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Do you ever wonder about the themes in the things you write? The things you might be unconsciously showing in them?
I'm just noticing a pattern, is all. Just noticing that the point at which many of my stories begin (not when they're written, but when they're conceived) is ... the struggle against a closing circle? A character at the centre of a situation that is slowly closing around them, cutting into them, cutting out their routes of escape, and their attempts to escape it. I'd noticed this before, in a sense, that a lot of them started with a character in a position of captivity, but it's ... a little more than that?
A recurring theme, I think, is the idea of an increasingly narrowing set of circumstances, and a desperate struggle to work within the loopholes of those increasing restrictions, a struggle to worm some thread out beyond them and force some catastrophic change/action with only a tiny shred of freedom to work from.
This is maybe (perhaps hopefully) not so apparent with the stories that actually make it onto screen/paper, but an alarming number of the long stories in my head, both original and fandom AU, tend to start out as slave/captive/prisoner scenarios that are determinedly fractured apart, usually at significant cost to the character. A lot of the scenarios that are actually developed into physical stories are offshoots or snapshots or variations of those initial conceptions, enabled by my fondness for canon survivors as my character-of-choice, sometimes so far down the line from the original conception that they're mostly unrecognisable. (Stories morph a lot on the way from idea to finished article, with me. Not usually in the sense of drafts, but in the sense of fracturing threads in the pre-writing phase that can end up with three or four separate and fairly distinct stories that are emerging from a single initial idea).
I'm just ... I'm wondering if that particular thread, the narrowing restrictions and the shattering attempt at freedom, are as strong as they are because of the sensations of the past five years or so. The breaking of self I went through, and then the remaking on the other side. Framing the sensations as externally imposed strictures instead of increasingly unsustainable internal behaviours, and the torquing break as a violent external action rather than the internal shattering/rebuilding it turned out to be.
*shakes head* I don't know if that's actually apparent at all in the finished articles. Maybe it isn't. But when I'm looking at the initial threads that led to a lot of my stories, particularly the longer ones, and also at a lot of my private longrunners that I have for my own amusement, they usually do trace back to that theme. Maybe only for the initial kick, maybe they veer way, waaay off very quickly, but ... A lot of them do start there.
I don't know. I'm random and perhaps a little morbid tonight. It's been a hell of a couple of months, and a hell of a week at work, and strange things are popping up out of the brief breathing space I had today. *shrugs* Possibly I'm being slightly paranoid after the past few weeks, about really random things.
I wonder, though. Is the theme apparent in the end products? Or is it just a recurring loop at the start of my process, and by the time we meander around to actually writing stuff it's mostly faded back?
I'm just noticing a pattern, is all. Just noticing that the point at which many of my stories begin (not when they're written, but when they're conceived) is ... the struggle against a closing circle? A character at the centre of a situation that is slowly closing around them, cutting into them, cutting out their routes of escape, and their attempts to escape it. I'd noticed this before, in a sense, that a lot of them started with a character in a position of captivity, but it's ... a little more than that?
A recurring theme, I think, is the idea of an increasingly narrowing set of circumstances, and a desperate struggle to work within the loopholes of those increasing restrictions, a struggle to worm some thread out beyond them and force some catastrophic change/action with only a tiny shred of freedom to work from.
This is maybe (perhaps hopefully) not so apparent with the stories that actually make it onto screen/paper, but an alarming number of the long stories in my head, both original and fandom AU, tend to start out as slave/captive/prisoner scenarios that are determinedly fractured apart, usually at significant cost to the character. A lot of the scenarios that are actually developed into physical stories are offshoots or snapshots or variations of those initial conceptions, enabled by my fondness for canon survivors as my character-of-choice, sometimes so far down the line from the original conception that they're mostly unrecognisable. (Stories morph a lot on the way from idea to finished article, with me. Not usually in the sense of drafts, but in the sense of fracturing threads in the pre-writing phase that can end up with three or four separate and fairly distinct stories that are emerging from a single initial idea).
I'm just ... I'm wondering if that particular thread, the narrowing restrictions and the shattering attempt at freedom, are as strong as they are because of the sensations of the past five years or so. The breaking of self I went through, and then the remaking on the other side. Framing the sensations as externally imposed strictures instead of increasingly unsustainable internal behaviours, and the torquing break as a violent external action rather than the internal shattering/rebuilding it turned out to be.
*shakes head* I don't know if that's actually apparent at all in the finished articles. Maybe it isn't. But when I'm looking at the initial threads that led to a lot of my stories, particularly the longer ones, and also at a lot of my private longrunners that I have for my own amusement, they usually do trace back to that theme. Maybe only for the initial kick, maybe they veer way, waaay off very quickly, but ... A lot of them do start there.
I don't know. I'm random and perhaps a little morbid tonight. It's been a hell of a couple of months, and a hell of a week at work, and strange things are popping up out of the brief breathing space I had today. *shrugs* Possibly I'm being slightly paranoid after the past few weeks, about really random things.
I wonder, though. Is the theme apparent in the end products? Or is it just a recurring loop at the start of my process, and by the time we meander around to actually writing stuff it's mostly faded back?
Gods, I need to sleep for a week. Never mind me, folks. It's been that kind of ... month? Call it a season, to be safe. *smiles crookedly* Yech. My apologies.
