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ilreleonewikia13 · 1 year

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Before you read, I wrote the first draft of this post in October, then I resumed it in April, but then in May I decided to heavily re-edit it when I noticed the massive grammatical errors that I left. So the version you will read is quite changed from its original form. Starting with the decision to split it into more chapters and not in a single piece as I did before. I even tried to add more characterization to some events as I noticed that maybe I rushed up some important things, cause when I wrote this "fanfic that is not a fanfic" I didn't have a clear vision of the events in their complexity. Some parts were very detailed and explained well, while other parts are only briefly mentioned. As I re-edit it I tried to make everything more cohesive and pleasing to read. For this reason, unlike the first version, this post will only be about the disclaimers and the introduction of my "fanfiction not fanfiction", as the whole "story" will be published on AO3. As I'm writing this I've already posted 2 of the 5 parts, and right now I'm working on the editing of the 3th chapter.

The Doom in Our Blood Comes Back - the Fanfic of a Fanfic

INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUSCRIPT: THE CHRONICLES OF TWO DRAGONS

TRIUMPHS AND DEFEAT

THE CONQUEST OF DORNE

RUBIES AND IRON

When do you start to realize that a fanfiction stops being just a fanfiction and becomes a real work of entertainment?

For me it's when reading it makes you want to theorize about it as if it were a real book and even before it is finished: this is what happened to me with "The Blacks and the Greens" by @sweetestpopcorn a fanfiction (which almost every fan who started watching the series has read if like me you went looking for Daemyra fanfics on AO3 as soon as it started) that tells the story of the Dance of Dragons starting with the idea that Daemon and Rhaenyra got married as soon as their "affair" was discovered, thus an AU of the original plot leading to a completely different scale of events from the original plot of the series/book.

This story, still in progress (at the exact moment I’m writing this post it arrived “just” at its 170th chapter) has gripped me so much this past month that my brain convinced me that this was the real canon story and made me completely forget about the existence of the TV series: so if you are interested to read this AU I suggest you read the original fic, even if it’s a little bit long cause it’s totally worth it.

I thought about writing an actual story about these ideas I had but then changed my mind. It didn't make sense to write about one idea when I already had a bigger story planned that wasn't finished yet.

As I said before, the story from where I take inspiration is only halfway done and things might change a lot in the upcoming chapters as I write this post. This means that the characters I'll talk about in this headcanon might have died to are going to because I don't control the story, the author does.

As I write this post, my idea for "this story" went in a totally different direction than what the original author intended. It became its own separate version of the Blacks and the Greens, with a different set of rules and logic.

I am a big fan of the Black side in the civil war and like happy endings. I wanted Helaena to be happy with her kids and for Rhaenyra to rule the Seven Kingdoms with her husband and raise her five children. In my imagination, the Greens give up quickly and Rhaenyra becomes the Queen without any fighting. She brings both sides together and makes the dynasty stronger.

This means that in this universe almost all of the Targaryen family is still alive and because the war didn't last too much the finance of the kingdom is not significantly damaged making the reign of the Black Queen very prosperous and full of innovations, technically and artistically speaking, making for them more effortless to conquest Dorn and made Westeros finally United.

The first idea for this story was to talk about Rhaenyra and Daemon's five children and their fun experiences instead of just focusing on Rhaenyra and Daemon's relationship, which is already the main focus of The Blacks and The Greens.

When I was reading the fanfic for the first time, I knew that liked Baela the most because of her personality: plus in my head, she's like a female version of Daemon for this reason, I decided to use her as the main character in my story.

She, in my mind, had the right characteristic to be our main POV, being, in my head, the “middle child” of the group - so the one who is between Aegon and Viserys (the boys) and Rhaena and Visenya (the girls) - and that belong to both of the two worlds, the feminine and the masculine, and have both these sides with her. She, in my fantasy, will spend a lot of time with her two brothers, with whom she will share a very strong bond as a very strong rivalry for the attention of their father; with the girls too she will have a special relationship. Especially with Rhaena who is her twin, who is, in some way, her opposite and her complementary, especially in the way they decide to express their femininity over the years. I think that in the Book-canon, Baela looks more masculine than what it was depicted in The Blacks and the Greens, and because this headcanon is heavily inspired by that fanfic, I decided to follow this vision more than the canon one.

In this universe, she dresses like a combination of Queen Visenya, whom Baela really likes, and Queen Rhaenys. Baela is both strong and sensual like her mother Rhaenyra. She wears bright colors like red and loves jewelry.

I thought about what clothes would look good on her at the court. I imagined she would like dresses that were fun and sexy, with low necklines and tight bodices. These dresses would be like armor to her and would have lots of beads on them. I got ideas from the outfits worn by Anne Boleyn in the show The Tudors, which I really like.

She likes to show she is comfortable with her sexuality, without feeling ashamed for having fun with men as she thinks that both women and men should be able to act in the same way. Besides her regular clothes, I also see her wearing softer and masculine tunics as she trains, showing how much she loves the culture of the East continents. Even though she doesn't like to study, Baela enjoys reading High Valyrian poems and listening to Lysene music, as she prefers to sing over playing it. I can imagine her spending time flying and staying with her dragon more than her siblings. She will become very fond of her dragon, Moondancer. She will also train with her brothers with the sword and be very good at it.

Because Baela became a such strong and intense character in my mind, I started to think that she needed an equally strong and enigmatic counterpart that matched it, but at the same time opposed it and gave it a hard time: or in reality the opposite, that is someone she could challenge and confront, someone equally crazy and reckless, but by the opposite and darker energy.

And so that at any moment this post headcanon "The Blacks and the Greens" has become somehow a story focused on Baela and Aemond, or at least with a particular focus on the relationship and the clashes between these two.

Let me make it clear that the choice to "pair" these two characters were not based on a double interpretation of the original story, which clearly shows a strong dislike for Aemond and the Greens in general. The decision to highlight Aemond's character was solely influenced by the irresistible charm of Ewan Mitchell, the actor who played the role in the television adaption, which unfortunately clouded my judgment. To be absolutely clear, I have never felt any form of empathy towards him during my entire fanfiction journey, except for some mere pity.

There were multiple factors that led me to spare the lives of Aemond and Aegon, as I believed it would be more gratifying to let them suffer as they experienced the consequences of all the actions that they made thought the first half of The Blacks and the Greens and the accompanying disgrace of their defeat, rather than simply executing them on the spot.

In this headcanon, Aemond will undergo significant transformations, causing a profound shift in his mentality and character due to experiencing a series of intense and traumatic events. As a result, this version of Aemond will differ significantly from both the Bookcanon and the Blacks and the Greens. The decision was serendipitously influenced by reading a particular sentence in the fanfic where the detestable Aemond ridicules Daemon for allowing Rhaenyra to mistreat him and become submissive to his sister, referring to him as a "slut." Aemond expresses his reluctance to ever allow a woman to control him as his uncle did.

Well, these two simple sentences made me decide that I need to create my own headcanon where Aemond would become the exact thing that he always derided his uncle for: a "loser" who would be bossed around by all the women in his life. And not only command but as a great misogynistic bastard who was, after touching the bottom of the funds, it would be a woman to save him and put him on track, making him feel indebted to her.

So this is how this literary experiment was born.

A simple and very banal enemies-to-lovers story with A LOT of drama and a bunch of dragons, but that needs the perfect setting to work, for this reason, most of the work I did was on figuring out how to set the side character and the background events in a way that could serve my goal.

As I specified many times in this exaggeratedly verbose disclaimer and in the tags this is not actual fanfic, I will not so use a prostatic style like many other stories in this platform, still, I want my readers to have a pleasing experience while reading this work, the result of a very elaborate mental wank and my pressing need to take my mind off my real duties, so I decided to write the whole thing as if it were a cross between historical writing and the introduction to a Greek tragedy.

Imagine, just like in Fire and Blood, that an obviously bored scholar set out to write the memoirs of Rhaenyra and her deeds; as I tried to make up this story I even tried to figure out the timeline of our characters' birth, some of them are the canon ones used in the books, while the others are the ones I tried to calculate trying to use some mathematics and the information that the writer give us on her fic. This means that it's not very precise, but I hope it's remotely accurate.

Aemond= 110

Daeron =114

Addam=114

Alyn=115

Larra= 115

Aegon III = 118

Viserys = 119

Daenaera = 120

Baela and Rhaena =121

Visenya= 125

Jaehaerys and Jaehaera = 123

Maelor = 127

Baelor = 130

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supernovadragoncat · 1 year

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My Writing Year in Review (2022)

I did one of these in 2020 and 2021 and wanted to give an update for what I've been up to in 2022 and plans for 2023.

✍️ 2022: The Year of The Re-Write ✍️

In February 2020, I fell back into the SanSan fandom after a four year hiatus. Coming back to fandom meant temporarily shelving my completed manuscript for "God and Monsters". It was meant to be a temporary break, but I spent the next year and a half writing a lot, reading a lot, learning about the craft of writing, and only occasionally revisiting the manuscript.

By September 2021, I'd gotten enough distance from it to know it needed work. It wasn't my perfect baby anymore. It was a piece of writing that had good bones but needed to be ripped down to the studs and built back up again. Mind you, I'd already rewritten it from fanfic form, so the prospect of another massive revision was daunting.

But writing is rewriting, so I rolled up my sleeves and did the work, day in and day out through the rest of 2021 and the entirety of 2022.

It meant waking up at 4:00 am to squeeze in a few hours of revisions and rewrites before work. It meant late nights because I was on a roll and didn't want to stop. It meant getting honest with myself about when I needed to scrap something and start again.

The blood, sweat, and tears were worth it. I ended 2022 with a draft I'm proud of, one that's close to the finish line.

🔮 2023: The Business of Writing 🔮

The manuscript is called BLOODLINES. It's with the first round of beta readers. It'll then go to editors.

I've spent the past year learning everything I can about the publishing industry and getting honest with myself about what I really want as an author, what success means to me.

There's great pride and validation to be found in landing a traditional publishing deal. However, when I quiet my ego and fears and pipe dreams and listen, I know this:

I want to shamelessly create art that I'm proud of. If this story pleases no one else, it will always please me. Finishing this story that was conceived in a dream almost ten years ago will be enough for me.

My plan is to self-publish this work. Like most self-published authors will tell you, you really need to run the enterprise like a small business. So that means, this is the year of learning the business side of writing.

In the meantime, I plan to finish a few of my SanSan WIPs (Moonchild, Origins, and The Naughty List). I've got one just about done and will start posting it soon.

Thank you all for the support, encouragement, and love. Many blessings in 2023!

✨ Onwards ever, backwards never ✨

#on writing #gods and monsters the novel #Bloodlines #sansan #on fanfic writing

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

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I want to write an original story with a similar basic premise to Animorphs (kids use alien technology to fight a secret guerrilla war against other invading alien species and are subsequently severely traumatized), but I'm not sure how clearly distinct from Animorphs I need to make it to be legally okay. The plot's pretty different asides from that and none of the characters are really similar, but I'm not sure if it's still too close. Any advice?

Yes! All advice comes with the whopping caveat that I’ve never published a novel myself, but I can make recommendations.

Step 1: Write the dang thing!

I feel like we writers worry too much, too often, and especially too early about copyright issues. I’ve had friends fret over the possibility of mentioning Disney in novels that they haven’t so much as outlined; my usual response is to hand them a copy of Percy Jackson with the 30,000 mentions of Diet Coke flagged, or to highlight the words “PlayStation” and “Sellotape” in the Harry Potter series. Heck, Animorphs itself takes potshots at Nickelodeon and Planet Hollywood. Worrying about copyright early on in the writing process is useless to the extent that it’s almost impossible to predict what copyright issues the final product will or won’t have. I successfully published a poem trashing Dole fruit company in an anthology, only to have the whole anthology pulled because its inside cover accidentally (incorrectly) implied that it was published through our university’s press.

Trust me, I get why this problem draws the mind — it assumes a reality where my novel is finished, an agent accepts it, a publisher puts it out, and it sells enough copies for senpai to notice me. But if you’re not talking to a publisher about this issue over your sixth or seventh draft of your polished manuscript, you’re borrowing tsuris. Maybe by the time you’re done writing your novel, the resemblance to Animorphs will be less than passing. Maybe you’ll run into a completely different set of copyright issues. Point being: cross that bridge when you come to it. Even better, let your publisher cross it for you. That’s part of why they’re there.

Step 2: Draw out what makes your story unique, and avoid what makes K.A. Applegate’s story unique.

If you’re writing about mind-controlling aliens, that’s fine! Those date back to at least Robert A. Heinlein, and arguably as early as humanity itself has had a concept of possession by spirits. If you’re writing about shapeshifting kids, also fine! Those definitely date back to the dawn of human culture, and can be found in the religions of every continent. If you’re writing about trauma, fine. I think you’re okay to borrow almost all of the broad strokes of Animorphs.

Things that wouldn’t be okay to borrow:

Specific descriptions of specific aliens. If you have any vulcan-like beings in this universe, don’t make them four-eyed four-legged scorpion-tailed blue people. Same goes for all the unique species and creatures.

The exact words KAA uses to write the scenes. Hopefully you learned this already in middle school, but you have to do a hell of a lot more than rewording a quote to avoid plagiarism. Don’t even paraphrase any passage from an Animorphs book, ever. Write your own stuff.

Exact plots. If you’re having your child shapeshifters chased by a sentient tornado that senses their shapeshifting energy while they all drive around continuously shapeshifting to play keep-away with said tornado, then that’s copying KAA’s homework even if you never use the words “yeerk” or “veleek.”

Exact characters. This one’s nebulous, but try to avoid having your first narrator be a thirteen-year-old boy who enjoys basketball but was cut from the team, whose older brother is mind-controlled by an alien, whose friends all describe him as middle-aged before his time, and whose girlfriend is an animal-loving assistant vet. You can write a Jake-like character if you change anything from his sport of choice to his ethnicity — and then ask yourself how that difference would change his outlook or upbringing.

Macguffins. This is similar to the specific aliens: however your protagonists gain the ability to shapeshift, don’t make it a blue box.

Step 3: TELL NO ONE.

If I had to guess, at least one author has already done exactly what you’re describing — written heavily modified Animorphs fan fiction and published it as an original work. If I had to make a specific guess, it’d be either that Veronica Roth’s Divergent series started as a work of Rachel/Tobias fan fiction, or that Stephenie Meyer’s The Host started as a fan sequel to the whole series. However, I can’t go beyond guessing, because both authors are (WISELY) keeping their traps shut about the issue. Yes, Roth has mentioned that Tobias “Four” Eaton is named after Tobias Fangor, but hasn’t gone beyond that. Meyer has pulled the ultimate Mary-Shelly-worthy power move by responding to questions about her inspiration with “it came to me in a dream ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” which, honestly, life goals right there.

Speaking of Stephenie Meyer, let’s talk about E.L. James as an example of what not to do. Sure, she didn’t have a ton of choice about people knowing 50 Shades of Grey was Twilight fan fiction — she initially published it on FFN under that heading — but it’s also this unavoidable fact about that novel that has contaminated many people’s perceptions of it. Meyer has chosen to be classy as fuck about the whole thing through making no acknowledgement whatsoever of James, but she’d be well within her right to sue. And James’s own work is forever going to be “that Twilight fan fic that made it big,” never considered purely for its own merits. Jump from E.L. James to Cassandra Clare, and things get uglier: Clare’s been open about the fact that the Mortal Instruments originated as Harry/Draco fan fiction, and as such there’s widespread awareness in fandom spaces that Clare was that cyberbully on FFN back in the day, and is probably guilty of plagiarism.

How to avoid that nonsense? Take it to your grave. I know that one of the bestselling YA novels of 2015 was an utterly-revamped Supernatural fic idea; I only know that through the author being a friend of a friend, because the author has (WISELY) made zero public statements that that’s the case. I know that Tamora Pierce, D.J. MacHale, Stephenie Meyer, and Noelle Stevenson have all quietly acknowledged having FFN or AO3 accounts, and I also know that none of their fan fiction usernames are widely known for good reason. I know that Applegate herself has made statements that, shall we say, do not definitively rule out the possibility that Animorphs might have in its earliest incarnations borne passing resemblance to Lord of the Rings fan fiction. But none of these authors have said as much on the record, which is the right way to go.

Anyway, happy writing!

#animorphs #fan fiction #fandom #writing #fic #animorphs fic #copyright #writing advice #please note: the blogger is not a copyright lawyer #and as such this is mostly just speculation #talk to your publisher and don't take legal advice from me #anonymous #asks

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frogsandfries · 3 years

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Thinking about this story is stressful

I don't wanna think about all the things I should be doing with it--working on lineworks--although I should be working on lineworks, at least every couple weeks. I know, if I work steadily on further lineworks, there will always be further lineworks when it's time that I should reach the end of my pile of lineworks. I don't wanna think about the potentially possibility of getting an agent--did you freaking know there were agents for graphic novels??? I never thought to ask--I don't have enough finished, colored work for a good, strong sip of my story--are just my lineworks good enough? I hate doing linework--that's the worst part!!! I don't wanna be told what to do or how to tell my story. Don't tell me it's not massively marketable, don't tell me how to water it down and Disney-fy it. I'm almost certain it's not marketable.

I just kinda wanna have fun, enjoy it, settle into the art like a good, long, hot, fragrant bath.

I guess between the original manuscript (which I gave up on) and the outline (which is 98% written and 11% organized for consumption), and the lineworks and a highly conservative sprinkling of colored, finished art, maybe........ maybe, possibly with some drive, I could convince an agent to take me on. But then between them and the editor, everyone is going to tell me that I can't market a story like the one I want to tell to the audience that would want to consume it.

But it'd be really, really cool to either hand my work to colorists, or get to focus on making the cross-stitch patterns while someone else stitched them. I mean, I'd love to stitch them all myself, but it would actually take over a week per pattern, from linework to final stitch.

I mean, I don't think anyone would approve a cross-stitched graphic novel.......

Maybe we could go the traditional route, I could just pencil the lineworks, pass them on to an inker, who would pass them along to a colorist. That could be cool; I'd love to see what someone else does with my coloring style or my lineworks or who knows.

I dunno, I'm so used to the idea of finding the best, most efficient but fitting way of getting this project done, probably like most other graphic novelists who are trying to self-publish.

Maybe I could try focusing on filling my thumbnail book and once I think I give a good idea of what the story is about, maybe I start to query some agents...?? Maybe....... I'd be better off without querying some agents, just doing my own thing and seeing where it goes. I don't really want to put myself through, first, the stress of focusing on querying......

I do..... want attention on my work......and maybe..... maybe I'd get more attention on my work.......iiiiiffffff.........I figured out a good way to make my work query-y....... query-able. Just.... what if I bomb. What if the story is stupid, what if the story itself sucks, what if the format, or my presentation format, sucks, what if my presentation itself sucks....... What's a good query format for an indie-style graphic novel? Should I query such an indie-style, completely non-traditional format graphic novel?? How do I format my pages? Two across, two down, per page? Per spread? One across, four down per page?

This isn't fun to think about.

This is stressful.

You know what's fun to think about?

Every time I queue a finished colorwork, I buy another week to work on material for my queue. And you best believe, apart from the occasional side-tangent for like, this bag project, I'm taking full, complete, total advantage.

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gogoichirin · 7 years

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I just found out about Vitya Diaries and from there Never Look Away and I'm... speechless. I haven't started because I don't have the time now to read that much content but I'm flabbergasted. I've read YOI fanfics but this is different. I have to know if you're a published writer. I mean, it's really a YA novel isn't it? I'm SUPER EXCITED!!!! WOW. Like really, I can't imagine the effort you must've put. Thank you so much for creating something like that. I almost mistook it for official info.

Ha! Your enthusiasm is so heartwarming! Thank you so much for your question. :)

To set the record straight, though, no. I’m not published. Not yet. I’ve written three original young adult novels, and started several others, but left them on the in my drawer. My current work in progress, though, is a manuscript that I’m rewriting as a middle grade novel that I have had workshopped and queried to agents. At one point, it was a finished 105k, then 75k finished YA novel… But y'know, you gotta do what’s best for the story. :’) I ended up scrapping ALL of the prose, basically, to rewrite… And while the new 15k is so, so much better- and the agents I showed in December were REALLY excited by it - have so much more to go…

Which, actually, is kind of why I’m working on NLA (and Vitya Diaries) in the first place. I was getting so burnt out on writing and never getting to share my work with anyone but a couple of agents and my very, very close friends, when I really wanted to reach my readers and have fun. So Krista (@mamodewberry) asked me to take a break and write another fanfic with her after my last workshop was done.

It was the best idea. I totally pulled a Viktor and ran away from Yakov/my novel.

But since I don’t usually write 3rd person adult fiction, I started to miss the YA scene… so Krista indulged me in writing Vitya Diaries as a side project. By the time it’s done, it will be a (slightly longer than an agent would prefer) completed YA novel, yes. Lol lol lol. ;)))

I hope this very long response answers your question! Thanks again for your interest, and I hope you enjoy when you read! It’s been a LOT of fun to write!

…Especially since I still don’t have to do the hours and hours and hours of proof reading and editing that I normally do with my real novels credit reading to agents, just some. Buwahaha >:)

–

OKAY, I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR LIKE… FIVE MORE MINUTES and I have some additional thoughts:

Krista has also written books. Like, a huge 3-novel series that she’s had queried but not published, either. That’s part of the whole publishing deal. No one gets published on the first try. She’s worked in a publishing house doing administration work, too.

Neither of us really come from a traditional fic-writing background. I was an illustration/english major at my university, and part of that included my Writing for Children & Adolescents professor asking me to start a weekly critique group for class… which just sort of never stopped? By and by, people from other classes joined, and then people who didn’t go to our school joined, too. I invited Krista, too. So we’ve been workshopping each other’s writing “to get ready for publication” for well over 10 years now.

Clearly, the stuff we post for the fic isn’t… uhhh… nearly as strict as what we would send for an agent. There are way more typos and adverbs than either of us would EVER let go out, and wow there are way too many themes and the word count is RIDICULOUSLY off target. But what is fanfic if not a little indulgent? :);;;

Still, though… we have story sessions, we have outlines, we always go through several iterations for each scene to debate concepts and make sure that our themes are being reinforced… Each character has been assigned to one of us to make sure that background details and characterization is consistent, that we don’t contradict previous scenes… We do research on locations, events, cultural tidbits, language and food, consult with locals when we can, read blog articles and travel posts when we can’t. We rewatch episodes before each chapter, both sub and dub, often multiple times, and we beta each other’s work (often two or three times over). There are still TONS of errors, but we’re trying not to stress too much. It’s still a fun project but we’re doing our best for the time we have.

Once NLA is done, I’ll get back to work on my MG manuscript and send it out to my top three agents list. If it gets picked up, they’ll send it to editors to sell it. Once it gets under contract, then it’ll be on shelves in… like.. two more years! HURRAY~!!!

lol publishing :’)

this is how yoi saved my life

#answers #readers

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