Class and Fic fixes

[davetheanalyzer]

Still recovering from my sickness and my sleep schedule hasn’t been got on track. On the bright side, I solved my fall class issue. I shall be taking a Human Rights course in place of Playwriting. Though that was rather my last option, the other course that really interested me involved international travel. I’m not much of a traveler and I’m leery of flying, so that was out. I feel a bit guilty since I expressed a lot of interest in that class in the email to the professor and yet when the travel issue came up, that interest dropped like a stone. I know professors get contacted by many students interested in their classes only to turn them down or never speak with them again and they probably have to build a tough skin and not take it personally. Yet I can’t help thinking I might have falsely raised hopes. I’ll just send an email to that professor later and hopefully that’ll take care of things.

In the meantime, with the fall semester coming and the others to follow, I might downgrade the number of fics I post to one a month to one every other month or when they could be posted. Classes can really eat up one’s writing time, so I want to prepare for that. Editing fics for posting can also take a while and I don’t want to rush things, so I have to prepare for that. So my fic for August might still be posted during that month but not on the first Sunday. I was going through it two pages per day but I decided to downgrade that to a page per day so I could have time to read stories that have influenced my writing style and could serve as an example so I wouldn’t overdescribe or linger in my tales. That might leave me going more slowly through my backlog of planned fics and I pray I might actually get to go through them all within a manageable amount of years.

On more cheerful fronts, I finished the first Chapter of Forged in Fire and Claw, and already completed the first page for the second chapter. When writing for monsters, you don’t end up with much in the way of dialogue, just lots and lots of paragraphs. The challenge was making sure those paragraphs weren’t too long and that I didn’t linger on the action. That left me with a chapter that was only around 19 pages in length and for my chaptered stories, that was short. There was certain scenes in there that I feel might be a tad unnecessary but it would feel weird to have no human scenes to buffer the monster ones. I surmise I have to remind myself what the purpose of those scenes are, or add a purpose to them that would make the story engaging throughout. I have a sort of threadline for one set of human characters – maybe I can string one along for one other set that appear far less consistently.

For The Land Before Time fanfiction, I struck along a possible solution in “Familial Tour.” I timed the story around a month or so after Ruby and Chomper came to live in the Great Valley. I know that kind of stretches the timeline a bit. From their lone TV appearance, Bron and Shorty have visited enough the valley enough times for it to be a routine. In one of the early episodes, Ruby indicated a year had past since Ruby and Chomper had settled into the valley. But LBT timeline is flexible and squishy, so I decided to include them in this story. I kind of feared they might railroad the thread of this story, which was getting to know Cera and the others, and their parents. However, I had found of a way where Ruby and Chomper could become much more connected to that thread. When I go back to edit, I’ll see if I could put it in more so the story would be more even.

In the meantime, Saturday was all about creating more ideas for The Land Before Time fanfic. I was too tired to do my usual writing routine, so I hammered out fic ideas that have been dancing around in my mind as well as a focus story for each of the main seven. Some were more difficult to figure out plots for than others. Ducky and Petrie, to some extent, was a challenge, but so was coming up with a tale for Ruby. It seemed another rewatch might be needed so I can get my brain more firmly around those characters. I also came up with my own story for how Ruby and Chomper came into the valley, called “A Refuge, A Home” and began plotting it out. It was fun to write out the reunion scene, though for all I know, I might change things when I double check my plotline. As I found when thinking about looking over my now completed “We Will Hold On Forever” plot, there are some things I might want to change greatly.

I also made a summary for my The Land Before Time/Power Rangers Dino Charge crossover. The Title is “In a Different Land, With a Different Charge.” As you can see, I incorporated the names for each show in the title, with the former part referring to Littlefoot and the others being stranded in the PR universe and the latter referring to the Dino Charge rangers having to look after the seven. Of course, Littlefoot and the others will do more than be nannyed by the Dino Charge Rangers and I hope to do more with the Dino Charge rangers than make them nannies of Littlefoot’s gang but saying more would be spoilers. All I want to say is what the summary says:

A chance Netflix binge leads Littlefoot and the others to be pulled from their world. The Dino Charge rangers rescue them and try to help them to adapt to a strange and alien land. Can the Dino Charge rangers protect them from Heckyl’s greater scheme? Can Littlefoot and the others help the rangers as Heckyl grew dangerously powerful?

Hopefully that’s an enticing summary. This is new territory for me, since there’s not much in the way of The Land Before Time/Power Rangers crossover fanfic. That means anyone coming in for one fandom would likely be unfamiliar with the other. I have to introduce each cast of characters as brand new to the readers and slip in the relevant information when it comes up. Fortunately, I could have one cast explain to another some detail when it comes up or at worst slip it into the relevant paragraph. The trouble would be making sure it doesn’t become exposition or that I interpret these details wrong. This would be my first time writing for the Dino Charge cast, so I want to get them right. A rewatch of their season might be in my future when I get around to plotting the story.

That’s all I can think of for now. By the next time I speak, the new semester would be close to or have already started. I would have also already seen a few movies by then and I might offer my thoughts on them if I feel if there was anything notable about them. Until next time, see you!