definitely suffering from a case of ben wyatt claymation syndrome
by which i mean that i have no concept of the scale and/or pacing of my own creative work anymore. i sit down for an hour and struggle and toil and then think, “damn, i must have written an epic just then.”
and then i look up and see i’ve barely gotten a paragraph done.
this is especially true with lucas, where every line is like a punch to the gut. there’s probably something grossly self-involved about getting worked up over your own writing like that, but i can’t seem to help it on this one.
on a larger scale, i feel like i’ve lost my grip on the pacing of “sam and alice.” as part of the blood oath of 2012, i’m trying to write it the way i wrote AUtSC, which is to say that i’m trying to make each part good in and of itself, post it, and then put it away and move on to the next without thinking about rewrites until i’ve gotten the whole thing down.
i’m really trying to layer this piece, where events described in part c make you see the events of part b from a different perspective. but i don’t want that to become too gimmicky either. the place where this probably has worked the best so far (or so i’ve been told by the few, the brave, who have dared to read and review) is the juxtaposition of the phone call in part four with the flashback in part five.
the anxiety and discomfort of the phone call from jess in four gets blown wide open when we get to five and see the details of their last interaction.
i’m also really trying to take time to explore all the crevices of the backstory between alice and sam, the details of which i think got lost in the frantic pace of earlier versions. their relationship, and how it came to be the way it is, is central to the story, and i think readers need at least a good foothold on that before i throw a new character (maria) into the mix.
i honestly haven’t sat down and read the first six parts all together, and i probably won’t. the temptation to start messing with it is honestly too great. but i really hope it’s working well.
today’s project, though, is part two of lucas (a.k.a. “unique disaster”). it seems pretty clear that i need to write a more explanatory author’s note on the next installment, as people seem to be reading it as a continuation of AoCC (which it is not) rather than an AU fanfiction of a work of fanfiction (which it is).
