AO3-ing

[kriadydragon]

I'm slowly but surely getting my stories up on AO3 (SGA stories and up. Anything before then I haven't really decided if I want to transfer since it's my earliest of earliest so not that great). Everything White Collar that I wanted to transfer has been transferred.

SGA I'm currently up to Hound of Hell you Cry, and that's just my FF.net stuff. There's still my LJ stuff, my Flashfiction stuff... my word I wrote a lot of SGA :/

And knowing what I know now, it's all mostly cringe worthy. Not bad just... to clean most of them up I would probably have to rewrite them.

And have I improved over the years? Honestly? I can't say. I've fluctuated so much in terms of style, and mood, and motivation (which at one point took such a major beating I almost lost the will to write) that it's all kind of jumbled - some stories I've written with care and attention, others written to get them out of the way, some stories are wordy, some stories in need of more words. And, being the author, I'm forever going to see the need to improve.

But I can say that I have definitely changed when it comes to writing. Plot is what matters. Writing a good story is what matters. Writing candy fic... not so much. Though I still love H/C and whump, I'm not as heavy handed about it as I used to be. Nor am I bound and determined to squeeze in every single one of my little kinks. Writing a well written fic has become far more satisfying than writing a story merely to satiate a craving, and that I do consider to be an improvement (not that I think there is anything wrong with candy fic. Far from it. But I want to be a professional writer, and to write the kind of books that make it in the publishing world - and with readers - I need to be careful not to let my plots get bogged down by my "trope cravings." In other words, I need to be able to balance having my cake and eating it, too.)

Comments

[kajahryujin.livejournal.com]

I can say that there was a definite improvement in your writing since you started. I quite enjoy your stories since they are the hurt comfort genre but there is also an emphasis on the recovery. There needs to be more of that in this genre. I agree that there are many things that distract authors from their writing and make them leery of writing very long stories, myself included. I also have an issue with the middles of stories. I can get the beginnings and endings down but the middles are difficult. Do you have any advice on how to resolve that issue?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Endings are my own bane. I know how I want a story to end but can never get the story to end in a way that feels just right. I hate ending a story. Drives me up the wall.

Middles I love since that's where all the good stuff happens. As for advice, I don't know if I have any that's helpful. Everyone has their own way of writing - some are linear, some aren't. Some outline down to the smallest detail, some figure out the plot as they go.

For me, it helps to be organized. Not just to have the beginning and end in mind, but to know what needs to happen to get from the beginning to that ending. Which is why I love outlines, especially for the longer, more complicated works. They not only put the plot in order but help keep the major plot points on track.

How detailed to make the outline usually depends on the story - some outlines for some stories are longer than others - but I like to at least leave a little room to let the story develop how it needs to. Writing an outline doesn't mean doing exactly what that outline says - for me, most of the time, once I start writing I never look at the outline again. But it's there when things start getting so complicated you have no idea where to go next.