WIP Challenge: Day 3 check-in

[elf]

Day 3 check-in! (I'll try to do these earlier in the day; I forget that early-in-the-morning for me isn't that for everyone.) How're you doing?

Poll #10070 Apr 3 Check-in

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

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Fanfic Progress:

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I wrote some fic.
7 (58.3%)

I edited some fic.
2 (16.7%)

I worked on my notes.
1 (8.3%)

I did some research.
2 (16.7%)

I thought about doing several of those.
3 (25.0%)

Discussion topic: Minor characters--How many do you include? Do you usually write shippy fic without other people getting in the way of the storyline? Or a cast of thousands where everyone in canon gets a cameo? Something in between? Do you wish you could add more of them smoothly to flesh out the story, or wish you could remove them without losing essential information? Do you feel you've got the right balance between spotlight characters and everyone else, and how do you decide if you've managed that?

Comments

[crowdog66]

I wrote about 1000 more words of the ReBoot story "Lethe's Curse", in which Bob and Megabyte's dance of conflict and seduction heats up. It looks like I'll have to write the whole damned thing just because I've fallen head-over-heels in love with the universe (which involves characters from different realities being gathered in the land of Lethe with no detailed memories of their pasts and the prospect of aligning themselves with the White Queen, the Red King, the Green Fool, one of a score of other petty kingdoms, or wandering the Wild Lands, surviving as best they can). I'd forgotten how much fun these two characters in particular can be. :)

I enjoy writing minor characters, using them as point and counterpoint to the main narrative, or to advance the plot in their own way. In a setting like Deep Space Nine the minor characters are a vital part of the background of the station and introducing them in a fic, even for only a few lines, helps ground the story and add richness by referring to that complex background milieu. I mostly play it by ear; in some stories it's purely a Garak/Bashir focus, and in others everybody and their dog gets some screen time.

In "Lethe's Curse" there are scads of background characters, all of them original so far; Bob and Megabyte are the only canon characters, and since they've lost all memory of their life in Mainframe (except for Bob's occasional dreams of a green-skinned woman with violet eyes) no other canon personalities will be making an appearance. So while I'll have the pleasure of crafting a cast of thousands, the snappy interactions between Bob and Dot, for example, or the wisdom Phong brought to the table, or Hexadecimal's chaotic playfulness, will be sadly lacking. (I might give them dream cameos, thought, just for the fun of writing them, even if it's only a few lines worth)

[roane]

Well, I finished chapter 1 of the untitled AU of Doom (which may or may not be titled Pull the Stars from the Sky), and got back feedback from betas last night and today. Annnnd, I have some editing work to do. My characterization of one of the main characters isn't as cohesive as it should be. I THINK I might see how to fix it. However, I am currently battling a bout of "OMG I SUCK AND I CAN'T WRITE THIS".

In general, I write the number of characters the story needs--at least, that's what I try to do. My shippy stuff is usually limited to 2-4 characters. This longer piece, yeah, cast of thousands. I'm not quite sure how I'll handle it, since it's an AU, so I'm finding roles for the original cast that I have to match to their canon counterparts at least a little.

[barbayat]

I am quite happy with my writing wrote over 1000 words on Dark Matters and spontaneously came up with a minor change in the events that makes for a much more intersting read than what I had written before (and misplaced ...)

For me it depends on the story. If I need minor characters I include them and try to give them some life of their own - but if they just stay around and don't have a real reason to be there I leave them out. For example, in Dark Matters, I have tons of minor charcters running around who appear and disappear. Some are actually somewhat important later on, other are just to illustrate how the city works. I guess even the second main character isn't that often on scene - everything revolves around Dracula (after all he is the only Canon character so far).

[linaewen]

I'm away from home so it's harder to concentrate on writing. I did think about it once or twice, but nothing came of it. ;-)

I always seem to bring in minor characters to complement the major characters; often they are original characters, but not always. Much of my writing is Lord of the Rings-based fic, and that pretty much involves a cast of thousands, where even the minor characters are important -- so I make use of quite a few. Sometimes I bring forward canon minor characters who never got to say much in the original tale so I tell things from their POV for a different view of things. Others are original characters who started out minor but as soon as they got a name they became almost-major characters somehow. ;-) So far it feels like I have the right balance because I still remember who is who among the minor characters and where they are and whether they have a future in later chapters or not; I think if I ever begin to lose track of them and what their names are, then I know I have too many .

[snowynight]

I write 3K on my untitled AU wip. In general, I introduce minor characters when they're needed, and fresh them out when they enhance my plot. The longer my fic is, the more the minor characters.

[bay_alexison]

With my help_japan fic I'm able to get some notes (which includes some emails my beta and I exchange) and wiki articles organized in Scrivener. Once I look through the corrections my beta suggested tomorrow I'll be able to refer to those notes.

With minor characters I flesh them out depending on the story and their importance. My longer works I would have several.