WIP Challenge Check-in -- Day 1

[linaewen]

It's September 1st -- time for a fresh start and a new month of achieving our writing goals!

How did you spend the first day of this new month?

• writing (want to share a word count?)
• planning (brainstorming, researching, outlining)
• editing
• posting
• taking a break
• reading someone else's writing
• dealing with non-writing things on your To Do List

Discussion question for the day:

 

Have you ever killed off a major character in one of your stories?  If so, was it planned from the beginning?  Something unplanned but that you realized would be a good idea at some point?  How did your readers deal with that character's death?  Was it obvious to them or unexpected?

P.S. Sorry for being late with this check in post.  I wanted to do it earlier in the day, but it turned out to be one of the worst "One of Those Days" I've had in awhile -- and I've had plenty!  ;-)

Comments

[devilc]

It's been a day of editing.

[erika]

Aasdjfk;adf I wrote a really long comment and my computer crashed.

So that is to say: 291 words, probably not one of which will lead to anything important.

[bay_alexison]

Only wrote around 250 words for my Big Bang, but considering I was away most of tonight and I have to sleep early for my doctor's appointment tomorrow, I'm surprised I'm able to get something done. I did however quickly edit one of the stories after my beta looked through it and posted it before work, wee.

I haven't done a main character death yet because the plot doesn't call for it. If I were to do one though, I would plan out how I'll go about it in advance.

[rebecca2525]

Started to edit the first draft I finished before my holidays and got quite a big part of the first chapter done. I had feared that the dialogue would be off in places, but so far it isn't as bad as I thought it would be; there is quite a lot of work to do, but nothing out of the ordinary as far as my writing process goes. Phew.

[jagnikjen]

No writing, no revising yesterday. :( Read a lot though. And started an online class.

And I've never killed off a main character. Never had a reason to.

[ficwriter1966]

So far, so good for the month! Did a chapter for my WIP of 1313 words (and it was chapter 13 - go figure), with 3 more left to go. Woot! Long weekend coming up with no major commitments, so I'm planning to put that particular fic to bed by Monday.

I've killed off a few characters in fic, although most of them have been minor, supporting OCs. I did a death fic once for a main canon character and had to tiptoe through it carefully. My readers have been quite clear that they don't like death fic, and I'll admit that it's not a big draw for me either, unless I'm in the mood for a good cry.

[lullabymoon]

I spent yesterday doing non-writing things that needed doing. I badly wanted to get some writing done because it's sort of fallen by the way side this last week or two but no such luck. I've managed a little so far today though so yay! progress.

I tend towards the fluffy in my stories so, no I haven't killed off a major character. :D

[katzenjamming]

Day #1 this month was pretty good. No actual words added, but for the most part completely finished an outline the A-plot of the story, something I'd been really shaky about at certain parts.

Maybe because I'm one for angst and melodrama I this is frequently an idea I play with, but have only gone through with doing it in an original story. I've been playing with doing that in my current big WIP, but we'll have to see how that works out...

[linaewen]

No writing happened yesterday, alas! I spent the day wrestling with my To Do list and there was no time left for any of my tales.

I have caused a dead main character in canon to be not dead in a number of my stories -- but I have never killed off any of my main character. I did do so, however, to one of my OC's. I was quite fond of him and he was a lot of fun to write, and made the story interesting, but as I was writing along, I realized that the tale was going to be too unrealistic if nobody ever died as a result of all the danger the characters were getting into. So I did a private poll among my OC's and realized how excellent the story would be if this particular guy was the one to go. So I did it. It was an unhappy time for both the writer and the readers, but it made for great drama and gave the main character a chance to be appropriately emo. ;-)

[xpaperplanex]

I managed to get a little bit of writing done yesterday. Maybe 250 words or so. School is a lot of work :(

I have killed both of the main characters in an alternate ending to one of my fics, which was a lot of fun. Though I don't know if it counts since it also followed them into the afterlife-ish sort of thing. But it was quite tragic and I cried through writing the whole thing.

What day is it already?

[lacygrey]

24K in a week...unfortunately for work and not fic.

How did I miss this mail. I had to respond to this discussion. Ive never written a deathfic* and usually I hate them as, apart from all the angst (which sometimes feels like a manipulation), its a dead end** for further fic.

Sometimes, however, its wonderfully done...its just difficult and rather rare.

*I did prevent a canon death once though - to speculate on what would happen.

**At the extreme, couples getting together can be a bit of a dead end too, but its a happier one.