Work in Progress meme
Mar. 15th, 2011 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galadriel1010There's a meme going around where you sum up the WIPs saved on your computer, but I can't do that because I don't work like that. I finish a chapter or short story and I post it, so no fragments sitting around. Any fragments I do have are scraps of conversations or descriptions that don't actually fit into a wider story yet.
What I do have are a couple of ongoing stories that I'm in the middle of writing and posting.
Just A Mistake
This is the big one. I started it in May 2009, and it is now over 140,000 words long, has 49 chapters to date and has had over 111,000 hits and 761 reviews. Interest has been waning lately (mine too), probably partly due to the stupidly long delays between posting, and partly because it's so long and a bit dry. The whole story needs a complete overhaul, but first it needs finishing.
It's about:
Jack proposes to Ianto, Ianto thinks that this is a bad idea for many reasons and decides that he and Jack are too close and he needs to get away from Cardiff. He accepts a standing job offer in London being the Downing Street Advisor on Extra Terrestrial Activity (remember that I wrote that bit before Children of Earth aired) and starts rebuilding Torchwood London as a head office and administration centre for Extra Terrestrial organisations across the UK, as well as an elite defence team for the Prime Minister and the royal family.
Naturally, he discovers that he doesn't really want to leave Jack after all, and they get back together through working together, struggle through a long-distance relationship, are accepted by Ianto's family and rejected by Alice, combine their skills with UNIT to move the reorganisation forwards and, eventually, get married. I hope.
To finish:
It's currently in the run-up to Christmas and I need to get through to June and Jack and Ianto's wedding. First task is to get over Christmas and work out how it'll work with this version of Ianto's family, and then I can move on with the development schemes, Ianto sending his second for field training with Jack and her pissing contests with Gwen, then his second coming back to London and preparing to take over from him so that he can move back to Cardiff, whilst the boys plan their wedding and get Exit Wounds dropped on them. I've not quite decided what will happen there, but I think I have an idea. I do know that Jack is more vulnerable after that than he was in canon, because I think that canon is bollocks when it comes to Jack's mental state, and that it takes them a while to decide that they are definitely going on with the wedding. All is fluffy, they have a stag do at which Jack, Ianto and the Prime Minister (who is played by Stephen Fry) all get dragged up, and then they make it to the signing of the register and go off on their honeymoon.
Yeah, just, you know, a simple story. *Snorts*
To rework it:
The thing is, this is all long and rambling, and I think I can really get it shorter and more concise. Also, my plans for what to do with Torchwood have mutated as I've gone through, so I need to get that more focussed and not change plans between chapters. And I want to shift their relationships with the outside world, tidy up the canon characters so that they're more in character, polish up the original characters so that they have more depth and don't keep disappearing into the background, and have a set calendar for events that doesn't fluctuate.
Seriously, their first kiss after breaking up was on Ianto's birthday and I didn't notice until several chapters later.
And I think, possibly maybe if I try really hard, with a couple more reworkings after that one, I can probably polish it down to an original story. It'll require rewriting of characters and the invention of new organisations to frame it but... I might as well try, right?
The sequel:
Yeah, there's a sequel. I have no idea how long this whole process is going to drag out for, but it's good practice.
The Treanscendence 'verse
This is another big plot thing, a jointly written universe with my best friend. I get to write the bits from Torchwood onwards, she does the Time Agency bits. We've had characterisation issues - like I like to write John Hart as a vicious, jealous psychopath with no empathy and no care for anything other than getting what he wants, and she likes to write him as a misunderstood and ill-treated boy who grew up too fast and just needs someone to care for him. That's an exaggeration of both sides, but whatever.
To finish:
Two stories to go that need writing in this one. One is Continuity Error, the current WIP, which involves 13 episodic stories of how they settle in to Torchwood in the aftermath of CoE with an immortal Ianto from an alternate universe and how he and Jack come to terms with Jack's love for the Ianto who died. Sort of. I think I need another six or seven episodes, but my problem is that I have a sympathetic John Hart in the middle of it, and I want to get rid of him.
But my self-insert gets to go out with Jenny Who, which is a bonus.
After that there's the final story in the 'verse, in which Jack and Ianto discover that Ianto, being bound to life by a different TARDIS to Jack, isn't healing fast any more. Long story short, the whole thing culminates with a Romeo and Juliet scene on the TARDIS.
Timelord!Ianto
I'm starting a Timelord!Ianto story for the longliveIanto comm's cliche bingo thing. I know how I'm getting in, not so sure about how I'm getting out. I don't intend to rework that when it's done.
And that's the ones that are bubbling along at the moment... Just A Mistake is the one I'm currently procrastinating from. Oops?
What I do have are a couple of ongoing stories that I'm in the middle of writing and posting.
Just A Mistake
This is the big one. I started it in May 2009, and it is now over 140,000 words long, has 49 chapters to date and has had over 111,000 hits and 761 reviews. Interest has been waning lately (mine too), probably partly due to the stupidly long delays between posting, and partly because it's so long and a bit dry. The whole story needs a complete overhaul, but first it needs finishing.
It's about:
Jack proposes to Ianto, Ianto thinks that this is a bad idea for many reasons and decides that he and Jack are too close and he needs to get away from Cardiff. He accepts a standing job offer in London being the Downing Street Advisor on Extra Terrestrial Activity (remember that I wrote that bit before Children of Earth aired) and starts rebuilding Torchwood London as a head office and administration centre for Extra Terrestrial organisations across the UK, as well as an elite defence team for the Prime Minister and the royal family.
Naturally, he discovers that he doesn't really want to leave Jack after all, and they get back together through working together, struggle through a long-distance relationship, are accepted by Ianto's family and rejected by Alice, combine their skills with UNIT to move the reorganisation forwards and, eventually, get married. I hope.
To finish:
It's currently in the run-up to Christmas and I need to get through to June and Jack and Ianto's wedding. First task is to get over Christmas and work out how it'll work with this version of Ianto's family, and then I can move on with the development schemes, Ianto sending his second for field training with Jack and her pissing contests with Gwen, then his second coming back to London and preparing to take over from him so that he can move back to Cardiff, whilst the boys plan their wedding and get Exit Wounds dropped on them. I've not quite decided what will happen there, but I think I have an idea. I do know that Jack is more vulnerable after that than he was in canon, because I think that canon is bollocks when it comes to Jack's mental state, and that it takes them a while to decide that they are definitely going on with the wedding. All is fluffy, they have a stag do at which Jack, Ianto and the Prime Minister (who is played by Stephen Fry) all get dragged up, and then they make it to the signing of the register and go off on their honeymoon.
Yeah, just, you know, a simple story. *Snorts*
To rework it:
The thing is, this is all long and rambling, and I think I can really get it shorter and more concise. Also, my plans for what to do with Torchwood have mutated as I've gone through, so I need to get that more focussed and not change plans between chapters. And I want to shift their relationships with the outside world, tidy up the canon characters so that they're more in character, polish up the original characters so that they have more depth and don't keep disappearing into the background, and have a set calendar for events that doesn't fluctuate.
Seriously, their first kiss after breaking up was on Ianto's birthday and I didn't notice until several chapters later.
And I think, possibly maybe if I try really hard, with a couple more reworkings after that one, I can probably polish it down to an original story. It'll require rewriting of characters and the invention of new organisations to frame it but... I might as well try, right?
The sequel:
Yeah, there's a sequel. I have no idea how long this whole process is going to drag out for, but it's good practice.
The Treanscendence 'verse
This is another big plot thing, a jointly written universe with my best friend. I get to write the bits from Torchwood onwards, she does the Time Agency bits. We've had characterisation issues - like I like to write John Hart as a vicious, jealous psychopath with no empathy and no care for anything other than getting what he wants, and she likes to write him as a misunderstood and ill-treated boy who grew up too fast and just needs someone to care for him. That's an exaggeration of both sides, but whatever.
To finish:
Two stories to go that need writing in this one. One is Continuity Error, the current WIP, which involves 13 episodic stories of how they settle in to Torchwood in the aftermath of CoE with an immortal Ianto from an alternate universe and how he and Jack come to terms with Jack's love for the Ianto who died. Sort of. I think I need another six or seven episodes, but my problem is that I have a sympathetic John Hart in the middle of it, and I want to get rid of him.
But my self-insert gets to go out with Jenny Who, which is a bonus.
After that there's the final story in the 'verse, in which Jack and Ianto discover that Ianto, being bound to life by a different TARDIS to Jack, isn't healing fast any more. Long story short, the whole thing culminates with a Romeo and Juliet scene on the TARDIS.
Timelord!Ianto
I'm starting a Timelord!Ianto story for the longliveIanto comm's cliche bingo thing. I know how I'm getting in, not so sure about how I'm getting out. I don't intend to rework that when it's done.
And that's the ones that are bubbling along at the moment... Just A Mistake is the one I'm currently procrastinating from. Oops?
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 09:40 pm (UTC)If you could help me with beta stuff, that would be utterly awesome. It's a long way from being ready for it, but I really do want to get it done properly :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 08:19 pm (UTC)Poop - I meant to ask as well about the longliveIanto comm bingo thing. How do people find out about this stuff! I keep missing it. I think I'm off to find out if I can sign up. I want to do it too (like I don't have enough on my plate as it is).
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 10:04 pm (UTC)I don't know if you found the bingo thing, but the link is here. It runs until the end of the year, so you've got plenty of time :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-16 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-16 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-16 05:59 pm (UTC)