by Mayumi-H | Jul 20, 2019 | Writing Challenges
I’ve talked about writing coach/author/editor Kate Johnston‘s Team Writer Saturday Sentence Challenge before. Briefly, each week, Kate offers members of the group a boring or grammatically-troubled sentence which we are tasked with sprucing up. The challenge is that we can only push this to two sentences, and we’ve got to make the reader feel something. This particular week, Kate provided a familiar cliche:
The thought passed through his mind.
Now, I’ve got a lot of characters who have a lot of thoughts crossing their minds. Some thoughts are crazy, others romantic, still others devious. For this particular prompt, my brain originally went a different way, with a different character, but the details in that first attempt went way off into deep raunch, I didn’t think it appropriate to share with mixed company. Still, I’ve always liked the idea of forbidden attraction. I just took it in a slightly different direction. Here’s what I wrote, as begun in the image above:
Firelight danced over the mechanic’s face, adding a glow to her smooth brown cheeks and full, glossy lips, and in that moment the hunter wondered how soft that cheek would feel if he stroked it, and how silky those lips if he kissed them. But then her husband sat down between them and, well, that was the end of that.
Of course, that’s not quite the end of that particular story. But sharing the ensuing details to that scene will have to wait for another day.
Did this Saturday Sentence Challenge answer from me make you feel anything? Have you partaken of any writing challenges, lately? Share your thoughts in the comments!
by Mayumi-H | Jun 13, 2019 | Number Seven
The quote above was originally submitted for a #1LineWed offering on June 13, 2018. It comes from my original character Darya in “Number Seven and the Life Left Behind” and it gave me trouble in every single edit of the story. Every character needs their own conflict, and I wanted to give her one that was separate – and more personal – from what we witness through Number Seven’s eyes.
The backstory tidbit quoted here popped into my head in the first draft and went through surprisingly few changes before the final version. What bothers me to this day isn’t that I wrote it or that I kept it in the published novella, but whether readers understand what I was going for.
Darya’s Backstory
Darya Vikhrova is the only daughter of Ana Vikhrova, a cosmetics industry star and nouveau riche socialite. Darya’s father is unknown to her. Darya grew up amid material wealth but emotional poverty; Ana consistently told her she wasn’t worth a damn and no one would ever want her outside of her inheritance. As a little girl, Darya was withdrawn, fearful, and prone to private outbursts of anger. During a trip to Italy when she was 9 years old, Darya performed a near-perfect dive from a cliff. It changed her life. Ana’s boyfriend at the time, recognizing the feat, suggested Ana send her daughter to a professional coach. Ana and Darya were both only too happy to agree. Soon after, Darya earned a place on the national junior division team and started winning. Most importantly, she left her mother behind. Eventually, Darya would meet Kirill Morozov and his bodyguard Number Seven, and her life would change again.
In the Novella
I still don’t know if Darya’s story progression comes completely clear in the final version of “Number Seven and the Life Left Behind.” I left out a lot of the details listed above, leaving only a few lines devoted to her history, with most of them expressed by other characters, but I just didn’t want to delve too far into her backstory. She’s a secondary character at best and describing her motivations would have slowed down the main story. Still, I liked what she brought to the final product, and she was certainly fun to write! If I ever return to the world of Number Seven and his friends, I know exactly where Darya’s life will take her next.
by Mayumi-H | Jun 7, 2019 | Writing Projects
Art commission of my original character Anan by Techycutie. This version is not as dark as Anan is described in the story, but that’s more my fault than the artist’s, since I was probably not specific enough about that.
What’s fun about seeing an artist’s take on an original character is that they can interpret a basic description in a new way. Sometimes, it makes the character even more fun for me to write! For instance, I hadn’t originally envisioned Anan with such impressive endowments, but that has become a part of her characterization in later write-ups. Better still, it fits with who she is!
Have you ever had an artist take a try at one of your original characters? Were you surprised at what they came up with? Let me know!
by Mayumi-H | May 24, 2019 | Excerpts, Writing Projects
The Eve and Alan characters are new to me. I’m still feeling my way around them and their post-WWII world. I already like them, though, and they’re already forming a story for themselves. Love (and sex) play a part because that’s how they first came to my mind. A few kind readers took a chance on my initial foray into their world, in the vignette “Apples and Eve”, available by request if you so comment.
I’ve never written this genre before. These characters are speaking to me, though. Who knows? Maybe, if the feedback is good, I’ll try my hand at more of this particular story. At any rate, if you decide to read this little scene, I’d be grateful if you share your thoughts. Click the link below to read the PDF; it runs ~1700 words, or 6 pages double-spaced.
Warning: This story contains description of mature interactions between adults.
Last-Night-at-the-Golconda
by Mayumi-H | Apr 30, 2019 | It's My Life
Let me start by saying this post is not to pooh-pooh fanfiction or the many writers and readers who enjoy it. I believe fanfiction is a valid and important writing form that produces many wonderful stories that bridge borders and offer opportunities for readers of all types.
That’s not what I’m going to talk about, though.
My Fanfiction Writing Life
I think the very first story I ever wrote was a fanfic. For those unfamiliar, fanfiction is stories about characters and worlds already established through media like television, movies, comic books, and videogames. From the rebel hideouts of Star Wars to the high school hallways of Persona 4, I loved wandering through them all. Moreover, I loved the people in them. Their stories sparked a light in me that would often keep me up long into the night, when I would scribble out side stories of my own leading them into new adventures and romances.
Over time, I took an interest in creating my own characters in those worlds: people who could support, antagonize, romance, and challenge the pre-existing characters I already adored. In the fanfiction realm, we call those homemade creations “Original Characters”, or OCs for short.
In the beginning, my OCs were supporting characters only. I felt like readers wouldn’t want to read about my original characters butting into the lives of their well-known favorites. For the most part, that held true. Feedback from readers showed that they didn’t care about the side characters I was creating. Some readers got so offended by my OCs that they wrote me hate mail! I decided the hassle simply wasn’t worth it.
But there was more to my leaving fanfiction than just some petty reader backlash.
What Changed
The more I wrote my OCs, the more attached I became to them. I realized I loved many of them more than I liked the pre-existing folks. My OCs started to take on lives, loves, and destinies of their own, sometimes completely separate from their source material. After not very long, the fanfiction roots for many of my OCs started to lose their luster. I wanted my characters to be my characters alone, with no ties to someone else’s (read: some company’s) world or story.
In 2017, I began the process of taking down most of my fanfiction. Two years later, only a handful remain on public sites like Fanfiction.Net and AO3. With only 1 or 2 exceptions, nobody seemed to miss them.
Now, it’s not like I don’t care about those stories. I’d spent time and effort – weeks, months, sometimes even years of my life – writing, crafting, drafting, and editing. Still, it felt good to reclaim them from the cavernous depths of the Internet*. Now, they’re just mine. Their being mine allows me to go back and rewrite, repurpose, or just reread at my leisure without the pressure to make them match my current level of skill. That means a lot of them stay ugly and amateurish, but I’m fine with that.
What’s Next
I haven’t completely given up on fanfiction. At the same time that I was taking down other fanfiction stories, I wrote a completely new one based on the Metro:2033 series. I recently revisited my “Doctor Who” Songbirds stories for sharing here. I’m sure my joy will be sparked by some pre-made world or character again in the future. I look forward to it! Until then, I will enjoy and take pride in the worlds and people of my own creating.
To those still writing fanfiction: Keep writing it! There’s a lot of joy and support to be found in the fanfiction writing community. I found and made good friends through sharing those stories.
And for those looking to move from fanfiction to original fiction: You can do it! Your fanfiction writing roots will serve you well in creating your own worlds and characters.
* Nothing is ever completely gone from the Internet, but the stories aren’t easily accessible anymore. That said, there are some stories I’ll never share again, for varying reasons of time, file size, and text.
What about you?
Have you ever read fanfiction? Written it? What are your favorite fanfiction genres, series, or characters? Let me know in the comments below!
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