Tag: writing meme

Ten Fic First Line Meme

I saw this floating around me dash, so figured why not:

The opening lines of the last 10 fics I’ve written (or updated). More or less in order. Didn’t include unpublished WIPs, though tempted to.

  1. Tacholdir used to manufacture pins in Tirion. (from The Seventh of the Twelve/Pins)

  2. It started with a question which should have been harmless. (from Whatcha Gonna Call It?)

  3. These are the girls of Minas Tirith before Sauron comes.

    (from The Girls of Minas Tirith)

  4. The princess’s eyes were light and bright as the source of the River Narog, the fair pools of Ivrin for which Lord Gwindor had named her, the green-blue of leaves reflected in clear water. (from Release from Bondage)

  5. Arodreth blamed his old age for his bull-headed stubbornness. (from The Bull and the Tides)

  6. The first tribe of Speakers, Kwendî, were never large in number, and their choices would keep their tribe small. (from Of Ingwë Ingweron)

  7. Bledda was given the task of interrogating the captured Easterling warriors. (from Revenant)

  8. Eärwen has a distaste for spinning flax, as the thread breaks in her fingers, and even when she successfully spins it, she can see and feel all the slubs of her inferior work.

    (from Spin Songs for the Sea)

  9. Her husband pulls out the shard of sun-stone, notching more lines in the railings of the ship, murmurs into the breeze soft words of heading and degrees into the wind, and wishes for charts of currents. (from Elwing prompt/Widow’s Walk)

  10. Huan does not admit to himself that of the reasons he hunts the wolves of Morgoth is to silence the voice of his litter-mate that combines with the self-doubt that lowers his proud tail and causes him to whine in the night.   (from Alone of the Hounds of the Land of Light/Book of Hours)

Audience Participation: Fic-Writing Edition

cosmictuesdays:

Taken from someone else on another network, deemed too good not to use.

Ask me a question about one of my fics or series. It can be absolutely anything in any project and I will tell you the honest-to-goodness answer (even on the progress/plans for next chapters of current series).

Don’t hold back. Whatever you ask, I’ll answer as truthfully and as completely as possible. You can also ask about my writing as a whole, if you like.

i hope it’s not cheating, since the fic is not finished yet, but 3, 5, 7, 10 for the faeron & faelindis fic!

Not cheating at all! (And if you want, as a fellow theon/jeyne + silm fan, I can send you the link to the story, as more readers the better.)

3. What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?

I still think the parts where Faelindis corners Faron and talks to him about memories of green and the sea is the most bittersweet and tragic-romantic of the fic. I’m also proud of how Galuven pushed himself onto the page and how he adds character and tension to that flashback section where C&C are ruling Nargothrond, and has parallel situations to several characters including Faron. 

5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?

Okay, right now I’m working on the section where Maeglin is brought into Angband and then the rev up to conquer Gondolin from Faron and the slaves’ pov. It’s slow going and while the first part where Faelindis asks about Gondolin I really like (and I’ll post it), the rest of it is unfinished.

“Faron tried to recall the host of Gondolin as it appeared unlooked for on that morning of the Fifth Battle. He remembered the horns coming out of the mist from the south, from the direction of the Fens of Serech, that place where the men of Barahir had rescued him in the Fourth Battle. The unfamiliar horns brightened the spirits of the High King and filled the army with overconfident joy. The Noldor serving under King Fingon recognized the banner of his younger brother. Turgon was his name, the king of Gondolin, the one Galuven swore had been the closest friend to King Finrod. Galuven had recognized the banners emerging in the distant mist, chief among them the blue, silver, red, and gold of the king. Other banners there had been, a golden flower on a field of green, blue with a multi-hued gem, silver and crystal, green, more purples and blues and white, and several that were black, half of which had a silver harp. It was the silver harp that Faron remembered most, for he had wanted to weep when he saw it approach. The shape had been wrong, and it had not the burning torch nor the field of muted green, but it had come from the direction of the Pass of Sirion, and for a second he had believed the ghosts had returned.”

And the two very short segments before the last segment that finish what I call the middle arc. The third to last is only one line, but I don’t know if it needs to be expanded or if the brevity works. Or if to switch the order of the segments around. (It has to do with post-Gondolin, where Faron has pretty much lost all hope, especially when he hears about the Mouths of Sirion).

And the title. Right now it’s “Release From Bondage”, which isn’t much better than “Squidboy in Angband” tbh.

7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?

The actual escape, as I haven’t finished it, but there were a couple of ideas I toyed with, but will probably go with the simplest plan. Also I’m firmly attached to the general spirit of LaCE, if nothing else, so despite the inspiration material, I’ve axed almost all story threads that explicitly involve Ramsay!orc predatory sexual interest in Faelindis (which is not a bad thing). 

And that I’ve expanded both Faron’s flashbacks of Nargothrond and really gone into detail of ‘here’s everything happening in Beleriand because the Balrogs like to spread gossip’ and the architecture of Angband (though I think i’ve lost focus on exploring the orcs themselves). It’s a much longer and hopefully stronger work for that.

10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?

The later half of The Silmarillion from the POV of prisoners in Angband, as inspired by A Dance with Dragons.**

**possible actual summary

 

(Or: “Another Theon/Jeyne AU because that first one wasn’t ‘Lay of Leithian’-esque enough for me.”)

Ask me fic-specific questions!

squirrelwrangler:

ridiculouslittleidiots:

Drop the title of one of my fics and a number in my inbox, and I will tell you:

  1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
  2. What’s my favorite part of the fic?
  3. What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?
  4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
  5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?
  6. Who’s my favorite character in the fic?
  7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
  8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
  9. Did anyone in the fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?
  10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?
  11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
  12. Did any thing about this fic’s reception surprise me?
  13. What were my beta’s major comments about the first draft of this fic?
  14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
  15. Any other question about the fic!

your fave fic about edain/eldar interactions, ✄ ♡ ☠ ★

OOooh man I don’t even know which story to pick? Do I go with one of the Angrod and the Bëor (which would probably be Irongrip and Rage-Bunny unless I go with the Gone Fishing or the Boromir in the Swamps ficlets)? Or the trilogy of old Bór women mouthing off in exasperation and disgust to the Fëanorians?

*spins the wheel of indecision*

The collective Bór quartet, for ease of answering

  • ✄: something i deleted before the final draft

ah, I’m terrible in that I add to my drafts more than I can remember deleting things. Though i do know at least in my initial conception of the story that would the latest one with Borte the First, there was a stronger emphasis on her seen as this witch figure, and the warriors of Ulfang assaulting her daughters(-in-law). I do know in earlier versions of my idea, Bór was still alive post-Nirneath – that he was bed-ridden and dying when Ulfang/Lorgan’s warriors come, so Borte has to leave from tending his side to throw them out, so there’s the old Bór dying in the backroom so to speak while this is happening and Borte uses that as part of shaming the hostile warriors away, and then when Bór dies (idk? i think maybe he died in the middle of this face-off stuff?) that’s when Borte flees. But it was much simpler and more streamlined to have Bór die right before the Nirnaeth gets into gear, thus leaving Uldor less opposition and as this dark omen over the Bór going in.

  • ♡: my favorite part 

Of the first one with Kreka, my favorite part still is when she kneels over the prayer rug, because the pose and the feeling of the carpet in her hands and the helplessness was so visceral when I wrote it and still is, and these thoughts of doubt and how she sees the options that aren’t options before and behind her and the memories of her family and the examples of her ancestors that she doesn’t know if she can uphold. It’s the core of …everything.

  • ☠: something i found challenging 

Kreka’s talk to the Fëanorians in the second fic (more the wrapping up that speech and their last words and making sure the flow of the conversation- I had the points and various lines, but making sure it flowed. And correcting the timeline intervals for everything to fit with canon). Then when I got to Borte it was hard to make sure it wasn’t too similar. And I went back to the dialogue a lot and added quite a bit to Maglor’s presence and made him more openly defending and welcoming to the Bór (but still that moment where he switches over and sides with his brothers because they are Fëanorians and only their direct kin count in the end. If I didn’t have that, I’d be wildly mis-characterizing those characters from the book) Also the packing scenes. What do these semi-nomadic people pack their items in and how do they carry them…

  • ★: something i’m proud to have accomplished 

I wrote several popular-ish stories off of mostly OC human characters from a group that had all of two or three lines in the Silmarillion. The stories made at least one reader think “what happened to the People of Bór?”

Interest and excitement for these Good-Guy Easterlings ♥

brides of death, ☼ ☄ ☾ ☽ ★

☼: how i came up with the idea

Oh, definitely I want to say Andreth singing this bitter folk love songs (Leithian Script inspiration) as this counterpoint to Aegnor’s own suicidal nature. “My man left me over another woman, and she was death, etc...” Along the way that combined with the other element of the Wise Women holding the history of the Edain, so the sort of folk history and reenactments for holidays. Most of all from Florence and the Machine’s ‘Dog Days are Over’ and ‘Howl’, which I used as the soundtrack/mental background songs for said scene. This idea of Bëor’s tribe running away from Hildoren, so each year a remembrance holiday recreating it with younger lads wearing masks to pretend to be Sauron’s wolves hunting them as part of a dance between the wolves and youths dressed as the fleeing tribe, with the singer Wise Woman standing in for Morgoth commanding the wolves- and one youth is picked out and dragged forth to the ‘throne’ – and one year when it’s Andreth singing it’s Beren who’s picked (after last year when he got to play a wolf) and he smirks at his aunt and declares he doesn’t fear ‘Morgoth’ and yeah foreshadowing for both him and Húrin —I need to write this fic.

But yeah, just reading the Athrabeth and Adanel’s Story and because it was heavily about the Gift of Men means mortality is a gift, but also the beginnings of humans. And then the other thing was I had a bunch of short fantasy stories I read all the time growing up, and one of them was how a knight slays a dragon, but it’s a sour and bittersweet story, because what the knight does is give the maiden who’s the last in a long line of those to be fed to the dragon some poison or opium, so that after the dragon eats her, it is weakened and that’s when the knight comes and kills it. I remember the squire being dissatisfied that it had to work that way, that they couldn’t save the maiden but only lessen her pain and then use her death.

But that plot stuck with me.

So they combined in my head, the People of Bëor fleeing Morgoth’s control and the Wise Women both standing in for those as well as preserving their story and Sauron as a dragon to be poisoned, and then poison as mistletoe because Norse mythology (and add in Viking funeral and sacrifice of the slave girl and the influence is easy to see) which led to the flower crowns with grew to have everything in them.

☄: what the writing process was like

I’d been asked by becca I think a few months ago for general Bëoring fashion, where I mentioned the mistletoe. As I’ve said, this story or at least the concept was as old as Rage-Bunny and Irongrip, mulling around for years in my brain. So for edain summer I figured now or never. it was very quick to write- the hardest/longest part was going on wikipedia and looking down the list of poisonous plants, so each link I added a bit (the vetch flowers was such an addition). I wanted it fairy-tale like, so I knew I needed the rule of three. I know I went back and edited some typos and added a line or two at places, but it was very easy and flowed how I knew it would. And was a lot longer.

I know the opening comes from the original conception of the story, of Finrod (and Aegnor) hearing the recording off Vairë’s loom of Andreth’s song, and Finrod’s belated realization that Andreth’s folk song is that of the sacrificial maiden facing Morgoth’s dragon. So this idea of how much does or doesn’t Finrod know of this history tying back to death.

☾: how i thought people would respond to the fic

Ummm, I thought you’d sort of like it and maybe kate and becca, and I think I was worried it was pre-history of the Edain so it wasn’t Bëor enough for the week’s theme. But I thought my writing was pretty strong, and it’s that area of telling a sort-of myth that I feel comfortable in.

☽: how people *actually* responded

Wow! it’s like popular, for a given value of popular for my stuff?! And on AO3 it has the second-most kuddos of everything and the most bookmarks. And people really thought it was creepy and dark, which I didn’t sit down and think just how morbid it was idk I know that’s the whole premise but maybe I have some dissociation to just how much? And that I didn’t put as much emphasis on the Andreth versus Finrod as I feel readers felt? Trying to think what else… The fanart was very cool!

★: something i’m proud to have accomplished

This fic was popular enough to be re-blogged by more than one or two people? that’s awesome! and inspired art?! Still not over the shock and elation.

Also, lookie Andreth fic with her as a bitter old lady looking into a fire, and not one Aegnor flashback*. In fact her stillbirth romance with him is all off-page and in the subtext (it’s still there, in the bitterness and the fuck you for screwing our chances Morgoth and I wish I could have been reborn as an elf). But it’s almost something fresh.

*okay, one