and move the goalposts, it’s not very fair.
Anyway, maybe try saying to yourself that you will study for a couple of hours, then take a 20 minute break and you can read some fic. Alternately, if you have a particular topic you need to study, then say once you have studied that, then you can read a fic.
Use the fic as a reward. Let it help make you study, rather than distract you 🙂
I have completely lost track of all the RCIJ fics. I had to work and couldn’t spend the day reading. I hope there’s going to be a masterlist that I can work through later.
In other news I finished Tuesday’s chapter of The War Within last night. Which gives me a fighting chance to have a chapter for Friday as I promised. I’m now trying to decide what to do for the rest of the evening.
– Read more awesome fics! – start writing Chapter 7. – start work on that Rush/Carter fic, which I have not forgotten about just haven’t managed to make time for yet. – Cleanup and expand the ficlet I wrote this morning from that inspiration picture because I wrote more than intended, and it feels like I should do a proper job on it now.
Of course I could always just procrastinate and wind up doing nothing. I’m quite fond of doing that …
Why are some gifs not in the gif thing? How can I put them in and give proper credit if I can’t find them? I’m putting in the actual hashtags and they still aren’t coming up. I wanted to use the one with McKay talking about a “magical tool to slow down time” but it won’t let me 🙁
You know the Rush/Carter oneshot is not the only fic I haven’t forgotten about. The Rushbelle one (Ripple Effect) and the Rumbelle AU with side of Swanfire (Nightwalkers) are still happening as well.
It’s just, I’ve kinda discovered that working on more than two WIP’s at once is impossible if I want to maintain a posting schedule. So I need to get The War Within completed, or finish writing it, before I can really do another. Either that or I need to learn to write faster.
“It’s a dark road and a dark way that leads to my house ..”
“I’m not mad, I’m not mad,” Belle muttered to herself repeatedly.
She sat hunched over in the corner of her room, eyeing the door fearfully. Her father had locked her in here because of her delusions but she wasn’t mad. There was a whole world out there beyond their own and she had seen it.
…
Belle had been reading in the garden, her back up against the old oak tree when a flash of light had caught her attention. It came from just inside the tree line to the nearby forest. Curious, Belle had wandered over.
The light had grown brighter, flickering ominously. It was a sickly green, swirling in a pattern reflecting on the leaves of the trees. Belle pushed the branch back and gasped. The ground was swirling like a tornado. She turned to run but her feet were frozen to the floor. It was like an invisible hand had reached out and grabbed her ankles.
With a tug she tumbled to the ground. She grabbed desperately at the dirt as she was dragged, pulled ever closer to the apex of the portal. It was no use, nothing could save her now. She reached the portal and tumbled down, and down and down, until she hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Belle looked up and screamed. In front of her was a ten foot tall being, humanoid like a man but definitely not human. It smelled horrible and carried a club. She scooted back, eyes wide, she had no breath left to scream. The being swung it’s club and Belle whimpered, clenching her eyes tightly shut, certain she was about to be killed.
Oh, I LOVE this ! Oh my god, it’s so perfect!!!!! Thank you!!!
Thanks 🙂 I’m actually considering cleaning this one up, expanding it and making it a proper fic. I wrote more than I intended on it this morning, I got rather carried away.
“We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the Earth.”
Nicholas Gold was a successful real estate mogul, he owned half of Manhattan but success came at a price. He put up a mask for the world to see, played a role in public, so he could have a semblance of a private life. For a man worth billions, it was hard to ever trust anyone. Did they like him or his bank account? He grew hard, cold, life was a perpetual winter.
When Mr Gold, went out in public, he was chauffeured in fancy cars, he wore thousand dollar tailored suits and went to the best places.
When Nick went out, he wore off the rack clothes from normal stores like Sears. He took the subway and ate in hole in the wall diners. It was like being Clark Kent and Superman. He stepped outside people’s expectations and was granted a measure of invisibility.
What Gold liked best to do, on the rare occasion he could get away, was go to the train station, or the marina. They were places that normal people went, people with normal jobs and normal lives. He would sit at the coffee shop in the station and pretend for a moment he was one of them.
He didn’t regret his success. He was just lonely, without connection.
Until one day, the coffee shop was full and Belle French sat down at his table with a smile. She had a book in her hand and promised not to bother him. However, she kept chatting anyway, about her book, about the city, all the places she wanted to go and the things she wanted to see.
Gold was out of practice making such conversation. The usual ‘small talk’ he participated in was always entirely tainted by business, where he had to consider every word carefully because making the right impression mattered. He did his best and after half an hour, he had to regretfully excuse himself, he had a business meeting downtown and he had to be ‘Mr Gold’ once more.
He never expected to see Belle again.
However, a couple of weeks later, she was back at the station. She waved at him and expressed surprise that they were both there again.
“Are you busy this afternoon?” Belle asked.
“No,” Gold replied. He wasn’t for a change, it was friday and he had the afternoon to do as he pleased.
“I have this train tour.” Belle handed him the flyer. A bunch of subway stops were marked, along with places of interest nearby. “Want to join me? It’s always more fun with company.”
Gold smiled and nodded. “I’d like that.”
What would it hurt? One afternoon to forget the world. It was a cold winters day, the day to be inside and not traipsing over the city. However, in Belle’s company, he had never felt warmer or more alive. Her joy was infectious. At a flower stall he gave her a rose, which was speckled in snow.
They got a birds eye view of the city at the glass dome and Belle grabbed Gold’s hand so tightly for comfort, as it was scary, like they were about to fall to the city beneath them.
He never wanted the day to end but a man can’t live a double life. Belle knew him, she didn’t know his mask, but his mask was what he had to live with most of the time.
At the end of the day, Gold plucked up his courage and kissed Belle on the cheek. “Goodbye Belle.”
He walked away.
Um, there needs to be more of this – this is perfect ! **But is that supposed to be a permanent goodbye ?!
Oh wow thank you 🙂 I’m glad you liked it. The goodbye was less permanent, more I couldn’t decide what happened next. Let’s think, ok I got it.
Gold didn’t go back to the train station that week, or the next. He was worried about somehow running into Belle for a third time and he didn’t know what he would say to her. He liked her, but all it could ever be was one perfect afternoon.
He was probably fooling himself. In fact Gold decided that Belle had likely not given him a second thought. He had been a convenient companion for her sightseeing trip, nothing more. She would never think of him, the way he had started to think about her.
It had been three weeks since that Friday afternoon where he forgot the world. His Mr Gold mask was firmly in place, entertaining business associates from out of town. It was something he hated doing but people were more amenable to signing contracts after they had spent the evening drinking. It was just part of doing business.
To make things easier on himself, Gold either bought outright, or a sizable stake, in all the places that he used to schmooze clients. He could stop people from bothering him if he owned the place. It was a lot less hassle.
He was at the nightclub in the VIP area, easily his least favorite of all the places he was forced to take clients. The loud music gave him a headache, the fake smoke gave him a sore throat, the bright lights hurt his eyes. The whole place was a nightmare.
Gold was leaning on the railing, overlooking the rest of the club when he saw Belle. How could he not see her? He would know her anywhere. He was surprised, he didn’t think this would be a place that she would go and she was hardly dressed for the occasion either. Her clothing was far more conservative than was expected in a place like this. However, he wasn’t surprised that the bouncer had waved her in. Belle’s beauty was clear for all to see, it didn’t need to be displayed like a vulgar piece of meat.
To his surprise she headed directly for the bouncer manning the rope cord, protecting the stairs that led to the VIP level. She spoke with him, animatedly waving her hands. The bouncer waved her away and she crossed her arms, staring him down. The bouncer clicked his fingers, summoning a nearby waitress, he whispered in her ear. The waitress nodded and came up the stairs to the VIP lounge.
“Mr Gold. There’s a Belle French asking for you downstairs,” the waitress told him respectfully.
Gold choked in surprise. That couldn’t be right. How could that be possible? He had been Nick with Belle, not Mr Gold. He was invisible as Nick, it was his escape, how could she know?
“Send her up,” Gold ordered hoarsely.
A few minutes later Belle appeared. “You are a hard man to find Nick.”
“You weren’t supposed to find me,” Gold said automatically.
Belle bit her lip and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry, I thought .. never mind.” She turned to leave.
“No Belle wait,” Gold called out after her. “How did you know who I was?”
“I didn’t, not until a few days ago when I saw your picture in the paper,” Belle explained. “I thought about going to your office but I didn’t think I would get past the front door, then tonight twitter said you were here. I took a chance.”
“You saw my picture in the paper?” Gold repeated dumbly.
She’d recognized him? Nobody had ever recognized him before. He was Clark Kent and Superman. A clothing change and a different location and nobody suspected a thing. He had seen people read an article with his picture on the cover right in front of him, and they hadn’t even said ‘do you realize you look like that billionaire Mr Gold?’
Belle’s eyes narrowed before understanding blossomed on her face. “You didn’t think I would recognize you,” she softly. She moved back over and touched his arm gently. “Oh Nick, I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”
“No, please don’t,” Gold said instinctively. “I was surprised, that’s not happened before but I don’t mind, not with you.”
Belle smiled. “You never gave me your phone number.”
“I didn’t think you’d want it and then ..” Gold gestured around him, meaning this, his other life – his real life.
Belle reached into her pocket and withdrew a slip of paper. She held it out to him. “Well here’s my number. What happens next is up to you.”
Warning this post contains spoilers for Season Six of Once Upon a Time.
Confession time I’m actually writing fanfiction again these days. I first started writing fanfic when I was 11 and it was predictably terrible. By the time I was 16 I had decided to try and begin writing original works. I think I wrote my last fanfic in 2009 and then I quit. I closed the door on that chapter of my writing life and moved on.
Well a couple of months ago I was struggling. The sequel to my Crime/Sci-Fi novel was going badly, I loathed it so much and writing was an absolute chore. For fun I decided to write a short fanfic story, just to remember what it was like to enjoy writing.
One short story led to another, which led to another, which eventually led to the long multi-chapter work in progress I’m currently writing. Why am I doing this? I hear you ask. Isn’t a waste of time? Shouldn’t I be concentrating on my original novels?
