Feathers In The Night

A blog where I'll be posting anything and everything about my fanfics! Join me for some chill times 💃 all questions and general conversations are welcome ❤️

[feathers-in-the-night]

Reading the introductory chapters about Gillenormand and getting full body cringes because i have gotten about 99% about his life wrong except for the fact that he would get physically aggressive when he was angry

[molabuddy]

really specific trope i like that i feel like can only be explained in a diagram

[feathers-in-the-night]

First Marius and Gillenormand mention!

[feathers-in-the-night]

Oh my god I messed up the age at which Marius and Cassandra's dad left. Marius is supposed to be 2-3 years younger than Cassandra, placing him at about 21-22 years old and her 24 years old at the barricades, but in the part where I have her reflecting on the day their dad left, I mention that she's FIVE and Marius is unborn. Whyyy did I do that

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[feathers-in-the-night]

So I realized recently that one of the things I need to do as I change that first draft to a proper narrative is that they both really needed to get WORSE, like I need them to be ugly and raw and properly flawed, something I hadn't really dared to dive into in that first draft.

This time though, oh boy, Cassandra is NOT doing so well. At this point, Enjolras is still confined to a bed, and he's barely been awake so he's not doing a whole lot, but I also plan to dive into two kinds of ways of dealing with grief. She's very reactive and external with her grief and he's going to keep it all super bottled up, and I think they different styles of reacting is what's going to fuel a lot of the future drama as they fail to adequately help each other

[feathers-in-the-night]

Its a good exercise for me too because while Dick and Morgan were often messy and flawed, they never crossed the line into being unlikeable - mostly because since they superheroes I sort of felt like they needed some level of character strength for that to make sense. But they also never went through something like the barricades. But I genuinely think Enjolras was misguided and arrogant, and Cassandra is not very stable as a person because shes so desperate for belonging and she feels he lied to her. Anyway, its going to be interesting to see how far it can go without making them too unlikeable. I'm not going to write drama just for the sake of drama, I want their actions and reactions to stem from something real, but I'm challenging myself by making them cross lines and hope readers will go with me there

[feathers-in-the-night]

So I realized recently that one of the things I need to do as I change that first draft to a proper narrative is that they both really needed to get WORSE, like I need them to be ugly and raw and properly flawed, something I hadn't really dared to dive into in that first draft.

This time though, oh boy, Cassandra is NOT doing so well. At this point, Enjolras is still confined to a bed, and he's barely been awake so he's not doing a whole lot, but I also plan to dive into two kinds of ways of dealing with grief. She's very reactive and external with her grief and he's going to keep it all super bottled up, and I think they different styles of reacting is what's going to fuel a lot of the future drama as they fail to adequately help each other

[feathers-in-the-night]

Reading through the remaining part of the fic and I realize I've been doing a lot of storytelling that's basically recapping, and not enough proper scenes. It makes sense - its very First Draft-esque, and its a good starting point - its a frame that needs filling out. There's a lot of connective tissue missing.

But thats a lot easier to work with than nothing, you know? It'll be fun to go in and add the details that are needed, but it does mean I'll be slower with updates probably

(except that my three-month project contract is up so I'm about to be unemployed again and will actually have a lot of time! And I'm so excited to use some of that time to really dig into this story again and add all that delicious character work that you all know I love writing)

[feathers-in-the-night]

FFaaaawk I thought I just totally fucked up the ages of the characters in the story because I jumped forward in my read of Les Mis to the part where Les Amis are introduced and it says Enjolras is 22 when Marius meets him, AND I KNEW FOR SURE I HAD READ HE WAS 26 AT THE BARRICADES but turns out its because Marius meets them in 1828, so I'm good, except I kinda messed up in that Marius actually leaves house Gillenormand like four years before the barricades and not a couple of months before like I wrote in my story.

Which is a minor thing but still, I like when my timelines match up

[feathers-in-the-night]

Both parts of the barricade portion is up now!

[feathers-in-the-night]

Idk if i should break the barricade into two chapters of 4k and 3k words, or drop the whole thing into a massive 7k reading-extravaganza. There's a midpoint that feels like a pretty natural place for a chapter-break, but the whole thing could just as easily be one big chapter.

Either way, I'll be posting a chapter today, its just a question of pace really. Is it best to break it up and allow everything that has happened up to that midpoint to really settle in, or would it work better if the whole thing takes place within the same chapter, which would give it that feeling of rushed frenzy and chaos?

[feathers-in-the-night]

next chapter is the barricades UGH im so excited its probably the part Ive been editing the most

[feathers-in-the-night]

im a few chapters into feathers in the night and i have genuinely been reading non stopp like you have no idea how much the gods of my missing assignments are cursing you right now

Im sorry to your assignments! But Im glad that youre having a good time, sometimes you just gotta unhook your jaw and consume a story in one big bite, i get it

[feathers-in-the-night]

nooooo the "artist bots" that are all over ffnet came to ao3 now :(

[kabaks]

every time i write i think about that maya angelou quote where she talks about her editor asking her why she uses semicolons instead of colons and says she has often responded by threatening to never speak to him again

[kabaks]

she’s so fucking funny

[feathers-in-the-night]

Genuinly i think this is such good writing, I know an author is always supposed to be so critical of their own writing but i am SO happy with how this all turned out

[feathers-in-the-night]

sometimes its good to struggle to figure out a scene for like a week because the idea gets to really marinate and when you finally figure it out, whoo boy, guys I just wrote STRAIGHT BARS

[feathers-in-the-night]

Ive reached the point where i cannot tell if this is some of the best writing ive ever done or if ive gone overboard and its just straight cheesy