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ellnyx (ellnyx) wrote in het_challenge,
@ 2008-09-05 12:57:00

Entry tags:

f: final fantasy 12, r: promptbuilding

how to go on not looking [ffxii, balthier/ashe]
~I don’t know whether to be proud or horrified.
~I apologise for Basch, but, er......
~Apologies also for the ff.net link. Apparently 17100 words is not a happy size for LJ.

Fandom: FFXII
Author: logistika_nyx
Title: How To Go On Not Looking
Pairing: Balthier/Ashe
Characters: minor Basch daydreaming over Balthier, assorted Dalmascans
Ratings/Warnings: R, post-game, non-linear timeline (dated), sex, life
Prompt: “…they buried her alive in 1945.”

.

Not to look back, Ffamran wrote, I’ve learned that lesson well.

.

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	myeerah 2008-09-05 08:46 am UTC (link)
	Heart-wrenchingly painful, and I do mean that in the best of ways. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	ellnyx 2008-09-05 09:11 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for reading! I'm glad it came across as something that evocative. (Reply to this) (Parent)

sarasa_cat
2008-09-16 08:43 pm UTC (link)

So many excellent future fic ideas in this story. Very emotionally painful.

Some honest concrit: Overall, the story left me wanting something more -- more explanation and more exactitude through showing what is going on in each character just before each of their transitions. The individual scenes are each well crafted but the larger story felt like it wasn't given enough space. Either too many story ideas for the length devoted to it or not enough length to flesh out character motivations/transitions/changes in full. Thus, the transitions between scenes and between presentations of character's states of mind felt a bit jarring. It came together during the final 1/3 (when Ashe sends Ffam away to the end) but, at least for me, it felt bumpy getting there. D:

The dialog is excellent and telling. I think it's the exposition in the middle of the dialog that gave me problems. In a few places the prose didn't flow as well (mechanically, stylistically) as your prose often does and in other places it felt like the words wanted to say much more than you were willing to allot space to saying. Thus, in those places the story either felt a little constipated (?!) or as if beating around the bush. BUT, the dialog between characters provided the real honest, powerful moments. Thus, when I say that some of the ideas in this story feel like they need more space, they might not necessarily need more words. It might be a matter of trimming and pruning?? Not sure. I'm still trying to decide if the story didn't feel tight enough (thus pruning is needed) or didn't feel rounded out enough (thus more words needed).

In the first half, I found myself rereading a lot to see if I missed something between the lines. Basch confused me at times. There is much implied but not enough space given to let him breathe. But, that may be an issue of fanfic vs orig fic. Or shared headcanon. Or such.

Balthier's dialog was consistently brilliant. And so emotionally painful especially when he's out with Basch. Outstanding ideas in this story -- the IDEAS in this story are excellent and painful and powerful. I love all that Balthier goes through in this story. He is round and emotionally raw and just freakin' excellent and I *felt* for him as this whole story moved forward. It just seemed that everyone else was a little weak/flat.

Perhaps others will violently disagree with me regarding my crits and say that I'm smoking crack??? Maybe it's just me, you know, and all the annoying noise outside my window while I'm trying to read.

The final two scenes worked really well, especially Balthier's final scene.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

ellnyx
2008-09-16 11:37 pm UTC (link)

Thanks for the concrit. When it comes down to it everyone has great ideas, but it’s the skill of representation that makes it sing.

From what I can see you’ve picked up on three points that are currently causing me considerable grief with how my writing’s evolving:

- Tendencies for length (nyx wants to write novels) and unfamiliarity/impatience with such a structured thing
- Inability to determine a structural/textual method that I’m comfortable with (transitions) for indicating ‘in chapter’ breaks and leaps in POV, which leads me to skim an awful lot just to get to the point
- Basch, Basch, Basch: why do you do what you do, and why is it always exactly the wrong thing???

And then there’s that whole 'internal-monologue'/'exposition versus dialogue'/'show versus tell' stylistic issue that I’ll get around to resolving one day. I’ll write more on these in bunny_bit_me, I think, because that second point listed has been BUGGING me something chronic since I started North Star and put Clear Blue on hold. But as to this fic:

Length-wise, it was one of those that I thought would be a string of drabbles linked, about 3000/4000 – at 17000 words it’s over half the size of Progress. What I should have done was flesh it to that 30000 word mark, and make it a /story/ instead of a cluster of disconnections. Instead, I compressed, and cut and pasted any unresolved chunks into existing ‘chapters’. There would have been more Ashe-Basch letters, and Basch-Balthier letters; there would have been a couple of scenes where Ashe makes decisions to overrun Ffamran’s, where ‘Queen’ role supersedes all of Ashe that wants to be Ashe until she disappears – and also, critically lost I think, is how terrified Ashe is of pregnancy (female/vulnerable) and how much she wants to just submit and let Balthier take control, thus she has to make him an enemy.

With Basch I admit he got scrunched; with Ashe, I feel like her self-deceptive POV (all those words with no meaning!) totally got in the way.

Hence the:

… places it felt like the words wanted to say much more than you were willing to allot space to saying. Thus, in those places the story either felt a little constipated (?!) or as if beating around the bush.

Yes. Ashe never says what she wants to say. ^^ The most klutzy giant ‘reader beware’ gap I see is between Ashe and Ffamn dancing, and her utter rejection of him after she miscarries – that’s where most of the fleshing/conversing would have happened.

Ultimately, this was written very fast and with not nearly as much time or structure as Progress had, when I do think it should have been matching that length for the depth of ideas glossed over here. Plus I keep trying for that ‘what is unsaid’ poignant ache, when I always get better responses from the audience when I use my dialogue/blunt-description/shock-value instead. Should hone my strength instead of waving my weaknesses around.

This may also interest you.

PRIMARY BIG ISSUE: I need to just deal with the fact I want to write novels, or very specific Andante-equse fanfiction/characterisation nods. Half story and half not just doesn't work for me.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

myeerah
2008-09-18 10:14 am UTC (link)

If it helps, I actually dug on the things left unspoken. The implication that Balthier was punishing himself for leaving Fran to die by stubbornly sticking to his decision to stay with Ashe. The resentment that started with the first, failed pregnancy—a sort of, "You did this to me!" compounded by the later, "And you didn't even do it right!" Basch feeling slighted that he was never told Balthier survived in the form of Ffamran, but still longing for him nonetheless. Those may have lost some poignancy if you spell them out too hard.

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ellnyx
2008-09-21 12:20 am UTC (link)

That's very true and I did want everything to be vague and achy and unspoken. Those issues you mention were the major ones that I wanted to write into this, so they got dealt with better than the others. The bits that probably need the clarification are more centred around Basch and his involvement, with a few more sentences neatened to clear up Ashe's motivation. The scene where Basch lets Ffamran go, either back to Rabanastre or 'away' (which is what Basch hopes, so he can keep dreaming about Balthier) is especially ambiguous.

I have trouble writing Basch and Ashe POV at the best of times, though. As well as technical issues. This whole text definitely needed more transitions for legibility, gah, way too long to be written as a one-shot.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

sarasa_cat
2008-09-17 01:40 am UTC (link)

All you say here makes me want to explode with deep comments. And, for the record, I have lots of shitty ideas. Many of the ideas I had for springkink & kinkfest prompts were shitty. Trust me. XD

Keeping to the story at hand, yes (!) I can see this as a much shorter piece that is a series of hard-punching drabble-like mini-scenes. Each scene makes a single point, all use evocative language, and at least half end with a gut punch. The work is in creating evocative prose and ordering the mini-scenes cleverly. We know this can work amazingly well in fanfic. (It doesn't in original fic, I would think?)

Going long (you already have 17,000 words) the challenge is whose story to tell. This story, via POV changes, elevates Balthier and Ashe to the level of having their own plot threads and Basch having a subplot thread. That means you are telling 2 and 1/2 stories (sort of). By story, I mean this: a character has a problem and he/she struggles with that problem, either succeeding or failing in the end.

Playing a math-game for the fun of it, 17,000 = 6800 + 6800 + 3400. Without doing something literary uber-fancy, that feels to me like just enough words to tell a very simple story for Balthier, a related simple story for Ashe, and weave in a single-themed Basch subplot. It also means that in order to show a character moving through a difficult transition, either the scenes need to stay short (ouch) or the transition needs to follow a very simple arc (also ouch).

Looking across other authors and my own writing experience, I find it hard to write a scene in less than 300 words. 1000 to 1400 is my personal comfort zone, which is around 4ish pages in a paperback novel. Chapters often contain a few scenes, but not always. Sticking with a basic three-act play structure, one needs a minimum of 3 scenes to tell a story (1. set up the problem, 2. show the conflict and confrontation, 3. provide the climax and the success-or-failure resolution). More scenes allows more subproblems, related problems, conflicts, etc. Therefore, 6800 words doesn't leave a lot of room for a lot of ideas. Call that (randomly) perhaps 5 to 8 scenes? That's just enough to tell a one-problem monomyth style journey. Of course, this is all bullshit-fudge-math because famous prize winning authors do whatever the hell they want and make it look good. But, rules of thumb. Rules made to be broken. But rules of thumb I use when planning (not always with success).

At 17,000 words a few rules of thumb (to be tossed in garbage quickly!) could be:

1. Just make this Balthier's story but hint at what Ashe is going through. Pop Basch in repeatedly so we know what's up later on. Reorder so the last scene is Basch speaking at Balthier's funeral.

2. Make it Ashe's story. Put heavier focus on her correspondence with Basch. Have a series of short scenes interspersed with Balthier's POV so we see how this is hurting him. Never used Basch's POV.

Or, make it much longer. Much much longer. With the ideas you list above, 30,000 seems like a base minimum and the scenes need to be tight. 40,000 gives you more breathing room.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

ellnyx
2008-09-18 12:47 am UTC (link)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......contemplating. I want to perfect this one because it hit a lot of buttons with me - but at the same time, I wonder if pushing for the 30000 stretches it too much. If there was a way I could get the characterisation sharp, I think I could do it in almost the same amount of space.

Maybe, at some point when I'm not running delirious on caffeine and booze, I'll have a go at tightening/making the language more specific and less subtextual, and add one or two scenes.

In terms of focuses (1 or 2) - this I saw very much as Ashe's story, which is sad because the simultaneous death of 'Ashe' as 'Balthier' died completely got hidden by Balthier's own trauma. Ashe wants to love him, truly she does, but her aspects of sex/desire/gender/crown, in combination with assorted male betrayals (every man she's ever known failed/betrayed her), make each aspect of her femaleness exclude the others. If she would be queen, she can't be a wife; if she would be a lover, she can't give orders; if Her Perfection surrenders (to the flawed male), she has no respect for herself.

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sarasa_cat
2008-09-18 02:42 am UTC (link)

I want you to perfect this story because I love it. Seriously!

If you want to move the story over to bunny_bit_me, I'd gladly do a round or two of beta (in between all of the other madness in my life).

I do think that you could keep in in the 15,000 to 17,500 range just by tighten a lot. Again, it really all depends on how many themes you want to explore, yadayadayada.

When I read this, I was torn between whether or not is was Ashe's or Balthier's story. Balthier was the strong character in this story. He moved me. Yet, Ashe was the one who seemed to have the real story and Balthier was really more the victim of the story. And yes, all of the stuff you said about Ashe is what makes this so interesting. She's the one with the heavy conflicts that are difficult/impossible for her to resolve whereas Balthier makes decisions early on and generally sticks to them, making a new post-skypirate life for himself. (BTW, that scene with Ashe asking Basch to take Balthier away was a brilliant little bit of Basch because it felt very Basch).

Another option is to write a few separate stories. Take this and tighten it up substantially so it is clearly Ashe's story and then take other ideas (stuff cut from this story, stuff never written) and make them short stories of their own telling Basch's and Balthier's stories.

--

All of your discussion about Ashe is making me think that I need to do something with the 20,000 or so drafted words of Ashe/EveryoneMale I have sitting around waiting to be expanded/edited/finished. It would be interesting to compare characterizations especially since yours vs mine follow different shipping headcanons but look like they probably come to the same sorts of thematic conclusions.

As far as the novel/serials vs short story vs atmospheric character explorations (like Andante), I've been drifting towards having multiple headcanons and then writing or planning out shorter (5k to 20k words) stories that focus on one character's problems at a time. I *want* to think in series of epic novels but the time required is laughably difficult. BUT, breaking down my "wings & cages" headcanon or our "sacred & profane" AU headcanon into different shorter stories is so much more doable. Then it is just the Ashe/Vossler saga from Ashe's POV or whatever. Every time I find the urge to put a lot more in, I just take it out and use it to start another story (unless it is my Ashe/Basch saga which is really about Ashe/otherpeople and Basch/otherpeople). But then, I think all I've done is rediscover the wheel because this is what a lot of fic writers do if they aren't focusing their efforts on long serials.

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