Shake Up
The hows and the whys of me having the time and the urge to write are probably something for another blog. Suffice to say: I must write, I will write.
I sort of cannot write.
One of the various problems I'm struggling with is that I can't let go of past projects. Not Fade Away was put to sleep for many reasons, and the fact that it's left me alone rather suggests I was right. But the Stygian Trilogy or the Anguis Series just will not Shut Up and Let Me Rest. One answer to that is 'write Regeneration', to which the answer is still (for the moment) 'no,' also for hows and whys belonging to a different blog. It's not as simple as me wanting to write More of them. It's not as simple as the idea that there are more stories to tell with the characters (for the most part, there are not).
But the projects keep overshadowing anything that comes next. One of the problems I had for Not Fade Away was that I didn't let myself write two bickering, love/hate romances back-to-back, going from Stygian's Scorose to NFA's Jily. And NFA suffered for it, because I artificially held myself back. Any idea or concept that I have, I keep feeling like it's derivative of something that I did before, that I'll just keep retreading the same old ground. So I hold back on ideas or feelings or writing instincts, and I think it's starting to shoot me in the foot.
Less abstract, more Actual Problem: My latest project. The one I have in some corners joked about being 'like my old stuff, but more Batman.' Yeah, the premise is 'what if a wizard started to fight Muggle crime as an anonymous vigilante', and as a concept it is so much fun. I have stretching before me huge swathes of possibility, I get to riff off Batman and Arrow (it's far more on that end of the superhero scale!). The world-building to explain how and why this has come about has a chance of honestly being some of the best exploration I've done of the Potter-canon. In terms of plot possibility, themes, drama, it has basically everything; I should be in heaven.
It's just the characters are misbehaving, or I'm smothering them. I didn't want to write this with OCs, because honestly it is hell to get people to pay attention to OC-centric fics. I'm not writing 'Harry Potter snaps and becomes Batman'; hilarious as that sounds, someone else can have that plunny. And in contemplation of interesting canon characters I could use, there was one who had all of the tropes I needed or could use interestingly, and it's Scorpius sodding Malfoy.
You know, the guy I wrote an entire trilogy-plus about, who is probably one of my most iconic characters with the strongest Voice? And my muse says "hey, write a different version of him!"
Other characters (Albus, Rose) then start to come with the territory of such a Next Gen, even a post-Hogwarts Next Gen, and I feel like not using them would be entirely out of an obligatory effort to be Different to my past work. But these characters are compelling to readers for specific reasons, we're curious about them above all other Next Gen characters for specific reasons, and within the world building there is specifically Interesting Stuff I could do with them that I couldn't do as easily with other characters. Now, Albus isn't a problem. I can remake Albus all day long. He's got a great plot. He's a star. He's fine.
I'm feeling my way through writing a brand new Scorpius Malfoy as someone who is legitimately more mature, more reserved, still sarcastic but not irreverent, with family issues of a different flavour, and I can't tell if this is flowing naturally or if I've shackled myself. Part of me thinks that a Scorpius Malfoy who pretends to the world that he's irreverent and superficial while secretly being a much more committed guy with a specific sense of justice and a crusade - pulling a Bruce Wayne - could be exceptionally interesting (and now I write it, it does sound way cool). And then I worry that I'm just writing my old Scorpius, with his Stygian personality, except in a different set of circumstances with different experiences -
- wait, that sounds like a completely different character, doesn't it, even if they have some similarities. It's like I've written several different versions of Ron, with different life experiences, but all still Ron.
And what I do with Scorpius will impact Rose, because she will absolutely be a foil in this story, and We'll See(??) on if it's a romance. I could wax lyrical about my problems with her, but they're pretty similar in essence.
The essence being, is it okay to let myself cut these characters from the same cloth and do different things with them? I suppose I've been trying for years to run away from these characters and it's done my writing absolutely no favours, so why shouldn't I try writing naturally and not care if I'm repeating the same beats? The worst that happens is I have another abandoned story under my belt, and that's not sarcasm, if I can ditch 200k words of NFA I can basically survive anything.
Thoughts and opinions of anyone are really welcome, but already I can feel just by sitting down and feeling this one out, I'm a lot happier with where I am going forward.
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