Check in day 25

[lilly_c]

How is the writing going today?

Poll #15598

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

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Today I

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wrote
1 (20.0%)

edited
2 (40.0%)

sent to beta
0 (0.0%)

posted
1 (20.0%)

researched
1 (20.0%)

planned
2 (40.0%)

had a cheeky break
2 (40.0%)

dealt with life
1 (20.0%)

My progress is

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Mean: 6.20 Median: 6 Std. Dev 1.72

ugh 1		0 (0.0%)
2		0 (0.0%)
3		0 (0.0%)
4		1 (20.0%)
5		1 (20.0%)
6		1 (20.0%)
7		1 (20.0%)
8		0 (0.0%)
9		1 (20.0%)
brilliant 10		0 (0.0%)

Discussion: author's notes. Do you include author's notes with your fic? What things do you include?

I tend to have notes for all my fics and sometimes it's a few lines with episode/canon reference, what challenge I've done (for prompt fills) and a word count. Other times it's those things along with a lot background information about why I chose certain aspects of canon to explore a what if.

Let Me Fade, one of my current WIPs, has got a huge set of notes and I've only got the first five chapters if the fic ready for posting. I actually dread to think about how big these notes will become by the time I get around to posting chapter twenty five which is the final chapter.

Comments

[the_rck]

I always include a note of some sort at the beginning of a story that thanks my beta readers or mentions that the story is unbeta'd. For most stories, I also specify the challenge for which I was writing and whose request I was writing to. If I have warnings, they go at the top, too.

I do end notes less often. Those usually talk about any research I did for the story or chapter and sometimes contain links. They sometimes include a bit of factual explanation about something that happened in the story or an explanation if I think something's unclear in the story.

[linaewen]

I use end notes sometimes, usually referencing a quote from canon, or linking to another story that is related to the current piece. I also have a WIP where I use end notes to explain the meanings of foreign words that some of the characters use, which I don't translate in the story itself.

[krait]

I do tend to do author notes, though they're usually short!

For kinkmeme fics, I use the note to mention that it's for the meme, give a basic outline of the prompt(s) I used, and link back to the full prompt. For bingo fics, I note the bingo and the prompt in the note. (I don't think I linked to the HC Bingo comm, though.) If something unusual happened in relation to the fic, I might include that, too: a first attempt at writing character X, a divergence from the original prompt, an odd reaction to the prompt, or whatever. (Basically, it boils down to "what are you about to read" + "why was it written" + "what is interesting about it to me".)

For gift fics, I use the author's note (pre-story) for much the same purposes: noting the exchange, the intended recipient, and perhaps a couple of pieces of their request that I was aiming for/that inspired me the most. (Plus a big thanks to my beta readers!) In one gift fic, I also used end notes to elaborate a little on something within the fic that wasn't a part of the "official" request.

By far the most notes, however, are on my only WIP. As it's the first time I've ever posted an incomplete story, I felt that I needed to add some guidelines for readers as to what they could expect from this learning process I'm going through! (The short answer is: very little! Most of my notes are cautions that everything about the story, from title to chapter count to POV, were liable to change as try to figure out what I'm doing.)

I have not ever used a direct quote or reference in a story (aside from poetry snipppets, each attributed directly underneath the quotation), but if I did, I'd use an author note to credit any such material.