Toph and Aang wrote themselves, but Jet was hard because I outlined his part in early September when I needed a minor villain encounter to get Zuko and Katara out of Faces-To-The-East village. Then I went and read a bunch of Jetko and Jet-centric fic that made me realize that to write him as I'd planned would be character assassination, so I had to re-work the entire sequence from start to finish.
I actually originally had him as an out-and-out slaver who kidnaps Tahnra and other children and forces Katara and Zuko into enraged pursuit... Yeah. Not so much. I bounced a lot of ideas and permutations off suzukiblu until I came up with Charmed and Trapped as written, which work far, far better in all ways and really brings out more of Katara and Zuko's interaction as well. He's both Season 1 and Season 2 Jet at once, and ended up ringing really true for me: flawed sincerity and charm, a foil to Zuko's drive and unconscious charisma.
Oh gods the language barrier. Groan. It was so frustrating writing it out, especially in the later chapters, because I'd actually write out Katara or Sokka's entire dialog in order to "translate" it into what Zuko's hearing. Then I'd have A++ bromance / snarky!zutara, but no way to share it in the narrative. :( It's all preserved in comments in the word document I work from, and I'm toying with releasing Enslaved: The Annotated Edition after the story concludes.
I'm really glad I forced myself to keep the process I did, though, for a lot of reasons. It really gave the readers empathy for Zuko, being in effectively in the same boat with him, in a way that I hadn't realized would be so powerful. It became a really handy story-telling tool and forced me to figure out some of Zuko's backstory that I wouldn't have otherwise, and made me really develop the world more than I might have.
It's also helped me... stall. I'll admit that a lot of the story and the background and the world has been developed on the fly and it's easy to hide that by chalking it up to a language barrier. Interestingly, though, by stalling like that, I've had time to really let ideas simmer and percolate and then they sort of emerge fully formed in a way that fits really naturally into the established story. Let's see if I can think of a non-spoiler example...
Okay, not coming up with one right now. The threads in this story are really really long and really really interwoven so it's hard to separate any one of them to look at until everything's out in the open.
Oh, wait. Here's an example, sort of. In... chapter five, after Katara's nearly killed Zuko but then suddenly backed off, they're sort of warily watching each other that evening. Katara says something to Zuko, and Zuko responds by apologizing for killing her husband, knowing full well she can't understand him, either. At the time I wrote that, I really had no idea what Katara said.
See, this entire thing is really unfolding from Zuko's perspective for me almost as much as for readers. Whenever driesla draws something for Enslaved (<3!!!!!!!) it's a bit of a shock, since it's typically drawn from a third-person perspective and I'm really visualizing almost everything from either Zuko's perspective or from over his shoulder, effectively.
Anyway. I had no idea what Katara said in that scene, just that her voice was soft and perhaps regretful and definitely quietly troubled, and I wrote Zuko sort of responding in kind. Since then, I've figured out exactly what Katara said, have written it in my annotations, and really fit it into how the story is progressing and what Katara is really thinking of all this.
OH GODS I THINK I HAVE EVEN MORE TO SAY BUT I THINK I'VE BEEN WRITING FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR AND I REALLY NEED TO GO IRL FOR A WHILE. *dies*
Lovely talking and discussing with you; let's do it some more, yes? <3
SHARKFLIP SPEAKS! pt II
I actually originally had him as an out-and-out slaver who kidnaps Tahnra and other children and forces Katara and Zuko into enraged pursuit... Yeah. Not so much. I bounced a lot of ideas and permutations off
Oh gods the language barrier. Groan. It was so frustrating writing it out, especially in the later chapters, because I'd actually write out Katara or Sokka's entire dialog in order to "translate" it into what Zuko's hearing. Then I'd have A++ bromance / snarky!zutara, but no way to share it in the narrative. :( It's all preserved in comments in the word document I work from, and I'm toying with releasing Enslaved: The Annotated Edition after the story concludes.
I'm really glad I forced myself to keep the process I did, though, for a lot of reasons. It really gave the readers empathy for Zuko, being in effectively in the same boat with him, in a way that I hadn't realized would be so powerful. It became a really handy story-telling tool and forced me to figure out some of Zuko's backstory that I wouldn't have otherwise, and made me really develop the world more than I might have.
It's also helped me... stall. I'll admit that a lot of the story and the background and the world has been developed on the fly and it's easy to hide that by chalking it up to a language barrier. Interestingly, though, by stalling like that, I've had time to really let ideas simmer and percolate and then they sort of emerge fully formed in a way that fits really naturally into the established story. Let's see if I can think of a non-spoiler example...
Okay, not coming up with one right now. The threads in this story are really really long and really really interwoven so it's hard to separate any one of them to look at until everything's out in the open.
Oh, wait. Here's an example, sort of. In... chapter five, after Katara's nearly killed Zuko but then suddenly backed off, they're sort of warily watching each other that evening. Katara says something to Zuko, and Zuko responds by apologizing for killing her husband, knowing full well she can't understand him, either. At the time I wrote that, I really had no idea what Katara said.
See, this entire thing is really unfolding from Zuko's perspective for me almost as much as for readers. Whenever
Anyway. I had no idea what Katara said in that scene, just that her voice was soft and perhaps regretful and definitely quietly troubled, and I wrote Zuko sort of responding in kind. Since then, I've figured out exactly what Katara said, have written it in my annotations, and really fit it into how the story is progressing and what Katara is really thinking of all this.
OH GODS I THINK I HAVE EVEN MORE TO SAY BUT I THINK I'VE BEEN WRITING FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR AND I REALLY NEED TO GO IRL FOR A WHILE. *dies*
Lovely talking and discussing with you; let's do it some more, yes? <3