Amnesty? I don't need no stinkin' amnesty!
Feb. 3rd, 2006 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiWhen I got my LJ, I made a promise to myself that I would never post anything to it that wasn't finished. I haven't succeeded in strict observance, but in general this principle has prevented me from starting willy-nilly WIP's I'll never finish. Even if I do post a fic that isn't quite finished because I want to post the first part before some type of deadline, I usually at least know where the fic is going and can be reasonably sure I can finish it in a reasonable time. Bonfire Night was written this way; I wanted to make sure that I posted the first part on Guy Fawke's Night itself, and then it took me the rest of the week to finish the tale.
This rule of mine, however, begun when I got my LJ, not when I began writing fanfiction. As it is, there are quite a few WIP's sitting over at FF.net. I discuss them occasionally, and when I do it is using either italics or quotes (depending on projected size); I never give a link. But since it's WIP Amnesty Day, I'll provide links to the Pit of Voles and give you a sense of when I plan on finishing them.
Unfinished Stories
The Academy
I still like the idea of this: the story of the Cleveland hellmouth, told in parallel to season 7 of Buffy. But honestly, I don't find that half as interesting as the idea of the school itself: St. Clare's Academy, a Catholic boarding school where potential Slayers are trained and the management turns a blind eye to (potentially useful) useful paganism. Most of all it would be the sort of school that Sunnydale High wasn't, at least not into the Class of 1999 graduation: a place where all the student know the deal, and work togther to help each other. I got the idea for it when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karabair asked me about one of my OC's from Windows of My Soulm, Caitlyn Love, asking me if she was a Slayer. I decided no, she wasn't--but her roommate in high school was.
But the fact of the matter is that the existence of St. Clare's Academy is canon (fanon?) in my Watcher!verse. Faith teaches physical education there post-"Chosen." I've found ways to say most of the things I want to say about it. I still want to tell the story of Caitlyn Love's senior year, but a story consisting solely of original characters with no canon characters other a couple cameos like Caleb and Roger Wyndam-Pryce is at the very bottom of my list of priorities. I'm not 100% sure where the plot was going (other than "epic battle," something I'm not sure I can do), and I'm not sure that I care. The fact that the original version was written in super-short scenes, and thus will need to be completely overhauled from beginning to end, doesn't help.
Windows of My Soul
This was my baby when I worked out of the Pit of Voles, my pride and joy, back when I was a Drusilla writer and not a Dawn writer. A sprawling epic, taking place in a dozen places and with a sprawling timeline, this requires some radical revisioning. I tried cannibalizing it to make a pair of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanfic100 masterlists (a way to bend my "no WIPs" rule without breaking it), but I'm not completely happty with the results and I think I'm going to renounce my claim. This one is still very high on my list of priorities, I just have no clue what I'm going to do with it.
Confessions of a Teenager Watcher
Dawn and her new Slayer, Beatrice DeCosta, visit Faith in Cleveland to prepare for an apocalypse. I like the Dawn&Beatrice dynamic here because what we get is something like a relationship of equals--both Watcher and Slayer are students in the same grade taking the same classes--and we don't get that dynamic in the older Dawn stories, where's she clearly in charge. Indeed, Dawn's not nearly as dark as she is in my later stories, so she has quite a bit of spunk, although she earned how to angst, and there are some real fun scenes. Only problem is, so far there's no plot. I need to sit down and figure out exactly what this apocalypse they're fighting is supposed to be and why we care, i.e. what the thematic and character arcs should be. Once I do that, I'm golden.
To Live in Hearts
This is the one I'm working on now. There's a lot of good plot in this one, much of it unwritten but outlined, and I'm very excited about finally making it clear exactly why Madelyn Summers is so special.
This rule of mine, however, begun when I got my LJ, not when I began writing fanfiction. As it is, there are quite a few WIP's sitting over at FF.net. I discuss them occasionally, and when I do it is using either italics or quotes (depending on projected size); I never give a link. But since it's WIP Amnesty Day, I'll provide links to the Pit of Voles and give you a sense of when I plan on finishing them.
Unfinished Stories
The Academy
I still like the idea of this: the story of the Cleveland hellmouth, told in parallel to season 7 of Buffy. But honestly, I don't find that half as interesting as the idea of the school itself: St. Clare's Academy, a Catholic boarding school where potential Slayers are trained and the management turns a blind eye to (potentially useful) useful paganism. Most of all it would be the sort of school that Sunnydale High wasn't, at least not into the Class of 1999 graduation: a place where all the student know the deal, and work togther to help each other. I got the idea for it when
karabair asked me about one of my OC's from Windows of My Soulm, Caitlyn Love, asking me if she was a Slayer. I decided no, she wasn't--but her roommate in high school was.But the fact of the matter is that the existence of St. Clare's Academy is canon (fanon?) in my Watcher!verse. Faith teaches physical education there post-"Chosen." I've found ways to say most of the things I want to say about it. I still want to tell the story of Caitlyn Love's senior year, but a story consisting solely of original characters with no canon characters other a couple cameos like Caleb and Roger Wyndam-Pryce is at the very bottom of my list of priorities. I'm not 100% sure where the plot was going (other than "epic battle," something I'm not sure I can do), and I'm not sure that I care. The fact that the original version was written in super-short scenes, and thus will need to be completely overhauled from beginning to end, doesn't help.
Windows of My Soul
This was my baby when I worked out of the Pit of Voles, my pride and joy, back when I was a Drusilla writer and not a Dawn writer. A sprawling epic, taking place in a dozen places and with a sprawling timeline, this requires some radical revisioning. I tried cannibalizing it to make a pair of
fanfic100 masterlists (a way to bend my "no WIPs" rule without breaking it), but I'm not completely happty with the results and I think I'm going to renounce my claim. This one is still very high on my list of priorities, I just have no clue what I'm going to do with it.Confessions of a Teenager Watcher
Dawn and her new Slayer, Beatrice DeCosta, visit Faith in Cleveland to prepare for an apocalypse. I like the Dawn&Beatrice dynamic here because what we get is something like a relationship of equals--both Watcher and Slayer are students in the same grade taking the same classes--and we don't get that dynamic in the older Dawn stories, where's she clearly in charge. Indeed, Dawn's not nearly as dark as she is in my later stories, so she has quite a bit of spunk, although she earned how to angst, and there are some real fun scenes. Only problem is, so far there's no plot. I need to sit down and figure out exactly what this apocalypse they're fighting is supposed to be and why we care, i.e. what the thematic and character arcs should be. Once I do that, I'm golden.
To Live in Hearts
This is the one I'm working on now. There's a lot of good plot in this one, much of it unwritten but outlined, and I'm very excited about finally making it clear exactly why Madelyn Summers is so special.
