Fic update! I posted the first chapter of TWC4 at FF.net and AO3. Since it's a replacement of the chapter that is already there on FF.net, they won't register it as an update until I actually add a new chapter, so this is the "unofficial prerelease". :P I am, however, hoping to have chapter 2 done before the end of the month. :)
I'm so relieved to get this done. I had actually planned on working on this during October, but stress at the beginning of the month basically gave me artistic block on all fronts. I've only JUST started writing again. Hoping this is the start of something good! :)
If I can get to chapter 2 quickly enough (I don't know if that will work or not though) I'm going to work on "Those Daring McQuacks". I have the structure outlined and I tried starting act 2 a couple of months ago but i stalled on the scene. I was able to write it, it just wasn't paced particularly well and I was having trouble with what I wanted to say. I hope I can pick it up again and fix it.
Anyway, I don't think anyone checks this blog if I dont' put up links or reminders, but just in case people do, fic update message and general ramblings. ^_^ Hi!
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
But ducks don't tweet...
So, I don't do Twitter, and I haven't really felt a need to. HOWEVER, today I realized I could set up a nice small account for this fic series and just use it for update announcements and things. I mean, I love having this blog and I think I make pretty decent use of it (Well, I mean to use it MORE than I do, but at least I use it); but it's hard to remember to check blogs if you don't have a "friends list" feed page, which not everyone is able to have, so a Twitter account could send out announcements when I've updated a fic or the blog or something else along those lines.
Then again, though, I'm not sure if it would just be overkill. After all I only have 7 people following this blog and I'm not sure how many people actually read the fics due to how time-consuming they are. So would it be worthwhile? I guess it couldn't *hurt* anyway...
I'd love comments/thoughts if anyone has them?
Then again, though, I'm not sure if it would just be overkill. After all I only have 7 people following this blog and I'm not sure how many people actually read the fics due to how time-consuming they are. So would it be worthwhile? I guess it couldn't *hurt* anyway...
I'd love comments/thoughts if anyone has them?
Friday, July 29, 2011
On-Schedule
So! I actually managed to update TWC3 a second time this month! If I can get the last two chapters done on-schedule then we'll be done around the end of August/beginning of September :)
It's not up yet on AO3, but here's the FF.net link.
Since this is winding down, and I haven't done any chapter notes or much talking about the fic itself, I thought I'd make a post about... well, about the fic itself. :) I've whined a lot about how no one really seems to like this one - which is inaccurate, as I have had multiple people contact me via DA and so forth to say that they've started reading with this one, and they find it quite enjoyable. So what I'm really whining about is the lack of reviews on FF.net, when I think about it. Aaaand, whatever. I'll keep whining about that ON FF.net, because I can see how many hits the story gets so I know people are looking at it and I'm just choosing to be all guilt-pushy there, but I'll skip the whining elsewhere. I know you guys. We cool. :D
Oh, wow, that was a digression!
So to get back to what I was talking about, I haven't really posted much about this particular fic and what's gone into the rewrite. With TWC2 I did at least some partial listings of the things I'd changed from the original version, and now that TWC3 is winding down some, I thought it'd be fun to do the same with this one. I can be almost complete, too, since it's nearly over!
In a lot of ways this one is actually very similar to its progenitor: more than either of the others, I really used the original as an outline and just filled the details in more strongly. With TWC2, for instance, I had to change a number of the plot details to make them less hokey, or the order of the events to make them more understandable, etc. With this one, it's largely the same: the outline for both is:
I: Beth gets yelled at/humiliated by Drake and LP comes to her defense, and then she finds out about Drake being Darkwing;
II: Darkwing encounters Quackerjack, who uses his ray gun to minimize him (haha, I like that term), at which point DW gets away but LP and Gosalyn are struck by the change being more than just cosmetic;
III: Darkwing and Gos ditch Launchpad to fight Quackerjack, which they do and they win, and then at the end Beth... Well I can't say yet 'cause it's a spoiler. DUN-DUN-DUN!!! Okay, okay, you got me, I'll spill. She runs away with Negaduck and has his nega-babies. YEAH YOU HEARD ME!
Okay, so, aside from that minor point at the end which may possibly not be true, that's pretty straightforward. I ended up just doing each as 3-chapter acts instead of one chapter each. And I STILL could barely fit all the Beth stuff into the first act, man, even with three chapters :P I do go on and on! So now for the differences:
1. There NEEDED to be a lot more detail in the Beth section at the beginning, because initially Drake just was fed up with her babbling and snapped at her. I mean, it's simple and not fully OOC, but it did make him look like a gigantic jerk. And while Drake can be a gigantic jerk, there's a right way and a wrong way; and he needed to have a reason within his head that made him certain he was NOT being a gigantic jerk. At least not for no reason at all. :D I actually came up with the idea for the whole "nobody can be that BORING" etc while walking to work one day, about a year ago - it just clicked. I'd been sweating over rewriting the scene for MONTHS, not sure if I could make it actually work IC, and then it just fell together. This was also when I decided to really go and just *run* with the idea that DW would think Beth was a superhero, and this was his (flimsy, I admit) reason for letting her stick around and babysit when it wasn't really strictly necessary. So, all this actually took a lot of thought and in the original was way quicker and weaker.
2. In the same vein, I had to *really* punch up the confrontation between Drake and LP. I won't go into the details on it since that's not needed, but I did struggle to make it something that made sense for LP at this point, and it was a challenge. I'm still worried as to whether I pulled it off, though no one to date has told me I didn't. And, again, the discussion between Beth and LP afterwards was very much extended past the original. The idea of LP trying to "talk Beth up" to Drake started as my idea of a way to get him thinking of her more often and - since he ultimately falls for her himself - this might be the impetus to get him to look at her that way or that might just be the excuse he gives himself when he realizes he's doing that.
3. Beth's discovery of DW's secret identity was largely the same but I had to change some details, including why Gosalyn wasn't present (and it's an excuse to bring Honker into the series earlier! I wish I'd had a part for him in the rest of the fic) and just precisely how Beth stumbles onto it. I absolutely wanted her to stumble onto it, too, because as smart as she is, she doesn't think of unexpected things very often so although she probably would put two and two together EVENTUALLY, it wouldn't happen for quite some time. :)
4. I needed more for Launchpad to do in this fic (this is a theme in nearly all my rewrites; he needs more REAL screen time) and thus came the "Harv" sequence. In the original, Quackerjack dealt largely with just DW, though Launchpad did ultimately still rescue Darkwing after getting zapped by the ray. One thing missing in the rewrites: I have to admit that I loved all the Quackerjack and Mr. Banana Brain interactions that were in the original. I can't shoehorn them in unless they feel right, so there arent' nearly as many, and I kinda miss them. :)
5. Almost everything after Darkwing gets child-ized is pretty close to the original, just fleshed out; the phone conversation with Beth ended up a little longer than I intended it, but I think it was needed, because I wanted to show the ease that Beth and Launchpad have between themselves even if she's kind of resistant to it/doesn't realize it's there. I needed some kind of positive interaction between them that didn't involve angsting over Drake. ;) I also had to stick in some mounting tension with Henny, and LP really ought to encourage her to get a backbone, don't you think? In the nice, non-accusatory Launchpad style.
6. Played up the loneliness Launchpad feels when Gos and Darkwing only want to hang out with each other. I hadn't intended it to dovetail like that when I started out having him thinking about how he was kind of lonely in general (back in Act I), but it fit like a glove and was actually already in the original fic. Like I said, I just played it up.
7. The Darkwing and Gos caper is at once directly following the original fic (I'm even referencing it as I go, for the general structure and for content ideas to flesh out) and also incredibly different. Action is NOT MY THING. I'm not good at it. If this reads well, I'm lucky, because I really struggle with it. Things I want to address in the next chapter or two include why DW is acting like such a complete brat (there's a reason, it's not JUST that he actually is one :D), and of course how Gos is going to get free/how the good guys will win.
Finally, upcoming in the last chapter: How will Darkwing return to his normal age? Will Beth find out that Drake thinks she's a supervillain? Will she BECOME one??? What will Launchpad think when Darkwing gives his latest opinion on Beth? Will all of this actually be addressed? NO. :D Some of it will. There's a plot climax coming in Act III chapter 2, and then in the "aftermath" of chapter 3, we'll see the Beth and the Launchpad stuff come to a point. (Not the Beth/Launchpad stuff. Beth stuff and Launchpad stuff, and in some ways the two will meet.)
So in a sense I've always felt like it's not fair to have so much Beth in a story that doesn't really involve her, but in another sense, this is one of the most important stories in the first five so a lot HAS to happen. I hope you'll read on, good friends. :)
It's not up yet on AO3, but here's the FF.net link.
Since this is winding down, and I haven't done any chapter notes or much talking about the fic itself, I thought I'd make a post about... well, about the fic itself. :) I've whined a lot about how no one really seems to like this one - which is inaccurate, as I have had multiple people contact me via DA and so forth to say that they've started reading with this one, and they find it quite enjoyable. So what I'm really whining about is the lack of reviews on FF.net, when I think about it. Aaaand, whatever. I'll keep whining about that ON FF.net, because I can see how many hits the story gets so I know people are looking at it and I'm just choosing to be all guilt-pushy there, but I'll skip the whining elsewhere. I know you guys. We cool. :D
Oh, wow, that was a digression!
So to get back to what I was talking about, I haven't really posted much about this particular fic and what's gone into the rewrite. With TWC2 I did at least some partial listings of the things I'd changed from the original version, and now that TWC3 is winding down some, I thought it'd be fun to do the same with this one. I can be almost complete, too, since it's nearly over!
In a lot of ways this one is actually very similar to its progenitor: more than either of the others, I really used the original as an outline and just filled the details in more strongly. With TWC2, for instance, I had to change a number of the plot details to make them less hokey, or the order of the events to make them more understandable, etc. With this one, it's largely the same: the outline for both is:
I: Beth gets yelled at/humiliated by Drake and LP comes to her defense, and then she finds out about Drake being Darkwing;
II: Darkwing encounters Quackerjack, who uses his ray gun to minimize him (haha, I like that term), at which point DW gets away but LP and Gosalyn are struck by the change being more than just cosmetic;
III: Darkwing and Gos ditch Launchpad to fight Quackerjack, which they do and they win, and then at the end Beth... Well I can't say yet 'cause it's a spoiler. DUN-DUN-DUN!!! Okay, okay, you got me, I'll spill. She runs away with Negaduck and has his nega-babies. YEAH YOU HEARD ME!
Okay, so, aside from that minor point at the end which may possibly not be true, that's pretty straightforward. I ended up just doing each as 3-chapter acts instead of one chapter each. And I STILL could barely fit all the Beth stuff into the first act, man, even with three chapters :P I do go on and on! So now for the differences:
1. There NEEDED to be a lot more detail in the Beth section at the beginning, because initially Drake just was fed up with her babbling and snapped at her. I mean, it's simple and not fully OOC, but it did make him look like a gigantic jerk. And while Drake can be a gigantic jerk, there's a right way and a wrong way; and he needed to have a reason within his head that made him certain he was NOT being a gigantic jerk. At least not for no reason at all. :D I actually came up with the idea for the whole "nobody can be that BORING" etc while walking to work one day, about a year ago - it just clicked. I'd been sweating over rewriting the scene for MONTHS, not sure if I could make it actually work IC, and then it just fell together. This was also when I decided to really go and just *run* with the idea that DW would think Beth was a superhero, and this was his (flimsy, I admit) reason for letting her stick around and babysit when it wasn't really strictly necessary. So, all this actually took a lot of thought and in the original was way quicker and weaker.
2. In the same vein, I had to *really* punch up the confrontation between Drake and LP. I won't go into the details on it since that's not needed, but I did struggle to make it something that made sense for LP at this point, and it was a challenge. I'm still worried as to whether I pulled it off, though no one to date has told me I didn't. And, again, the discussion between Beth and LP afterwards was very much extended past the original. The idea of LP trying to "talk Beth up" to Drake started as my idea of a way to get him thinking of her more often and - since he ultimately falls for her himself - this might be the impetus to get him to look at her that way or that might just be the excuse he gives himself when he realizes he's doing that.
3. Beth's discovery of DW's secret identity was largely the same but I had to change some details, including why Gosalyn wasn't present (and it's an excuse to bring Honker into the series earlier! I wish I'd had a part for him in the rest of the fic) and just precisely how Beth stumbles onto it. I absolutely wanted her to stumble onto it, too, because as smart as she is, she doesn't think of unexpected things very often so although she probably would put two and two together EVENTUALLY, it wouldn't happen for quite some time. :)
4. I needed more for Launchpad to do in this fic (this is a theme in nearly all my rewrites; he needs more REAL screen time) and thus came the "Harv" sequence. In the original, Quackerjack dealt largely with just DW, though Launchpad did ultimately still rescue Darkwing after getting zapped by the ray. One thing missing in the rewrites: I have to admit that I loved all the Quackerjack and Mr. Banana Brain interactions that were in the original. I can't shoehorn them in unless they feel right, so there arent' nearly as many, and I kinda miss them. :)
5. Almost everything after Darkwing gets child-ized is pretty close to the original, just fleshed out; the phone conversation with Beth ended up a little longer than I intended it, but I think it was needed, because I wanted to show the ease that Beth and Launchpad have between themselves even if she's kind of resistant to it/doesn't realize it's there. I needed some kind of positive interaction between them that didn't involve angsting over Drake. ;) I also had to stick in some mounting tension with Henny, and LP really ought to encourage her to get a backbone, don't you think? In the nice, non-accusatory Launchpad style.
6. Played up the loneliness Launchpad feels when Gos and Darkwing only want to hang out with each other. I hadn't intended it to dovetail like that when I started out having him thinking about how he was kind of lonely in general (back in Act I), but it fit like a glove and was actually already in the original fic. Like I said, I just played it up.
7. The Darkwing and Gos caper is at once directly following the original fic (I'm even referencing it as I go, for the general structure and for content ideas to flesh out) and also incredibly different. Action is NOT MY THING. I'm not good at it. If this reads well, I'm lucky, because I really struggle with it. Things I want to address in the next chapter or two include why DW is acting like such a complete brat (there's a reason, it's not JUST that he actually is one :D), and of course how Gos is going to get free/how the good guys will win.
Finally, upcoming in the last chapter: How will Darkwing return to his normal age? Will Beth find out that Drake thinks she's a supervillain? Will she BECOME one??? What will Launchpad think when Darkwing gives his latest opinion on Beth? Will all of this actually be addressed? NO. :D Some of it will. There's a plot climax coming in Act III chapter 2, and then in the "aftermath" of chapter 3, we'll see the Beth and the Launchpad stuff come to a point. (Not the Beth/Launchpad stuff. Beth stuff and Launchpad stuff, and in some ways the two will meet.)
So in a sense I've always felt like it's not fair to have so much Beth in a story that doesn't really involve her, but in another sense, this is one of the most important stories in the first five so a lot HAS to happen. I hope you'll read on, good friends. :)
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Rules for Drawing Beth Webfoot
"Actually, it's more of a guideline than a rule..." --Dr. Peter Venkman
This would probably be more appropriate for my DA account journal, but honestly, I don't want to overspam there. So it goes here instead, and then eventually, I'll put it up over there. :)
These are, I guess, "Guidelines" for a few reasons - first of all, I love seeing people draw different characters in their own styles and I hate to say "do it this way and ONLY THIS WAY". If Beth looks a certain way in your head then I encourage you to draw her that way! However, if you're looking for guidance, here we go. :)
Another reason these aren't rules is becuase half the time *I* don't/can't follow them. :P
But I needed to set some things in stone, because certain things I have just never specified even though I do actually do them on purpose instead of just by mistake. ;P
So, with that in mind... Onward!
1) General features, ie, a colour guide: Beth has brown hair and blue eyes. (I didn't choose those colours because the combination was unusual, btw, she just struck me more as a blue-eyed gal; digression) Specifically, her eyes are a *light* blue, not crazy vibrant light but not deep or dark or "midnight" or anything either. Not like Elijah Wood, but still noticably light. Her hair is not light or dark brown, not strawberry blonde or anything, it's just your average brown. I apparently decided on a whim recently that it has red highlights but I think that's only when she's standing just the right way in the setting sun - general light and sunlight don't make her hair look anything but brown. Her feathers are that cream colour, lighter than Gosalyn's, but not white.
I don't mind if you gave her white feathers, y'all. Half the gift art I've ever received of her has her with white feathers. In fact, before I started drawing when all the art I had of her was by Lar deSouza, his first pic gave her cream feathers so I did that when I started aping his design of her. Then he came back and gave her white feathers. Then he went back and forth. XD So, bottom line - I give her cream, if you want to do what I do give her cream, but honestly... pffft. This is one area where I don't give a rat's behind. ^_^
2) Hairstyle: She wears her hair in a ponytail about 80% of the time. She usually only wears it down for special events, I think. Mostly this is for simplicity's sake. It keeps her hair out of her face, etc.
If you draw her with her hair down, more power to you. :) Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, it's more just how I visualize her.
Her hair is in a low ponytail, tied back at the nape of her neck.
High ponytails look incredibly cute on her though. *shrug* Again, this is something that I get about 50-50 of over the years. I honestly think it's a lot harder to draw a low ponytail so I can totally understand why people like to do the high one.
She has bangs, they're just the tiniest bit long, not enough to be messy but enough to cover her forehead and start to drape towards her eyes. She doesn't part her bangs but lets them fall towards her eyes. Think of it as kind of a shield that lets her avoid eye contact without being obvious that she's doing so.
3) Height and body type: Beth is quite skinny. In the early fics I intend her to be underweight; she eats very badly (like, not much) and is tall for her weight. She's not anorexic by any means, she's just skinny. I do think that once she befriends the Mallards and LP, she starts putting on weight a litlte because she's happier, and she fills out some. She remains tall and thin, though.
Officially her height is supposed to be right smack in between DW and Launchpad - I'm not officially sure what the "head count" is so I can't specify it. I'd like to say a head taller than DW and a half-head shorter than LP, but that's an estimate since I know Darkwing is about 3 1/2 heads tall(?) but I don't know for LP. Therefore, I don't know for Beth, but I usually aim for around 5 heads tall.
This is where I fall into "I am totally lying" city. I have never managed to give her a consistent height, due in part to my general habit of making everyone too tall (I've managed to get Darkwing's proportions right ONCE, everybody, JUST ONCE) and also due to just a general inconsistency. But, the above is what I would like to be true, and if you draw and figure things out by this manner, then there you go. :)Another point I'd like to make: technically, if Beth is underweight, she should look it and be a lot more bony and unattractive about it. I'm not able to go there. I don't want to make her utterly unappealing, so I'll never actually manage to draw her looking underweight. :P The biggest rule to follow is that she is beanpole lean, has more on the hips than she does in the bust, and has a long body. She's got a long torso but long legs, too, so there's not a disporportion effect. She's definitely a small bust size but I suppose one could say she fills out a little in that area when she starts putting on more weight. ;)
4) Physical characteristics: She dislikes wearing clothing that shows much of her skin/feathers, so she almost always wears either long sleeves or 3/4 sleeves (you know, like - to the elbows). This is also why she wears turtlenecks. She owns a lot of loose-fitting shirts but not all of them are, some are more form-fitting. But she never wears anything that shows much of her neck, shoulders, or arms, not because there's anything wrong with them, just becuase she is self-conscious. By the same token she pretty much always wears jeans, not often shorts or even skirts; if she did wear a skirt it would be a long one.
She doesn't always wear shoes, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule (it depends more on whether I feel like I can manage duck feet when I draw her *lol*). She has thin hands and long fingers. Despite her poor eyesight and thick glasses, rather than having squinty eyes like Honker she actually has large, wide eyes which tend to make her look either surprised or worried. When drawing her eyes I usually make the lids go up from the outsides (rather than up from the insides, which is the more femme-fatale kind of look). I also give her eyelashes towards the insides, depending on the angle, since this gives her eyes a more innocent look.
She has a DWD-style bill (rather than a DuckTales one like Launchpad). Her glasses are blue, if you feel like colouring them in.
That's about all I can think of. If there's anything you were curious about that I didn't touch on here, ask away, and I'll add it!
This would probably be more appropriate for my DA account journal, but honestly, I don't want to overspam there. So it goes here instead, and then eventually, I'll put it up over there. :)
These are, I guess, "Guidelines" for a few reasons - first of all, I love seeing people draw different characters in their own styles and I hate to say "do it this way and ONLY THIS WAY". If Beth looks a certain way in your head then I encourage you to draw her that way! However, if you're looking for guidance, here we go. :)
Another reason these aren't rules is becuase half the time *I* don't/can't follow them. :P
But I needed to set some things in stone, because certain things I have just never specified even though I do actually do them on purpose instead of just by mistake. ;P
So, with that in mind... Onward!
1) General features, ie, a colour guide: Beth has brown hair and blue eyes. (I didn't choose those colours because the combination was unusual, btw, she just struck me more as a blue-eyed gal; digression) Specifically, her eyes are a *light* blue, not crazy vibrant light but not deep or dark or "midnight" or anything either. Not like Elijah Wood, but still noticably light. Her hair is not light or dark brown, not strawberry blonde or anything, it's just your average brown. I apparently decided on a whim recently that it has red highlights but I think that's only when she's standing just the right way in the setting sun - general light and sunlight don't make her hair look anything but brown. Her feathers are that cream colour, lighter than Gosalyn's, but not white.
I don't mind if you gave her white feathers, y'all. Half the gift art I've ever received of her has her with white feathers. In fact, before I started drawing when all the art I had of her was by Lar deSouza, his first pic gave her cream feathers so I did that when I started aping his design of her. Then he came back and gave her white feathers. Then he went back and forth. XD So, bottom line - I give her cream, if you want to do what I do give her cream, but honestly... pffft. This is one area where I don't give a rat's behind. ^_^
2) Hairstyle: She wears her hair in a ponytail about 80% of the time. She usually only wears it down for special events, I think. Mostly this is for simplicity's sake. It keeps her hair out of her face, etc.
If you draw her with her hair down, more power to you. :) Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, it's more just how I visualize her.
Her hair is in a low ponytail, tied back at the nape of her neck.
High ponytails look incredibly cute on her though. *shrug* Again, this is something that I get about 50-50 of over the years. I honestly think it's a lot harder to draw a low ponytail so I can totally understand why people like to do the high one.
She has bangs, they're just the tiniest bit long, not enough to be messy but enough to cover her forehead and start to drape towards her eyes. She doesn't part her bangs but lets them fall towards her eyes. Think of it as kind of a shield that lets her avoid eye contact without being obvious that she's doing so.
3) Height and body type: Beth is quite skinny. In the early fics I intend her to be underweight; she eats very badly (like, not much) and is tall for her weight. She's not anorexic by any means, she's just skinny. I do think that once she befriends the Mallards and LP, she starts putting on weight a litlte because she's happier, and she fills out some. She remains tall and thin, though.
Officially her height is supposed to be right smack in between DW and Launchpad - I'm not officially sure what the "head count" is so I can't specify it. I'd like to say a head taller than DW and a half-head shorter than LP, but that's an estimate since I know Darkwing is about 3 1/2 heads tall(?) but I don't know for LP. Therefore, I don't know for Beth, but I usually aim for around 5 heads tall.
This is where I fall into "I am totally lying" city. I have never managed to give her a consistent height, due in part to my general habit of making everyone too tall (I've managed to get Darkwing's proportions right ONCE, everybody, JUST ONCE) and also due to just a general inconsistency. But, the above is what I would like to be true, and if you draw and figure things out by this manner, then there you go. :)Another point I'd like to make: technically, if Beth is underweight, she should look it and be a lot more bony and unattractive about it. I'm not able to go there. I don't want to make her utterly unappealing, so I'll never actually manage to draw her looking underweight. :P The biggest rule to follow is that she is beanpole lean, has more on the hips than she does in the bust, and has a long body. She's got a long torso but long legs, too, so there's not a disporportion effect. She's definitely a small bust size but I suppose one could say she fills out a little in that area when she starts putting on more weight. ;)
4) Physical characteristics: She dislikes wearing clothing that shows much of her skin/feathers, so she almost always wears either long sleeves or 3/4 sleeves (you know, like - to the elbows). This is also why she wears turtlenecks. She owns a lot of loose-fitting shirts but not all of them are, some are more form-fitting. But she never wears anything that shows much of her neck, shoulders, or arms, not because there's anything wrong with them, just becuase she is self-conscious. By the same token she pretty much always wears jeans, not often shorts or even skirts; if she did wear a skirt it would be a long one.
She doesn't always wear shoes, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule (it depends more on whether I feel like I can manage duck feet when I draw her *lol*). She has thin hands and long fingers. Despite her poor eyesight and thick glasses, rather than having squinty eyes like Honker she actually has large, wide eyes which tend to make her look either surprised or worried. When drawing her eyes I usually make the lids go up from the outsides (rather than up from the insides, which is the more femme-fatale kind of look). I also give her eyelashes towards the insides, depending on the angle, since this gives her eyes a more innocent look.
She has a DWD-style bill (rather than a DuckTales one like Launchpad). Her glasses are blue, if you feel like colouring them in.
That's about all I can think of. If there's anything you were curious about that I didn't touch on here, ask away, and I'll add it!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Yo yo folks, what up.
I had to delete the extra "u" after both of those "yo"s, btw. Creature of habit when I type.
Anyway, earlier I'd thought I could make a nice long blog post but THAT didn't happen. Right now I have developed a cold, and although so far it's just a runny nose, this nose happens to be running like a faucet and it just doesn't stop. But my nose isn't stuffed at all, it's just runny. UGH. Oh well, I'd be just as uncomfortable if it were not runny, but stuffed. What can I ask for here? If I'm sick, I'm sick, I guess.
So here's the schedule I want to set myself for the next little while, on what I want to work on:
1) Rewriting TWC2. Deadline: end of the year. This is heavily reliant on my actually managing to set up my personal computer in my bedroom since we moved at the end of last month; we don't have a chair for the desk up there yet. I will also need to finish at least the first two, if not all three, chapters of the first act by the end of this month. On the plus side, I have a good deal of chapter 1 done, perhaps half of chapter 2, and an idea for how chapter 3 is going to go. Plus! I think I have Act II more or less mapped in my head. So yay!
2) Once that's done, I'm going to start the next fic to follow after "House on Avian Way", which is tentatively called "Those Daring McQuacks In Their Flying Machines". Yep, and that will be fun to type out a million times, huh? So you can get a pretty decent idea of the vague premise of this one out of hte title. I'm going to have to research it (which should give you a confirmation of what at least some of it is about). ^_^ It should be short - shortish anyway - lordie, I hope... I don't have it all plotted in my head but there's enough to give me a start and some momentum.
3) At the same time I think I'm going to try to work on rewriting TWC3, "Forever Young". That one had a decent plot for Quackerjack but needs some reworking in terms of specifics. If you've read my first fics, have you noticed how nebulous I always left the villain's plots? It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I started thinking actual solid plans were important. Yeah well. At least I care now. ;) Funnily enough I've started the opening scene for this one, since I had an idea on something I had been worrying over and thinking would require a lot of work to rewrite. And then it just came to me! I'm still a bit concerned it's not quite right but... yknow, it's going to be like six months at least until anyone else sees it, so...
Then again I could always preview it here...
Which would mean it would still be six months until anyone else sees it. XD (No, hi, I know there are like... two or three people who read this occasionally! I should make badges for you so you can recognize each other on the streets.)
4) It's not likely to happen but I would love to be able to work on my second Christmas fic, which I've been kidding myself since 2007 that I would finish up each and every year. Here it is nearing year 4!
All this and I'm going to keep putting up notes for AAE, too... eventually. Once again, contingent on my personal computer (right now I'm on my work laptop). But for now, it's past 10 pm, so I think it's perhaps time for bed for this girl and her drippy nasal passages. Please, please tell me I have SOME kind of cold medicine lurking in my bathroom cabinets... Otherwise I foresee an uncomfortably sniffly night ahead.:P Night, all!
I had to delete the extra "u" after both of those "yo"s, btw. Creature of habit when I type.
Anyway, earlier I'd thought I could make a nice long blog post but THAT didn't happen. Right now I have developed a cold, and although so far it's just a runny nose, this nose happens to be running like a faucet and it just doesn't stop. But my nose isn't stuffed at all, it's just runny. UGH. Oh well, I'd be just as uncomfortable if it were not runny, but stuffed. What can I ask for here? If I'm sick, I'm sick, I guess.
So here's the schedule I want to set myself for the next little while, on what I want to work on:
1) Rewriting TWC2. Deadline: end of the year. This is heavily reliant on my actually managing to set up my personal computer in my bedroom since we moved at the end of last month; we don't have a chair for the desk up there yet. I will also need to finish at least the first two, if not all three, chapters of the first act by the end of this month. On the plus side, I have a good deal of chapter 1 done, perhaps half of chapter 2, and an idea for how chapter 3 is going to go. Plus! I think I have Act II more or less mapped in my head. So yay!
2) Once that's done, I'm going to start the next fic to follow after "House on Avian Way", which is tentatively called "Those Daring McQuacks In Their Flying Machines". Yep, and that will be fun to type out a million times, huh? So you can get a pretty decent idea of the vague premise of this one out of hte title. I'm going to have to research it (which should give you a confirmation of what at least some of it is about). ^_^ It should be short - shortish anyway - lordie, I hope... I don't have it all plotted in my head but there's enough to give me a start and some momentum.
3) At the same time I think I'm going to try to work on rewriting TWC3, "Forever Young". That one had a decent plot for Quackerjack but needs some reworking in terms of specifics. If you've read my first fics, have you noticed how nebulous I always left the villain's plots? It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I started thinking actual solid plans were important. Yeah well. At least I care now. ;) Funnily enough I've started the opening scene for this one, since I had an idea on something I had been worrying over and thinking would require a lot of work to rewrite. And then it just came to me! I'm still a bit concerned it's not quite right but... yknow, it's going to be like six months at least until anyone else sees it, so...
Then again I could always preview it here...
Which would mean it would still be six months until anyone else sees it. XD (No, hi, I know there are like... two or three people who read this occasionally! I should make badges for you so you can recognize each other on the streets.)
4) It's not likely to happen but I would love to be able to work on my second Christmas fic, which I've been kidding myself since 2007 that I would finish up each and every year. Here it is nearing year 4!
All this and I'm going to keep putting up notes for AAE, too... eventually. Once again, contingent on my personal computer (right now I'm on my work laptop). But for now, it's past 10 pm, so I think it's perhaps time for bed for this girl and her drippy nasal passages. Please, please tell me I have SOME kind of cold medicine lurking in my bathroom cabinets... Otherwise I foresee an uncomfortably sniffly night ahead.:P Night, all!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Statement of Fact
"High, Dry, and Flooded" is the best DWD fanfic I've ever written.
There's no room for debate; this is just how it is.
There will be a test later.
[PS this doesn't mean it's the best DWD fanfic ever; it's just my best. Three years already and I'm still so proud of that plot!]
There's no room for debate; this is just how it is.
There will be a test later.
[PS this doesn't mean it's the best DWD fanfic ever; it's just my best. Three years already and I'm still so proud of that plot!]
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Dangerous Radio Actors
I was going to actually title this post something about "Interactive". Then I thought of this song I heard a long time ago where this guys sings "I'm radioactive!" Then I thought I'd make a Darkwing Duck reference. So here we are.
I'll admit that right now I am posting just to keep my momentum going on posting. So I thought that, since I don't have a specific topic right now, I'd address my imaginary readers. For my next characterization post, what character would you like me to talk about? I've done DW, Launchpad, and Gosalyn; who is someone else you would like discussed? Bushroot? Honker?
I was going to just do a character from AAE, someone in Beth's family, but I didn't have a set character picked out and then I thought I'd offer folks a chance to make requests. Since this will fall flat in a big way given that no one regularly reads this and even more rarely do they comment, I'll add that you can comment ANY time on this post! Even if it's from like a year ago! Yep, it's all good.
And by the way, I think you can leave a comment without signing in or registering on blogger.com. I'm not for sure on it, but I think you can just enter a name. So howdy folks! Comment to me, please, because I am lonely and cold! (seriously, what the heck is up with the hyperactive air conditioning in here? I'm wrapped in a blanket, I am not kidding!)
I'll admit that right now I am posting just to keep my momentum going on posting. So I thought that, since I don't have a specific topic right now, I'd address my imaginary readers. For my next characterization post, what character would you like me to talk about? I've done DW, Launchpad, and Gosalyn; who is someone else you would like discussed? Bushroot? Honker?
I was going to just do a character from AAE, someone in Beth's family, but I didn't have a set character picked out and then I thought I'd offer folks a chance to make requests. Since this will fall flat in a big way given that no one regularly reads this and even more rarely do they comment, I'll add that you can comment ANY time on this post! Even if it's from like a year ago! Yep, it's all good.
And by the way, I think you can leave a comment without signing in or registering on blogger.com. I'm not for sure on it, but I think you can just enter a name. So howdy folks! Comment to me, please, because I am lonely and cold! (seriously, what the heck is up with the hyperactive air conditioning in here? I'm wrapped in a blanket, I am not kidding!)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
And again a triumphant return..?
Well, I do intend to start writing in here again.
For now, I have a confession to make: I am a Wikipedia ho.
By which I mean that I use it constantly when writing; I use it as a reference tool. Only on really simple things, you know, if I have an idea for a joke or a minor point that isn't really relevant to the plot but could still help flesh out a scene, only I have no idea what I'm talking about, I just go to Wikipedia and look stuff up. Does anyone else do this? It only seems to make sense, really.
Things I've looked up in recent fics:
- Kinds of screws (like hardware)
- Scientific names of flowers
- Scientific names of frogs
- The release dates of Monty Python comedy albums
- Advertising slogans (yes, this is not THAT recent since I finished "High, Dry, and Flooded" like three years ago now, but still, I used it.)
I wish *I* were on Wikipedia.
For now, I have a confession to make: I am a Wikipedia ho.
By which I mean that I use it constantly when writing; I use it as a reference tool. Only on really simple things, you know, if I have an idea for a joke or a minor point that isn't really relevant to the plot but could still help flesh out a scene, only I have no idea what I'm talking about, I just go to Wikipedia and look stuff up. Does anyone else do this? It only seems to make sense, really.
Things I've looked up in recent fics:
- Kinds of screws (like hardware)
- Scientific names of flowers
- Scientific names of frogs
- The release dates of Monty Python comedy albums
- Advertising slogans (yes, this is not THAT recent since I finished "High, Dry, and Flooded" like three years ago now, but still, I used it.)
I wish *I* were on Wikipedia.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
With a hip, hip and a clippety-clop
Every year in October I say to myself "I am going to finish that update on 'The House on Avian Way' so that I can repost it." And then I don't. Well this year guess what? I did! I also put together a buttload of chapter notes for it, which I will be posting anon! (Probably starting tomorrow.) It is not yet uploaded, either at ff.net (the version there is still the old one) or on my webpage, but it will be soon.
Meanwhile though, I thought that in preparation I would post a sort of history of the fic.
I am, as anyone who knows me personally can attest, a freak about Halloween. I've had to grow out of it in recent years, due to lack of time, but in the past I would decorate not only my house but my webpage and blog, as well. I always wanted to write a ghost fic for the Webfoot Weavings, but for years I had no good ideas. In the late 90s, when I was going to school in Canada, two things converged to make inspiration strike:
First of all, I was reading a Rescue Rangers fic with ghosts in it. I found a lot of it to be genuinely chilling, but was let down by the ending. What I liked about the first part, however, was enough to get me thinking of how *I* would write a ghost story; and secondly, I bought the soundtrack for Beetlejuice, written by Danny Elfman. The music in that movie is very original, at once spooky and cartoony, to fit the tone of the movie. I used to listen to the CD in my car while driving to and from school, and after a while, with this possible ghost story on my mind, the score started to inspire scenes.
To be honest, I don't remember what the initial storyline was, except that in the barest bones kind of way it was what it is now: Beth's house is haunted and the characters have to solve the mystery of just WHO is haunting it. or what, or whatever. :) Over the next couple of years I kept going back to the idea, and in 2000, I started writing it. I then spent the next five years working on it. :D
The title was originally meant to be a place-holder, but after a while I discovered it fit nicely. I think this might have been one of the first fics I worked on where I wrote out of order; I kept finding that I couldn't figure out precisely where to go from one spot, so I'd move on to a later one. Also, this was the first *fic* I wrote out of order; I had previously completed "Something In the Air" but had at least one more to go, possibly two, before this one was to take place. I knew, obviously, what was going to happen in those two (or I thought I did) but had no idea when they would be written.
I think I had about half of it, maybe even more, finished by the time I got married in 2002. I didn't want to release it without having it beta read, so I had to track down some readers - my friends Jess and Amanda were absolutely ESSENTIAL in the completion of this story, and in fact, it's more or less how Amanda and I got to be friends and not just general DWD acquaintances. :D
It still took forever and a day for me to finish this thing off. The ending was impossible to write. I wasn't sure just how I wanted it to go until I got there. And so finally in 2005 it was not just finished but beta'd, corrected, and I finally posted it on FF.net, where it fell a bit flat. Heh. ^_^;; In the next few years I actually finished one of the stories to come before it - "High, Dry, and Flooded" - and despite having had that in my head for *years* already the ending took a direction I hadn't expected and I ended up invalidating a good portion of what I'd written and released in HoAW. Figures. So this is why I had to go back and update it. And I held off because I felt like, why do that before I have the one in between HD&F and HoAW finished? (That one is "All About Elizabeth") I might just invalidate it again!
Well, I have gone long enough without updating it. I hate having it just sit there all defunct and all. So I'm finally posting the durn thing.
Of course, now it has spoilers in it, because it takes place after the story I'm currently working on and it does talk about the end of that story. This time I am pretty certain that story will end the way I think it will, btw. ^_~ But heck, if you've come this far, you probably don't mind. :D
HoAW has influence in a lot of my favourite books and movies, *most* of them about ghosts: The Haunting is a HUGE influence, as is Beetlejuice (of course) and even The Blair Witch Project to an extent. Quite a few others are in there too, as noted in the chapter notes to come. I did not include a soundtrack listing, but I might in the next week if I have the time to go through and match up the tracks.
Not a lot of the story has changed, and the really "important" parts are all the same, but still I hope those who choose to will enjoy rereading "The House On Avian Way" as much as I enjoyed writing it. How corny is that? ^_^
Meanwhile though, I thought that in preparation I would post a sort of history of the fic.
I am, as anyone who knows me personally can attest, a freak about Halloween. I've had to grow out of it in recent years, due to lack of time, but in the past I would decorate not only my house but my webpage and blog, as well. I always wanted to write a ghost fic for the Webfoot Weavings, but for years I had no good ideas. In the late 90s, when I was going to school in Canada, two things converged to make inspiration strike:
First of all, I was reading a Rescue Rangers fic with ghosts in it. I found a lot of it to be genuinely chilling, but was let down by the ending. What I liked about the first part, however, was enough to get me thinking of how *I* would write a ghost story; and secondly, I bought the soundtrack for Beetlejuice, written by Danny Elfman. The music in that movie is very original, at once spooky and cartoony, to fit the tone of the movie. I used to listen to the CD in my car while driving to and from school, and after a while, with this possible ghost story on my mind, the score started to inspire scenes.
To be honest, I don't remember what the initial storyline was, except that in the barest bones kind of way it was what it is now: Beth's house is haunted and the characters have to solve the mystery of just WHO is haunting it. or what, or whatever. :) Over the next couple of years I kept going back to the idea, and in 2000, I started writing it. I then spent the next five years working on it. :D
The title was originally meant to be a place-holder, but after a while I discovered it fit nicely. I think this might have been one of the first fics I worked on where I wrote out of order; I kept finding that I couldn't figure out precisely where to go from one spot, so I'd move on to a later one. Also, this was the first *fic* I wrote out of order; I had previously completed "Something In the Air" but had at least one more to go, possibly two, before this one was to take place. I knew, obviously, what was going to happen in those two (or I thought I did) but had no idea when they would be written.
I think I had about half of it, maybe even more, finished by the time I got married in 2002. I didn't want to release it without having it beta read, so I had to track down some readers - my friends Jess and Amanda were absolutely ESSENTIAL in the completion of this story, and in fact, it's more or less how Amanda and I got to be friends and not just general DWD acquaintances. :D
It still took forever and a day for me to finish this thing off. The ending was impossible to write. I wasn't sure just how I wanted it to go until I got there. And so finally in 2005 it was not just finished but beta'd, corrected, and I finally posted it on FF.net, where it fell a bit flat. Heh. ^_^;; In the next few years I actually finished one of the stories to come before it - "High, Dry, and Flooded" - and despite having had that in my head for *years* already the ending took a direction I hadn't expected and I ended up invalidating a good portion of what I'd written and released in HoAW. Figures. So this is why I had to go back and update it. And I held off because I felt like, why do that before I have the one in between HD&F and HoAW finished? (That one is "All About Elizabeth") I might just invalidate it again!
Well, I have gone long enough without updating it. I hate having it just sit there all defunct and all. So I'm finally posting the durn thing.
Of course, now it has spoilers in it, because it takes place after the story I'm currently working on and it does talk about the end of that story. This time I am pretty certain that story will end the way I think it will, btw. ^_~ But heck, if you've come this far, you probably don't mind. :D
HoAW has influence in a lot of my favourite books and movies, *most* of them about ghosts: The Haunting is a HUGE influence, as is Beetlejuice (of course) and even The Blair Witch Project to an extent. Quite a few others are in there too, as noted in the chapter notes to come. I did not include a soundtrack listing, but I might in the next week if I have the time to go through and match up the tracks.
Not a lot of the story has changed, and the really "important" parts are all the same, but still I hope those who choose to will enjoy rereading "The House On Avian Way" as much as I enjoyed writing it. How corny is that? ^_^
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sea of Green, v2.0
I don't have a substantial update for this week. I really don't have the time or presence of mind to do a discussion post - and no one really seems to read them anyway ([/self pity]) - but I haven't finished TWC1 either.
So instead I'm going to put up what I have of the first chapter of the rewrite of TWC2, "Sea of Green". I always did like that title.
My intention is to write the first chapter, post it at the same time that I post the final chapter of TWC1 so that anyone who decides to go look for the next story and hasn't read the original series yet won't be confused by the continuity fail, and then not touch it again until I've finished "All About Elizabeth". Lord knows when that will be; that has turned out to be The Fanfic That Ate Zebbie. But anyway!
Here's a fic preview. I'd ask for feedback, but - HA. ;)
***
One seasonally mild evening in September, St. Canard's greenest resident made a sincere attempt to enter the city's social scene.
Bushroot was not a fan of dance halls - there was no room to breathe, and his roots generally got trampled on - and he didn't care for bars, or other "typical" places to meet people. Instead he opted for an evening meeting at the St. Canard Botanist Society, held in a local school library, where he found everyone pleasantly talking about flowers and accompanied by a potted plant of some kind. It was lovely, and looking around, he finally felt a sense of kinship with non-vegetable beings.
It was still hard, though, to try to interact. Everyone seemed to know one another, and he knew it would be easier to introduce himself to their plants than to the actual people. He hung back a little, just watching, until a soft, kind voice spoke at his elbow.
"Are you going to stay? Why don't you let me take your hat and coat?"
Bushroot jumped slightly and turned to see a pretty blonde duck smiling at him. He felt himself start blushing, and chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, actually, I- I'd like to keep them on. For now," he added, when she began to look at him a little uncertainly.
"Okay, if that's what you want. You should come on in, though, and settle down. Have a seat, we're always happy to have new members." She took his arm and led him towards a table that was equipped with several slightly-undersized chairs. "I'm Laelia."
"Like the orchid!" he said, delighted.
She beamed at him. "That's right! Wow, you do know your flowers."
"I know a lot of flowers." Although it was the absolute truth, it sounded kind of lame. He looked at his hands, feeling bashful. "Uh, I... I'm afraid I didn't bring a plant with me, though."
Laelia laughed. "Oh, don't worry! That's not a requirement. A lot of people just started bringing in friends from home - it can be a great conversation-starter - but you sure don't *have* to. I bet we can think of plenty of other things to talk about."
That had the ring of an invitation. Bushroot gave a great sigh of relief and let himself relax a little bit. "Well, have you ever heard of the Lyceum Nycanthropus?"
Shaking her head, Laelia said, "I can't say that I have. I'd love to know more, though. What order is it?" She rested her elbow on the table top and smiled at him as she put her chin against her hand.
"Oh, it's very rare - I'm not even sure what the order would be..." He put a leafy finger against his bill to think, and as he did so, he heard a small, quick intake of breath from across the table. His heart sank as he realized his mistake.
She was staring at his hand. "That's..."
"Oh, no no no! Don't be alarmed!" He waved both his hands frantically, but this only seemed to make things worse; Laelia paled and drew back from him. "Okay, I know what you're thinking, but I can explain this -"
"You're Bushroot!" she cried, and she stood up and backed away with her hand against her mouth. Heads turned from all parts of the room to stare at him. "You're the evil Mutant Plant-Duck criminal!"
"Evil is a really strong word," Bushroot said desperately as he stood up. The quick motion knocked his had off of his head, and the room suddenly started buzzing as his face became visible to everyone. "I'm really more of a misunderstood type..." He smiled gently, or hoped it looked that way, and said, "All I want is to meet some people who love plants as much as I do. Can't we just sit and talk?"
Laelia started crying. "Don't - don't hurt me!" she shrieked, and stumbled over a chair on her way for the door. The rest of the room followed her example, and within moments, Bushroot was alone... Except for the plants, most of which had been forgotten by their panicked owners.
He sighed, then sat at a table next to a potted orchid, and put his face in his hands.
So instead I'm going to put up what I have of the first chapter of the rewrite of TWC2, "Sea of Green". I always did like that title.
My intention is to write the first chapter, post it at the same time that I post the final chapter of TWC1 so that anyone who decides to go look for the next story and hasn't read the original series yet won't be confused by the continuity fail, and then not touch it again until I've finished "All About Elizabeth". Lord knows when that will be; that has turned out to be The Fanfic That Ate Zebbie. But anyway!
Here's a fic preview. I'd ask for feedback, but - HA. ;)
***
One seasonally mild evening in September, St. Canard's greenest resident made a sincere attempt to enter the city's social scene.
Bushroot was not a fan of dance halls - there was no room to breathe, and his roots generally got trampled on - and he didn't care for bars, or other "typical" places to meet people. Instead he opted for an evening meeting at the St. Canard Botanist Society, held in a local school library, where he found everyone pleasantly talking about flowers and accompanied by a potted plant of some kind. It was lovely, and looking around, he finally felt a sense of kinship with non-vegetable beings.
It was still hard, though, to try to interact. Everyone seemed to know one another, and he knew it would be easier to introduce himself to their plants than to the actual people. He hung back a little, just watching, until a soft, kind voice spoke at his elbow.
"Are you going to stay? Why don't you let me take your hat and coat?"
Bushroot jumped slightly and turned to see a pretty blonde duck smiling at him. He felt himself start blushing, and chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, actually, I- I'd like to keep them on. For now," he added, when she began to look at him a little uncertainly.
"Okay, if that's what you want. You should come on in, though, and settle down. Have a seat, we're always happy to have new members." She took his arm and led him towards a table that was equipped with several slightly-undersized chairs. "I'm Laelia."
"Like the orchid!" he said, delighted.
She beamed at him. "That's right! Wow, you do know your flowers."
"I know a lot of flowers." Although it was the absolute truth, it sounded kind of lame. He looked at his hands, feeling bashful. "Uh, I... I'm afraid I didn't bring a plant with me, though."
Laelia laughed. "Oh, don't worry! That's not a requirement. A lot of people just started bringing in friends from home - it can be a great conversation-starter - but you sure don't *have* to. I bet we can think of plenty of other things to talk about."
That had the ring of an invitation. Bushroot gave a great sigh of relief and let himself relax a little bit. "Well, have you ever heard of the Lyceum Nycanthropus?"
Shaking her head, Laelia said, "I can't say that I have. I'd love to know more, though. What order is it?" She rested her elbow on the table top and smiled at him as she put her chin against her hand.
"Oh, it's very rare - I'm not even sure what the order would be..." He put a leafy finger against his bill to think, and as he did so, he heard a small, quick intake of breath from across the table. His heart sank as he realized his mistake.
She was staring at his hand. "That's..."
"Oh, no no no! Don't be alarmed!" He waved both his hands frantically, but this only seemed to make things worse; Laelia paled and drew back from him. "Okay, I know what you're thinking, but I can explain this -"
"You're Bushroot!" she cried, and she stood up and backed away with her hand against her mouth. Heads turned from all parts of the room to stare at him. "You're the evil Mutant Plant-Duck criminal!"
"Evil is a really strong word," Bushroot said desperately as he stood up. The quick motion knocked his had off of his head, and the room suddenly started buzzing as his face became visible to everyone. "I'm really more of a misunderstood type..." He smiled gently, or hoped it looked that way, and said, "All I want is to meet some people who love plants as much as I do. Can't we just sit and talk?"
Laelia started crying. "Don't - don't hurt me!" she shrieked, and stumbled over a chair on her way for the door. The rest of the room followed her example, and within moments, Bushroot was alone... Except for the plants, most of which had been forgotten by their panicked owners.
He sighed, then sat at a table next to a potted orchid, and put his face in his hands.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Penultimate Authors Notes
Bum-bum-bummmmmm!
There will be only one chapter after this one. I actually have a deleted scene that would have gone in the previous chapter and I was going to post it and forgot, I also forgot to reference it in the notes. I can go back and edit them though, I guess, can't I? Shall do. Perhaps post the scene in question next week. Meanwhile: TWC1, Act 3, Scene 1!
***
References, etc:
- "Yoink." "Yoink?!" comes directly from "The Simpsons", which I find I cannot keep from quoting constantly in my day-to-day life, so it's not only in my fics that it pops up all the time.
- It's not clear, but if you have seen "Reboot", the way DW says "Megavolt." at the beginning of this chapter should be read in exactly the same way that Bob says "Megabyte." in that show. I have been wanting to make that reference for YEARS.
- Obviously this chapter refers heavily to "Clash Reunion" for all the reunion stuff.
I made up my mind that I wanted to write Megavolt mostly congenial in this scene. It seemed really funny to me. In particular once I got on the idea that he would be all "OMG DRAKE HIIII!" the idea cracked me up completely.
"You remember that guy Hamm? I've been wanting to catch up with *him* for a while now." For some reason I love this. ;D
The "where've you been all night?" "Um, at home asleep?" exchange between Megs and Beth was suggested during prereading of the very first draft of this fic, waaaaay back in 1995 I think it was, by Kim McFarland. She made a huge lot of other suggestions too and was very very kind to me over what was really, fundamentally, a pretty mediocre fic. I probably would have given up fanfic writing if not for her encouragement, so I owe her a LOT.
It's not exactly a reference, since it's not a direct line, but Megavolt's list of all the places he tried to track Beth down is inspired by a very similar bit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, recited by Roger after he tried to find Eddie Valiant. Of course in that one it was "But the liquor store guy... *he* knew." Heh.
In a crisis, I tend to go back and forth between having Gosalyn be very brave and proactive, and having her back off nervously. I think that's what she tends to do on the show, too, but I may overdo it (I like to have DW be the one who actually does the heroics, so Gos often just gets rescued); I interpret it as Gos getting all fired-up and going off without thinking, then realizing just how much danger she's in and not being able to think of a way out, so kind of fizzling a bit. If she WERE left to her own devices, for long enough, she'd probably get spitfirey again.
I had a lot of comments about how Drake is really, really hard on Beth here and perhaps too hard. ...I think I stand by how he speaks to her. Keep in mind that not only did she bring Megavolt there - even by accident - it was also due to her presence that he couldn't save Gosalyn right away. He needs a scapegoat and she's it. And yeah, he is mean, but I've seen him get pretty PO'd, even with people he DOES like. (He's said some pretty awful things to Gos and LP, not to mention Morgana.)
There will be only one chapter after this one. I actually have a deleted scene that would have gone in the previous chapter and I was going to post it and forgot, I also forgot to reference it in the notes. I can go back and edit them though, I guess, can't I? Shall do. Perhaps post the scene in question next week. Meanwhile: TWC1, Act 3, Scene 1!
***
References, etc:
- "Yoink." "Yoink?!" comes directly from "The Simpsons", which I find I cannot keep from quoting constantly in my day-to-day life, so it's not only in my fics that it pops up all the time.
- It's not clear, but if you have seen "Reboot", the way DW says "Megavolt." at the beginning of this chapter should be read in exactly the same way that Bob says "Megabyte." in that show. I have been wanting to make that reference for YEARS.
- Obviously this chapter refers heavily to "Clash Reunion" for all the reunion stuff.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sloggin' through the chapter notes...
Here's chapter two of act II, still on TWC1. I'm at least catching up to as much of it as I have written, now... :)
References etc:
-"The Simpsons" - "Boy, would my face have been red!" That's one of Homer's lines, see, so there's a Dan Castellaneta reference too! *G* I believe it's from "Homer's Enemy".
-Ummm... this chapter is essentially a continuation of the previous one, so... there's not really much else. :P
Oh, I really do love that grappling hook gag ^_^
Heh. I kind of like the way I play the Beth/LP stuff here. It's like one big sleight of hand trick, where first LP is focused on Beth... why? Because he wuvs her? Oh, uh, no, it's because she keeps asking about DW and LP isn't sure how to divert her attention. Then there's the entire rationalization about how he's NOT interested in her. I think I have sort of discovered a small handful of new readership with this rewrite, and they may actually NOT realize that the tide turns to LP/Beth. It's just been so taken for granted for so long that I'm enjoying it a little this way, not in a "mwahaha, I'm messing with heads!" way, but I quite like the idea that I can maybe have new fans who will enjoy the new, more gradual set-up I have planned, without knowing what's coming. :) Boy, that note got away from me! This was supposed to just say, simply, I just realized I'm kinda faking people out but perhaps with too much protestation. *G*
Not really sure how, precisely, this whole "social work" idea as an excuse for Drake's "actual" work came about. Nor am I sure how convincing it is, but it doesn't have to last much longer. ;)
I came up with the taxi stuff one day while walking from my car to my office (I park about a block away). I liked it, and rereading what I wrote now, I still like it. How much of it is because LP is a gentleman, and how much of it is because it's Beth, I'm not sure. We'll just have the lines blurred, I suppose.
Another similarity between myself and Beth: I cannot bear to let people give me money for something spontaneously. It makes me VERY uncomfortable.
"That's enough outta you, you big bully!" is *almost* a reference, since I'm kind of going back to Dead Duck in terms of Launchpad's inability to improvise dramatic dialogue on an appropriate scale. ("You'll never work in this town again!") The "big bully" part is probably proof he should've stopped. ;)
I always liked Megs stepping over the side of the roof in the original. I like how I rewrote it even more, though. "An interesting, yet brief, sound". Heh. The best part is, Dan Castellaneta has such a great repertoire of interesting sounds, I can dream he'd do that description justice. ^_^
The "recovery" of Darkwing is one of those moments that just fits better into a cartoon - I tried to shy away from "physical gags" and such in fanfic, since they don't translate well, but it's the kind of show Darkwing is so I can't quite avoid 'em completely. On the other hand, this is mild enough that it can be described reasonably well. It's just so hard to get cartoony visual gags into words - I'm sure most authors know just what I'm talking about, and most avoid them for the very same reason.
I don't think Darkwing's "Not awake?" line works. Sigh. I had trouble thinking of something and that doesn't quite fit as well as I'd hoped.
How obvious is it that Beth calls Drake by his full name, all the time, even in her head? It's like Jordan Catalano!
Poke at myself, for sticking Megs on a bunch of rooftops this time around for some reason. I think he spends like half the fic on a rooftop somewhere or other, and there are about three or four of them. I realized this was excessive, but had no better ideas (and I DID think - figuring out the timing and placement of, for instance, Beth's trip home and Megavolt's decision to try to follow her, took a while) so I just made fun of myself a bit. *G*
There's another joke that I felt was kinda nicely subtle as Megs counts the bolts again: his certainty that the bolts have multiplied, as if the number is in flux, and he might now have not only one extra but several.
The end!
References etc:
-"The Simpsons" - "Boy, would my face have been red!" That's one of Homer's lines, see, so there's a Dan Castellaneta reference too! *G* I believe it's from "Homer's Enemy".
-Ummm... this chapter is essentially a continuation of the previous one, so... there's not really much else. :P
The end!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Boo on me!
Yeah I keep saying I'm going to post more often, don't I? Okay, here's the deal this time around. I have, for the past three or so weeks, just not been writing. It's not even writer's block, it's just like a general indifference. Oh, I intend to write while I'm not at home. Then I get home and it's like "Naaaahhhh, not tonight."
Well, tonight I forced myself to finish a chapter of "All About Elizabeth" that had been sitting in near-completion for about three weeks (seriously, since the middle of August) and get that done, and since I don't feel like starting the second-to-last chapter of "Double-Plait Bolt" right yet I'm going to do the note-thing instead. The reason I put that off is because I am usually coding it for my website at the same time (let me at some point go into the sheer futility of this exercise, but not now) and I'm lazy about that. :P
Anyway though! Stay tuned directly for some (surprisingly short this time, I think) notes on Act II of "Double-Plait Bolt"'s rewrite!
Well, tonight I forced myself to finish a chapter of "All About Elizabeth" that had been sitting in near-completion for about three weeks (seriously, since the middle of August) and get that done, and since I don't feel like starting the second-to-last chapter of "Double-Plait Bolt" right yet I'm going to do the note-thing instead. The reason I put that off is because I am usually coding it for my website at the same time (let me at some point go into the sheer futility of this exercise, but not now) and I'm lazy about that. :P
Anyway though! Stay tuned directly for some (surprisingly short this time, I think) notes on Act II of "Double-Plait Bolt"'s rewrite!
Monday, June 2, 2008
June: Tidbits?
Heh, so here's some of the usual:
1) Waaah writer's block sucks. :P (I actually have been writing the past couple of days, but slowly and with a great sense of awkwardness; I really want to be done with this chapter so I can post it)
2) Good golly it's been how long since I've posted here?! (Maybe I should make an effort to post once a week, or... something)
3) Blah blah, lots of rambling with lots of parenthetical comments!
Moving on to less generic, more specific comments:
a) Thank you Dharma for your comments on my last post! I love reading your take on the characters, always. I'm especially fond of your take on LP, actually; it's like it gives me permission to write him the way I like to write him. ^_~ Any more musing you care to do on any aspect of the series, I for one would be very interested in reading it!
b) I am terribly terribly grateful to Eric, Amanda, and Icequeenkitty for their gifts to me of fanfiction. I will be posting more about this in my LJ, but I think the most detailed postings will be here b/c I would like to talk about Beth's role in them and how different they all are and how awesome they all are too. I also want to say, to anyone who intended to write for me and didn't manage it: don't sweat it, because it's very very likely that I would be *exactly* the same as you in that situation. If you *wanted* to do it that's more than sweet enough! I am soooo low on fic inspiration that even when I promise it I rarely deliver. Sigh. So yeah, the ones who wrote are not necessarily any more awesome than the ones who did not, but they do have the extra aspect of me having something to explicitly gush over. ^_~ (This will be easier once AMANDA UPLOADS HER FIC *poke poke* I am on the verge of typing it in myself just so people can read it... Which is probably not at all true, really, I doubt I'd spontaneously do that without her permission... but whoooo knooooows what desperate acts I may resort to...)
c) I was so, so right about that scene that's been giving me trouble, the one where Beth shows up at the Mallard house for the first time. It's NOT that hard at all but it's going so awkwardly for me, just because I've attached all this importance to it in my head. Argh. It feels like it's really overwritten - and so, for that matter, does a lot of the Launchpad stuff. I really need to simplify but I feel like I have a lot to *do* so that makes it tougher.
And a few things I think I might write about later:
i) A handful of soundtrack picks for various fics ("All About Elizabeth" has the most, "High Dry and Flooded" has a few, and otherwise I may have a short list of just your basic "character" music)
ii) I feel like I should make posts with "notes" on each chapter of the fics I've been posting. Not huge ones like these, but little ones with a list of the references that pop up, any trivia about a scene, etc.
iii) I like cheese. (In other words I don't have much else to say.)
Man! I really hope I can finish this stupid chapter by this weekend and get it posted! Part of why I'm getting antsy with it is because I decided a while ago I was going to finish Act II before I posted more on AAE, and it's been so long since I've written much on that story that I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to get back into THAT, either! Ay-yi-yi. I spent soooo long with writer's block, then I had about a year without it and it was fabulous, and now it's BACK. And within a year or so I'm likely to lose the little tiny bit of time I have to write, and I have SOOOO much left to do... whine whine... ;) It's fanfiction. Lighten up, Rebecca. :D
Well, hope everyone is happy! (And still interested in reading this stuff!)
1) Waaah writer's block sucks. :P (I actually have been writing the past couple of days, but slowly and with a great sense of awkwardness; I really want to be done with this chapter so I can post it)
2) Good golly it's been how long since I've posted here?! (Maybe I should make an effort to post once a week, or... something)
3) Blah blah, lots of rambling with lots of parenthetical comments!
Moving on to less generic, more specific comments:
a) Thank you Dharma for your comments on my last post! I love reading your take on the characters, always. I'm especially fond of your take on LP, actually; it's like it gives me permission to write him the way I like to write him. ^_~ Any more musing you care to do on any aspect of the series, I for one would be very interested in reading it!
b) I am terribly terribly grateful to Eric, Amanda, and Icequeenkitty for their gifts to me of fanfiction. I will be posting more about this in my LJ, but I think the most detailed postings will be here b/c I would like to talk about Beth's role in them and how different they all are and how awesome they all are too. I also want to say, to anyone who intended to write for me and didn't manage it: don't sweat it, because it's very very likely that I would be *exactly* the same as you in that situation. If you *wanted* to do it that's more than sweet enough! I am soooo low on fic inspiration that even when I promise it I rarely deliver. Sigh. So yeah, the ones who wrote are not necessarily any more awesome than the ones who did not, but they do have the extra aspect of me having something to explicitly gush over. ^_~ (This will be easier once AMANDA UPLOADS HER FIC *poke poke* I am on the verge of typing it in myself just so people can read it... Which is probably not at all true, really, I doubt I'd spontaneously do that without her permission... but whoooo knooooows what desperate acts I may resort to...)
c) I was so, so right about that scene that's been giving me trouble, the one where Beth shows up at the Mallard house for the first time. It's NOT that hard at all but it's going so awkwardly for me, just because I've attached all this importance to it in my head. Argh. It feels like it's really overwritten - and so, for that matter, does a lot of the Launchpad stuff. I really need to simplify but I feel like I have a lot to *do* so that makes it tougher.
And a few things I think I might write about later:
i) A handful of soundtrack picks for various fics ("All About Elizabeth" has the most, "High Dry and Flooded" has a few, and otherwise I may have a short list of just your basic "character" music)
ii) I feel like I should make posts with "notes" on each chapter of the fics I've been posting. Not huge ones like these, but little ones with a list of the references that pop up, any trivia about a scene, etc.
iii) I like cheese. (In other words I don't have much else to say.)
Man! I really hope I can finish this stupid chapter by this weekend and get it posted! Part of why I'm getting antsy with it is because I decided a while ago I was going to finish Act II before I posted more on AAE, and it's been so long since I've written much on that story that I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to get back into THAT, either! Ay-yi-yi. I spent soooo long with writer's block, then I had about a year without it and it was fabulous, and now it's BACK. And within a year or so I'm likely to lose the little tiny bit of time I have to write, and I have SOOOO much left to do... whine whine... ;) It's fanfiction. Lighten up, Rebecca. :D
Well, hope everyone is happy! (And still interested in reading this stuff!)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Characterization notes
Ugh, I have had writer's block the past couple of weeks. Yeah, I know, *again*. Well, in this case it's one of those things where I am not even thinking about writing as much so I can't pull myself together to DO it when I have the time. I did manage to outline my ideas for the last chapter of act II of TWC1, though.
Since the last stuff I posted (and really, practically the last stuff I worked on) was LP-heavy, this is a good time to ramble about my characterization of LP! (uh-huh, sure.) I've never made it any secret at all that I'm a big fan of LP's. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I'm able to write him or anything. *G* Out of all the characters of this show I think I've always been weakest at writing Launchpad... There are a few reasons for this, I've decided over the past few months.
A big reason is because of the disconnect between "Darkwing" Launchpad and "DuckTales" Launchpad. I mean essentially there really are two Launchpads, with the earlier one being the more active one and the later one being much more reduced in role and scope. LP was always comic relief and always kind of good-naturedly dumb, but he had a much more active role in "DuckTales". DWD's Launchpad is a more passive character, often there primarily to provide a punchline more than play an active role in the crimefighting. They definitely stepped outside of that limitation quite often - not only in eps like "Water Way to Go" when LP gets to be the main hero or stuff like that, but just in general at times LP contributed more. But ultimately the character was not the same as on "DuckTales", he was kind of domesticated.
Don't get me wrong; I don't care at all. :D But it made it harder for me to write him, especially with any real sense of personalitiy. My liking for LP didn't translate into deepening him or revitalizing him as a heroic type or anything, it kind of translated as me thinking he was a great guy and would be a great boyfriend (to be honest: I never wanted him to be MY boyfriend. I have Ryouga for that, thanks) and so I just wrote him as Mr. Great Boyfriend. Which is not really fair to LP because it just, ultimately further reduces him.
I also made the huuuuge, but understandable given the age I was in, mistake of injecting the early stories with a healthy dose of angst. Did I say "healthy"? I'm not sure that's the right word for it. ;D It's excessive. I was young. A lot of the stuff that I was writing about was the sort of thing actually going around in my social circles (at least the self-pity and emo stuff, if not the actual events) but that doesn't make it less annoying to read. *G* Somewhere after "The Bride Wore Black" even I was sick of it and I took a vow: I was not going to write ANY more angst if I could help it. Not unless it actually fit the story and character, in any case! And in the past 11 years I've pretty much stuck by that, good for me. :)
So in revisiting these early stories, I'm trying to stick to that vow again. (as we can see, I apparently have decided it's VERY necessary to the plot in AAE, as it's laid on thick and heavy.) I've wanted for a while to improve on my take on Launchpad - he deserves more than just "Beth's would-be boyfriend". I've never even given a fully satisfactory reason as to why he fell for her in the first place. Not only that, but he's barely even Darkwing's sidekick in these stories, so I want to get him at least back up to THAT status.
Which basically means reinventing how I see him, let alone how I write him. It was about six or so months ago that I started realizing I write him as a very, VERY passive character. I'm infrequently "in his head" and when I am, it's usually in response to something someone else is doing rather than him doing anything. So I gave him more action in "High, Dry, and Flooded" - more sidekick action in particular - which was a good start. This attempt at breaking out of the "passive" role also led to me surprising myself by writing his confession to Beth at the end of that story. In the five ore more years I had been planning that fic, that scene was NEVER in the outline. Then about two weeks before I wrote it, it popped into my head. Surprise! ;D And it was totally right, and I never saw it coming.
It's been similar attempts at getting "into his head" in TWC1, perhaps to varying degrees of success. This is sort of my big chance to not only give him a bit more depth, but to in fact decide just HOW I want to present him in these fics. I can essentially start over. I mean, I know it's not going to be very different from what I've been writing lately, but I can lay down a more concrete base to work with.
I want to give him a few more layers, and as with any other character I really care for (and feel for) that means I want him to have some low points too. I want him to get a little irritated, act a little thoughtlessly, generally be wrong some of the time. I do believe that Launchpad is a sweet guy who couldn't be mean if he were being paid to be so; doesn't mean he can't occasionally say or do the wrong thing without realizing it. I don't know exactly how all this will come out, but we'll see. :)
In terms of character traits... well, for one, I don't tend to go with people who say that they think LP is "smarter than he lets on". I'll agree that he seems a bit dimmer than he did on "DuckTales", but I'd rather just write somewhere in between there than speculate that maybe he plays it dumb to keep DW's ego happy. I don't see any evidence of that, I think they just tweaked the character for a show that was based more in comedy than DT had been. LP is... um... not a thinker. So what? I like 'em big and dumb. (Once again, we have Ryouga for evidence.) ^_~ Nah, but seriously, I tend to like characters the way they are - flaws and all. If a character I like has a negative trait I rarely see it as character assassination, unless I think it's too played up at that character's expense (like Joxer on "Xena: Warrior Princess", don't even get me STARTED).
The brief, cartoony, choppy feel of the early stories allowed for a certain suspension of disbelief as regards LP falling for Beth. We may never know WHY, exactly, but it happened and it's established and we'll just go with that, right? Fine... except that I don't write that way anymore. That's why in the end I need to flesh it out. I need to think of the characters as *characters* instead of shadows, and I need a reason why LP would fall for this girl, a girl who thinks of herself as invisible and does a good job of convincing the rest of the world of it, too. I've no doubt that he'd be friendly with her, start up a conversation, find her pleasant enough, but fall in love? Why?
I've got reasons, finally. I hope I'll eventually get to them. For now I'll say, in the course of TWC1, you may be wondering if he's actually falling for her yet. Nope. Not within this story. There may be a little more than he's letting on to himself... maybe... but right now they're both just forging a tenuous friendship. Look for developments in fics to come, however.... IF I ever manage to write 'em. :P
Since the last stuff I posted (and really, practically the last stuff I worked on) was LP-heavy, this is a good time to ramble about my characterization of LP! (uh-huh, sure.) I've never made it any secret at all that I'm a big fan of LP's. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I'm able to write him or anything. *G* Out of all the characters of this show I think I've always been weakest at writing Launchpad... There are a few reasons for this, I've decided over the past few months.
A big reason is because of the disconnect between "Darkwing" Launchpad and "DuckTales" Launchpad. I mean essentially there really are two Launchpads, with the earlier one being the more active one and the later one being much more reduced in role and scope. LP was always comic relief and always kind of good-naturedly dumb, but he had a much more active role in "DuckTales". DWD's Launchpad is a more passive character, often there primarily to provide a punchline more than play an active role in the crimefighting. They definitely stepped outside of that limitation quite often - not only in eps like "Water Way to Go" when LP gets to be the main hero or stuff like that, but just in general at times LP contributed more. But ultimately the character was not the same as on "DuckTales", he was kind of domesticated.
Don't get me wrong; I don't care at all. :D But it made it harder for me to write him, especially with any real sense of personalitiy. My liking for LP didn't translate into deepening him or revitalizing him as a heroic type or anything, it kind of translated as me thinking he was a great guy and would be a great boyfriend (to be honest: I never wanted him to be MY boyfriend. I have Ryouga for that, thanks) and so I just wrote him as Mr. Great Boyfriend. Which is not really fair to LP because it just, ultimately further reduces him.
I also made the huuuuge, but understandable given the age I was in, mistake of injecting the early stories with a healthy dose of angst. Did I say "healthy"? I'm not sure that's the right word for it. ;D It's excessive. I was young. A lot of the stuff that I was writing about was the sort of thing actually going around in my social circles (at least the self-pity and emo stuff, if not the actual events) but that doesn't make it less annoying to read. *G* Somewhere after "The Bride Wore Black" even I was sick of it and I took a vow: I was not going to write ANY more angst if I could help it. Not unless it actually fit the story and character, in any case! And in the past 11 years I've pretty much stuck by that, good for me. :)
So in revisiting these early stories, I'm trying to stick to that vow again. (as we can see, I apparently have decided it's VERY necessary to the plot in AAE, as it's laid on thick and heavy.) I've wanted for a while to improve on my take on Launchpad - he deserves more than just "Beth's would-be boyfriend". I've never even given a fully satisfactory reason as to why he fell for her in the first place. Not only that, but he's barely even Darkwing's sidekick in these stories, so I want to get him at least back up to THAT status.
Which basically means reinventing how I see him, let alone how I write him. It was about six or so months ago that I started realizing I write him as a very, VERY passive character. I'm infrequently "in his head" and when I am, it's usually in response to something someone else is doing rather than him doing anything. So I gave him more action in "High, Dry, and Flooded" - more sidekick action in particular - which was a good start. This attempt at breaking out of the "passive" role also led to me surprising myself by writing his confession to Beth at the end of that story. In the five ore more years I had been planning that fic, that scene was NEVER in the outline. Then about two weeks before I wrote it, it popped into my head. Surprise! ;D And it was totally right, and I never saw it coming.
It's been similar attempts at getting "into his head" in TWC1, perhaps to varying degrees of success. This is sort of my big chance to not only give him a bit more depth, but to in fact decide just HOW I want to present him in these fics. I can essentially start over. I mean, I know it's not going to be very different from what I've been writing lately, but I can lay down a more concrete base to work with.
I want to give him a few more layers, and as with any other character I really care for (and feel for) that means I want him to have some low points too. I want him to get a little irritated, act a little thoughtlessly, generally be wrong some of the time. I do believe that Launchpad is a sweet guy who couldn't be mean if he were being paid to be so; doesn't mean he can't occasionally say or do the wrong thing without realizing it. I don't know exactly how all this will come out, but we'll see. :)
In terms of character traits... well, for one, I don't tend to go with people who say that they think LP is "smarter than he lets on". I'll agree that he seems a bit dimmer than he did on "DuckTales", but I'd rather just write somewhere in between there than speculate that maybe he plays it dumb to keep DW's ego happy. I don't see any evidence of that, I think they just tweaked the character for a show that was based more in comedy than DT had been. LP is... um... not a thinker. So what? I like 'em big and dumb. (Once again, we have Ryouga for evidence.) ^_~ Nah, but seriously, I tend to like characters the way they are - flaws and all. If a character I like has a negative trait I rarely see it as character assassination, unless I think it's too played up at that character's expense (like Joxer on "Xena: Warrior Princess", don't even get me STARTED).
The brief, cartoony, choppy feel of the early stories allowed for a certain suspension of disbelief as regards LP falling for Beth. We may never know WHY, exactly, but it happened and it's established and we'll just go with that, right? Fine... except that I don't write that way anymore. That's why in the end I need to flesh it out. I need to think of the characters as *characters* instead of shadows, and I need a reason why LP would fall for this girl, a girl who thinks of herself as invisible and does a good job of convincing the rest of the world of it, too. I've no doubt that he'd be friendly with her, start up a conversation, find her pleasant enough, but fall in love? Why?
I've got reasons, finally. I hope I'll eventually get to them. For now I'll say, in the course of TWC1, you may be wondering if he's actually falling for her yet. Nope. Not within this story. There may be a little more than he's letting on to himself... maybe... but right now they're both just forging a tenuous friendship. Look for developments in fics to come, however.... IF I ever manage to write 'em. :P
Monday, April 21, 2008
:D
I totally had the BEST idea to create a "flow" through the first five Webfoot fics!! :D Well I mean - a "flow" in the Beth/Launchpad stuff since that's the stuff that needs it. I'd been wondering about the pacing of certain things, and whatnot. And I totally figured it out last night! Well - maybe not "figured it out", but it was a real "EUREKA" kind of moment. It made TOTAL sense. Those are my favourite brainstorming moments; I'm wondering all about how to make something work, usually something I've already written and need to go back and strengthen, and I have this idea that once it occurs to me I kind of go "Oh, DUH. Of course it's been that way all along." XD
I'm so happy, I want to spout random Japanese phrases! Dai ureshii wa! ^_^
I'm so happy, I want to spout random Japanese phrases! Dai ureshii wa! ^_^
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Ummm... second post?
Well, now just to make it interesting and keep people interested (yah right) I guess I'd better actually talk about the topic of this blog.
I'll start it out with a simple subject and one that people often wonder about when it comes to OCs in fanfiction. The simple question: is Beth based on me?
Naturally, the answer is less simple.
When I was younger and first started the stories, I was like "NO! Definitely not!" I mean, isn't it obvious that she isn't me? I don't wear glasses! And I'm not a genius! And I'm not really super-skinny! And now years later it's like... boy I was naive. *lol*
The long and short of it is that, I believe, anyone who creates a character is at least in part writing themselves. Even if the character represents a part of them who is the opposite of what the author stands for, in order to write a convincing character they must get inside their heads... they must write a person, and in order to do that you can only really draw on your own experiences and thoughts. Henny is as much me as Beth is, in some ways (and as such I'm surprisingly fond of her; I am the only person in the world who is ^_^), but when it comes to protagonists, especially in fanfiction, they are nearly always at least partly the author. It's not a hard-and-fast rule but it's a pretty strong one.
None of which is to say that Beth is based on me, or that all OCs are just avatars of the authors writing them, or anything like that. It's different; this is influence. No characters can escape the influence of their writers. Making up "ways" in which the OC is different from the creator is just denial. So as I got older I grew to sort of embrace the elements of myself that I share with Beth; there are a lot. We both talk a little too much, we both question how we appear to others far too often, and we both wear our emotions on our sleeves.
There are major differences too, of course. Many of the ways in which Beth behaves are not patterns I follow, but they're patterns that I try to understand. Beth puts up with more than I do, for reasons that - as cliche as this sounds - I'm only just now coming to understand, myself. The funny thing is that when I first started writing the Webfoot Chronicles in 1994, I spent all this time denying how much of myself was in this character yet at the same time when something happened I knew how she'd react. I didn't have to think about the hows and whys, I just wrote it, because obviously that's how she would react. It's how I would react, or sometimes, how I would LIKE to react; therefore it's how it goes. Now, even as I've accepted Beth as a part of me and me as a part of her, I take more time to think: never mind what I would do. How will Beth actually respond to this?
I am glad I've waited this long to write "All About Elizabeth", and I'm also glad I'm doing it now, at the same time that I'm starting to heavily revise the first few stories. I have a backstory to look at, patterns coming to light and I'm going "this has been here all along?" And at the same time I can go back and just slightly emphasize one or two things in the early stuff that is explained - or at least pointed to - in AAE. It's cheating in a way to go back 13 years later and "restart" the beginnings... but at the same time I feel like it's the right time.
I'll start it out with a simple subject and one that people often wonder about when it comes to OCs in fanfiction. The simple question: is Beth based on me?
Naturally, the answer is less simple.
When I was younger and first started the stories, I was like "NO! Definitely not!" I mean, isn't it obvious that she isn't me? I don't wear glasses! And I'm not a genius! And I'm not really super-skinny! And now years later it's like... boy I was naive. *lol*
The long and short of it is that, I believe, anyone who creates a character is at least in part writing themselves. Even if the character represents a part of them who is the opposite of what the author stands for, in order to write a convincing character they must get inside their heads... they must write a person, and in order to do that you can only really draw on your own experiences and thoughts. Henny is as much me as Beth is, in some ways (and as such I'm surprisingly fond of her; I am the only person in the world who is ^_^), but when it comes to protagonists, especially in fanfiction, they are nearly always at least partly the author. It's not a hard-and-fast rule but it's a pretty strong one.
None of which is to say that Beth is based on me, or that all OCs are just avatars of the authors writing them, or anything like that. It's different; this is influence. No characters can escape the influence of their writers. Making up "ways" in which the OC is different from the creator is just denial. So as I got older I grew to sort of embrace the elements of myself that I share with Beth; there are a lot. We both talk a little too much, we both question how we appear to others far too often, and we both wear our emotions on our sleeves.
There are major differences too, of course. Many of the ways in which Beth behaves are not patterns I follow, but they're patterns that I try to understand. Beth puts up with more than I do, for reasons that - as cliche as this sounds - I'm only just now coming to understand, myself. The funny thing is that when I first started writing the Webfoot Chronicles in 1994, I spent all this time denying how much of myself was in this character yet at the same time when something happened I knew how she'd react. I didn't have to think about the hows and whys, I just wrote it, because obviously that's how she would react. It's how I would react, or sometimes, how I would LIKE to react; therefore it's how it goes. Now, even as I've accepted Beth as a part of me and me as a part of her, I take more time to think: never mind what I would do. How will Beth actually respond to this?
I am glad I've waited this long to write "All About Elizabeth", and I'm also glad I'm doing it now, at the same time that I'm starting to heavily revise the first few stories. I have a backstory to look at, patterns coming to light and I'm going "this has been here all along?" And at the same time I can go back and just slightly emphasize one or two things in the early stuff that is explained - or at least pointed to - in AAE. It's cheating in a way to go back 13 years later and "restart" the beginnings... but at the same time I feel like it's the right time.
First post!
Well. Welcome to the Weblog Chronicles, the fanfic-tie-in blog with the Corniest Name Ever! First of all let's assume I'm going to use this blog more often than I use my other blogspot account, which is to say never; so if I use this slightly more often than never, I am ahead of the tide!
Second of all let's establish a Mission Statement. Or a Statement of Purpose. Or... heck. Here's What I Wanna Talk About. :P
These posts will be dedicated to my Darkwing Duck fanfiction, primarily the Webfoot Weavings continuity but if I ever feel like talking about something non-Beth (yes, I am capable of this), I'll feel free to do so. Because it's MY blog. ;P I figure this will mean I have a place to randomly muse about character motivations, musical inspirations, scenes I'll never write, conversations that will never take place, and just general writing thoughts.
That being said, I'm not a stickler for rules. And I like to talk but I also like to converse, and to be spoken with. So I'm probably going to ask questions of my readers, if I have any; about writing or whatever strikes my fancy. I hope I have some readers or I'll get kinda lonely. ;D
Then again let's also hope I'll post here. I tell ya, I've *wanted* to post Webfoot stuff all the time lately, so having a blog just for that purpose seems like a good idea! Now what else has seemed like a good idea at the time... hmmm...
Second of all let's establish a Mission Statement. Or a Statement of Purpose. Or... heck. Here's What I Wanna Talk About. :P
These posts will be dedicated to my Darkwing Duck fanfiction, primarily the Webfoot Weavings continuity but if I ever feel like talking about something non-Beth (yes, I am capable of this), I'll feel free to do so. Because it's MY blog. ;P I figure this will mean I have a place to randomly muse about character motivations, musical inspirations, scenes I'll never write, conversations that will never take place, and just general writing thoughts.
That being said, I'm not a stickler for rules. And I like to talk but I also like to converse, and to be spoken with. So I'm probably going to ask questions of my readers, if I have any; about writing or whatever strikes my fancy. I hope I have some readers or I'll get kinda lonely. ;D
Then again let's also hope I'll post here. I tell ya, I've *wanted* to post Webfoot stuff all the time lately, so having a blog just for that purpose seems like a good idea! Now what else has seemed like a good idea at the time... hmmm...
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