He's out looking for a top to chop

Chapter notes for "The House On Avian Way" start right now! Today we get the prologue, and chapter 1.

Prologue:

References, etc:

- "Beetlejuice" in various forms is referenced throughout this fic, since both the film and (to a much larger extent) the soundtrack were a huge inspiration. In fact, as mentioned, a lot of the fic was written to the soundtrack. The film, soundtrack, and animated series are referenced many times.

The entire scene is written, and (more or less) paced, to the opening title theme from the "Beetlejuice" soundtrack. If you listen to the theme while reading this scene - well, it won't match up perfectly because the scene doesn't take a minute and a half, or however long the track is, to read; however, it's meant to approximately follow the sequence.

As we find out later, this scene takes place in 1951 - not that I have anything to link it to that year beyond a few vague hints: "the modern wing-tipped shoes" in Richie's apparel being the biggest one. Also, their names - Stella and Richie - are names I associate more closely with the 50s. Though I think "Richie" is linked to the 50s for me more because of Stephen King's "IT" than any real popularity of the name at that time.

Richie's manner of speaking, also, deliberately emulates Beetlejuice in the animated series.

Chapter 1:

References, etc:

- No references in this chapter!

I'm lame. I totally like the juxtaposition of everything going dark and then the room being flooded with light. I'm not sure how clear it is, however, that this is the same room.

So, here we follow the proper format for a ghost story/movie: start with a mysterious, scary or at least chilling sequence to get everyone's attention, then drop down to a quiet and slower-paced opening with a few hints of spookiness thrown in. Mwahahahaha! I love you, ghost stories!

This is probably the first fic that really brings up the fact that Beth is a skilled seamstress, although I established it back in "The Bride Wore Black" (honest!). It also comes up more in "All About Elizabeth", that never-ending monster of a fic. (Almost wish I'd never even started that one by now because it will NEVER BE FINISHED!).

Don't actually know where LP-as-handyman came from; he's a mechanic, not an electrician. [Edited later to add: Actually he's not even a mechanic! XD He's a pilot, but regardless, he clearly has a working knowledge of mechanics - so I can call that canon.] But we can always chalk it up to him trying to impress Beth with his manly knowledge of... everything that can be fixed with a toolbox.

Note my subtle attempts to timeline, when I mention that last year at Halloween Beth had not yet moved in. TWC4 takes place in October and TWC5, in November.

I am not sure, but I think this scene between LP and Beth owes some minor details to Kim McFarland; early in our correspondance when I was writing the first drafts of TWC, she said something about how she could just see LP helping Beth moving furniture and her serving him lemonade, etc... It seems to have resurfaced as LP moving stacks of fabric and Beth serving him iced tea. *g*

Okay, the lengthy introspective part from LP about Beth took a lot of rewriting from me. As of now I still haven't written the ending of AAE, and although I know how it will end, it's hard to reference something you haven't written yet without being either too vague (so no one knows what you're referring to) or too blatant (so there's no point in writing the actual scene you're referencing). I hope I struck a good balance, mainly talking about things that will not be within AAE itself but come in between that one and this one.

Of course the downside in putting all this out now is that it's total spoilers for the ending of AAE, if that kind of thing matters. But it's the getting there that's important, right? ...Right?

Trying to write a dream sucks. I have never been satisfied with what I've managed, and that goes for this one too.

That covers it for this time... tune in next ... uh, day. ^_^

Soundtracks, and A Question

First the question. Amanda asked how to subscribe to the posts here... I have noooo idea. *lol* I'm sure there's a way to set up a feed so people could get it sent to their LJ friends' lists or something... which would be way convenient. As it stands I don't know what to do to do that, and I'm too lazy to look into it right now. Part of the reason I'm lazy is because what I want to do is ultimately have this blog housed on my website, specifically in the same spot I'll be housing my fics, in which case you can just pop in to the main site there and catch up on any updates I've made. However right now I don't even know how to get email notifications when people comment on my posts. *lol* I know housing it on my webpage is totally possible and involves something to do with FTP, but right now I don't have any info on FTP so it's something I'll have to research at least slightly, and I don't want to do that right now. Haha. XD

Well, moving on. I don't have any kind of segue at all for this so I'm just gonna bounce right on in!... From the number of "songfics" out there I assume most people have a kind of soundtrack, at least in a minor form, for their fics and/or characters and/or "universes". Naturally I do, for nearly every series I've ever written for. In fact I have an EXTENSIVE one, in two parts, for my Darlingverse series... but I digress. :) My Webfoot soundtrack, in terms of a solid thing, is still growing - rather slowly at that - but I had been thinking about it recently as I wrote and I came to the conclusion that the soundtrack to Beth's life, just in terms of the general sound of it, is mainly comprised of 80s music. There's some 70s music in there too, and perhaps a bit of very early 90s (and of COURSE, if I find contemporary songs that fit, I'll go anachronistic and use them for inspiration), but mostly Beth follows a particular time period for the sound of her life. I wish I had good examples... LOL, I don't really, it would just be a lot of the stuff you might hear on the radio at any given time. "Walkin' On Sunshine" is as much a good choice as Blondie or Hall and Oates. It's not necessarily stuff I like (though I do love Blondie) as it is just the time period, because I figure most of Beth's formative years were in the 80s.

I've never really actually out-and-out specified the timeline I work with, I realized. I'm kind of doing that in AAE, but for the record to explicitly state it: Beth was born in 1967. The first story in the Webfoot Chronicles takes place in late summer of 1992, and Beth has just turned 25 (her birthday is in July).

Going back to the subject of soundtracks, I do have some specific songs for specific scenes and I've been playing with the idea of getting an account with, um, what's that set-up called? "Jigg It" or something? Anyway I've thought of getting an account with them so I can put up streaming versions of these songs here. :) I'll post about them more in later days!

Now we get to the point where I HOPE I'll be able to keep up on this blog. My work is about to get heavy-time crazy since a coworker just left, another is having surgery next week and will be out for 6 weeks, and in another two weeks a third coworker is going on vacation (it was planned and paid for way in advance or else she'd reschedule, but she can't). So... KABOOM. ;D