For the fan fiction questions: 2, 9 and 12 for Heart and Home (which I just finished reading like 5minutes ago and am still trying to put into words how much I enjoyed it, holy wow.)
Hi <3 I’m so glad you liked it!!
2: What scene did you first put down?
The first one! Or a variant of the first one, at least (Funfact: I wrote 6 separate very similar drafts of chapter 1 because I couldn’tfind a version that I liked). I am Not Capable of writing things out of order. Idon’t know how people do it! How do you know what happens next without knowingwhat came before? (possibly other people are planners…) So this fic was writtenone scene at a time from beginning to end with only a few scene swaps andrewrites.
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
It took me a long time to decide on which POV to write itfrom. At one time I had almost as many notes for the Grantaire POV version asfor the one I was actually writing. I have most of the beginning written forGrantaire and a few scenes further down (usually when I had moments of doubtabout how Grantaire was responding to things, I’d rewrite from hisperspective). Some of the important things made it across in different forms(ranking things out of 10 was a Grantaire quirk, the song he was trying towrite on the guitar was a big plot thread that mostly got lost, some of hisconversations with Eponine got squeezed in in flashbacks) and some great ideasgot lost because there was no way to get them in outside of R’s head.
But ultimately, Enjolras had the stronger emotional arc andhe was carrying most of the story, so he got it :)
12: What do you like least about this fic?
That it took SO LONG to write!!!
Hmm, this is a hard questionsince I’ve been away from it long enough to have perspective (I was justreading my grantaire pov parts and its been long enough that it didn’t evenfeel like I’d written it and I could be like ‘oh hey this is good.’). I thinkbecause of the length and because I started posting it before it was finished,it drags a bit in the middle. I remember while I was writing it being worriedthat it was all just people talking in rooms, and I think it still has thatsense to it. It could definitely have been punchier, with less downtime betweenthe action.
But it’s fic, and it’s shipfic, and people interacting is alarge part of what makes it that. If I was writing it as an original novel, I’dprobably trim it down but as it is I’m pretty happy with it.