... @after-the-ellipsis - Tumblr Blog

Rule Number One is no psychoanalyzing. It’s going to be a hard rule to follow, today.

I can't believe I'm typing this, but... The Greatest Show on Earth is now complete. The epilogue is live on AO3. It introduces you to the final member of our quartet and kicks off a whole new adventure. I'd tell you it's less crazy than the story that preceded it, but who am I kidding: it's kinda crazier.

Speaking of a whole new adventure, I announced this in my a/n, but I'll voice it shrilly here, too. There is going to be a sequel to Greatest Show, a third installment in The Better Angels series. I'm not putting any timeline on the writing of it, let alone the posting of it, because in the immediate future I'll be returning to my original novel and I have no flipping idea what comes after that. But I love this series (can't you tell?) and I couldn't abandoned it if I tried. (I have tried!) So just know that a sequel is coming... some day. If you'd like to read said sequel, I recommend subscribing to my user profile on AO3, or hitting subscribe on the series page, a thing I didn't know you could do until today! AO3, always full of surprises. If you hit up either of those options, you'll get a notification when I start posting Zero Doors (working title).

You can also continue to follow me here for updates. I'll try to stay active, and my inbox will always be open. Consider me to be in a permanent state of AMA about these stories.

Thank you so very much for reading and supporting me over the years. It's a gift I can never repay.

And just like that, the tent packs up in the space of an hour, the seats folded up in rows, the peanut shells swept away, the animals curled up in their wagons, the clowns removing their makeup with a big jar of Pond's Cold Cream, and the ringmaster, last of all, who takes off her hat and lays it aside with a hearty sigh. But keep your ears piqued, folks. Because some day you'll hear those mystic chords of organ music again, and the distant thunder of the elephants. You'll hear them and you'll know: the circus is back in town.

#hannibal #hannibal fanfiction #the greatest show on earth #hannibal lecter #will graham #and also hannibal lecter #and will graham

nevver

Weaving before we awake, Xiao Hua Yang

#xiao hua yang

fictorium

Writing Meme!

Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in my ask/fan mail. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

#i know ask box memes are out of fashion now #(as are dvd commentary tracks lol rip)#but this is fun!!#i've written my little heart out these last months #and have loads to discuss #the greatest show on earth #writing

after-the-ellipsis

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”

—

ERIN BOW (via garnetglitter)

Ooh. I like this metaphor.

(via drst)

#erin bow #no writing is wasted!!!#my graveyard of old drafts awaits the day of revelation #writing

coolmugsifound

"Rabbit / American Folk Art" Warren Kimble mug (1990s)

source

#warren kimble

fozmeadows

on fanfic & emotional continuity

Writing and reading fanfic is a masterclass in characterisation.

Consider: in order to successfully write two different “versions” of the same character - let alone ten, or fifty, or a hundred - you have to make an informed judgement about their core personality traits, distinguishing between the results of nature and nurture, and decide how best to replicate those conditions in a new narrative context. The character you produce has to be recognisably congruent with the canonical version, yet distinct enough to fit within a different - perhaps wildly so - story. And you physically can’t accomplish this if the character in question is poorly understood, or viewed as a stereotype, or one-dimensional. Yes, you can still produce the fic, but chances are, if your interest in or knowledge of the character(s) is that shallow, you’re not going to bother in the first place.

Because ficwriters care about nuance, and they especially care about continuity - not just literal continuity, in the sense of corroborating established facts, but the far more important (and yet more frequently neglected) emotional continuity. Too often in film and TV canons in particular, emotional continuity is mistakenly viewed as a synonym for static characterisation, and therefore held anathema: if the character(s) don’t change, then where’s the story? But emotional continuity isn’t anti-change; it’s pro-context. It means showing how the character gets from Point A to Point B as an actual journey, not just dumping them in a new location and yelling Because Reasons! while moving on to the next development. Emotional continuity requires a close reading, not just of the letter of the canon, but its spirit - the beats between the dialogue; the implications never overtly stated, but which must logically occur off-screen. As such, emotional continuity is often the first casualty of canonical forward momentum: when each new TV season demands the creation of a new challenge for the protagonists, regardless of where and how we left them last, then dealing with the consequences of what’s already happened is automatically put on the backburner.

Fanfic does not do this.

Fanfic embraces the gaps in the narrative, the gracenotes in characterisation that the original story glosses, forgets or simply doesn’t find time for. That’s not all it does, of course, but in the context of learning how to write characters, it’s vital, because it teaches ficwriters - and fic readers - the difference between rich and cardboard characters. A rich character is one whose original incarnation is detailed enough that, in order to put them in fanfic, the writer has to consider which elements of their personality are integral to their existence, which clash irreparably with the new setting, and which can be modified to fit, to say nothing of how this adapted version works with other similarly adapted characters. A cardboard character, by contrast, boasts so few original or distinct attributes that the ficwriter has to invent them almost out of whole cloth. Note, please, that attributes are not necessarily synonymous with details in this context: we might know a character’s favourite song and their number of siblings, but if this information gives us no actual insight into them as a person, then it’s only window-dressing. By the same token, we might know very few concrete facts about a character, but still have an incredibly well-developed sense of their personhood on the basis of their actions.

The fact that ficwriters en masse - or even the same ficwriter in different AUs - can produce multiple contradictory yet still fundamentally believable incarnations of the same person is a testament to their understanding of characterisation, emotional continuity and narrative.

#still one of my fave explanations of characterization in fanfic #emotional continuity yes!#fic allows you to slow down narrative time #and explore the emotional consequences #of everything that happens in canon #(as well as everything that happens outside of canon!)#what this leads to is characters sometimes feeling MORE #in character in fic than they do in canon #because we have greater access to their interiority #and more freedom to explore that interiority #writing #fanfiction

semperintrepida

If you think of any worthwhile novel—its intersecting arcs, its intertwined themes and metaphors—no one is clever enough to do it. When you have crammed your head with data, you have to take your hands off and see what shapes the story forms. You must trust the process, and that can be difficult, because you have to quell anxiety; the task is to get out of your own way. I think this is true for all worthwhile fiction, not just historical fiction. At the centre of your work is an act of faith in the novel form. You employ what Keats called "negative capability"—you must endure doubt and follow paths without signposts.

—Hilary Mantel, in an interview with The Guardian

#endure doubt!!!#follow them unmarked paths!!!#thank you hilary #writing

lorelune

i'll defend fanfic for my whole life. like the joy it brings is genuinely transformative and indulgent in a way unique to the genre. it isn't meant for a market, it isn't meant to be sold or marketed. it is born out of such care and passion for a media that one must write and must share it, so other folks can enjoy it to. for no other reason than love and joy. do you know how special that is? especially in our current social and political climate.