Jabberwocky - Behind the Scenes, as it were.

[kriadydragon]

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that Jabberwocky won the poll. Being one of my earlier stories – with its spelling errors, questionable writing style, word choicing, characterization, etc – looking back over it makes me cringe a little. However, it remains a favorite in terms of characters and plot. It may not be all that pretty mechanical-wise today, but I still enjoyed writing it :D Keep in mind, since it's been a few years since I wrote this, much of the method behind the madness is going to be sketchy at best, so some things I may not be able to go into details on.

Plot: The general idea for the entire story came from the simple desire to turn John into a dragon, without treading into AU territory.

I love scary stories, the kind that make you jump. The kind that makes you both excited to see what happens next and dreading it. Part of the inspiration for this story came from a game called Clive Barker's: Undying. Possibly the scariest game ever created. The setting of the game is dark, the hero's vision limited even when using a scrying spell that lets him see his enemy, so you never know what might jump at you from around the corner. Playing this game always made my heart pound non-stop, and that kind of anxiety was something I wanted to practice achieving in my own stories. The second part of my inspiration came from a graphic novel called Fairytales and Nightmares, which puts an even more macabre twist on the old classics than the original fairytales themselves. I wanted a kind of dark fairytale feel to Jabberwocky: a young girl of great importance going on an adventure, an evil grandmother (yes, I almost made her a stepmother) out to kill said girl, evil monster wanting girl all to himself, strange creatures and the girl's champions fighting to protect her. I tend to lean more toward fantasy than science fiction, wanted to incorporate my love of fantasy into an SGA fic, and Jabberwocky was that way :D. So, in a way, writing Jabberwocky was an act of pure indulgence.

Characters:

Cyladrans – I needed a bad guy for Sheppard to fight in his monster form, but didn't want just some angry tribe out to get the team for trespassing on sacred ground. I wanted a bad guy you could really sink you teeth into; who you could really hate – self-righteous, self-assured, clever. I have trouble creating such bad guys as I tend to make most bad guys a means to an end (i.e. an excuse for the hero to fight, go on a journey, whatever) and I wanted to get out of that mindset, especially for this story.

Mathers – poor fresh-faced, good-hearted Brian Mathers was, I fear, a means to an end. It's my personal opinion that the best and/or quickest way to send John to the edge and/or over it is by having one of his people killed right in front of his face, with nothing he could do about it. And, yes, the person had to die because I wanted poor John suffering, so it couldn't be one of his team. Enter fresh-faced and good-hearted Mathers. It actually hurt killing him off. I really hated doing that.

Krissa – Our girl of great importance, with Rodney's brain and Teyla's and Elizabeth's personality. It was inevitable to make her a child. Any older – say in her twenties – and I knew I would have had my readers heading to the anti-het hills despite the fact that I would have never entertained the notion of having it lead to a het situation. Which is the second reason I went for Krissa being a child – to avoid possible het situations ;) Plus, younger means more innocent, and more innocent means a little more sympathy for this OFC in a fanfic story.

Bren – Bren was inevitable. Of course a child wouldn't travel all alone to some weird mansion out in the middle of nowhere. As to why I made Bren mute... I can't really say now, except to say that, at the time, it had felt right. To have him talk, I felt, would have made him a kind of third wheel, so I made him mute.

Bart – I love Bart :D I loved writing him, and especially loved creating him. Creating odd creatures is a passion of mine, which is what I love about writing in the Stargate fandom: all those aliens worlds to use in making up a plethora of odd creatures.

Savine – I needed a mad scientist, a monster other than Diavante to cause most of the trouble, and someone to basically cause most of the trouble since Diavante doesn't make an appearance for a while.

Sereeka – Sereeka was kind of my way of thumbing my nose at all those sensual vixens in Sci-fi shows trying to seduce our hero and, more often than not, succeeding. Though I did feel a tad remorseful about killing her so violently, it was a short-lived remorse. I hate characters like her.

Diavante – I seem to have a thing for infallible Ancients. Diavante and his in-between state was inspired by Anubis from SG-1 (who, yes, I know wasn't an Ancient). I needed a scary monster, and screwed-up Ascension attempts via evil motives gave me the means to create that monster.

Critter John – As I said in the beginning, turning John into a dragon was the foundation for this story. Since I was sticking as close as possible to canon, I wanted Sheppard's altered form to be something more alien than fantasy. It was part of the reason I didn't give him wings (though I plan to in the sequel). I was tempted to give him a tail, but seeing what the spikes did to his clothes... well, I didn't want to tread on that particular ground. It would have cheapened the story too much, I felt.

Setting: The majority of the game Undying takes place in a massive Victorian mansion. At one point in the game, there's a storm, and the hero has to go out on the rooftop in order to reach another part of the mansion. It was that section of the game which was the source of my favorite scene in the entire story and that motivated me to write Jabberwocky. I had an image of John, in his “dragon” form, slinking over rain-slicked rooftops hunting monsters. I loved the image so much I just had to get it down into words, and that led to the rest of the story.

The Writing Process: I'm a very linear writer. I have to tackle a story in precise order, because what happens before more often than not inspires what happens next. First I write a synopsis, then outline the story it parts, those parts usually making up a single chapter or two chapters, then I never look at the outline again unless absolutely necessary. Outlines help me to organize what I have in my head – put it in order – and when I write something down it's usually branded firmly in my mind, so most of the time I don't need to refer to the outline. I like to leave a story somewhat open and let the plot itself tell me what I should do, because where the story takes me ends up more interesting than where I'd wanted it to go.

Q&A: That's all I can recall concerning the making of Jabberwocky. If there's anything you'd like to know or had hoped I'd cover and didn't, please, ask away :D.

Comments

[dragonfairymaid.livejournal.com]

Thanks! As someone who doesn't write it has always intriqued me where writers get their ideas and how they apply them to their writings. Thanks again!

[manderkitty.livejournal.com]

This was awesome! I liked Jabberwocky because the feel of it reminded me of one of the old Shivers games, and though I've never played Undying I get where you're coming from in re that creeped out feeling of limited vision in a dark, closed environment.

(Sequel? Really? Yay!)