willow_25 | Entries tagged with spiderwebs

I was working on 'Spiderwebs' last night, which is the sequel to 'Fade Away Again'. I'm glad that I was able to work on something, since I've been stalled for a while, but I really don't like how the story's going so far. Which is not a good, because the plan was to start posting as soon as FAA is finished. Provided, of course, FAA ever gets finished. It's become the never-ending story.

So, the Spiderwebs issues. I've been told that knowing why something is failing is a good step towards correcting the problem, so I'm just gonna write it out. Feel free to stop reading if you don't care about my issues.

1) There's some stuff after the battle in FAA, stuff not ready to be posted yet, that paves the way to the third story in the series (the one-shot, 'Hole in my Pocket' is the first, remember). In FAA there are a couple of characters who will get to be very important people to Willow, and by extension Buffy and Spike, later on. But because of the battle there's not a lot of room to develop those characters. So, I'm trying to work that development in early in 'Spiderwebs'. It's reading very awkwardly at the moment.

2) A backstory occurred to me after I'd already plotted the third and fourth stories. I think it'll work really well for a lot of readers, as it involves Angel a lot more. Angel was sort of persona non grata in this story previously. But, it messes up the flow of where I put X scene and when Y needs to happen.

3) Writing Dawn. I kinda suck at it, and it needs to be done here. At least I saved myself from writing her in first person this time; then I'd have to kill myself.

4) One of the main themes in this story, which carries it over to the next one: Spike has friends, a support system, and a whole life of his own. And I need to show that without being all heavy-handed "See, I'm SPIKE'S friend, not ANGEL'S friend, not BUFFY'S friend". And I don't know how great a job I'm doing with that. I feel like I'm doing too much telling, and not enough showing.

So, those are the points I need to work on, which are making 'Spiderwebs' a massive fail at the moment. But, I wrote something last night. That's a big yay!