i love this ask game so much, they're such great questions. thankyou allie <3
(talkin about queenmaker and daybreak below the cut)
5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true?
not reaaally, the only thing I can think of is that I'm fairly sure I can tell within the first few hundred words if I'm going to like the finished product of a fic or not. i don't really have any weird habits, I just write.
10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?
everything that i've left unfinished? xD what does that mean to me, great question.
There's several novels that I know I'll finish one day, they just stay and stay with me because I haven't finished figuring them out yet - like Heart, which is 50% done at 100k and started innnn 2016? 2018? which sounds crazy, but it's still just a story that I'm not ready to be able to tell yet.
I think other things haunt me through different iterations of works - like Daybreak, which is essentially a new version of a scrapped disney zombies fic from 2022 that was about oppressed communities and essentially life in a ghetto, uprisings, the lives of young people in unsettled times. It was something that just got left behind as I focused on other things, but I always liked the idea and wished I could talk myself into coming back to it - now that I've written Daybreak, which focuses on oppression and police states and the life of normal people in times of revolution and change, it feels like that's settled, like I've done it justice.
17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.
you really think we've got all day huh. yeah okay daybreak. daybreak is kind of the combination of three things I've wanted to try for a while now: I wanted to write Minho from the DLC music video, I wanted to break the boundaries of ordinary smaus by writing something unique, and I wanted to write about ordinary people living in a dystopia, rather than the normal dystopian story that is based around a hero.
The whole thing came together pretty naturally tbh, all the scenes I wanted are in there. Minho plays as such a good personality for this darker type of fic - certain aspects of him are lost, of course, as they are in fiction, but he really has that darker alluring aspect to him of typical male leads, and clever wit to relieve tension when you need it. Y/N came into shape naturally; she's a character buult off a base of fear, and the human kindness it takes to want to be a nurse and an artist.
The rest of SKZ fit in really easily too, as you'll see in future chapters. Eunchae is a character that only became really clear in the final draft, because there were certain things I needed her to be depending on what events I kept and which I cut. The first version of her wavered between opinions a lot and only moved to serve the plot; now, she is there to show the citizen that is extremely lawful and obedient, the 'grin and bear it type'.
I looked at a lot of stuff for this fic; WW2 Germany and living as a German citizen, Jews who went into hiding, how Hitler came to power, current economics and the Great Depression (especially this photo), company towns and scrip coin, factories in the industrial revolution, the evolution of labour and health and safety laws....and then this post and this post and this poem.
The poem especially I looked at every time I wrote the major scenes between the two main characters because it described the dynamic I wanted so exactly - Minho is the moth, 'I would rather be part of beauty (the resistance/making the world a better place) for one instant and then cease to exist', and Y/N the cockroach, 'I would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity' - but also, she wishes she could want the world to change so badly that she'd willingly die for it, like he would. That's what makes this relationship work so well too; she is so cautious and scared to act, but she has this heart that so clearly wants not to stand at the side while cruelty reigns, and he is brave and needs to stop before he pushes too far, and would be dead if she wasn't so cautious.
I think that's enough. I'll stop now.
18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.
ummmmmmmmmm i hate you, makin me choose, god. let's go queenmaker ch 26. qm hasn't really been going exactly the way I planned (mostly because I did no planning at all), I wish everyone reading it would go and read daybreak to see that I can actually put together a cohesive and well-paced plot, but anyway this chapter in particular was supposed to help to highlight that Y/N is genuinely likeable and hardworking and putting up a face against the mean tweets, because there are a lot of mean tweets and I have been worried lately that it's too many and it's getting boring.
but also the continuous flooding of bad tweets even when you're sick of reading them is kind of on purpose because i'm commenting on the hate that idols get no matter what they do. anyway.
For several seconds, he just looks at you, unsure whether to laugh or not. "Have you done anything?" he asks, just to ask, ambling along casually beside you. "You have such a nice face shape."
You contemplate your answer before you give it, your mouth opening and then closing again. "Maybe a little here and there," you say and let a little grin slip onto your face. "Maybe not. You know I was dropped from Midnight for being 'the wrong look', right?"
This moment re: plastic surgery was something that I agonised over a lot in writing, there were about three variations on these two lines of dialogue and I also did a lot of googling, reading shitty opinion posts, etc. because the side of social media that discusses whether or not idols have had plastic surgery is one I do not go near normally.
I don't know where I got the idea to include it from, I wanted to drop something about dieting in qm for a long time now (another thing I very carefully drafted into this conversation) and I think it just followed on from that as a kind of taboo topic for normal people, ykwim.
I drafted this conversation so much because there was a specific tone I wanted it to have - the scene is supposed to be very lighthearted, just another run of the mill workday and casual conversation even though the topics they talk about are like obviously there to play into specific themes. Using Changbin helped a lot for this. I wanted to just put in the idea that maybe Y/N had had work done in the past, and that it wasn't a big deal - I didn't want to make any commentary either way on plastic surgery, I just wanted to have it in the fic as a reminder that this is also a part of their lives that we don't see.
I was surprised actually in the end, that no one commented on it - I think I missed the balance I was going for and went the other way - not too strong, but not enough of a clue at all. I'm still happy with it though, because in the end I really didn't want to start a discussion on whether surgery is good or bad, and I didn't want it distracting from the actual aim of the scene or pressing an uncomfortable amount of tragic backstory on the character.
Hinokami herself invades the Infinity Castle and starts taking on the Upper Ranks by herself (Muzan f-ed off cuz of course)
Kokushibo, the only one who is a former Demon Slayer, tries to remember the last time he was pushed to the brink this hard by a single individual, and lands on the times he faced demons as a human. He then wonders:
"Is the gap between demons and gods the same as the gap between humans and demons?"
Akaza, the only other Upper Rank still fighting Hinokami, sees Kokushibo change his demeanor and movements, and for a moment, he almost sees the hashiras he's killed in Kokushibo
Akaza comes to the same conclusion, and realizes he's getting a taste of what it's like for Demon Slayers to take on Upper Ranks
Writing a fic while having other projects under your belt is like "hmmm yes yes this sounds nice but out of place. I could fit it in that other fic tho..."
And now all your drafts are Frankesteined quotes that you will need to stitch together to form a coherent story.
