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[YurigirlzCrush]

there's another fanfic thread that sees use? *stares*

 

so. question!

 

have any of you ever written something, stopped working on it because you were unhappy with how it was going, and then after a good amount of time passed, you reread what you wrote and liked it a lot more than you remembered? because I started a story months back, decided I didn't like it and wanted to work on a different idea with the same characters instead, and then I went back and read it last night because I was trying to motivate myself to write, and I found myself thinking it really wasn't so bad! *ponders* is this sort of thing normal? or am I just too fickle? *stares at long list of half-developed stories* um... I mean even more fickle than even I thought...

[Seracen]

I can understand where you are coming from.  I have a story which remained unfinished (my first actually) that I referenced when writing my last fic.  I ended up cannibalizing several segments and using them as a basis for the new story.  I won't say I HATED the piece, but I felt that certain parts of it weren't up to the sort of quality I prefer (and yes, aspects of it were distressing, almost embarrassing).

 

After finishing the new project, I went back to read the old story again.  I'll do you one better, not only did I like it more than I thought I would, I had actually forgotten a good bit of what I'd written!  Of course I remembered the main plot beats; and while I found certain segments familiar upon reading them again, other parts struck me as if I'd never read them before!  I'm tempted to pick it up and finish it, and I may at some point.  However, I will likely have to overhaul much of it in order to make myself happy with the end product.  Currently, that's too daunting a task, what with all the other projects I have lined up!

 

Anyways, yeah, I've been there too.  I guess that's why sometimes, if you are in a slump with a story, they say for you to take some time away and then come back to it later.

[BronzTrooper]

there's another fanfic thread that sees use? *stares*

 

so. question!

 

have any of you ever written something, stopped working on it because you were unhappy with how it was going, and then after a good amount of time passed, you reread what you wrote and liked it a lot more than you remembered? because I started a story months back, decided I didn't like it and wanted to work on a different idea with the same characters instead, and then I went back and read it last night because I was trying to motivate myself to write, and I found myself thinking it really wasn't so bad! *ponders* is this sort of thing normal? or am I just too fickle? *stares at long list of half-developed stories* um... I mean even more fickle than even I thought...

 

Kind of the reverse, actually.  I stopped working on my first ME fanfic after I realized that the plot just made absolutely no sense (too many twists and turns) and left it alone for months afterwards.  When I eventually reread it, I was actually cringing at how badly I had done with it.  Yeah, there were some good moments, but on the whole, I have no idea what I was thinking.  I've definitely come a long way from that, but even then, I still don't think I'm all that great a writer.  I've got friends who're better than me at writing and none of them actually do any beyond the DA RP we do together.

 

But then, maybe I'm just being hard on myself.  As they say, 'we are our own worst critics'.

[MrStoob]

*straightens nekomimi, tightens the apron on her maid's costume, and sets to work*

 

so, midterms are done. and I have literally been comatose since around this time yesterday. who sleeps for 21 hours? I mean seriously! yes, I missed a lot of sleep writing papers and studying for exams but... 21 hours? that's just... embarrassing!

 

however, I did come here for an on-topic question for once!

 

how do you think biotic stasis works? does it literally put the victim into stasis so that they are unaware of time or their surroundings? or is it like... a super-dense field that just keeps them immobile? the name would suggest the former, but if that's the case, how can you shoot them while they're frozen? wouldn't the bullets become frozen too? *winces* and then I suppose they'd get them all at once when it wore off, unless they lost their momentum when they froze. which would probably be likely. *sigh* I'm too tired to think about this! it's making my brain hurt again!

 

but what do you all think? stasis = frozen in time? or trapped and unable to move, but awake and aware?

 

basically I had two scenarios float through my head when I woke up, but to use one, the other would be excluded. either you could trap someone in stasis and leave, and it would seem to them as if you just vanished, or you could trap them in stasis and talk to them while they can't get away. but I can't see it working both ways. either they're aware or they're not. right? hmm. *ponders*

Reading through some of the posts and wanted to comment here.

 

It would be my understanding that biotics are in essence the manipulation of gravitational fields.  So I suppose a stasis field would 'lock' the individual's atoms in a kind of gravity well.  Whether they're conscious or not is probably down to interpretation.  When questions of biotics come up, I always think 'gravity' as that's about the only tangible thing they've said about it, and comes in handy when dealing with biotic scenes and 'instruction' which happens from time to time in mah fics. 

[Seracen]

It's been four days since last post?!  BUMP FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!!

 

COMMENCE WITH THE BROOMING AND MOPPING [cue the Sorcerer's Apprentice] !!!  This'll end well!!!

 

On a more serious note...crazy clip of production on the new story.  I think I started actually writing about a month ago, and I'm already past the halfway point!  I'll likely have to go back and add a few chapters, but I am on pace to create about 200 pages across 40 chapters or so...at least!  It's been an interesting experiment, forcing myself to write at least a page a day.  Then again, it took me about 4 months of brainstorming before I even wrote down the outline (the actual writing of the outline took all of one night).  Being someone who notes down timelines of the writing process, the start-stop nature of this project is amusing to say the least!  I just hope I can keep up this pace until the job is done!

[MrStoob]

In other news...

 

Amused me:

[Seracen]

Ah...the travails of the author, so anxious over aspects that will likely not be given as critical an eye as he/she fears...like me and pronoun shuffling...lol!

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 ... 28 pages, and counting...

 

Really trying to double-down and finish up the epic climax of my post-ME3 piece.

 

I expect to add another 7 pages at least. Wanna get it done before I get bogged down with more school/work/band/other. What comes next for my story should not be to difficult to put together. The end is in sight, though. I might even share it!

[Seracen]

Best of luck X!  I know what it's like to be nearly done!  On the home stretch of another project myself, and I'm trying to finish it before I get fatigued, lol!

[BronzTrooper]

I'm almost done with one of my fanfics as well.  Working on the 18th chapter for it atm, though, I'm not entirely sure how many more chapters I have for it before I'm done.  Will depend on whether I will actually go into the DLCs (it's a DA2 fanfic), ignore them, or go into one instead of the other.  Might go into Legacy because Wardens, though I may also go into MotA because Tallis.  Still thinking on it...

[YurigirlzCrush]

congrats to everyone who is making progress on their stories! *grins* I was starting to write again myself, and then the game companies got together, looked at my downloads, and formulated a nefarious plan to derail my creative track by releasing DLC for three different games on the exact same day. curse you, Bioware, Telltale Games and Square Enix! *shakes fist*

 

but I'm still managing to do a tiny bit of writing here and there, so I guess it's not a total loss. but the actual reason I decided to drop in here and post something was to wish everyone a Happy Easter, whether you celebrate the holiday or not. *grins* we're about to dye eggs with my little sisters, so I have to run. but I hope you all have a great day tomorrow! *waves*

[Seracen]

Hope everyone's had a great weekend!  I took my nephews to the park for the holiday (though we don't celebrate it, we still do the egg hunts for the kiddos).  They got to ride around on a train and a carousel, so that was fun!  Now back to the writing!  AVAST!!!

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 ... 28 pages, and counting...

 

Really trying to double-down and finish up the epic climax of my post-ME3 piece.

 

I expect to add another 7 pages at least. Wanna get it done before I get bogged down with more school/work/band/other. What comes next for my story should not be to difficult to put together. The end is in sight, though. I might even share it!

 

Done!! 40 pages in Google Docs. 50 when I moved it into Word. Is anyone else here as verbose as I?

 

What's funny is I'm not even sure if anyone is reading it!  ... I have some followers on FF.net, but am not entirely convinced, hahaha...

[Seracen]

Congrats X!  As for verbosity...I think it's telling when sub-200 pages is a goal for my work.  Maybe something in me doesn't believe in writing short-stories, lol!  Which is strange, b/c I did the math a while back, and found that your average paperback would come it at around 100 or so pages in Word (at least for me).  Maybe I just need an editor to cut the fat, or maybe I tend to go on too long and create duologies/trilogies.

 

My first ME story was about 100 pages, but a lot of the content was copy-paste (alternate chapters and such).  My current story is clocking it at around 150 pages so far, so I will hopefully stay sub-200.  My last story got out of hand (over 400 pages), and I think it burned me out on writing ME fanfiction, hence tearing through the current project with almost clinical efficiency!  I've been writing ME fanfics for nearly two years...it'll be nice to change genre finally!

 

As for exposure, I still find FF.net to be the most prolific source of feedback, but I occasionally get good comments over at DeviantArt as well.  You should link your story or ff.net profile in your sig!  I'll be happy to peruse once I finish my project!

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Oh actually I was referring to length of my latest chapter, not the whole piece  .

 

Still I have two more chapters planned 'til I am finished with the story itself, but I expect they won't take me very long to write.

 

On a side note, I am so tempted to start writing some DA 'fic. I think I'll wait 'til the DLC cycle for Inquisition plays out though, so I do not produce something that conflicts with any of those upcoming stories. That almost happened to me after ME3 as Leviathan came out.

[Seracen]

AH!  Chapters!  I tend to write in terms of scenes, so I naturally cut the content after a certain point.  To date, I've had chapters that have been as small as 1-2 pages, and as large as a dozen or so.  I generally try to split the chapter once I get to the 10 page mark, but it all depends on scene layout and such.

 

Know what you mean about the DLC thing, although usually they are presented in a manner that you can still make a fanfic work (provided you didn't do some great character death or something...but it does tie your hands a bit).  I can still recall how upset I was when a sequel pretty much put a lie to my story, and my sequel to that story went about reconciling the whole thing, lol!   This was a long time ago, and I never bothered publishing it (more a personal project really, but if I ever flesh it out further, we shall see).

 

Waiting on purchasing the DA DLC until it all comes out myself.  ME was the one where I bought it all piecemeal, but the main quest of DA usually holds me over until a bundle is available on the DLC.  Hell, I didn't even look at "Legacy" or "Assassin" for DA2 until a few months before DA3, but they never did release a definitive edition of DA2.

[Seracen]

Hah!  Just got my first "negative" review on my FF.net profile.  It's less a negative review and more foolishness.  Apparently, stating in the intro, the author's notes, and the flavor text isn't enough notification for some people that a story will be "branching,"  or as the reviewer called it, "beaching."  On the one hand, nobody LIKES to hear their work called "stupid," but it's amusing the person was motivated to leave a review at all, be it positive or negative.

 

Ah well, report it for "offensive" words and move on, I suppose.  I actually composed a gracious yet stern reply to the individual, as I find that tends to be the most personally gratifying way to handle it.  Per my last two "hatemails," I never got replies from such letters.  It's debatable that anything constructive comes from such pursuits, but whatever...

 

In other news, my beta-reader suggested a few things that really added spice to the finale of my story (or rather, the leadup to the finale).  It extended my page count, but I think I'll still come in at around 200 pages.  I gotta keep chugging along!  Can't slow down now!!!

 

EDIT: Finally finished!  Brainstormed for 6 months...started 2/28, finished 4/12.  Managed to write just over 200 pages.  That's probably a record for me, not just in amount, but content as well.  On the surface, this story seemed even more ambitious than the last one, yet I managed to bang it out surprisingly quickly!  I'm more surprised that I managed to cram everything into that page limit!

 

Anyhoo, I still have editing to do, and a few chapters and scenes are likely to change, but the work is pretty much done.  Now, after darn near 3 years...on to some writing that IS NOT Mass Effect based for a change, haha!

[YurigirlzCrush]

*looks around, sighs, dons nekomimi and maid's costume*

 

congrats on your finishing of your story, Seracen! *grins, chases crickets out with a broom* and congrats on moving on to something else. it must be a really awesome feeling to finish a story. I'm starting to think I never will. what is your next project going to be? if you don't mind saying, that is.

 

*dusts cobwebs, calls baby sister to squish spiders, attacks every conceivable surface with toxic amounts of Clorox Clean-up*

 

oh. and to the esteemed Professor... I haven't posted anything for public reading yet, but I've written some chapters for a bunch of different stories I'm working on. I try to keep them to about 6,000 words, which averages around 10-14 pages in Word, depending on how much of it is dialogue. but as someone who has been reading fanfiction a lot longer than writing it, you should really try to cut up chapters into much much much smaller chunks. this is strictly as a reader, but I (and many of my friends who I know read) don't have the time to sit and read 50 pages in one sitting, and I'd imagine it's the same for a lot of other people who are balancing work and school and family and whatever. and it's always a pain as a reader to skim through a huge document to figure out where you left off. carving a huge chapter into a bunch of much smaller ones is way friendlier to the reader.

 

and this is just me personally, and not speaking on behalf of friends or others, but I often won't even give a story a chance if I open it up and find that chapters are insanely long. it's often not worth the trouble of trying to read part of a chapter, come back, figure out where I left off, read more, rinse and repeat. if I have 20 minutes to read between classes or something and spend the first five minutes just trying to figure out where I stopped last time, it's a little frustrating. with chapters as large as yours, the writing would have to strike me as being extraordinary to make it worth the effort and inconvenience. I only bring it up because other people might feel the same.

 

and also, I am writing stories because I want to tell them and I know most fanfiction authors probably write because they have a story they want to get out too. story content should never be compromised just to pander to readers. but as far as formatting goes, I think you should almost always pander to the readers a bit. I doubt that any chapter of 40 pages could possibly be written that wouldn't have a good breaking point somewhere that you could use to start a new chapter instead, and making it reader friendly is always a good thing if you actually want readers.

 

*douses everything with buckets of water, waves, and exits*

[Obsidian Gryphon]

Thought this thread died   and then found the link again.

 

I'm still beating on the fanfic. Two years plus and counting. Ridiculous when I'm trying / striving to end it but my churn out rate has dropped a lot last year, winding down to one chapter a month. As it is, chapter 90 (chapters are small, averaging 5k+ words) is coming up and I'm really hoping to tie it up before hitting 100. Well, I hope.

[Fatiguesdualism]

[Shuffles in sheepishly]

 

Well I finally, finally , got around to printing my next chapter for proof-reading so hopefully I can update before the weekend  .  We'll see.  

 

As for chapter lengths I'm usually around the 5k mark that's about 7-8 pages A4 (it's surprising how much space you save by indenting a paragraph rather than leaving a blank line) 

 

Anyway I'm going to have to try and get a better work/life/writing balance going, I mean I have been chipping away for over two years now and at the glacial pace I've been going recently...

 

edit:  What's with these new icons under the user-names?  When did they turn up?

[Seracen]

*looks around, sighs, dons nekomimi and maid's costume*

 

congrats on your finishing of your story, Seracen! *grins, chases crickets out with a broom* and congrats on moving on to something else. it must be a really awesome feeling to finish a story. I'm starting to think I never will. what is your next project going to be? if you don't mind saying, that is.

 

[snip]

 

*douses everything with buckets of water, waves, and exits*

[gets out mop, dries up the water]

 

Thanks Yuri!  Keep plugging along, I'm sure you'll make progress.  I've read some of your work, and found it to be immediately accessible!  As for my next project, I am going to do an AU story set in the Sword Art Online universe.  I've got most of it planned out, but I have yet to do a formal outline.  Once I finish editing the current work, I'll get to that other story.

 

Thought this thread died   and then found the link again.

 

I'm still beating on the fanfic. Two years plus and counting. Ridiculous when I'm trying / striving to end it but my churn out rate has dropped a lot last year, winding down to one chapter a month. As it is, chapter 90 (chapters are small, averaging 5k+ words) is coming up and I'm really hoping to tie it up before hitting 100. Well, I hope.

Best of luck!  I know what it's like to work on something for so long, lol!  It feels like you'll never finish.  But after 90 chapters, I'm sure you can do it!  You'd better, b/c I look forward to reading it! 

 

[Shuffles in sheepishly]

 

Well I finally, finally , got around to printing my next chapter for proof-reading so hopefully I can update before the weekend  .  We'll see.  

 

As for chapter lengths I'm usually around the 5k mark that's about 7-8 pages A4 (it's surprising how much space you save by indenting a paragraph rather than leaving a blank line) 

 

Anyway I'm going to have to try and get a better work/life/writing balance going, I mean I have been chipping away for over two years now and at the glacial pace I've been going recently...

 

edit:  What's with these new icons under the user-names?  When did they turn up?

 

Thanks for the PM, as always, I am looking forward to your updates!  Dunno when the icons showed up.  I'm surprised I still don't have ME1 listed on it, but ah well...

[BronzTrooper]

edit:  What's with these new icons under the user-names?  When did they turn up?

 

Dunno when the icons showed up.  I'm surprised I still don't have ME1 listed on it, but ah well...

 

They showed up about a month ago, iirc.  The shield ones are for DA:O, DA2, and DA:I, and the tower one is for the Keep.  As for ME1, a lot of people have been having issues with that showing up.  Just look around on the forums for some help with it (don't have a link handy atm, sry).

[Seracen]

They showed up about a month ago, iirc.  The shield ones are for DA:O, DA2, and DA:I, and the tower one is for the Keep.  As for ME1, a lot of people have been having issues with that showing up.  Just look around on the forums for some help with it (don't have a link handy atm, sry).

 

Odd, I used Keep as well.  Still, unless I need access to those particular forums, it's no big rush.    How's your work coming along Gamer?

 

EDIT: posted the first few chapters of my new story, and I already got some hits.  I made sure to denote specific pairings this time, so I think that helped.  I also suppose it's just easier to get noticed when it's rated Teen, as opposed to Mature.  Not that I did that by design, but I suppose it makes sense; though I feel it's a bit of a shame.

[BronzTrooper]

How's your work coming along Gamer?

 

2 words: Writer's block.  

 

My DA2 fanfic, A Warden's Letters, is getting pretty close to being finished (likely going to be somewhere around 25 chapters when it's done), but I'm stuck in the middle of chapter 18 with it.  Trying get through Seb's Act III quest for it (shouldn't be all that long, since the chapters for AWL average around 1,000-2,000 words as opposed to TLFW and my SI fanfic's 4,000-5,000) and since my Warden in it romanced Leliana during the Blight.... well, let's just say it'll be a bit.... awkward considering the events of chapters 11, 12, and 16.

 

As for TLFW and my SI fanfic, I'm regretting not working on them more often since I want to get both of them into DA:I ASAP.  I've been typing up some scenes for the DA:I sequels for both of them, as well as some scenes for the DA2 sequel to my SI fanfic.  I'm trying to stick to my cycle (chapter for AWL, chapter for TLFW, chapter for my SI fanfic, repeat), but it's hard when I've got writer's block with the fanfic I'm supposed to be working on while I'm getting plenty of ideas for my other 2 fanfics.  

 

Meh, at least me doing a DA RP with my friends is helping me fine tune my typing, even if it's exhausting my ideas for new characters and plots.  Take what you can get, right?

[YurigirlzCrush]

Odd, I used Keep as well.  Still, unless I need access to those particular forums, it's no big rush.    How's your work coming along Gamer?

 

EDIT: posted the first few chapters of my new story, and I already got some hits.  I made sure to denote specific pairings this time, so I think that helped.  I also suppose it's just easier to get noticed when it's rated Teen, as opposed to Mature.  Not that I did that by design, but I suppose it makes sense; though I feel it's a bit of a shame.

 

it's definitely easier to get your fic noticed when it's rated teen. the search settings on ff.net default to ratings of K-T. you have to deliberately choose to include fics rated M. and even though I know that I still often forget to change the setting to include them. so i'm sure some other people do too. and I bet even more people don't even realize that M results are omitted by default.