Hello! You’re right – episodes 11 and 12 hadn’t been written when I started Face the Raven, In fact, I’m not sure the scripts had been started by the time I finished, as ep10 was shot quite early in the schedule, before ep9, and Steven is a frighteningly fast writer. However, he let me in on his rough plan for the final two episodes when he sent me off to write my second draft – the point at which my trap street story became ep10 and took on the story of Clara’s death, Ashildr’s involvement, etc, all leading into ep11. So I knew what was going to happen in broad strokes. I knew the Doctor would be all alone and at his nadir in ep11, and that he was going to try to bring Clara back in some way in ep12, but I didn’t know what would ultimately come of that effort… except of course that Jenna wasn’t going to be in s10!
I didn’t need to know all the details of ep12 in order to write ep10, and I was happy to keep it that way so that I could enjoy the final episodes mostly unspoiled as they went to air. The final beats of Clara’s story were a surprise to me on Saturday. I watched with my heart in my mouth just like everyone else. I’m sure I stopped breathing altogether when it seemed like Clara might get Donna’d, and I burst into ugly happy tears when she refused to accept that awful fate. “I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that. It’s mine.” Precious clever fierce as hell Clara bae!! How so perf??? ;___;
I was particularly touched by the return of Rigsy’s painted TARDIS (weirdly, it felt like seeing one of my friends on television – startling and personal and proud-making) and I had no idea she was going to “live” and run off with Ashildr. That idea is taking some getting used to, to be honest. Not because I don’t want her to survive and thrive, and bring Jane onto their TARDIS for adventures, and carry on dazzling the universe for goodness knows how long. No, I think it just feels strange because I have spent the best part of twelve months contemplating Clara’s death in every possible way. I grieved for her from every angle in every draft I wrote, and witnessing your grief for her after FtR aired was the final beat of closure in that journey. I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet that the character gets to live on. Not only live on, but live on gloriously. How do you unpick all that bedded-in grief and closure? You guys only had two weeks of it – I had a full year! I’m going to have to watch Hell Bent again…
But now I have to read through it to find mistakes (aka look at it again).
It’s filled with typos and awful sentences.
It’s finished, It’s finished, I can’t keep fiddling!
Talking myself into posting it.
And then obsessively tracking every hit, comment or kudos.
Posted on
Writing stories is hard work. Don’t let your friends or family tell you any different. From the outside, it looks like sporadic tapping on the keyboard, distracted sips of coffee, and long stares out the window. But inside, you’re wrestling demons. You’re about to bring a new story into the world, which is both incredible and incredibly important.
Why are stories important? …A good story can mean the difference between life and death for a reader—usually the death is spiritual rather than literal, but spiritual deaths can be just as painful and just as consuming. Storytelling is a part of every human culture because every human needs survival information.
they can’t tell that I didn’t write this bit immediately after that one
the six months where I ignored the manuscript are not visible to the naked eye
the bit where I put my head in my hands and muttered “I have no idea what I’m doing” takes place in the single space between the period and the next capital letter.
As soon as I shove that character in, she has always been there
and someone will probably say that she’s the emotional center
and the book couldn’t have been written without her
and nobody will know that I thought of her three thousand words from the end and scrolled up and shoehorned in a couple of paragraphs near the beginning because, for whatever reason, the story needed an elderly nun
she was almost the cook
and for about ten minutes she was the earnest young village priest
and now she has been there since you started reading.
I am sanding down the places where my editor found splinters
kicking up a fine dust of adjectives and dropped phrases
(Wear a breath mask. Work in a well-ventilated area. Have you seen what excess commas can do to your lungs?)
and eventually it will all be polished to a high shine
Why Did You Capitalize The Word ‘Cabbage’ But Not The Word ‘France’ : an adventure in reading fanfiction
coming soon, the thrilling sequel: ‘You’ve Gone Through Three Different Tenses In The Space Of One Paragraph And I Think You Just Invented A Whole New One All Of Your Own’
and the long anticipated conclusion to the trilogy: ‘I Have No Idea Who Is Supposed To Be Speaking Right Now’
Don’t forget the essential supplemental texts, That Does Not Physically Work and Anything Is Lube.
Decorated by the thrilling prequel series How Many Ways Can You Describe A Person Using Epithets And Not Their Name, featuring You’re Somehow Convinced That Three Paragraphs of Clothing Detail is Important and Thrilling, and I Have Never Beheld Something So Out Of Character In My Life
Please don’t forget the charming brochure The Most Intimidatingly Huge Paragraphs Of Our Times. There is also the sister novella Multiple Characters Speaking In The Same Paragraph, and the loosely-connected-but-not-strictly-necessary side series Forgoing Punctuation: Misadventures With Enigmatic Run-On Sentences.
That Doesn’t Exist in this Universe and You’re Not Writing an AU: A Leaflet on Anachronisms.
Why Did You Choose the Second Person Over Literally Anything Else, a primer on POV.
Weirdly Specific Fetishes And You: An Introductory Guide to Oversharing With Your Readers.
What Does This Fic Have In Common With a Firefight Hint It’s All The Goddamn Bulletpoints: We Know You’ve Been Lectured On Overly-Long Paragraphs, But This Is Over-Compensation.
I’m in a writing group with around 40 people and one of the common reasons people don’t post their work is because “no one ever comments on it, so no one is reading it” which blows because their work is amazing and instead it’s sitting in storage.
0 words: this idea is great! someone should write it! *I* will write it! it’s going to be brilliant and everyone will adore it
0-500 words: omg writing is so hard i’ve been writing for hours and the numbers never change why am i doing this
500-2000 words: i know i just posted something else recently but clearly i’ve forgotten how to write in the meantime. this is all a disaster i should give up
2000-3000 words: hey waiiiit wait did my characters just do that? where did that scene come from?? THIS IS AMAZING i’m so talented
3000-4000 words: i just read a comment on someone else’s fic and now i want to quit forever because my writing will never make anyone feel that way
4000-5000 words: nah man this is actually awesome i’m in the zoooone everything’s flowing this is going to be beautiful
5000-6000 words: i’m still writing but i’m completely distracted by another idea i just had that would be wayyyy better
50,000 words: what the hell happened
There’s something masochistic about writing. Watch me break my own heart over and over again while I try to find the most effective way to break yours.
If you’re ever like “but what do fic writers even WANT.”
a book report
They want a book report.
They want you to get 9th grade English up in their shit.
Remember having to write ad nauseam about the symbolism of that stupid conch in Lord of the Flies? They want you to do that about Steve Roger’s shield and Emma Swan’s jacket.
WHoa seriously?? People WANT this? Holy crap, I always thought I’d be really rude to leave an overly long comment on something, or it’d just be super creepy for me to babble a load of emotional attatchment I had to their product, or all my wild fan theories which are probably wrong… I mean.. I know if I ever created something I’d wanna see comments like that, but I’m a weirdo and I haven’t even created anything anyway so what do I know? Umm.. yeah.. so… at my followers and friends and stuff: does anyone agree with this? Do I have permission to really ramble embarrassingly and honestly when I like your stuff, or would you prefer short and semi-rational comments?
I agree! I really like to read people toughts on my stuff, no matter the writing style.
I always LOVE knowing that readers understand why I chose certain ways of getting things across! I also love seeing which bits OTHER PEOPLE liked best! Since I’m the author, I’m biased. I either think my work is brilliant or I have crushing doubts.
So – whichever you want, or feel comfortable with!
Every review or comment is a wonderful thing to receive and will probably make a fic writer’s day, but yes. All of the above. Tell us your favorite line. Tell us what worked (or didn’t! criticism is okay too!) a verbosely as you want. We definitely want to know.
I get stupidly excited over every single comment because I still can’t believe anyone reads the crap that I write.
Yes
I’ve made some amazing friends through comments left on fan fiction. I love to hear people’s thoughts on chapters and what they loved or hated or what made them think. Just whatever comes to mind. I can be slow with it, but I try to get back to people that leave reviews from their accounts and I’ve had times where we’ve ended up great friends because of it.
Yes! Always feel free to leave reviews and never be afraid that I’ll judge you on it. Each and ever one of them makes me smile like crazy.
Yes! A book report! That’s a dream come true!
All comments are lovely… but knowing someone actually took the time to consider the words or the pacing – all the effort that writing takes – is fabulous!
THIIIIIIIIIS TIMES A MIILLLIOOOOONNNN
TELL me you noticed the foreshadowing. And the symbols and the allusions and the dumb pop culture refs. Make wild expansive meta of that one line in that one scene which I didn’t actually think much about at the time I wrote it but HOLY SHIT THAT’S SUCH A CLEVER IDEA OMG. Make me sweat because you noticed that one other thing I added and oh yes my god, they’re onto me! Book reports. Live comments as you’re reading. Seriously. I enjoy them so much.
