beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth reading list

Article 48 [Restriction on Acceptance of Engagement] (7647 words) by china_shop [Teen and Up]
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 당신이 잠든 사이에 | While You Were Sleeping (TV)
Relationships: Han Woo Tak/Jung Jae Chan/Nam Hong Joo
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Threesome - F/M/M, Getting Together, Prophetic Dreams, Found Family
Summary:

“Woo Tak, you haven’t left home yet, right?” Hong Joo’s voice comes down the line with the familiar confidence of long-standing friendship. “Don’t drive. You’ll get stuck in traffic, and you’ll miss your test.”

Woo Tak momentarily forgets his place in her life. His crush is usually manageable, but this morning, taken off-guard, he can’t suppress a kindling warmth, nor the smile that accompanies it. “Nam Hong Joo, have you been dreaming about me from all the way over in Australia?”

This request came up for pinch hit around the time I defaulted on Yuletide, and I thought, well, if I can't manage my assignment, I'll at least do a treat. Especially since I'd nominated While You Were Sleeping (one of my long-standing tiny Kdrama fandoms). But in the end, this foundered too. Turns out partners having operations is not great for my writing productivity.

So since mid-February (I think?!), I've been finishing the draft, re-writing, and re-re-writing. I came up against successive problems, and I want to document them here, because I know these issues are cropping up in my writing generally, of late.

1. Internal/external consistency: one of the big problems with my first few drafts was: Character A decides to do X and continues to believe they're doing X while actually doing Y. In other words, the external dialogue and actions contradict the internal monologue in a way that is not deliberate and just comes across as confusing and nonsensical. ("I've decided not to tell them how I feel... except that I keep hinting without acknowledging that.") I'm sure there are deliberate ways to do this that can be very effective. This was not that.
   
   Solution: step outside the POV and look at what the character is actually doing. Then signpost reversals and the reasons for them.


2. Cue words/flow: one of Matt Bell's newsletters a while back quoted Robert McKee talking about cue words:

   [E]very reaction[...] needs an action to prompt it.
   
   Therefore, ideally, the last word or phrase of each speech is the core word that seals meaning and cues a reaction from the other side of the scene. [...] A miscue happens when a core word is placed too early in Character A’s line and prompts a reaction from Character B, but because Character A has more words to recite, Actor B must swallow her response and wait while Actor A finishes performing his speech.

   
   In prose, this isn't just about external reaction, but internal reaction too. If the POV character's internal monologue isn't reacting to the last thing that happened/was said, then the reader is left scrambling to make connections with something that might have happened lines or paragraphs back, or which might not be there at all. I find I'm particularly prone to this when I have a lot of meta thoughts I'm trying to include in the POV's internal monologue.
   
   Solution: restructure so that the reactions directly follow on from the thing that caused them, and make sure that meta thoughts flow naturally, each one prompted by the last, in a way that fits the overall arc/direction of the scene (keeping in mind that it's perfectly fine to have reversals).


3. Location of conversation/theory of mind: I've been finding lately that my POV characters often conduct a huge amount of the story just inside their heads, even when there's someone else there. They have all these thoughts and feelings to process! It's a lot! And then occasionally the other person says something, setting off a new cascade of thoughts and feelings. But most people have theories about what the people they're talking with are thinking, how they're feeling, what they're trying to achieve. Conversations, especially romantic ones, usually work better when the focus is shared between the POV character's internal thoughts, and their assessment of what is happening externally.
   
   Solution: make the other party to the conversation more active. And make the POV character react to them, as well as their own internal stuff.


4. Direction/progress of scenes: I touched on this above, but it deserves its own point. Because I discovery write, I find it easy to take a very meandery path from the start of the scene to where I want to end up. In fanfic, this isn't fatal because we all enjoy spending time with our characters. But it can undercut tension and test readers' comprehension. It's something I want to work on.
   
   Solution: structure scenes so that there's a sense of progress, with only one or two reversals, not flip-flopping every few paragraphs.

Anyway, things to think about. Things to work on. I'm super grateful to teaotter for multiple beta rounds, helping me figure some of this stuff out. And I'm looking forward to applying these lessons to my current WIP, which oh dear, really needs it. ;-)

Previous poll review
In the Favourites poll, 63% of respondents have a favourite colour, 23.9% said sort of, and 8.7% said no. In ticky-boxes, rainbows came second to hugs, 68.8% to 87.5%. Raccoon chefs came third with 43.8%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
Still listening to The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, read by Sid Sagar. At this stage, I'm enjoying the worldbuilding most of all. (Why is ancient xenophobia, eg, Thebians hating on Athenians, amusing, when its modern counterpart is the worst?)

Still dipping into Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell. I'm still in the drafting part, which has lots of strategies and good things to think about, but doesn't seem like it will get you a clean first draft. Like, that is not at all his goal.

Kdramas
I've nearly finished my immediate rewatch of One Spring Night. Will I manage not to go straight back to the beginning, or will it be like that time I had Maroon Five's Songs About Jane in my car tape deck for maybe three years straight? (Note to self: potential Yuletide fandom; I would love future fic about teenage Eun-u and his relationship with his new mother (and cousin(s) and possible younger siblings), and also his sort-of-outsider POV on his parents' relationship.)

Finished Undercover Miss Hong, which was sweet and fun. Not a favourite for me, but enjoyable, and I'm glad I watched.

I'm in the market for something new. I started Phantom Lawyer (about a fledging lawyer who sees ghosts and takes them on as clients; yes, it's a shaky business model), but Andrew's watching it with me, so that's an evening thing. I need something else to lure me onto my exercise machine.

I tried episode 1 of The Practical Guide to Love, for Han Ji-Min, but am not convinced. (Is anyone else watching it? Does it pick up?) Also, a little more of While You Were Sleeping, but either VIKI or I have forgotten where I'm up to. No Love Scout this week or last, due to illness.

Other TV
The Pitt. Ahhhh, my favourite weekly stressbomb.

A few more episodes of The Madison, which continues to be pretty; continues to push the message that cities are trash, versus country living, which is wholesome and full of community, and inspires personal growth. Somehow, the appearance of a love interest has turned me off the whole thing, and I don't even know why. Genre shift? Also, (can I be spoilery? does anyone care?)

not even really spoilers

there are all these flashbacks to Conversations from a Marriage between Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, and every single one of these takes place in New York while Michelle Pfeiffer is in the bath. After a while, I concluded that actually these conversations had happened all over the place (at brunch, in the street, in Central Park, in bed), but Michelle Pfeiffer's character's bereavement/grief means she can only conceptualise them as bath conversations. And then Andrew said that soon there'd be flashbacks of her friends in the bath with her, too, and now I can't take them seriously at all. (Also, she must have been so pruney after shooting all those bath scenes!)

Rooster, Cheers, and Scrubs season 1. A little bit of SurrealEstate. Paper Girls with Ed. Fringe and Bluey with my sister.

Online life
520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange modding behind the scenes, yay! Part 2 of sign-ups closes tomorrow, then it's matching, and then things will quieten down for a bit. | A lot of beta. :-) | My computer went into a crashing spiral a couple of days ago, and I started worrying (DNW to upgrade from Windows 11 to a subscription model!), but the culprit appears to have been a faulty flashdrive. Now I've removed that, things have calmed down. *knocks on wood, makes a backup*

Writing/making things
I finished a fic in March (by the skin of my teeth)! Hooray! So happy about that. I'll post about it separately.

I'm still having thoughts about my other started-for-Yuletide WIP, but I've fallen into the "I'll just ~quickly~ get this done before switching to my exchange assignment" trap before, and that way lies desperate last-minute scrambles up against the deadline, especially when I'm going so slowly. So I'm putting WIP #2 on hold until I at least have a 520 Day draft... which is why I'm writing this update, rather than racing to finish a fic that simply cannot be completed in two busy days.

Life/health/mental state things
Things are good. A bit hamster-wheel-esque, but at least my arms are hanging in there. | I'm looking forward to next week when Writers' Hour goes to 8am NZ time, and I can find a new rhythm for my day that somehow includes exercise. (Summers are great because I exercise first thing and then it's done.) | It's a long weekend, with a bunch of family stuff going on. My other-city-based brother (not to be confused with my US-based brother) is coming to dinner tonight for the first time in roughly a decade.

Cat
Halle really likes burrowing; I think she may be part mole. Sometimes I go into the bedroom, and a lump in the bedclothes starts letting out little warning "don't sit on me" meeps.

Car
I stopped driving on about 6 March because, you know, petrol prices. Which meant of course that when I tried to drive to lunch on Wednesday, my battery was completely flat, and I had to call NZAA and go for a long drive to recharge my battery. This seems like a terrible, inefficient system. Why can't my car just sit there, primed, until I (rarely) want it? Bah! I've considered getting rid of it entirely, but we're heading into winter, so idk.

Good things
So many hot cross buns, srsly! I finished a fic, after many many rewrites, yay!!!!! Family stuff will probably be good and will definitely come with delicious food!