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bookshelf-in-progress · 11 months ago

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Writing excerpt asks: 2, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13

2. that makes me laugh

Beatrice's response to Beast's final marriage proposal in "A Day Late" always make me laugh, because it's so unlike the way that moment goes in other "Beauty and the Beast" retellings.

Behind her, Beast said weakly. “You’ll…marry me?” The cloak slipped from Beatrice’s arms, and she cursed under her breath. “Yes, you overgrown throw rug, but first you have to live long enough to do it.”

6. that i struggled with, but triumphed over

This was a hard one to answer, because most of the stories I struggle with never get finished.

But now I have an answer! "A Garden of Wishes", my 12 Dancing Princesses retelling, was supposed to be a quick, easy retelling of the fairy tale that ballooned into the longest non-Arateph retelling I've ever finished. The first part came easily, but that last act terrified me. Then I almost finished, but had issues with the progression of those final scenes, and worried that I'd need to overhaul the whole story, so I was too intimidated to finish, and left it sit for months.

Then, when I finally buckled down, I realized that, as long as I was committed to the 2nd-person POV, all I really had to do was edit a couple of scenes in that last act, and then write about 1,000 more words to finish it off. Whether it counts as a triumph or not is open to interpretation, but I'm glad to have finished.

10. with characters i struggle with

My "Rapunzel" retelling set on Arateph remains in perpetual stasis because although I love the plot, I can't get a proper handle on the characters. But here's a snippet from one of the many wildly different drafts that shows a bit of their situation.

Camreth asked, "Do you even look up from that desk when I’m not around?” “Of course I do.” “Rarely.” “That’s not a bad thing,” Zemma said. “I’m a tower scholar. I’m meant to focus on my work.” “And they keep you prisoner to do it.” Zemma’s jaw fell, but she was unable to speak, save for a horrified squeak of indignation. “I am not a prisoner! I can leave whenever I want!” “Prove it, he said, crossing his arms. “Come with me.” Zemma’s indignation melted beneath a jolt of surprise—halfway between jumping off a cliff and getting a naming day gift. “Come? Out…? Where?” His smile and his eyes grew bright with possibility. “What’s Snowmelt without a picnic? I know a perfect place. Not far from campus. I’ve been dying to show it to you.”

11. with characters i want to write more in the future

I wish I could figure out a way to make use of my pre-revolutionary Arateph characters and write more stories with them.

Here's a snippet of Marastel and Jemrauth's interaction after the moment at Jemrauth's coronation, when he used his chosen virtue name to declare his intention to stay loyal to the woman his father forbid him to marry.

Marastel couldn’t smile anymore. “Jemrauth,” she said. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” “In intricate and exhaustive detail,” he sighed. “Shall I repeat the full lecture, or stick to the highlights?” “Your father?” “If he weren’t such a slave to decorum, I think he’d have dragged me away by my hair. I didn’t take two steps off the stage before his guards steered me toward his study.” “Was he that angry?” “Does Common Tephan have a word stronger than ‘livid’?” “Jemrauth,” she sighed, half in sympathy, half in suffering. “Apparently,” he said, with jovial irony in the words, “I have dishonored the crown, made a mockery of the sacred practice of virtue naming, and failed to live up to my first virtue name of Verinen—because it seems that failing to inform one’s parent of every nuance of a chosen virtue name counts as lying now.” Marastel sank into her chair. “All because of me.”

12. that has a particularly good bit of characterization

You once pointed this out as a good piece of characterization of Jemrauth and Marastel, and now it's the only thing that comes to mind as the one point where I was a little bit clever with my characterization.

Marastel found Jemrauth seated in his broad-winged desk chair, examining one of the daily reports, his reading spectacles firmly in place. Marastel loved and hated those spectacles; they added a graceful touch of distinction to his face, but he never smiled when he wore them. The reports seldom held good news.

13. that helped me understand a character better

Letter XIX in "The True Story" unexpectedly turned into a moment where Ben explained his character and backstory in great detail. The whole thing helped me to understand him, but this is where it started.

You ask me why these books--and the phenomena surrounding their existence--matter so much to me. I can answer only by biography. Wright and Co. is a small, cluttered, dim, obscure shop--you could find a thousand used book stores like it anywhere in the world--but from a young age (the shop was owned by my uncle then) it seemed a place of unique enchantment. I would spend summer days racing among the stacks and losing myself in books. I grew more jaded and cynical as I aged--most teenagers do--but whenever I was in danger of becoming a disaffected youth, there was something about the shop that made me feel there was something more than the meaninglessness of everyday life. Learning about the miracle of the books felt like getting the answer to a question I hadn't realized I was asking. Here was proof there was something beyond the mundane and predictable. Something too wonderful for the human mind to understand. Some wondrous power cared enough about the patrons of this shop to help them get the right story in their hands at the right time--even if that story had never been written. Other books have authors and publishers, but these books seemed like a gift from the author of imagination itself.

#answered asks #arateph #a day late #the true story #isfjmel-phleg #i made the mistake of putting this in drafts after copying the questions into it #and then forgetting it existed #since i wasted my writing time this morning i thought i could at least post this #you get a lot of arateph because that's one of the few places where i do some characterization

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transpeterparkcr · 1 month ago

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honestly kudos to Elementary for gender swapping John Watson in what we all thought was an attempt to make johnlock palatable to the masses and then proceeding to not only make them entirely platonic but also become the ONLY modern adaptation where i actually feel like them being platonic makes complete sense

#they are lifelong partners in a completely platonic sense and i love it #and i don't even ship either of them with anyone else #its just the one time where it makes sense #every other sherlock/john adaptation has them eye fucking every other scene #not here!!!!#they're both fully capable of existing without each other but fucking guess what #they don't want to #and that makes them better #sometimes i forget how much i love elementary #cbs elementary

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coffeeworldsasaki · 2 years ago

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