Time to 'fess up...

[shimotsuki]

Okay, I'm sort of blocked on my next fic for the current Jumble at metamorfic_moon.

I suspected I would have a harder time with this one, since I usually write character studies (or one- or two-chapter fics where whatever plot I manage to write is really just an excuse for some poor hapless characters to undergo an experience of my choosing so I can watch them deal with it). For this Jumble, I swore up and down that if I got action/adventure for my genre prompt, I would go for it, because I want to learn to handle more genres.

Well, I did get a/a. Trouble is, days have gone by and I'm still at the point of choreographing various scenarios in my head, waiting for that feeling of "aha, there's the plotbunny I'm going to follow." Nothing I've thought of so far feels like it's something that wants me to write it.

I've already had a look at the a/a writing discussion at metamorfic_moon. That was extremely helpful, especially the suggestions by jesspallas, whose a/a fics Oblivious and Imperius are some of my favorite long fics ever. So I've got some technical ideas I'm dying to try, but NO PLOT.

Here are some ideas I've been pushing around. Any opinions? Does anything stand out as something you think you'd like to read?

a/a plot sampler

• It's OotP year. Fred & George have just quit school. They show up at 12GP and worm their way into the Order. Remus and Tonks take them out on what is supposed to be a basic training mission, but complications arise and a/a ensues.
  
  Possible sources of said complications:
  • Tonks and Remus get separated from the twins, and then some Death Eaters, um, do something, which F&G have to handle on their own until the group all find each other again. (Too boring? Too much Fred & George?)
    
  • The mission is to find something (document?) in some large and fortified building (St. Mungo's? the Ministry? Gringotts?) while sneaking around and avoiding both bureaucrats/goblins as well as the Death Eaters who are also loose in the building. (Too much like the Feral Institute scenes in Imperius?)
    
  • Each of the four ends up tailing some different Death Eater or suspicious character around Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, with various and sundry near misses and narrow escapes. (Might be too many details to keep track of for my first a/a?)
  
  
• It's HBP year. Remus needs emergency help related to his mission with Greyback's pack. Tonks is with the twins at the time and enlists their help. Everyone runs around avoiding, and possibly also fighting with, (untransformed) werewolves. Things are not good between Remus and Tonks; possible comic relief if the twins don't realize what's wrong with them. (Too clichéd?)
  
  
• It's Sept 1 of DH year. Remus is visiting Fred and George at WWW's new Hogsmeade branch when a werewolf who knows Remus from his HBP-year mission spots him and runs up to warn him that Greyback is planning to meet the Hogwarts Express. Tonks is on duty in Hogsmeade and gets involved. (Problem here is it's guaranteed to be made non-canon when DH comes out, but maybe I shouldn't let that worry me. Also, it feels clichéd again. But honestly, all of these ideas do, which is one reason I'm feeling stuck.)

Anything sound appealing? Any other ideas? I'll keep thinking; maybe inspiration will strike after all.

Comments

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thanks for helping me think about this!

having Tonks and Remus frought and on the hunt for Fred and George, and Fred and George running from the DEs and flip between the two

Yeah, that could really work. I'd also been considering having the whole fic alternate POVs between Fred and George, although this would mean I'd have to invent actual personalities that distinguish the two (a fun project, but maybe not in the space of 2-3 days!). Right. Maybe I had better just pick one twin and one of R/T and follow those POVs instead.

This planning process has also gotten me wondering about what makes a story R/T. If a fic isn't about their relationship per se, and half the time the action is following other people, is it really still R/T, or have we crossed the line into genfic? I like writing genfic, it's not that, but I'm wondering if I'll end up taking all my prompts and writing myself a story that doesn't qualify for the Jumble in the end anyway.