So, a little backstory here, if you want to imagine what it's like to be a generous person bailing me out of my own insane idea and to be getting emails from me, imagine getting an email from me that goes like this:
"Okay, I just shared a 20,000 word Google doc with you. It has all the plot but not enough feelings and some very thinly-sketched in scenes. You like shiny things, so here's an analogy. What I want to give Selena for Yuletide is this. What I've sent you is this. We have three weeks. Go!"
The idea of this analogy was twofold.
1) To establish an MO for collaborating. So, "There are parts of the fic that are inherent to the fic and that I'm attached to and that I want to stay. If you want to change or delete them, let's discuss first. That's the opal. Then there's the part where I just wrote some words so that it would read like a fic. That's the matrix. Please get rid of these parts at will (in suggestion mode, but you don't have to discuss them first)."
2) To assuage my self-consciousness about sending something this incomplete. Like, "I know these words are clumsy! I know these people aren't robots and should have feelings! If I had more time, I would fix a million things before letting a beta see it. But you're an alpha-and-beta, so please just don't judge me by thinking that I think these are great words that I am proud of. It's just there to convey the information you need to know in order for you to be able to make your contributions."
And then she made amaaaazing contributions, everyone!
Like the Mina and Heinrich scene. The purpose there is introduce Chekov's snuffbox (my idea) and to have Heinrich give himself away by being a terrible husband (cahn's idea).
Step 1: I wrote the core of the fight, where Mina says how much she misses AW and Fritz, and Heinrich says, "Oh, yeah? If you liked Fritz so much..." and Chekov's snuffbox is revealed. Then Mina comes back later and the Glasow/Heinrich connection is revealed (with ominous words that make sense in context).
Step 2: Cahn supplied a whole beginning to the scene, where Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, going to Heinrich, saying all the wrong things, and getting rejected. She also introduced Heinrich's violin and other little details, etc.
Step 3: I bulk delete cahn's words and replace them with words of my own in which Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, etc. I also added some things, like her maternal feelings toward FW2 (because I wanted to link that to AW leaving her the kids, which I wanted to introduce because it makes Heinrich's anger more understandable in context, especially since I couldn't provide the whole backstory of forced marriage, etc.) I inserted bits and pieces of cahn's phrasing into what I was writing, but most of that scene is mine--but you can see how much structure was hers.
Step 4: Profit!
*Knowing* that Mina and Heinrich should not be talking heads doing nothing but advancing the plot, and Mina should be grieving AW, etc., because duh, and *actually having* text, however rough, to work with, are radically different in terms of my ability to knock out a scene by the deadline. So cahn's contributions are *massive* and far beyond the total word count of which of her words remained in the final draft.
The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) )
This was so funny, because it happened over and over again! The fact that I had my other self collaborating on this and didn't have to spell out everything I wanted was why we got this done in 2 weeks and had the last week free to hack away at the ending and to write treats.
Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author
The funny part is that I've been trying to pressure you into accepting co-authorship credit for weeks because I'm very uncomfortable being listed as sole author. :D I did my best to credit you in the author's notes.
(we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text)
NOT COUNTING the part where you were responsible for the STRUCTURE of scenes I bulk-deleted and regenerated or heavily rewrote in place, like Mina and all the opera parts. :P Not counting the part where after I sent you a 20k draft so rough I hadn't even reread it, I actually let you go over each scene before I revisited it. Not counting the part where, near the end, I was like, "Welp, not working on my fic today, because I'm just waiting on cahn to write the opera parts, and that's the only major thing left."
:D :D
This was an AMAZING experience, even better than last year (probably because my sleep, bad as it was, was a million times better than a year ago), and I can't thank you enough, other self.
Whereas this was just fun :)
It was SO much fun. And also very efficient when you can just trust your other self. <3
especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard
As with last year, I think I did all the easy parts! This is why we have such great collaborations. Though really, I can see why writing emotional reactions to someone else's plot developments is easier than writing the plot developments they have in mind, so I think we ended up with a really good division of labor here.
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Date: 2021-01-01 07:21 pm (UTC)"Okay, I just shared a 20,000 word Google doc with you. It has all the plot but not enough feelings and some very thinly-sketched in scenes. You like shiny things, so here's an analogy. What I want to give Selena for Yuletide is this. What I've sent you is this. We have three weeks. Go!"
The idea of this analogy was twofold.
1) To establish an MO for collaborating. So, "There are parts of the fic that are inherent to the fic and that I'm attached to and that I want to stay. If you want to change or delete them, let's discuss first. That's the opal. Then there's the part where I just wrote some words so that it would read like a fic. That's the matrix. Please get rid of these parts at will (in suggestion mode, but you don't have to discuss them first)."
2) To assuage my self-consciousness about sending something this incomplete. Like, "I know these words are clumsy! I know these people aren't robots and should have feelings! If I had more time, I would fix a million things before letting a beta see it. But you're an alpha-and-beta, so please just don't judge me by thinking that I think these are great words that I am proud of. It's just there to convey the information you need to know in order for you to be able to make your contributions."
And then she made amaaaazing contributions, everyone!
Like the Mina and Heinrich scene. The purpose there is introduce Chekov's snuffbox (my idea) and to have Heinrich give himself away by being a terrible husband (cahn's idea).
Step 1: I wrote the core of the fight, where Mina says how much she misses AW and Fritz, and Heinrich says, "Oh, yeah? If you liked Fritz so much..." and Chekov's snuffbox is revealed. Then Mina comes back later and the Glasow/Heinrich connection is revealed (with ominous words that make sense in context).
Step 2: Cahn supplied a whole beginning to the scene, where Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, going to Heinrich, saying all the wrong things, and getting rejected. She also introduced Heinrich's violin and other little details, etc.
Step 3: I bulk delete cahn's words and replace them with words of my own in which Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, etc. I also added some things, like her maternal feelings toward FW2 (because I wanted to link that to AW leaving her the kids, which I wanted to introduce because it makes Heinrich's anger more understandable in context, especially since I couldn't provide the whole backstory of forced marriage, etc.) I inserted bits and pieces of cahn's phrasing into what I was writing, but most of that scene is mine--but you can see how much structure was hers.
Step 4: Profit!
*Knowing* that Mina and Heinrich should not be talking heads doing nothing but advancing the plot, and Mina should be grieving AW, etc., because duh, and *actually having* text, however rough, to work with, are radically different in terms of my ability to knock out a scene by the deadline. So cahn's contributions are *massive* and far beyond the total word count of which of her words remained in the final draft.
The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) )
This was so funny, because it happened over and over again! The fact that I had my other self collaborating on this and didn't have to spell out everything I wanted was why we got this done in 2 weeks and had the last week free to hack away at the ending and to write treats.
Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author
The funny part is that I've been trying to pressure you into accepting co-authorship credit for weeks because I'm very uncomfortable being listed as sole author. :D I did my best to credit you in the author's notes.
(we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text)
NOT COUNTING the part where you were responsible for the STRUCTURE of scenes I bulk-deleted and regenerated or heavily rewrote in place, like Mina and all the opera parts. :P Not counting the part where after I sent you a 20k draft so rough I hadn't even reread it, I actually let you go over each scene before I revisited it. Not counting the part where, near the end, I was like, "Welp, not working on my fic today, because I'm just waiting on cahn to write the opera parts, and that's the only major thing left."
:D :D
This was an AMAZING experience, even better than last year (probably because my sleep, bad as it was, was a million times better than a year ago), and I can't thank you enough, other self.
Whereas this was just fun :)
It was SO much fun. And also very efficient when you can just trust your other self. <3
especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard
As with last year, I think I did all the easy parts! This is why we have such great collaborations. Though really, I can see why writing emotional reactions to someone else's plot developments is easier than writing the plot developments they have in mind, so I think we ended up with a really good division of labor here.