Oh Jesus, it was 2011 when I started Twist. 2012 is a year that is locked in my head for *reasons* and I associate it with Twist for those reasons [I'll send you a DM to explain]. Interesting you reference Dickens because Twist, like Dickens' serial stories, was posted in real time as I was writing it. Yes, this was a very crazy time in my life - if you ever read Twist (no pressure!) it has crazy long chapters. 310K in 29 chapters? Yup, crazy long, and I was whipping them out every other week or so.
Some Twist and Oakstone History: In July, 2011 I wrote my first fanfiction - but I didn't know *what* fanfiction was, I'd re-read Deathly Hallows in preparation for the last film coming out and was vexed at the non-ending. So, to save myself from reading and re-reading the end of the bloody book to try and discern something MORE, I wrote my own ending. 20K worth of an ending [The Day After: Deathly Hallows Continued]. I wrote it in July and in a state of embarrassment mentioned it to a friend and she said "Oh you wrote a fanfic." and I said "oh." and immediately went home and googled fanfiction. And discovered THE BLACK HOLE OF AMAZINGNESS THAT IS FANFICTION.
Yeah. So, Day After was written in July/August and I [checking fanfiction] posted it August 30 2011. Somehow in September I discovered Harry/Draco. And immediately my mind started to ponder what it would be like for a 13-14 year old Harry to come to the realization, on top of everything else, that he was gay. So I wrote the scene that is now chapter *two* of Twist. It is the scene where Cedric and Harry talk at the World Cup - because I wanted Harry to have a friend to talk to, to help him through the journey. So it was just intended to be a one-shot, but someone posted how they wanted *more* (as is want to happen on FF) and I started thinking, and thinking. And I made furious notes whilst my son was playing on the playground and I realized I could turn that one scene into a canon-true H/D story. So I did.
The first chapter (talking to Cedric at the World Cup) became the second chapter when I realized that the whole thing was coming together as a very fluffy bit of flangst and I *knew* what was coming and wanted to give the readers warning so I wrote a prologue and posted it as Chapter One sometime in November - I basically prewrote a pivotal scene in what would become chapter 16 to give everyone fair warning.
And that is basically how Twist came to be, I don't think I could write it today - you can *literally* see my writing improving as the story progresses. You can *see* the day that I read that epithets are a bad, bad thing and I stopped using them. You can also see that I was without a beta for virtually the entire story. Words were flying from my mind to the page to being posted. The amount of SPaG is incredible, but to be honest, i don't care. It was a stream of consciousness fic that *had* to be written. If I had stopped to think and ponder I don't think I would have finished it. There is a lot of raw emotion in the story, and it comes through, I think.
SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT OAKSTONE? Yes, we were talking about dating fics, weren't we? [I've had a smidge too much wine, can you tell?] I would date Twist from the end date, because until a work is finished it isn't complete. The final post is the publish date. June 27, 2012.
Sigh, I shall go off to bed now. But *wait* remember how long those chapters are in Twist? 10-20K? I had to start posting them on Friday nights because I had too many students who were reading it that were saying they had to go into school the next day, so I waited and posted just on Fridays or Saturdays figuring that globally, it wouldn't mess up too many students school-week :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-02-01 06:13 am (UTC)Some Twist and Oakstone History: In July, 2011 I wrote my first fanfiction - but I didn't know *what* fanfiction was, I'd re-read Deathly Hallows in preparation for the last film coming out and was vexed at the non-ending. So, to save myself from reading and re-reading the end of the bloody book to try and discern something MORE, I wrote my own ending. 20K worth of an ending [The Day After: Deathly Hallows Continued]. I wrote it in July and in a state of embarrassment mentioned it to a friend and she said "Oh you wrote a fanfic." and I said "oh." and immediately went home and googled fanfiction. And discovered THE BLACK HOLE OF AMAZINGNESS THAT IS FANFICTION.
Yeah. So, Day After was written in July/August and I [checking fanfiction] posted it August 30 2011. Somehow in September I discovered Harry/Draco. And immediately my mind started to ponder what it would be like for a 13-14 year old Harry to come to the realization, on top of everything else, that he was gay. So I wrote the scene that is now chapter *two* of Twist. It is the scene where Cedric and Harry talk at the World Cup - because I wanted Harry to have a friend to talk to, to help him through the journey. So it was just intended to be a one-shot, but someone posted how they wanted *more* (as is want to happen on FF) and I started thinking, and thinking. And I made furious notes whilst my son was playing on the playground and I realized I could turn that one scene into a canon-true H/D story. So I did.
The first chapter (talking to Cedric at the World Cup) became the second chapter when I realized that the whole thing was coming together as a very fluffy bit of flangst and I *knew* what was coming and wanted to give the readers warning so I wrote a prologue and posted it as Chapter One sometime in November - I basically prewrote a pivotal scene in what would become chapter 16 to give everyone fair warning.
And that is basically how Twist came to be, I don't think I could write it today - you can *literally* see my writing improving as the story progresses. You can *see* the day that I read that epithets are a bad, bad thing and I stopped using them. You can also see that I was without a beta for virtually the entire story. Words were flying from my mind to the page to being posted. The amount of SPaG is incredible, but to be honest, i don't care. It was a stream of consciousness fic that *had* to be written. If I had stopped to think and ponder I don't think I would have finished it. There is a lot of raw emotion in the story, and it comes through, I think.
SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT OAKSTONE? Yes, we were talking about dating fics, weren't we? [I've had a smidge too much wine, can you tell?] I would date Twist from the end date, because until a work is finished it isn't complete. The final post is the publish date. June 27, 2012.
Sigh, I shall go off to bed now. But *wait* remember how long those chapters are in Twist? 10-20K? I had to start posting them on Friday nights because I had too many students who were reading it that were saying they had to go into school the next day, so I waited and posted just on Fridays or Saturdays figuring that globally, it wouldn't mess up too many students school-week :)