Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle

[inverarity]

Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle was my first fan fiction novel. It is set in the Harry Potter universe, but takes place in America and stars an original character. It is the first of a planned seven novels.

A wiki documenting Alexandra's world is available at the Quickipedia. This project wasn't started by me, and I don't do much maintenance there, though I will occasionally correct errors.




You can read AQATTC at:

• FanFiction.net
• Mugglenet FanFiction
• FictionAlley

Comments

Re: AQ Series

[givecake.livejournal.com]

Ah I see. It's a fairly common thought (at least in some parts of the world), though of course it's not true. Robbie Williams even sang a song with words reflecting the sentiment called Supreme.
I understand and wasn't surprised about Alex's taste at all! And yeah, I understand that Alex is that way, shoot first & ask q's later. Just part of what makes her so interesting..
But anyway it's your text, and I don't mean to complain or sound unappreciative! =) Seriously.. it really is so very good. I uhh.. I read all four books in a very short space of time, giving up a few hours of sleep here and there to finish them.

I've thought about the nature of the different story telling engines, and have some ideas about how I'd go about making a story. I'd start by perhaps listing a bunch of cool things that pop into my mind, followed by a list of wants/needs, and then imagine what kinds of characters would suit a particular drive. Then I'd upscale and downscale these wants and needs to fit the characters into a world. There's more to it.. I suppose, but I was wondering, what kind of basic model do you use?

Outlining

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a "basic model." Some writers use things like the Three-Act structure, or the Campbellian Journey, or some other structured format, but I just start with a rough outline and a general idea of the major scenes and plot twists, and then try to fill it in as I go along.

Re: Outlining

[givecake.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a secret recipe! I sometimes find myself getting carried away with brainstorming, which seems to hurt my progress sometimes, because I trick my brain into thinking I've already done everything, and then easily put down the work before getting anything serious done. So I wonder, how much brainstorming do you do typically? As an example of what I mean, would you typically brainstorm an outline, and then brainstorm a chapter, before writing that chapter? That would leave brainstorming for the next chapter till after you've written the first one.

I know that understanding someone else's successful approach may not give me the same edge, but I do like to trust people and their best advice. =D

Re: Outlining

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I sometimes brainstorm chapters (not much more than coming up with a list of things that should happen in that chapter). But I am not a strict outliner, so the actual written draft always ends up diverging significantly from the outline.