Ordinary Town, Chapter 10
Dec. 30th, 2023 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nevannaThe tenth and last chapter of my XME fic is now posted!
In my author's notes, I acknowledged the people and the supplementary media that helped me steer the project to its conclusion. One text that I didn't mention was Stranger Things, a show that didn't exist when I started this project, but which is about how a community is impacted by a secret facility that trains super-powered youth, and which references X-Men both explicitly and implicitly.
When I was trying to decide whether or not to continue my fic, however, I was thinking less about the series itself than about the tie-in novel Rebel Robin, by A.R. Capetta, which follows supporting character Robin Buckley through her high school career, as she comes to terms with her sexuality and her changing friendships, all before she meets the established characters whose lives become intertwined with hers in the third season. Familiar names and faces turn up from time to time, and the narration contains numerous thematic references to monsters, but little to no supernatural action happens on the page. The coming-of-age story stands more or less on its own (though the epilogue where Robin first talks to Steve leans more in the fanservice direction), but is enhanced by the reader's metatextual knowledge of what else is happening in Hawkins. And when I read that book, it occurred to me that if this author could craft a smaller, personal drama that played out as the larger superhuman drama unfolded in the background, then maybe I could attempt something similar.
Obviously, Stranger Things is an international media phenomenon that is also currently ongoing, and XME was and is neither of those things. And it is ultimately up to the reader whether I succeeded in what I was trying to do. But when I realized that the biggest source of narrative tension in Ordinary Town couldn't be "what are the secrets of Stately Xavier Manor?" (because the reader would presumably already know that) or "how is Amanda's mom connected to the Spooky Stuff happening in Bayville?" (a story thread that I ultimately decided was a mess of Unfortunate Implications, though the vestiges of it remain), I thought that I could probably create a story arc out of Amanda and Trish's friendship. That arc did exist somewhat in the earliest drafts, even though it ended on an unsatisfying note for both characters, which carried through into the final version.
I do have some material for a sequel, which I also started to compose during a long-ago NaNoWriMo, and which would cover the second season of XME. I'm still tempted by the prospect of reworking and posting it as a sequel (especially since it would also deal with the aftermath of a friendship breakup, something that I've been thinking about a lot lately), but it would need at least as massive of an overhaul as the project that I just finished, and in the meantime, there are other potential fics that interest me more (assuming, as always, that I can motivate myself to write them).
When I was talking toanysin the other day about the temptation to abandon a project for fear of disappointing readers, I told them, "When I made the push to finish Ordinary Town, of course I hoped that people would find it and read it. I still do. But mostly I was finishing it for me." Otherwise, I would have spend a lot of unnecessary time and energy wondering what the project could have been.
And maybe that will happen no matter what. But at least, now, I know what it is.
In my author's notes, I acknowledged the people and the supplementary media that helped me steer the project to its conclusion. One text that I didn't mention was Stranger Things, a show that didn't exist when I started this project, but which is about how a community is impacted by a secret facility that trains super-powered youth, and which references X-Men both explicitly and implicitly.
When I was trying to decide whether or not to continue my fic, however, I was thinking less about the series itself than about the tie-in novel Rebel Robin, by A.R. Capetta, which follows supporting character Robin Buckley through her high school career, as she comes to terms with her sexuality and her changing friendships, all before she meets the established characters whose lives become intertwined with hers in the third season. Familiar names and faces turn up from time to time, and the narration contains numerous thematic references to monsters, but little to no supernatural action happens on the page. The coming-of-age story stands more or less on its own (though the epilogue where Robin first talks to Steve leans more in the fanservice direction), but is enhanced by the reader's metatextual knowledge of what else is happening in Hawkins. And when I read that book, it occurred to me that if this author could craft a smaller, personal drama that played out as the larger superhuman drama unfolded in the background, then maybe I could attempt something similar.
Obviously, Stranger Things is an international media phenomenon that is also currently ongoing, and XME was and is neither of those things. And it is ultimately up to the reader whether I succeeded in what I was trying to do. But when I realized that the biggest source of narrative tension in Ordinary Town couldn't be "what are the secrets of Stately Xavier Manor?" (because the reader would presumably already know that) or "how is Amanda's mom connected to the Spooky Stuff happening in Bayville?" (a story thread that I ultimately decided was a mess of Unfortunate Implications, though the vestiges of it remain), I thought that I could probably create a story arc out of Amanda and Trish's friendship. That arc did exist somewhat in the earliest drafts, even though it ended on an unsatisfying note for both characters, which carried through into the final version.
I do have some material for a sequel, which I also started to compose during a long-ago NaNoWriMo, and which would cover the second season of XME. I'm still tempted by the prospect of reworking and posting it as a sequel (especially since it would also deal with the aftermath of a friendship breakup, something that I've been thinking about a lot lately), but it would need at least as massive of an overhaul as the project that I just finished, and in the meantime, there are other potential fics that interest me more (assuming, as always, that I can motivate myself to write them).
When I was talking to
anysin the other day about the temptation to abandon a project for fear of disappointing readers, I told them, "When I made the push to finish Ordinary Town, of course I hoped that people would find it and read it. I still do. But mostly I was finishing it for me." Otherwise, I would have spend a lot of unnecessary time and energy wondering what the project could have been.And maybe that will happen no matter what. But at least, now, I know what it is.
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Date: 2023-12-30 10:19 pm (UTC)Also, half perfect and all done trumps all perfect and half done, every day of the week! Congratulations upon finishing such a big project!
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Date: 2024-01-05 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-02 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-05 12:41 pm (UTC)