On writing "Bedtime Story"
"How I Did It" by Victor Fr shy_dragon
This is not a continuation of "Bedtime Story," just a little about how it came to be written. I'm very, very new to writing, so this is partly for my own use (for when I look back and go "Gah! What was I thinking?") and partly because it might be interesting for other new writers.
"Bedtime Story" is the result of my very first plot bunny. Not long after I started reading Hawaii5-0 fan-fic, I was up later than I should have been, but I wanted to read one last fic before going to sleep -- preferably something light and sweet and funny. I realized that what I wanted was a bedtime story. This cute little bunny hopped down the hallway and said, "Wouldn't it be nice if Danny read Steve a bedtime story?"
"Sure," I said. "Although knowing Steve, it would be something from 'Guns & Ammo.'"
"Oh, that would be fun!" said the plot bunny. "Steve would be sick or something, and Danny would read him to sleep with an article."
"Yeah, I'd like to read that. I haven't seen anything like it though."
"You could write it," the plot bunny wheedled.
"No, I couldn't. I write crap. It would be awful," I replied. The plot bunny just chuckled. For the next several days, that blasted rabbit was everywhere -- in the car when I drove to work, in the kitchen when I made dinner, next to me in bed when I was falling sleep -- wherever I went, whenever I had a few minutes to think, the plot bunny was there. I couldn't stop thinking about settings and conversations and how things would happen. Before I knew it, I had mentally written most of the scene. And it ... wasn't entirely crap. It would take some work to get it to "good," but I was pretty sure it wasn't crap. Finally, as much to get it out of my head as anything else, I started writing it into a word processing document. I got out a first draft of the basic story, and it wasn't too bad. Then I turned to the plot bunny. "Is that it?"
"Sure," it replied, "this is a nice little fluffy piece. You could maybe add a coda where Danny and Grace sneak a teddy bear into Steve's house."
I poked at that idea for a while, but it just didn't gel. It was nice, it was sweet, it was fluffy -- I should have liked it, but it just didn't feel right. "No, that isn't working. There needs to be something more. I want to know what happens next!" I insisted.
The cute little plot bunny chuckled and turned into a giant rabbit of doom and loomed over me. "Well, it could become a long, angsty story that eventually ends in a cheesy kiss!"
I looked at the plot bunny. "I'm doomed, aren't I?"
"Pretty much, yeah," the rabbit replied. "By the way, I invited some friends to visit. Hope you don't mind!"
So here I am. The nice, fluffy, sweet story got an injection of angst and became the first chapter of "Bedtime Story," which grew almost as big as the plot bunny. However, I didn't have the guts to make that the first fic I ever made public because I didn't know if people would hang around for a multi-chapter work by an unknown author. Instead, I started with a pair of short pieces about cuddling that had come from a different plot bunny. Even there, I'm not sure I would have gotten off my butt and put them out for the world to see if the Hawaii 5-0 Flash Fiction community hadn't come along at just the right time to make me finish and post them.
The one "problem" that I've run into is that the plot bunnies usually calm down once I get the first draft of a story written. The worst ones, like that first one, sink their teeth into one ankle and refuse to let go until I get that far. Not being able to think about anything else for a few days convinces me to type something up once it's reasonably coherent in my mind. Others are more polite and don't completely monopolize my attention. Either way, they don't bother me as much while I do the reading and re-reading and re-re-reading, with occasional bouts of picking a scene that needs serious work to focus on while I'm driving or doing other things. On the one hand, that means that I don't have a huge pressure to finish a story; on the other hand, that means I have to make my procrastinating self actually complete something. It doesn't help that I can do dozens of read-throughs with major or minor changes before I decide that something is good enough to go public. This is why I won't publish works-in-progress -- I'm afraid that I'd get half-way through and never actually finish.
I currently have 8-10 stories that are somewhere between serious planning and nearly done. A few of them are stories that have stalled out completely, mostly things that got started due to flash fiction prompts or trying to write something for a friend. I was going to write a Fourth of July piece for the celebrations challenge. It's doing a good imitation of Steve's Marquis, but the Mother's Day piece I entered instead came out of nowhere and went from start to finish in less than a week, including a complete change in point of view. [sigh] I thought it was going to be Grace gathering flowers for her mum, but it had other ideas and turned out to be very insistent.
The feedback I've gotten has been heart warming and has convinced me to keep going. This is good since I'm not entirely sure I could stop now. I keep coming up with ideas, and some of these plot bunnies are pretty demanding.
This is not a continuation of "Bedtime Story," just a little about how it came to be written. I'm very, very new to writing, so this is partly for my own use (for when I look back and go "Gah! What was I thinking?") and partly because it might be interesting for other new writers.
"Bedtime Story" is the result of my very first plot bunny. Not long after I started reading Hawaii5-0 fan-fic, I was up later than I should have been, but I wanted to read one last fic before going to sleep -- preferably something light and sweet and funny. I realized that what I wanted was a bedtime story. This cute little bunny hopped down the hallway and said, "Wouldn't it be nice if Danny read Steve a bedtime story?"
"Sure," I said. "Although knowing Steve, it would be something from 'Guns & Ammo.'"
"Oh, that would be fun!" said the plot bunny. "Steve would be sick or something, and Danny would read him to sleep with an article."
"Yeah, I'd like to read that. I haven't seen anything like it though."
"You could write it," the plot bunny wheedled.
"No, I couldn't. I write crap. It would be awful," I replied. The plot bunny just chuckled. For the next several days, that blasted rabbit was everywhere -- in the car when I drove to work, in the kitchen when I made dinner, next to me in bed when I was falling sleep -- wherever I went, whenever I had a few minutes to think, the plot bunny was there. I couldn't stop thinking about settings and conversations and how things would happen. Before I knew it, I had mentally written most of the scene. And it ... wasn't entirely crap. It would take some work to get it to "good," but I was pretty sure it wasn't crap. Finally, as much to get it out of my head as anything else, I started writing it into a word processing document. I got out a first draft of the basic story, and it wasn't too bad. Then I turned to the plot bunny. "Is that it?"
"Sure," it replied, "this is a nice little fluffy piece. You could maybe add a coda where Danny and Grace sneak a teddy bear into Steve's house."
I poked at that idea for a while, but it just didn't gel. It was nice, it was sweet, it was fluffy -- I should have liked it, but it just didn't feel right. "No, that isn't working. There needs to be something more. I want to know what happens next!" I insisted.
The cute little plot bunny chuckled and turned into a giant rabbit of doom and loomed over me. "Well, it could become a long, angsty story that eventually ends in a cheesy kiss!"
I looked at the plot bunny. "I'm doomed, aren't I?"
"Pretty much, yeah," the rabbit replied. "By the way, I invited some friends to visit. Hope you don't mind!"
So here I am. The nice, fluffy, sweet story got an injection of angst and became the first chapter of "Bedtime Story," which grew almost as big as the plot bunny. However, I didn't have the guts to make that the first fic I ever made public because I didn't know if people would hang around for a multi-chapter work by an unknown author. Instead, I started with a pair of short pieces about cuddling that had come from a different plot bunny. Even there, I'm not sure I would have gotten off my butt and put them out for the world to see if the Hawaii 5-0 Flash Fiction community hadn't come along at just the right time to make me finish and post them.
The one "problem" that I've run into is that the plot bunnies usually calm down once I get the first draft of a story written. The worst ones, like that first one, sink their teeth into one ankle and refuse to let go until I get that far. Not being able to think about anything else for a few days convinces me to type something up once it's reasonably coherent in my mind. Others are more polite and don't completely monopolize my attention. Either way, they don't bother me as much while I do the reading and re-reading and re-re-reading, with occasional bouts of picking a scene that needs serious work to focus on while I'm driving or doing other things. On the one hand, that means that I don't have a huge pressure to finish a story; on the other hand, that means I have to make my procrastinating self actually complete something. It doesn't help that I can do dozens of read-throughs with major or minor changes before I decide that something is good enough to go public. This is why I won't publish works-in-progress -- I'm afraid that I'd get half-way through and never actually finish.
I currently have 8-10 stories that are somewhere between serious planning and nearly done. A few of them are stories that have stalled out completely, mostly things that got started due to flash fiction prompts or trying to write something for a friend. I was going to write a Fourth of July piece for the celebrations challenge. It's doing a good imitation of Steve's Marquis, but the Mother's Day piece I entered instead came out of nowhere and went from start to finish in less than a week, including a complete change in point of view. [sigh] I thought it was going to be Grace gathering flowers for her mum, but it had other ideas and turned out to be very insistent.
The feedback I've gotten has been heart warming and has convinced me to keep going. This is good since I'm not entirely sure I could stop now. I keep coming up with ideas, and some of these plot bunnies are pretty demanding.