You can find all my existing fan-fiction on my ff.net account, my deviantArt profile, or my Avatar Spirit fanfic thread. Additionally, I've mirrored some of my better fics to the avatar_fans  community, and posted others to various exchanges, so you can read and/or comment on them right here on LiveJournal:

Lioness
The Chosen
Seeking the Why
Lady on Fire
Foresight
Working It Off
Nemesis
Dawning
The Magnificent Two
Levers & Journeys

Thanks for stopping by!

I posted this to my tumblr a while ago but forgot to cross-post it here. However, a recent post by LJ Lee on Legend of Korra's meaningless action sequences reminded me of this, and so I'm digging this back up for everyone here to enjoy.

How to Create Meaningful Conflict

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Title: The Contract
Rating: K+ (contains a little unexplained crude humor)
Characters: Mai, Ursa, Zuko
Notes: I wanted to do my take on the idea of a formal betrothal between Mai and Zuko as kids. Somehow, I wound up with a comedic satire of Fire Nation culture as seen through the eyes of Mai and Ursa. Weird, right?
Warning: Contains allusions to Ursa's backstory as presented in 'The Search - Part 1'

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In a previous journal entry, I described a model for selling a story idea that someone else could turn into a book or comic. I had hoped to refine it into a functional (theoretically functional, at least) sales method, but it seems that I was trying to build on a shaky foundation. Commenters took the position that most artists prefer to work as auteurs, as there's no possible way that anyone but the idea's originator could do a good job with it. Since most of us aren't professionals, it's not a surprising philosophy, although most of what we produce- fanworks- are testaments to the effectiveness of producing an idea that someone else came up with. (Hollywood is another testament.)

However, one line of thought especially jumped out at me. On my livejournal, lalunatique shared a great article that outlined the history of Publishing and the role of the Author in the evolving sales model, ending with the assertion that the changing marketplace (online versus bookstores, grassroots over corporate publishing, etc.) will yield a new manifestation of the old concept of an Author. The article can be read here, and I recommend it as much for its exciting and punchy style as for the learning opportunity it offers. The article really got me thinking and one idea especially won my infatuation:

What if the next evolution of the Author is from a single, credited person to a team of interchangeable people?
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So, do you think something like this could work? What improvements would you suggest?

lalunatique and kimberly_t have this on their fanfiction.net profiles, and I decided to finally have fun with it. Feel free to add your own, and maybe you can make the list. Don't worry about insulting me, I think I have that covered already.


10. All the sentences are long, and nary a statement is made without at least one comma. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to say that sentences wear commas like jewelry.

9. Purple prose abounds, but not in the way you usually see it. Instead of long paragraphs of descriptions, characters will ruminate on what they're sensing, and adjectives will randomly pounce like guerrilla fighters in the wilderness. More often than not, all of this description will somehow manage to tie in to one or more ongoing themes, whether or not it's appropriate or likely.

8. Any romance will be chaste romance. If it weren't for the odd kiss every so often, it'd be hard to tell if the pairings are actually romantic in nature or merely an example of two very supportive friends. This is not psychologically significant in any way.

7. Any romantic angst will be quirky romantic angst. Pairings will rarely suffer from external forces trying to keep them apart, and no character will attempt to break off a romance for the other party's perceived good. Instead, all the conflict will come from the characters struggling to even tell if they're attracted to each other, and then after they acknowledge it, they'll still waffle on deciding if the romance is worth the lifestyle compromises they'll have to make for it. This is not psychologically significant in any way.

6. Every single character thinks in a highly rational manner , and will be given to frequent bouts of dispassionate self-analysis. Yes, even the crazy ones. Especially the crazy ones. This is not psychologically significant in any way.

5. Don't look for stories about the main pairings of the original cartoon. In fact, don't look for the main characters of the original cartoon. Minor characters and strange crack-pairings rule the day.

4. It doesn't matter how inappropriate it is for the story, there will be comedic elements. This is not psychologically significant in any way.

3. Sokka or Mai. Just... Sokka or Mai. This is as psychological as it comes.

2. Serious works will often include, if not feature, characters of ambiguous, unusual, or absent morality. The presentation of these characters makes it look like that kind of behavior is being advocated.

1. Fight scenes. Fight scenes with more detail than can ever be narratively justified. Also, expect the best action sequences to randomly stop and give the POV character's full resume in a mini-essay on how awesome they are.

Last time, we got into heavy details about what Sokka's team would look like. I still had one slot to fill with a couple more that weren't yet completely certain, and people gave me some great suggestions to work with. However, I'd like to step away from that now without finalizing the team. I do have an idea of what I think the final team will look like, but I'd rather not set it into stone until I flesh out more of the plot and The Plot. So let's get started with that by looking at the foundation of the story- the setting.

Ideally, the setting of a story is a good reflection of its themes while also providing lots of elements that can be used and abused by the plot. I've written stories that basically just inherited a setting from some element of canon, and also stories where I had to create my own setting but basically did just a new take on a something known like "Earth Kingdom city." For this story, though, I'm going to be diving into something completely new. That is, of course, the steampunk casino.

( My original idea was... )

Here we are again, planning a story I call "Sokka's Eleven," about how Sokka reacts to adulthood and peacetime by lashing out and robbing a casino for specific reasons I'm obscuring for now. So, last time I discussed my premise, and outlined what seemed to be my Eleven crew before I said I was going to have to redo the whole thing.

The list I created last time was indeed the cast I was going to use before I shelved this story, but since picking it up again, I realized that it had major problems. (Either I needed the perspective of a little distance, or I've become a better writer since then.) I'm sure most people notice, but the core of my Eleven crew is, essentially, the gAang. If I write them as in-character then they're going to essentially get along, they're going to know how to work together, and they're not going to interact as readily with the lesser cast members who won slots on the team.

As was pointed out on my deviantArt account, Zuko and Aang especially seem like odd choices for this story. They are the Avatar and the Fire Lord, two of the world's five world leaders. It's kind of mean for them to picking on a little casino owner. Even if he is a really bad person, or trying to take over the world or something, it's just petty to rob him or her before saving the day in the traditional manner. Just like the President of the United States wouldn't have worked in Ocean's Eleven, Zuko and Aang wouldn't have worked here.

Plus, this is a story about a casino heist. I notice there's a disturbing dearth of career criminals involved.

What I need is a team that will challenge each other, have some little conflicts without the interpersonal drama overshadowing the heist itself. I need these people to learn from each other, and learn about themselves through their interactions. I need people who can undergo their own little story-arcs that tie in with the main themes. I need them to be "small" enough that they are the underdog against this casino owner. And, as Lavanya Six noted on my LiveJournal, I'm missing some important archetypes for this kind of story. So, who should I swap out, and who gets in?

Well, Sokka stays. And, as noted, Mai has a major story arc while also being a pleasantly quirky specialist. I may or may not want to give a midlife crisis and/or growing-up story to Ty Lee, but even if I don't, she can be a really useful sounding board for the other two. Teo, as I noted, fulfilled an important archetype, plot-related role, and even played into the main theme. He stays. And they all have unique skills that could be useful for the heist.

So, who's new?

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Sometimes, I like to listen to a piece of music to inspire my writing, getting my head in the right sense of tone and feeling. Unlike most people who use this method, though, I don't like using songs for this, I prefer something without words so that the music itself is what I'm listening to. If I were to take inspiration from the lyrics, I might as well read a book and get something with a more literary voice. But a glorious full orchestra invoking emotion and experience with its sound? Delightful and inspiring.

For "Retroactive," I've been using this method to inspire me with each chapter. I'm trying to have each chapter tell a little mini-story on its own, or at least feel like a natural subset of the overall plot. Because I satisfy my love of orchestra mostly with movie soundtracks (and John Williams in particular), giving each chapter its own musical score is an effective way for me to get in the right mindset.

I figured I'd share my inspirational pieces for the chapters posted thus far. These aren't meant to accompany the chapters, and don't exactly match the events and flow of each chapter, but are more meant to convey the general story and feel.

I held off until now because some of the music used in early chapters is actually SPOILERS for the latest chapter. So yeah, SPOILER WARNING IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP.

( Warning: contains excessive amounts of orchestra, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, and The Track Team. )
Also, I made a map to help me keep track of location and terrain and stuff that I posted to deviantArt. SPOILERS FOR THE LATEST CHAPTERS in this link.