THOUGHTS ON WRITING: PARALLELS
Aug. 24th, 2013 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acerbictomesParallels is out! I wrote on the streets where once was pity, a Tiger & Bunny fic about Keith Goodman. It was pretty interesting, since Keith's a pretty minor character, and I made the dubious decision to try writing in his voice.
Okay, first things first: the fic you see is actually half of a fic. Life basically ate up my time, and it helps that this works as a stand-alone, but sometime before the end of the summer, I will write a sequel that takes this from Keith and Antonio to Keith/Antonio.
One of the things that struck me about Keith (after scouring thisissternbild for translated extras) is how incredibly lonely he is: he says that he's "without bias, friends with [the other heroes]", but he really doesn't seem to make that strong of a connection with any of them. You don't really see him interacting with another hero on their own: he supports Kotetsu's team bonding efforts, and got romantic advice from the Girls' Club, but... that's about it. In his episode, he falls in love with a girl who can only say about four sentences (I still ship it, though, omg). So what I wanted to do was 1) set him up with Antonio (because my awesome recip said I could get either my Keith or Antonio on, so I figured WHY NOT BOTH) and 2) show him making more of a connection with all the other heroes. Running up against the deadline meant that I could only do 2 (curse my procrastination and poor time management skills), but. By the end of the summer. There, now I've put it in writing and I can't go back (even though school starts 9/23 for me and I technically have more leeway, ahahahaha).
NOTES FOR THE SEQUEL (if you are my recip, don't read this! you're getting a treat by september 19)
I want to alternate Antonio + Keith scenes with Keith + everyone else scenes: I think that'd be a pretty nice balance, and besides, I like that sense of back and forth. When I wrote my Roxy/Jane revolution AU, I ended up alternating future and past: I think this might end up being a writing tic or something. So! Keith sees Antonio the next day, after their beer-fueled adventure, and realizes that omg, he's got a crush! I figure it'd be nice to have Antonio offer to patrol with Keith and, in doing so, see his issues about disappointing people but not make that big of a deal about it.
I think both of them'd do well with a sort of chill, understated kind of romance: something drama-free and straightforward, something based on hanging out with each other and talking to each other on a regular basis. Antonio's a lot of things, but he's not complicated. What you see is basically what you get, and what you see is that he thinks this young airhead's a pretty cool guy and a really good hero and also kind of hot, so why not kick back with him once in a while? The main emotional conflict here, then, is that Keith doesn't know how to express his emotions, and Antonio's not really a feelings kind of guy, either. They get closer, but they don't go after each other, and although they don't really have to (they work perfectly well as friends), well. It would be nice.
On the friendship side, I kind of want him to deepen his friendships with the rest through his budding relationship with Antonio. For example: Keith does what he did in his episode and asks the Girls' Club for advice, and finagles an invitation to their sleepover. Once he's there, they do more sobbing over rom-coms and gossiping than relationship advice, but it's fun and they decide to do movie nights together more often. Keith gets depressed and wallows on a bench in Hero TV Headquarters, and because [blah blah blah], he ends up watching Gundam with Origami Cyclone and commiserating over being romantically inept.
This is set before Kotetsu comes back to Stern Bild, so I want Keith to reach out to him and Barnaby of his own accord, but I like having Antonio being the thematic link among all of them: Keith doesn't need Antonio to make friends, but this one change sort of creates a domino effect and effects changes in all his other relationships. Maybe just the act of trying to know one person better helps him open up to everyone else around him.
WHAT I LIKED
I had a lot of fun with Keith's dialogue, and with all the weird promotional things he has to do. Mathbusters! Third-grade classes! I feel like Sky High'd do a lot of things with kids, mostly because he's a giant kid himself. I like filling in the blanks that canon leaves me (which meant that I spent way too much time looking through extracanonical materials for information, ah ha ha ha ha ha) and I actually got to. Some of what I had him say rang true (to me, at least) and that was a fun exercise: usually, I write in a style that's pretty much distinctly my own, so it's good to stretch myself with different kinds of characters and narration whenever I can.
WHAT I NEED TO WORK ON
Staying in a character's voice, as well as the rhythm of conversation between Keith and Antonio. The gyuudon bit felt tacked-on (it's a scene from elsewhere). Antonio's the quintessential manly man, and I'm... super not, so I'd like to make sure I keep him in character. A lot of his appeal, I think, comes from his solidity, and I hope I conveyed that enough. It's really easy to accidentally make an understated character uninteresting or unlike their canon personality, or overexaggerate the attributes of an already vivid character, so I'll have to try and make sure that doesn't happen. Also: time management. I really should've had time to write that second half, bluh!
ANYWAY:
Note to self: write that second half. Experiment more with character voices! Try for thematic integrity. When I finish the second half, this is going to be like, one of the only things I've attempted with a theme in mind, instead of a framing device or a weird AU concept + a handful of disconnected scenes, so I'm gonna wait and see how that turns out! Ideally, every scene should be about Keith connecting with other people and how he does or doesn't do that, and I want to see whether that pulls the whole thing together and makes it read like a complete and full work, or if it's too repetitive and pretentious or terrible.
Okay, first things first: the fic you see is actually half of a fic. Life basically ate up my time, and it helps that this works as a stand-alone, but sometime before the end of the summer, I will write a sequel that takes this from Keith and Antonio to Keith/Antonio.
One of the things that struck me about Keith (after scouring thisissternbild for translated extras) is how incredibly lonely he is: he says that he's "without bias, friends with [the other heroes]", but he really doesn't seem to make that strong of a connection with any of them. You don't really see him interacting with another hero on their own: he supports Kotetsu's team bonding efforts, and got romantic advice from the Girls' Club, but... that's about it. In his episode, he falls in love with a girl who can only say about four sentences (I still ship it, though, omg). So what I wanted to do was 1) set him up with Antonio (because my awesome recip said I could get either my Keith or Antonio on, so I figured WHY NOT BOTH) and 2) show him making more of a connection with all the other heroes. Running up against the deadline meant that I could only do 2 (curse my procrastination and poor time management skills), but. By the end of the summer. There, now I've put it in writing and I can't go back (even though school starts 9/23 for me and I technically have more leeway, ahahahaha).
NOTES FOR THE SEQUEL (if you are my recip, don't read this! you're getting a treat by september 19)
I want to alternate Antonio + Keith scenes with Keith + everyone else scenes: I think that'd be a pretty nice balance, and besides, I like that sense of back and forth. When I wrote my Roxy/Jane revolution AU, I ended up alternating future and past: I think this might end up being a writing tic or something. So! Keith sees Antonio the next day, after their beer-fueled adventure, and realizes that omg, he's got a crush! I figure it'd be nice to have Antonio offer to patrol with Keith and, in doing so, see his issues about disappointing people but not make that big of a deal about it.
I think both of them'd do well with a sort of chill, understated kind of romance: something drama-free and straightforward, something based on hanging out with each other and talking to each other on a regular basis. Antonio's a lot of things, but he's not complicated. What you see is basically what you get, and what you see is that he thinks this young airhead's a pretty cool guy and a really good hero and also kind of hot, so why not kick back with him once in a while? The main emotional conflict here, then, is that Keith doesn't know how to express his emotions, and Antonio's not really a feelings kind of guy, either. They get closer, but they don't go after each other, and although they don't really have to (they work perfectly well as friends), well. It would be nice.
On the friendship side, I kind of want him to deepen his friendships with the rest through his budding relationship with Antonio. For example: Keith does what he did in his episode and asks the Girls' Club for advice, and finagles an invitation to their sleepover. Once he's there, they do more sobbing over rom-coms and gossiping than relationship advice, but it's fun and they decide to do movie nights together more often. Keith gets depressed and wallows on a bench in Hero TV Headquarters, and because [blah blah blah], he ends up watching Gundam with Origami Cyclone and commiserating over being romantically inept.
This is set before Kotetsu comes back to Stern Bild, so I want Keith to reach out to him and Barnaby of his own accord, but I like having Antonio being the thematic link among all of them: Keith doesn't need Antonio to make friends, but this one change sort of creates a domino effect and effects changes in all his other relationships. Maybe just the act of trying to know one person better helps him open up to everyone else around him.
WHAT I LIKED
I had a lot of fun with Keith's dialogue, and with all the weird promotional things he has to do. Mathbusters! Third-grade classes! I feel like Sky High'd do a lot of things with kids, mostly because he's a giant kid himself. I like filling in the blanks that canon leaves me (which meant that I spent way too much time looking through extracanonical materials for information, ah ha ha ha ha ha) and I actually got to. Some of what I had him say rang true (to me, at least) and that was a fun exercise: usually, I write in a style that's pretty much distinctly my own, so it's good to stretch myself with different kinds of characters and narration whenever I can.
WHAT I NEED TO WORK ON
Staying in a character's voice, as well as the rhythm of conversation between Keith and Antonio. The gyuudon bit felt tacked-on (it's a scene from elsewhere). Antonio's the quintessential manly man, and I'm... super not, so I'd like to make sure I keep him in character. A lot of his appeal, I think, comes from his solidity, and I hope I conveyed that enough. It's really easy to accidentally make an understated character uninteresting or unlike their canon personality, or overexaggerate the attributes of an already vivid character, so I'll have to try and make sure that doesn't happen. Also: time management. I really should've had time to write that second half, bluh!
ANYWAY:
Note to self: write that second half. Experiment more with character voices! Try for thematic integrity. When I finish the second half, this is going to be like, one of the only things I've attempted with a theme in mind, instead of a framing device or a weird AU concept + a handful of disconnected scenes, so I'm gonna wait and see how that turns out! Ideally, every scene should be about Keith connecting with other people and how he does or doesn't do that, and I want to see whether that pulls the whole thing together and makes it read like a complete and full work, or if it's too repetitive and pretentious or terrible.
