sarasa_cat | A writing community for borrowed characters (fanfic/expyfic)

An update on this prior post to let folks know that me and a co-conspirator have been busily brainstorming ideas for making this work.

One challenge for an writing community where writers use "borrowed characters" (either in straight up fan fiction, AU fan fiction, or "expy-fic,"/ exported character literature), is the issue of having a productive, creativity-inspiring space where writers can feel that their ideas are being supported even when two or more people are working on WIPs that take the same canonical base character in radically different directions.

Behind the scenes, there has been much brainstorming, plus a good deal of reflection on experiences in different fandoms over the past bunch of years (6 years for me) and experiences in writing workshops for original fiction. There was also the matter of looking into technologies other than Dreamwidth for hosting this. Still sticking with Dreamwidth for now after previewing a variety of other options...

A few ideas for the writing community seem relatively easy to implement. These are:

Committed Novelists/Epic-ficcers: Creating a long fic/novels support sub-group where people can jump into at any time by following a structured set of daily writing prompts that are part of the "90 Day Novel" Approach. But no requirement to write a novel in 90 days. If you need to reuse prompts, take days off, compress multiple days into one (you crazy writer!), or jump in and out as time allows (because work/school sucks you dry), that's okay. I've been thinking about how to make it work such that seven days of prompts/exercises are put up each week, all linked off a master index with pointers to resources. This way it will not matter what prompt you are working on. There would be a weekly watercooler with some discussion questions so folks can talk about how things are going, swap tips, cheer each other on, and, most importantly, talk in depth about how any of these 90 prompts get you from an initial idea to a first draft of a novel. I've already started using the 90-Day Novel approach on a WIP and I like it so far. It is very good for people who discover story by writing story, aka, "pansters" or "seat of the pants" writers.
Jugglers and Dabblers: For people who have multiple WIPs they are juggling or a variety of shorter projects, the original idea (back in my initial post) was weekly or fortnightly (probably fortnightly!) activities that help you develop characters, structure plot, bring out voice and style, and layer in theme and subtext. As I've mentioned in the past, I have a bookshelf plus a file box FULL of exercises and folks here on tumblr are constantly blogging more so I'm certain we can get a massive list together over time. Once we get into a rhythm, we can have folks take turns as admins for a quarter (3 months?), where the admin selects a set of 3 to 5 fun fortnightly writing exercises from our archive, making sure to have something that will appeal to everyone. Always optional. Always designed for you to just jump in and apply whatever exercise appeals to you on whichever WIP is nipping at your ankles. Again, we'll have a weekly or fortnightly watercolor associated with the highlighted exercises of the week (or fortnight) so people can discuss their PROCESS (rather than show their product). What worked? What failed? What surprised you? What got you unstuck? What made you barf out 1000 golden words?

Things that we'll probably worry about a little later, once the comm gets going, is how to handle workshopping of WIPs that people want to put up for constructive criticism. Probably one of our first orders of business after doors open and people settle in is to do some collective brainstorming on what would work best.

Another idea bubbling up is having a format for introducing oneself as a writer. This intro would talk about the kinds of fiction you write, the intent of your fiction, a few WIPs that you are actively working on (or thinking about), and also the kinds of fiction you like to read.