Well, my Serious Illness fic is done and ...

[ladybug_archive]

... Man, I'm drained. XD; Usually after writing a big fic I'm wiped out and exhausted, but not emotionally drained. And this wasn't even the big fic I wrote recently. LOL. But I'm drained all the same. Sad fic is sad. ;___; Sometimes even a happy ending doesn't make me not be drained, though of course I'm sure it'd be more pronounced if I wrote a sad ending.

And I just wasn't satisfied with my posted fic. XD; I wanted badly to add more. So ... I did. I expanded both chapter 4 and the epilogue, and I still wonder if it needs more emotional detail all the way along. I try to say without saying when possible, but there are times when it needs to be said.

Anyway ... so right now I don't feel like working on the Bryce Canyon fic, which features more Sean h/c. Annnd I don't feel like working on the collapsed building fic, with Scott trying to keep El awake when El has a concussion. And I don't feel like working on the Engel overhaul either. XD; The next scene is to be Tristan visiting Duke's grave.

(And I don't really want to write humor right now, either. XD; I can write it when I feel like it, but I don't feel it. Maybe I need to just write something squee.)

The only thing I really want to write at the moment is my Smooth Criminal fic, but I hit a snag with it too. -____-; I wanted to open with a scene showing the crime, so I start off introducing the readers to Annie. But AURGH! **pulls on hair.** There's a reason why I can rarely stand to work with OCs, and it's because if they try to carry a scene, it comes off sounding so stupid and cheesy. I don't like the scene and I don't like Annie's grandmother's story about the Prohibition era. Maybe if I tweak it around I'll like it better. I don't know. Gah, why are OCs so difficult for me?

(Yes, this is one reason why I have a short attention span for my original works. I absolutely am not satisfied with any of the openings I tried to do for my doppelganger novel. The first needed more background information on the characters. The second was so freaking cheesy, showing backstory for my businessman but also throwing in stuff about him having to grow up at an early age/put away the fantasy novels he loved/etc. It was setting things up for Alexander's entrance, but it just wasn't executed right, even though it sounds okay as I describe it here. I don't really want to write the plot of logical businessman is thrust into a fantasy world that he believed in as a child, but stopped believing in later. It's not my forté. At all. I'd rather just write the plot of logical businessman is thrust into a fantasy world, whether or not he ever believed in it. And it seems like there was a third opening, somewhere....

For my other novel, I'm not having a problem with the characters, for once; it's more a matter of doing research/focusing long enough to get scenes done. I keep being distracted by other things I want to write more. XD But I am quite enamored by this project.

I still love my doppelganger project too; I just wish I could get it working. I really feel that I need to write this first scene first to show the meeting of the businessman and Alexander. From there, I can write scenes in any order I please.)

Comments

[rose-of-pollux.livejournal.com]

Yes, sad fic is sad... ;___; But yay expansions! **will check Ch 4out**

And bleah at the OC trouble... Hope you can figure that out...

But the original plots sound awesome though. Hope you can get those to work, too... And ooh, would you mind my asking what that's about?

Yay Alexander! Will he be mentioned by name, since he's in your fics?

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

X3 I wish I could decide if I'm done, so I'd know whether to print it.... And oops, I think I forgot to update a tweaked paragraph in chapter 4.... **headdesk.**

Yeah, it's highly aggravating. XD;

Sure. ^^ I won't tell it here, though.

He definitely will. :) He's one of the main characters. And the only one I'll mention by name here, since he's already known. (I think so, anyway. I may still have a sketch sheet of some of the other characters floating around in my Scrapbook, albeit viewable to only a few....)

[cskazaam.livejournal.com]

Awww. ;___; Finishing a sad fic like that is tough! And definitely calls for a break.

Bleh. **will try to start reading that fic today to see if she thinks anything should be added.** Is there any other fic I should read beforehand? I'm horribly behind. XD;

Hmmm.... Maybe you just need a short break from writing to do something else? Or maybe just a few short one-shots? You could pick some completely random prompts and try to do something with them. XD

Bleh. **flicks OCs and ponders on the problem.** Do you need the story about the Prohibition era? I'm not sure if this will help at all, but maybe you should go through the scene and either take out everything that you don't absolutely need to tell the main story, or take out everything you don't like. And then see how it sounds. And if it needs to be fleshed out more, then start adding things in, but don't add whatever it was that you took out (unless it was something you liked). ....Though I dunno, that kinda sounds more like an exercise in scene building you might get in a class, so I don't know if it's helpful at all. XD;

Another idea would be to write up a description of the characters' personalities, talents, and flaws, and then let that help you with how they'd act in a scene, even if they are somewhat minor OCs.

**ponders.** Maybe you should change your approach to the problem? You should probably have a backstory written up for your characters, just for reference, but it's not necessarily something you need to include in a story, at least not right away. Instead of having a whole backstory scene, you could drop hints or comments about it at appropriate places along the way, or have minor events that occur that are both relevant to the backstory and will (maybe eventually) be relevant to what is also currently going on. Or, instead of illustrating the whole backstory in a scene, just do a part of it. For example, have a flashback or prologue showing the businessman as a kid, and reading his fantasy novels to show how much he loved them. And then don't even directly address that he had to give them up, but make it evident it the way he currently acts. And then the readers will start to wonder what happened, so sometime down the road you can start revealing the events that made him give them up.

XD Maybe you could do a one-shot with the guys and something to do with a museum about the era. Then you'd have to do research that would work for both fics! XD

Hope you're able to figure out something! I don't know if any of my ideas help at all, but maybe they'll give you some ideas. ^^

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much stand-alone. ^^ Except for Scott and El sharing a room, which shows it takes place after two of the wing stories.

I dunno.... I don't want to not write, it's what I love above all else. But it's frustrating when the one story I want to do won't come out right. XD; My mind's kind of blank for everything else, including random prompts.

I don't need the story of the Prohibition era; the grandmother was telling about her boyfriend being in a mob and she didn't know it. XD It was kind of based on the Twice in a Lifetime episode that takes place during that time period. But I was thinking of doing something like what you're suggesting, so I probably will. ^^

Annie is a really minor OC, and I can't even decide what her personality should be like. XD; She was coming off a little like a female Sean and I didn't like that, so I changed it. But I don't want her to be a weakling, and gah. **headdesk.** Troublesome OC. XD

Same with the businessman in the doppelganger fic; I can't fully decide what his backstory is. XD; As I said, I really kind of didn't want to use the plot of him having liked fantasy before but then came to not believe in it, whether or not I specifically say it. It seems so cliché and a more idealistic approach than I like to write. But I dunno, on the other hand, it could also be cliché for him to have never believed in that sort of thing and always have been more logical. But I think, I hope, I was always logical, even though I wished that stuff was true sometimes.
XD

Both fics? I thought only one had anything to do with Prohibition. XD Which is the one that already involves the guys.

Thanks for the suggestions!

**will try to get her computer going.**

[cskazaam.livejournal.com]

Bleh. Hopefully you'll be able to come up with something before too long!

Good luck with it! ^^

XD Hmmm.... Maybe someone sophisticated? **had kinda imagined the Annie from the song as being similar to the Mysterious Woman.** And I wonder what her job would be, or why someone would want to kill her....

Well, the main idea I was thinking of is that, whatever the backstory is, you can try different ways of telling it, if one way isn't working out, or you're not that inspired by it. As for the businessman's backstory.... I think that just writing the backstory that you want to write would be best, rather than trying to force something. ^^ Even if it is cliché, it all really depends on how you present it. But would he have always been completely logical, even as a kid? Maybe he could have liked things like fantasy, but just grew out of it normally, rather than being forced to give it up. I totally wished a bunch of stuff was true! LOL, we even wrote letters to Puff the Magic Dragon and Rainbow Brite as kids. XD; It all seemed totally logical at the time! I'm not sure kids are ever really all that logical about things, except from their own point of view. XD

Ummm..... Oh, I was thinking that you were referring to the Revolutionary War era novel, and that since you mentioned you couldn't really think of anything to write about the guys, maybe one idea of a short story could involve something with a museum about the time period. So that maybe any research you did would work for both. XD Just a random thought, though. XD

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Hopefully!

**nods.** I don't think Baby Face is after her specifically; he just wants something she has. Currently she's a secretary for a large company.

Possibly! Or stuff with the company just took over his attention.

**snerks.** True. XD I really meant I was logical enough to know it wasn't true, even if I wished otherwise.

Well, I did mention the Revolutionary War novel, but my woes are mainly with the doppelganger one. XD Though I do need to do more research on the war. If the guys went to a museum, maybe they'd find something of the double's there....

[cskazaam.livejournal.com]

XD Most things I didn't believe, but I think I liked to believe or hope that there was some magical world out there where some of the characters really did exist, and you just had to go far enough to find it. XD

Oooh. That could be! A letter of some kind maybe? Or a hat or some important possession?

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

I liked to imagine that was true, and maybe at one time I really believed it (I hope not, because I would have been a teenager by then), but I don't anymore. XD As nice as it would be if our imaginations had so much power as to bring fictional characters to life on some real, but dream-like plane (which I've heard some people actually seem to believe), it just can't be. ;___; Still, in a magical place like the canyon, it almost seems as if stuff like LOTR could be real. X3

Yep, something like that! X3

[cskazaam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's too bad that it can't be true somehow. ;___; Though who knows, maybe in some other universe it might be possible.... And yeah, it's easy to believe that magical things could really happen in a place like the canyon. X3 I sometimes get the feeling just walking through the trees when the light is right, just because it's so peaceful and amazing. X3

[northeastwind.livejournal.com]

*hugs you* *plops box labeled 'Writing Bug' on your desk* Write random stuff! Like, I dunno,a birthday party or something. Then the feeling will go away.

And you must have updated right before I clicked the link to chapter 4, because when I did the title changed XD

I'm actually more comfortable with OCs, but only because mine are pretty shallow right now and I can have them do however I want >_> Then I can go back and slap myself make myself a character out of them. But yeah, writing OCs for stories with fandom characters in them is not fun .__. Bah!

The above suggestions sound good, and I can tell you right now that unloading backstory in one scene is not a good idea >_> Not that I have much experience, but yeah.

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

XD **returns hug.** Yeah, I'm not good with writing random stuff. Not unless I have a plunnie for it. But I think I may be about ready to go back to the Bryce Canyon fic now. ^^

LOL.

I actually don't mind writing OCs in fandom stories, as long as they stay in the background where they belong. XD If a whole fandom story revolves around an OC, then I get annoyed. Even a whole scene can bug me. Maybe I should shift the focus to the criminal, since he isn't an OC. XD;

LOL, well, I wasn't ever going to unload an entire backstory in one scene. XD Just some key parts for the scene in question.