Do your fics change?

I'm currently writing my Jedi Purge stories and I've found that as i develop my characters my plot changes to suit them.

The plot wouldn't be sound enough to support the characters, so i have to back and add a character then re-write the whole thing.

Of course, in the time i am writing i have a lot of elbow room to write.

any one else have the same experience?

 

yeah, mine too. I've purposely left my long fic open ended so I can write as I'm inspired. I have a general idea of where I'm going, and what I want to do with my characters, but how I get there changes as I'm inspired. I like writing this way, really. It's an adventure

 

I am so jealous of everyone who can just leave their fics open-ended. For me, I have to have an outline, or else a serious drama/angsty story could turn into a mush/humor fest with the main characters jumping around in hot pink bunny suits While it would be interesting, I'm experimenting with different styles and ideas (including more drama, less humor) for the story I'm currently working on. Hot pink bunny suits aren't exactly drama-esquey.

Without an outline, I find myself rambling, and just falling back onto what I'm used to. While that's all good and well, nobody wants to read the same plot written six different ways

However, just because I have an outline doesn't mean the basis of my story won't change, or parts of the outlines won't disappear and new parts appear. An example will be for the story I'm working on right now. I got about fifty pages into it, then realized, "Hey, I have no backstory. None of these assumptions I have here make any sense." With an outline, I can remember what I wanted to have happen (I get the coolest ideas in the middle of my physics class at school. Not very writing conducive ). The outline has changed so many times I've lost count, and I've only been working on this story for the last couple of months. The ending of the fic, character names, occupations, and attitudes, the middle of the plot, and angst the main character goes through, those have all changed (some about five times ).

Anyways, that was a very long and rambling way to say, Yes, my fics do change as I write them, despite a very detail oriented outline.

~LtJS

 

I try to make strict outlines, but they usully sway a bit. It takes me quite a while to do a story as I'm always getting new ideas and trying to incorporate them in. One very spontaneous moment occured not too long ago when I was working on my Sith Wars era tale. I had decided long ago to not have any sort of romance or love involved in the tale. But as a was writing I al of a sudden ended up with the character feelig love for a fellow jedi. She just wrote herself in, so I left her there.

 

Some characters are just begging to be written. My main character in what I'm writing (her name is Katana ) has like haunted me until I put her down on paper, it took several plots until I hit on one that suited her.

Some stories take on a life of their own and I'm only there for the ride. Though i don't like plans on paper, they are resticting unless I'm working with 'actual events. But that's just my personal preference.

 

Oh,yes. Most memorably was the 30-page luke/leia tribute fic that turned into a 400-page trilogy that got everyone ticked off at Luke. Or me deciding to keep Padme alive in Lest Ye be Judged.

 

My stuff changes all the time. The plots change constantly as the characters become more clear. I had one heroine who refused to survive the story. Time and again and again I tried, but the actions that would have saved her were out of character, so I finally had to let her die, much to the disgust and displeasure of my readers.

 

Characters can be so annoying, the can seem real people and can control you sometimes. You have to make them behave.

 

The problem with leaving things open ended is then you can get yourself into trouble and get stuck, or meander off on tangents. I know because I've done it. I started off something as a comedy and it morphed into a spy story. Don't even ask how.

 

That happens to me all the time. I will start off writing a character one way and then they morph on me! Argh! Most aggravating.

I learned my lesson with one story. Now I'm writing the whole thing, getting it beta read, and THEN posting it. It's going slowly, because of ME, not my beta, but I hope it will show in the end.

And then there are the stories that go off in a completey different direction. I'm never sure how it happens, I just watch it occuring like a bad accident. Most of the time it works out well, but there are times...well, let's just say it isn't pretty!

 

I have a pretty strict beginning and ending in mind, sometimes aspects can be added, especially if it fills out a character better, but I don't really stray from the planned ending. However, I do not write a strict outline, just a loose one, I've found I'm better off leaving some wriggle room for myself and seeing where the characters take me without straying off the path too much. This helps me come up with better ideas for character developement and other related scenes.

sg

 

Outlines???

I only have a vague story idea in my brain cell when I start my story. I think of a beginning, and then how I want it to end (99.9999% of the time I want a happy ending.) Then as I type, the story just fills itself in. Sometimes I think I'm going to write an evil ending, and I just can't bring myself to do it.

 

I keep to a strict outline that I sometimes change and modify but generally keep the fic running the direction I outlined with lots of little minor things that I think could be cool appearing.

On occasion however, I look back and decide to rewrite an entire story, which I will be doing soon.

 

Outline? What's that?


I only recently realized that I needed a plot for my mega-fic. 'Course by that time I had written some 250 pages on it already, and then I wrote a loooong expansive plot that promises to triple the page count. Even now, I'm practically beating my head in. My muse want's me to kill off a plot device character almost three chapters earlier then I want her to be killed, and, I think my muse is winning the fight. I don't think I'll manage to keep Del Ray alive much longer. *sigh*

I can write sans a plot, and it's my favorite way to write. But... I'm afraid that it's not always quite as practical as I'd like.

My $0.02.

 

Oh, yes. It generally happens when my computer goes nuts and deletes parts of my story. I'll then get a better idea, and that whole part changes. Mostly for the better.

 

I very deliberately don't outline. If I outline, the story's already done, and why write something that's already done? I get bored and wander away from it and it usually doesn't get finished.

I prefer to let my characters tell me the story, rather than try and dictate it to them. Things go a little more smoothly, if slowly, that way.

 

Yes, they do.

I have a plot in my head. I know how to begin the story, how it will finish. As for it is between, well I let my inspiration do the rest. One day, I have some ideas for the next post, and when I write it, sometimes I do change my mind and write it differently.

Sometimes, the mood I'm in can influence my work.

[edit] Lately, I had to rewrite a chapter almost completely because I had been... BLACKMAILED by one of my readers. (If she reads it, I guess she'll recognize herself. LOL)

~Lelila

 

My fics totally change as I start writing them. They just sort of start writing themselves after a bit.

 

Lately, I had to rewrite a chapter almost completely because I had been... BLACKMAILED by one of my readers

I've had that done to me. I got the blackmailer back fortunately.

 

Um... yes. My current pot-boiler, Melodies, started off as a short, terible peice of fiction called A Tale of Revenge, which was basically an excuse for a Mar-Suzuki and Corran going to thje Dark Side and shooting lightning-bolts at Bossk. It's now got... um, at least four or five seperate 'fics in the series planned out, the first one having two seperate timelines at once, with the same thing happening at several other places, and a story spanning... um... about twenty-five years, if not more. It's got X-wings, character death, romance, violence, angst, lightsabers, stormtroopers and Yuuzhan Vong (not to mention about an orchestra-worth of musical instruments, several androids, a Bith with a betting problem and several ingots of aurodium).

And this started out as a seven-page, all canon-character short story!

--Blended

 

Oh, definitely. I was going to write one, one full length fanfic. The characters wouldn't let me. Now it's a series, one for which I've yet to find a good name for.

My characters it seems also loves to change on me. One I wanted to do something this way, she decided, without telling me mind you, to do it another way. I wanted one's personality to be one way, she wanted it another way. She won.

 

My Sailor Moon/Young Jedi Knights crossover was gonna be so short and simple. It was gonna end at five parts with everything wrapped up and everyone happy...

Boy was I wrong.

It's morphed into something huge and basically has a life of its own. Five parts has now turned into at least ten, and there's no end in sight. I altered some relationships and began others...

help!

 

One time I had so many characters that I simplified things and blew half of them up. I was so frustrated keeping track of them.

I'm thinking of going back and re-writing.

 

My fics, change? Perish the thought!

 

Boy I know how that goes for sure. I had no idea that Repercussions was going to spiral into a 217 page long story. It was just a cool idea I had one day that gave me the original bunny. Qui-Gon, Kyran and Devin made me write the book about them


In co-writing Fire and Ice we originally intended it only to be one story and now it's a series of six! It just kinda ballooned with this plot arc we had going on and making our Jedi and oC's cooperate is a tough thing sometimes sometimes you have to torture them to get them to behave