Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Longest Fic You've Ever Written?

Aww! I love Grey's! I've never read any Grey's fanfic though! I used to read Charmed a lot.

Send it to the archive!

Thanks for the interest, guys. I'm not making any promises, but I'll try to look at the story with a fresh eye (it's been what, 7 years?) and see if I can do something about it.

Though editing is more difficult than writing... :p

I'll agree with you there. Writing is definately more fun!

In the realm of 'better later than never,'

Now there's a combination one doesn't come across every day.

My first stories on this board were very much of the tell/report rather than show variety. I am quite grateful to the FoLCs who left me encouraging feedback on those stories. I like to think that my writing has improved a lot since then, but it still has a long way to go.

I think of it at least partially as an unlearning process, as well.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in this experience. Thanks for sharing.

Joy,
Lynn

Do series count?

Tank (who says he is never planning to write a long fic again)

That's so funny to me! I prefer having a rough draft to tweak to my hearts content than writing form scratch. Editing is my favorite part!

You can find my Grey's fic on my Live Journal (just click on my homepage link) if you're interested

Lynn,

The link between Organic Chemistry and Entomology is Insecticide Research.

We had to maintain a number of pest species as well as discover new compounds to try out on them.

We also had to test against benificials in the hopes that they would not be susceptable.

Being an Apirest I had to sacrifice a lot of my bees to the testing.

I guess this gives you an edge when writing about a scientist that went bad as opposed to good (as often happened on L&C). No wonder you're so good at A-Plot!

Well, they do say that a person's writing often reveals more about the author than characters.

The longest thing I ever wrote was "Hearts Divided" which was 82,000 words. 136 pages in Word, but that's in Arial 10pt.

It took me a year to write that, and another month or two to re-write/edit the ending, since the first time through I rushed to meet the Kerth deadline and didn't do it right. Erin Klingler (my GE) has the patience of a saint.

The basic set-up idea hit me while driving, and a few days later I figured out what the ending should be, and a few days later than that, I figured out how I could manage that ending without a deus ex machina. To me, the ending has to make total sense in context, but be something that people aren't expecting. I like taking people from "how is she ever going to resolve that?" to "oh, of course, why didn't I see that coming?" I have to lay the groundwork earlier in the story, but also make it subtle and do some misdirection. I re-read stories, so it has to be something obvious and logical on the second or third reading, too.

Usually I write in a linear fashion, but I had one of the key ending scenes written for over half a year before I got to that point and could use it (it was the scenes around it that needed to be rearranged; I accidentally had one plot line finish up well before the other one, which made it unbalanced). It helped to know where I was going, though. As the proverb says, "Begin with the end in mind."

It was hard because I had two small kids, but one of them was in preschool and the other one took naps, so most days I had opportunities to write. It was often hard to get started writing, but I knew I had a limited time period, and that I needed to post the next segment before the gentle readers rioted. Getting positive feedback as I went was incredibly helpful. I did discover that sitting down and starting was usually the hardest part. I'd sit down, make myself start typing drivel, and then pretty soon the muse would notice and take over.

I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I haven't been inspired by any stories that would take that long to tell. Usually I prefer the shorter ones. I don't like writing the dark angsty stuff, and that's often what prolongs stories. I'll make the characters suffer sometimes (I love making things look hopeless before pulling out an unexpected-yet-logical ending) but usually resolve it pretty quickly.

Which was all probably more than you wanted to know. Thanks for letting me talk about myself!

PJ

Veritas at 136,000 words and 746k was my longest story.

Shayne,

What about Fugue? I make that out to be about 260 pages and about 1.3 meg.

Masques, I believe. I may have written stories longer or as long for other fandoms, previously, but it's hard to tell because they were pre-internet and published in paper zines, so I have no k count for them.

I wrote the second half of it 'live' - as soon as I posted one part here on the mbs, I'd be writing the next and sending it off to my beta to get it ready for posting within a couple of days, often incorporating ideas brought up by readers as I went, which would sometimes double the page count.

I'd never written like that before - and as the Queen of the Rewrites who normally has to go over the same paragraph 20 times until it is just right before I can move on to the next, it was the most exhilarating and frightening thing I've ever done.

Scary, but ultimately wonderful.

LabRat

Interesting that you said that. I always wonder about people who post each part as they write it. I can't stand to post something that I haven't finished because I don't use outlines; I just write freely with a basic idea of what I want to eventually happen and several times I'll go back and rearrange certain facts because they foreshadow something that I write later on that I didn't even think of including. If that made any sense lol

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me! I almost never post anything until I am done with a story, unless I am 100% certain that I am on the last chapter or two and will not be changing around anything in the earlier chapters.

Also, I never know how long the writing process is going to take. And I hate leaving my readers hanging.

I have to say that I learned my lesson the hard way. When I first started writing I tried the post as you go but my beta readers quickly convinced me that wasn't the way to go. I now basically have volumes 1, 1A, 2 and 3 in the can and I'm working on number 4. I have another draft with one of my betas for evaluation.

With what I am doing all of the volumes are interrelated and I found that something I added to Volume 3 made it necessary to rewrite number 1, and so it goes.

The beta process, I personally feel, is the way to go and have everything ready before you start to post. right now I have about 25 more weeks of 2 chapters a week of postings lined up. That should give me time to complete vol. 4 and get it through the beta process in time to move to it from vol. 3. That should also give me time to work on the next volume and it might be ready when 4 is finished posting.

Just my 2 cents worth. I have found that this way is best for me but, everybody is different.

I'm with you, KenJ and Deadly Chakrum. I've written longer stories both ways - post as you go or wait until you're completely finished. While the feedback during the writing process can be very motivating, I sometimes got too caught up in the excitment of posting. I prefer to finish the story before posting so I don't miss out on any important details.

Joan

My longest story was basically 9/10th completed when I started posting it. Some of the feedback did influence the ending, but it was over 6 months later when I finally posted the ending that hopefully it wasn't too noticeable. Most of the biggest changes to ML came from suggestions from my wonderful Betas. They brought up things I never considered. And actually told me to ADD stuff to make the characters more rounded. So, I'm a big fan of Betas!

<<Be Kind to Readers, Volunteer To Be a Beta TODAY!>>

When writing GEM, I thought it was going to be a short 10 parts (37 parts & an epilogue and 14th longest story on the archives later), I've learned my lesson. I try not to send to Beta until I've completed at least half of the story, if not more. NH (the sequel) I tried to write quickly to get it on the boards around the time that GEM finished posting, but I feel it suffered in quality because of that. ML had time to sit and age, NH didn't. So it was difference (IMO) between fine wine and grape juice.

My current story (stories) will be complete before I start posting on the boards. I feel better knowing approximately how long a story will be before asking someone to Beta for me, so they know what they're signing up for.

Haha that's how I feel about my current story. I've never actually used a beta reader. Not that I don't think I *need* one, I just haven't gone there yet. However, this one I'm working on it ridiculously long and I know I occasionally talk in circles, so I'm probably going to post a bribe... er... request when I get closer to the end, but it's gonna be a pain in the gluteus maximus if someone actually picks it up.