A Glimpse Into Fanfic Editing
Since I've been asked sometimes about my creative writing process, I thought some of you might like to see this photo of my editing notes. This is for the Himejima & Child!Douma fic I wrote and started posting over the last couple months, "The Chance to Right His Wrongs" (final chapter getting posted shortly).
"What am I looking at here, besides bad handwriting?" you might ask. Well, some of that would be spoilery! Basically, it's a short fic that uses the time travel trope with reckless abandon to make an interaction happen. It's from Himejima's first person POV, meaning that in my writing I am limited to what he knows. But I, the writer/Fanfic Monster, have already drafted the whole thing by the time I wrote these notes, so I know more than he does.
These were written in what I refer to as a period of time to let things marinate or ferment. The goal of the first draft was just to get the thing to exist. Taking time away from it gives me a chance to let it mull around in my head, especially once I've already seen how the ending felt. That time away from it, whether days or weeks, gives me fresh eyes to see the flaws.
By "flaws," I don't filter words or typos or purple prose or other things that can and should be fixed in line editing. I'm thinking in structural terms.
Let me pause here and say that I had some trouble writing this fic. After years of having been able to churn out full fic drafts in monstrous bursts of inspiration, I've been having trouble getting back into that flow state, and many fics I started writing failed to get beyond a single session of drafting. This multi-chapter one was short because I needed it to be short in order to get the thing accomplished, and it required a little more discipline to keep making time to write. I had to keep going making in multiple sessions on a semi-regular basis to get the thing done, and not all those sessions had the clarity of inspiration. That means some parts of it meandered as I looked for the better way to make Himejima feel the things I needed him to feel for the sake of the plot.
The result is a character stuck in his own head for paragraph after paragraph, a plot that trips along instead of propelling a reader forward. Now, this isn't to say you can't write fic like this. In fact, I think fanfic can get away with it much better and more freely than marketable books can. But if it's not compelling enough or keeping things moving well enough, it can be much harder to keep readers (and you, the writer) entertained. Which is, of course, the point of fanfic.
Now, this does not mean I think I did an outstanding job of editing on this fic to fix that issue. I like it, but I would not say it's one of my best. Furthermore, the process felt trickier on this one than on others I've written where the issues are more about moving the plot from Point A to Point B to Point C, lest you wind up with a story bogged down in strategy sessions and transit (guilty! I plead so guilty to that!). A lot of my trouble with this one was just due to lack of writing groove, and that meant my editing sessions had to have more purpose and direction.
The notes you're looking at are the reason I changed Chapter 2 into Chapters 2 and 3.
"Eh? But what about 'kill your darlings'? Isn't editing about shaving things down in order to keep the plot moving?" you might say.
Yes! This is the usual writing advice for people interested in publishing marketable books. But we're not in that market. We're selfishly writing fanfic, and for readers who love the characters enough, they have a high tolerance for spending a lot of time with those characters. That's why they're reading fanfic, right?
Sometimes, making the right connections is what will lead to a more satisfying story. This is why I'm pointing your attention to how many arrows I use in my notes.
Part of it is to help me seeing connections for where I can foreshadow what's up ahead, seeing as I've already drafted it so I know that all.
Part of it is for keeping track of time travel shenanigans.
Part of it is for showing myself how one thought, feeling, or action should lead to another to give more momentum to those "stuck inside the character's head" scenes.
Part of it is simply to keep track of my own train of thought in very messy notes.
But how did this mess of notes start? That's the actionable advice I wanted to convey!
I knew Chapter 2 was kind of meandering through the things it needed to do, so once I had fresh eyes of it, I took notes of what happens.
out in rain (night)
Master?
--
Douma w/followers, Himejima hates them but tries to ignore them
--
contemplates killing Douma
--
Douma wakes up to answer woman
--
(day)
goes out again for demon
--
garden convo
--
in mountains, starts feeling lonely, finds temple
--
(night)
return, members rumoring
sleep
--
wake up to open fighting, demon attacks
--
kidnap
go to temple
This made it easy to ask myself questions like, "Do these actions make sense? Can this be condensed? What are the key things to address, and is this the right order to address them?"
This helped me better identify the purpose of each scene. Once I knew the purpose, it made it easier to assess if the time spent in Himejima's head was accomplishing those purposes well or not. As I spent more time deciding how to bring out his feelings, it helped me notice that partway through this set of scenes in Chapter 2, his feelings change. Not totally, but importantly. The "Garden Convo" was critical and wasn't doing its job well being so buried.
Thus, it finally became clear: The answer was not to shave down the time spent with Himejima's feelings, but instead to cut one chapter into two so as to dive deeper into the feelings. This helped clarify the goals of each scene and how they contribute to the flow of a chapter, especially in building to the right conclusion of that chapter.
Often, my second draft winds up a lot longer than my first draft, for reasons like this. But I often enjoy the second draft stage a lot more, because the dang plot already exists. I've gotten more ideas for cute and fun and angst, the whole point! At this point, it's not the drudgery of mixing water and soil; the clay already exists and now I get to mold it!
And, at least for me, that molding goes a lot better if I have some vision of what I want to make. I wouldn't say this fic totally fits my vision (many of my fics don't, though some do), but I sure liked it more after the second draft.
(More posts like this here. Happy Fic-ing, everybody.)
