Seraph wittering
Jun. 18th, 2009 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupIn which I complain for a while about writing fic. Spoilers for all of Seraph up to this point.
1. I'm still not satisfied with what Spike's going to decide to name the baby. That is, I've had an idea for a while now, but I've become increasingly disenchanted with it. Here's the problem with naming a fic baby: if you name it after some obvious person, then a third of all babyficcers in fandom have also used it for their OC babies. But a name should have some signficance to the parent, right? Yet not too significant because that would be pretentious or cheesy or possibly both. Spike clearly places some importance on names, since he renamed himself. But how much importance? And how is it going to be expressed here?
I think part of my problem is that the name a character chooses for their child is a conscious decision; it should come out of how the character thinks about the child, not how I think about the child.
2. I have scenes, but I also have a number of snippets that I'm not sure where to fit in, if at all. Seriously, one scene in my outline says, "late-pregnancy vignettes." I suspect this problem with organizing is partly due to the story covering such a long time span.
3. Does this fic really need a 200-word interlude in which, to Spike's bemusement, Dawn and Joyce argue about Ted's recipe for mini-pizzas? I mean, yay, canon connection, but... really?
4. So, domestic!Spike. Still having trouble wrapping my head around this one. When he lived with Giles or Xander he was a pain, but he actually likes Joyce - how much is this going to affect his default annoy-all-comers behavior? What is Spike like to live with, really?
5. Does the fic also need random Tara character development? I didn't mean there to be, but it won't seem to stay out. I feel as though Tara is shaping up to be the secret hero of this fic, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
6. Not so much a question or a complaint, but a comment: it feels to me that there is a whole lot of story going on that I'm not writing - story relating to people other than Spike. Since it's nearly all his POV, there's a lot he doesn't see or doesn't care about. Just how is this occasional friendship with him going to affect Tara, who's just spent half a season being promoted from secret girlfriend to rank outsider? I'm already toying with the idea of a Buffy&Giles interlude, in which they hash out a lot of their issues related to Spike, the Initiative, the Council, and Giles' role in the Cruciamentum. And there's got to be some Buffy/Riley friction that I'm not writing, just because this is Spike's story and he doesn't care.
7. In some ways, this is very much a kitchen-sink fic: since it's my first longfic, I've ended up tossing in a lot of my perspectives on the Buffyverse and Buffyfic in general, just because I haven't had the chance to air them before. I keep having to remind myself that words can be perfectly good words and yet have no place in the story I am telling.
8. On the plus side of things, I'm presently writing while battling a six-week-old black-and-gray tabby kitten, who is possibly more adorable than anything in the whole wide world. (Except possibly his brother, the black ball of fluff cuddled up next to my leg.)
1. I'm still not satisfied with what Spike's going to decide to name the baby. That is, I've had an idea for a while now, but I've become increasingly disenchanted with it. Here's the problem with naming a fic baby: if you name it after some obvious person, then a third of all babyficcers in fandom have also used it for their OC babies. But a name should have some signficance to the parent, right? Yet not too significant because that would be pretentious or cheesy or possibly both. Spike clearly places some importance on names, since he renamed himself. But how much importance? And how is it going to be expressed here?
I think part of my problem is that the name a character chooses for their child is a conscious decision; it should come out of how the character thinks about the child, not how I think about the child.
2. I have scenes, but I also have a number of snippets that I'm not sure where to fit in, if at all. Seriously, one scene in my outline says, "late-pregnancy vignettes." I suspect this problem with organizing is partly due to the story covering such a long time span.
3. Does this fic really need a 200-word interlude in which, to Spike's bemusement, Dawn and Joyce argue about Ted's recipe for mini-pizzas? I mean, yay, canon connection, but... really?
4. So, domestic!Spike. Still having trouble wrapping my head around this one. When he lived with Giles or Xander he was a pain, but he actually likes Joyce - how much is this going to affect his default annoy-all-comers behavior? What is Spike like to live with, really?
5. Does the fic also need random Tara character development? I didn't mean there to be, but it won't seem to stay out. I feel as though Tara is shaping up to be the secret hero of this fic, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
6. Not so much a question or a complaint, but a comment: it feels to me that there is a whole lot of story going on that I'm not writing - story relating to people other than Spike. Since it's nearly all his POV, there's a lot he doesn't see or doesn't care about. Just how is this occasional friendship with him going to affect Tara, who's just spent half a season being promoted from secret girlfriend to rank outsider? I'm already toying with the idea of a Buffy&Giles interlude, in which they hash out a lot of their issues related to Spike, the Initiative, the Council, and Giles' role in the Cruciamentum. And there's got to be some Buffy/Riley friction that I'm not writing, just because this is Spike's story and he doesn't care.
7. In some ways, this is very much a kitchen-sink fic: since it's my first longfic, I've ended up tossing in a lot of my perspectives on the Buffyverse and Buffyfic in general, just because I haven't had the chance to air them before. I keep having to remind myself that words can be perfectly good words and yet have no place in the story I am telling.
8. On the plus side of things, I'm presently writing while battling a six-week-old black-and-gray tabby kitten, who is possibly more adorable than anything in the whole wide world. (Except possibly his brother, the black ball of fluff cuddled up next to my leg.)
