Seraph wittering

[snick_backup]

In 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.)

Comments

[deird1]

Oh, how annoying. I have lots of stuff to say about four of those points - but it's all relating to my remix fic, which is supposed to be anonymous, so I can't tell you anything of it! This is such a pain!


*goes mushy over the very cute kitty*

[snickfic]

Shoot! Maybe save the thoughts, and come back in a month? Although that seems a little silly... Rats.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

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.

To me, any fis is a kitchen-sink meta. Rewriting stuff is the best way to tell how you feel about it.

Names... yes, they are tricky. I always go the easiest way. Willow calls her daughter Tara, etc.

[snickfic]

Rewriting stuff is the best way to tell how you feel about it.

Very true. The question is whether I need to tell how I feel about everything in this one fic. *g*

[riccadonna.livejournal.com]

My general impression about your writing is that you usually go for pruning instead of ornamenting; I agree that everything that is not necessary is usually excessive in arts, but there's also the throwing-away-the-baby-with-the-bath-water thing.
I think that given your natural tendency of avoiding the excesses, you should safely go for all the digressions that you have in mind.
Definitively for the mini-pizzas kind of thing, because interaction between your main character and the others gets stronger as they are more defined (I'd love to see ALL of the scenes that you mention).
Plus, on the TV show they always had to give up important -necessary- character developments due to the forty minutes/22 episodes rule: you have no such tyrant breathing up your neck...

My regards and a scratch under the chin to the kittens.

[snickfic]

Hah. Yes, I'm definitely more a pruner than an ornamenter - it comes from my short story background, I think, where every word counts. And thus I think you're probably right, that I might as well indulge myself with the snippets and the extra bits, since it's so unlikely that I'll stray too far into the ornamentation.

So, thanks for the backup. :)

[next_to_normal]

My thoughts are kind of vague, since I haven't read the fic yet, but...

2. This is the same problem I have with my alt season six. I have a bunch of scenes or vignettes in the amorphous time between the end of "Slay Bells" and the beginning of the next big, serious plot, but I can't seem to make them into a real story, because there's no strong connecting thread other than "all these things happen to Spike and Buffy."

3. Well, that's up to you, but if it feels too tangential, you could always turn it into a drabble or one-shot set in the same 'verse as Seraph, the way goldenusagi does with "Sideways" or rahirah's Barbverse drabbles.

4. Heh. I don't care how much he likes who he's living with, I don't think Spike ever picks his towels up off the floor.

7. That is a good reminder, lol. You don't need to cover everything in one fic - you can always write another one to address perspectives that don't really fit in your story.

8. KITTENS!!

[snickfic]

2. You mean there's more in your alt-S6? Big, serious plot and all? There's enough closure at the end of "Slay Bells" that I figured it was just done. Cool.

3. I've been giving that some thought, and I suspect that I might go that route with a few of these things.

4. Hmm, very true. I think right there you've sparked a bit of domestic conflict that will make it into this story, whether in the fic or as a drabble. Yay!

[next_to_normal]

Yep, there's more... about 1.5 multi-chapter fics. The problem is that the half a fic I'm missing is the part that comes next, lol. I did intentionally write "Slay Bells" as a de facto conclusion to the series, because I was getting pretty burned out at the end of "Other Things." I knew I wouldn't make it through everything I'd planned without a break, and I might never go back to it, so I didn't want to leave people hanging. But the rest of it's still on my hard drive, if I ever decide to pick it up again.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

1. Yeah, I have problems with that, too. Mostly authors name a baby after someone significant (and usually dead) in one of the parents' lives, and that's awesome, but it can be a bit overdone. On the other hand, there have been times when I've nearly been thrown out of the story by a given name that doesn't sound anything like what I would think the characters would pick.

That was not said to put more pressure on you, though. I'm sure yours will work.

3. Ha! That would make me giggle, but yeah, it might be hard to make it work.

5. Tara character development can be good, especially because I trust you not to let her totally take over the fic.

6. This is why I rarely write plotty fics. This right here.

7. I do that all the time. Most of us do, I think.

8. Cuteness!

[snickfic]

1. Nope, no pressure at all. ;p

6. I'm not sure it's actually a bad thing - on one hand, I have no desire presently actually to write those other stories; OTOH, I sort of like that there's a sense of stuff going on beyond Spike's immediate perspective. Just because the fic is about him doesn't mean the characters' lives now revolve him (although, granted, a lot of the sort of the thing that I'm consciously leaving out is a response to Spike in some way).

I suppose if I were a proper fic novelist, I would actually be writing all that stuff, too, but the very thought of it makes me tired. However, I wouldn't be surprised if I did write a few non-Spike-centric interludes later on.