I've been really struggling/stuck in writing 'The space between all things' and think I will just clear my head and leave it for now and hopefully when I get back to it (which who knows how long that will take) I can give it some new energy and jump over the hurdle that is structure of the plot!!! So if you've been waiting for an update for this fic, I'm sorry to say it's gonna be a while, but then I think I'll also write at least a couple of chapters for it before publishing.
In the meantime I'm mainly working on my hosie fic 'after the starlit high'. Here and there on some hosie one-shots as well as plotting a sagelyn fic, which might just be a rewrite of Utopia Falls lol (big project)! I'm also weirdly getting into Ginny and Georgia again and want to write a max-centric fic! (on a side note, I’m conflicted on who I ship Max with (if anyone) because she’s been going through it and no one is noticing and treating her - quite frankly - really cruelly. Sooo yeah, as of now I have no one I ship her with, but next season might change my miiind.
Just some thoughts while working on 'the space between all things'.
I went into the (vague) planning phase of the fic deciding that I wanted to make Lizzie a central part of the story, as she is an integral part of Josie's life (both in this fic but also, as we all know, in canon) and because I think the twins' individual and combined dynamic with Hope is so interesting. Mostly I wanted to explore a version of the twins dynamic that is strained in a way only family is, where you can have such an unconditional love yet live heartbreaking worlds apart form each other.
Anyways, I went into the fic with that kind of mindset, but I didn't realize how much Lizzie would actually appear and also how much I would like writing about her in particular. I mean I already adored Lizzie before and she's one of my favourite characters in Legacies (and tbh tvdu in general), so it isn't difficult to like writing about her in that sense. She's actually the funniest character in my fic I think, other than Penelope maybe (Or at least I'm trying to make her witty and funny, though I'm not irl, so don't know if it's working lol).
But I'm actually struggling not to let her bleed too much into every page in both Josie's POV and Hope's POV (yes I'm writing a few POV chapters for Hope<3) since it is a hosie story before all. But while writing it I realized that Hope and Josie wouldn't even be in this predicament they're in, if not for Lizzie being in their lives and it just would not make sense at all and then this story would not be happening in the first case. This shows in my writing too since I include Lizzie in all of Josie and Hope's POVs, whether in passing or that she's physically in the scene, but if I erased those scenes - even the ones where Lizzie is just being Lizzie adding to the fun of the story more than the plot - it would feel empty somehow? Like Lizzie is just such a central part of their lives and erasing those scenes of her would be wrong? (heavy deja vu from everyone forgetting Hope in season 2)
And this just made me realize that I actually need to make Lizzie play an even more central role than I anticipated in this specific fic, and actually add instead of erase scenes. Josie wouldn't be Josie without Lizzie and Lizzie wouldn't be Lizzie without Josie and that is the cause of both love and pain in their relationship and that is beautiful.
And I say that it is I that need to make Lizzie play a bigger role, but in my mind it's Lizzie demanding to be the main character herself, and that makes me love writing as cliche as it sounds XD Because these characters seriously feel so alive to me and I love them so much.
Not sure what my point was, but to end this: I just think it's really wonderful how writing and reading fanfiction gives one a whole new appreciation of characters, one that probably couldn't be achieved just from canon. So I'm just so happy that authors share their stories with strangers on the internet, because it makes fandom better and readers like myself will always appreciate it and on that note we should all remember to let the authors out there know that<3
Chapter 5 is out now, it’s in Hope’s POV this time! Spend a lot of time deleting paragraphs from this and making up my mind how I should write it but I like it as it is now:D
rearranged so much of the timeline in tsbat so now the story unfolds in two more months than initially planned: more angst more emotions, more delving into all characters and all. Also more Hope POV's. The 18 chapters I aimed for is probably not gonna be enough, but I'm pretty satisfied with the reworked outline. Now I just have to actually write it...
update on tsbat is that I have been slowly but surely working on the next chapter which is taking much longer than the other chapters to write, but it's also going to be more words (i think at least) so it makes sense. I'm also reworking the outline a bit further down the story-line, so that also changes things for this chapter in particular that I had originally planned for-> cons and benefits of writing as you go and not finishing it before publishing but oh well
If things go smoothly (or i get a burst of energy) it might be up sometime this february. Not promising anything too optimistic since school is stressful and I have some other personal projects to work on as well, but I'm remaining hopeful and excited!
