>> molten gold
Oct. 12th, 2017 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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noyabeansthis update is so delayed, i've been ridiculously caught up with schoolwork (and will be for the next month) but I really wanted to write a bit about molten gold before everything slips out of my mind.
manga spoilers ahead, so I'm placing it under the cut.
I wrote it after chapter 270 was released, which is when the Miya-Noya matchup takes place. the chapter before, we'd gotten a hint of the confrontation between them, and I was anticipating the events of 270, because it would finally, finally mean that we were getting a sneak peek at Noya's character arc (at the time, I was hoping we'd get a few chapters of Noya action, but alas! it was only 3... but we've been getting Suna and Kita action since then so I'm not complaining...).
anyone who's known me for any decent period of time would know that I would probably sell my soul for Nishinoya Yuu. he came in and swept my heart away, just like a sudden storm...
ANYWAY I shall not wax poetic here. pretty much everyone knows too, how much I struggle with writing Noya, and how difficult it is for me to find any way into his mind. and even now, one year after I first entered Haikyuu fandom, I still don't think I'm coming close to doing him any justice. I'm closer now than I was a year ago, though - that, at least, I'm sure of.
last October, I wrote Storm, my first ever character study of Noya... from the POV of Kuroo. it is a strange pair, I agree - not one that you would think of when you think of a 'Nishinoya character study', but it made sense to me because of how observant and perceptive Kuroo is. I received a surprising amount of positive feedback about Storm, much more than I ever thought it would garner, and this year, after seeing chapter 270, I thought it would be time for me to take on the challenge of writing him again.
this time, I knew from the moment I opened the first page that it would be an Ennonoya. I've been raring to write an Ennonoya since forever, but ever since prologue - which I wrote last December - I've not really been feeling them. Ennonoya's a challenging pair to write in that I really need to feel them in order to write them. maybe because the only Ennonoya fics I've ever read were from a very small selection of talented writers, so I feel that to write them, I have to at least emulate, or be able to match up to, the quality of their writing... but that's another thing, for another day. (randomly, the Ennonoya tag updated three times in three days because it was my birthday, then it was Noya's; excellent!)
so inspiration struck in the form of chapter 270. I'd planned on writing this fic only after chapter 271 came out so that I could hopefully get more insights into Noya's character arc, but someone's tumblr post noting Noya's silence ended up being the catalyst that kickstarted my writing gear and I ended up finishing the whole draft even before the chapter released.
in fact, the first words on the doc were Daichi's words at Noya's introduction - "his plays are surprisingly quiet."
it was a mess of concepts from there on out - I had at least three false starts, because I didn't know how much of Miya to work into the story, and I didn't know if I wanted to work from Noya's POV or Ennoshita's - but in the end I decided to scrap most of the Miya and work from Ennoshita's POV. it was... hmm, could you say it was cowardly of me to do so, since he was the easier of the two? I guess not; I still need a deeper look into Noya before I can muster the courage to write from his POV.
I don't really remember much of the writing process. many of the thoughts that I have about Noya worked their way into the story somehow or another, but I guess it's of note that the fire-flame motif only came in at the very end. it was initially meant to be a storm motif, but there is not much to be said about a quiet storm, is there?
I wrote the very last line first, because it came to me right before I fell asleep one night, but it went through a lot of changes before it settled into its current form. where it is now But in fact there is nothing much to say at all, when those shoulders that have been tempered with fire are more than capable of holding its weight. it was originally It takes a lot of courage to trust someone, and it takes a lot of strength to carry the trust of a team.
molten gold was also kind of different in that the title came to me long before I finished writing it. I usually struggle with coming up with titles, and just randomly pick words from the story, but this time around it was attempting to work the concept of molten gold into the story that brought me to the end result of the fire-flame motif.
another problem I faced while writing molten gold was that I had these super long and rambly run-on sentences that really disrupted my flow. writing Ennonoya always seems to be an experimental style for me, and when I got Ewa to beta for me, the biggest problem that they pointed out was the flow of the story - I was trying to tell too much in too little and it turned out a little jumpy. after cutting and trimming, it started to flow better. I was thinking of adding a bit more content to ease the flow, but it wasn't long before I decided that no matter what I added, it was highly unlikely to work out well. it's as we say: 画蛇添足 (adding legs to a drawing of a snake; spoiling something by adding unnecessary things).
so ultimately, what I ended up with was a slightly stripped-down version of my original draft, but beyond that there was nothing much for me to do.
I was really, really, really happy when I sent it to Em and they told me: "I can feel how much you love Noya through this piece."
because in the end, that's why I agonised so much over writing him in the first place. it was a real struggle too, trying to keep myself from posting the fic up any earlier than his birthday - I'd planned to post it before 271 at first, but because I was slow in writing it, I missed that deadline, and so I decided I'd keep it for his birthday so I wouldn't need to write a separate birthday fic. (this seems to be the thing I'm most consistent with atm, tbh. Noya's birthday fic last year was my Yakunoya fake dating AU... speaking of which, it seems that October is the month where the fake dating muse bites the hardest).
but man, it was so hard trying to not post it up lol o(-(
Mel also mentioned something interesting when I told them how difficult it was to write this piece. they were shocked when they first read it, because of how drastically different the style I used here is. and then they said: "it's probably because your writing evolved so quickly that you haven't had time to catch up with it. it's kind of intimidating rn." orz that is in itself high praise from a writer that I respect so much ;____; and again, I think it's a really telling sign, of how much I've grown as a writer.
that being said, though... I still don't think this fic is worthy of being tagged as Author's Favourite. maybe I'll change my mind later... I tend to be especially critical of my writing after I've just published them. like how Ritz told me reincarnation au was amazing and I didn't believe her until only recently when I went to reread it with fresh eyes. then again, the weight of you was still relatively fresh in my mind when I deemed it an Author's Favourite? I used to think prologue would be on my Author's Favourite list, but rn, between molten gold and prologue I'd choose molten gold. hmm...
(I'll talk about the Author's Favourite tag eventually...)
manga spoilers ahead, so I'm placing it under the cut.
I wrote it after chapter 270 was released, which is when the Miya-Noya matchup takes place. the chapter before, we'd gotten a hint of the confrontation between them, and I was anticipating the events of 270, because it would finally, finally mean that we were getting a sneak peek at Noya's character arc (at the time, I was hoping we'd get a few chapters of Noya action, but alas! it was only 3... but we've been getting Suna and Kita action since then so I'm not complaining...).
anyone who's known me for any decent period of time would know that I would probably sell my soul for Nishinoya Yuu. he came in and swept my heart away, just like a sudden storm...
ANYWAY I shall not wax poetic here. pretty much everyone knows too, how much I struggle with writing Noya, and how difficult it is for me to find any way into his mind. and even now, one year after I first entered Haikyuu fandom, I still don't think I'm coming close to doing him any justice. I'm closer now than I was a year ago, though - that, at least, I'm sure of.
last October, I wrote Storm, my first ever character study of Noya... from the POV of Kuroo. it is a strange pair, I agree - not one that you would think of when you think of a 'Nishinoya character study', but it made sense to me because of how observant and perceptive Kuroo is. I received a surprising amount of positive feedback about Storm, much more than I ever thought it would garner, and this year, after seeing chapter 270, I thought it would be time for me to take on the challenge of writing him again.
this time, I knew from the moment I opened the first page that it would be an Ennonoya. I've been raring to write an Ennonoya since forever, but ever since prologue - which I wrote last December - I've not really been feeling them. Ennonoya's a challenging pair to write in that I really need to feel them in order to write them. maybe because the only Ennonoya fics I've ever read were from a very small selection of talented writers, so I feel that to write them, I have to at least emulate, or be able to match up to, the quality of their writing... but that's another thing, for another day. (randomly, the Ennonoya tag updated three times in three days because it was my birthday, then it was Noya's; excellent!)
so inspiration struck in the form of chapter 270. I'd planned on writing this fic only after chapter 271 came out so that I could hopefully get more insights into Noya's character arc, but someone's tumblr post noting Noya's silence ended up being the catalyst that kickstarted my writing gear and I ended up finishing the whole draft even before the chapter released.
in fact, the first words on the doc were Daichi's words at Noya's introduction - "his plays are surprisingly quiet."
it was a mess of concepts from there on out - I had at least three false starts, because I didn't know how much of Miya to work into the story, and I didn't know if I wanted to work from Noya's POV or Ennoshita's - but in the end I decided to scrap most of the Miya and work from Ennoshita's POV. it was... hmm, could you say it was cowardly of me to do so, since he was the easier of the two? I guess not; I still need a deeper look into Noya before I can muster the courage to write from his POV.
I don't really remember much of the writing process. many of the thoughts that I have about Noya worked their way into the story somehow or another, but I guess it's of note that the fire-flame motif only came in at the very end. it was initially meant to be a storm motif, but there is not much to be said about a quiet storm, is there?
I wrote the very last line first, because it came to me right before I fell asleep one night, but it went through a lot of changes before it settled into its current form. where it is now But in fact there is nothing much to say at all, when those shoulders that have been tempered with fire are more than capable of holding its weight. it was originally It takes a lot of courage to trust someone, and it takes a lot of strength to carry the trust of a team.
molten gold was also kind of different in that the title came to me long before I finished writing it. I usually struggle with coming up with titles, and just randomly pick words from the story, but this time around it was attempting to work the concept of molten gold into the story that brought me to the end result of the fire-flame motif.
another problem I faced while writing molten gold was that I had these super long and rambly run-on sentences that really disrupted my flow. writing Ennonoya always seems to be an experimental style for me, and when I got Ewa to beta for me, the biggest problem that they pointed out was the flow of the story - I was trying to tell too much in too little and it turned out a little jumpy. after cutting and trimming, it started to flow better. I was thinking of adding a bit more content to ease the flow, but it wasn't long before I decided that no matter what I added, it was highly unlikely to work out well. it's as we say: 画蛇添足 (adding legs to a drawing of a snake; spoiling something by adding unnecessary things).
so ultimately, what I ended up with was a slightly stripped-down version of my original draft, but beyond that there was nothing much for me to do.
I was really, really, really happy when I sent it to Em and they told me: "I can feel how much you love Noya through this piece."
because in the end, that's why I agonised so much over writing him in the first place. it was a real struggle too, trying to keep myself from posting the fic up any earlier than his birthday - I'd planned to post it before 271 at first, but because I was slow in writing it, I missed that deadline, and so I decided I'd keep it for his birthday so I wouldn't need to write a separate birthday fic. (this seems to be the thing I'm most consistent with atm, tbh. Noya's birthday fic last year was my Yakunoya fake dating AU... speaking of which, it seems that October is the month where the fake dating muse bites the hardest).
but man, it was so hard trying to not post it up lol o(-(
Mel also mentioned something interesting when I told them how difficult it was to write this piece. they were shocked when they first read it, because of how drastically different the style I used here is. and then they said: "it's probably because your writing evolved so quickly that you haven't had time to catch up with it. it's kind of intimidating rn." orz that is in itself high praise from a writer that I respect so much ;____; and again, I think it's a really telling sign, of how much I've grown as a writer.
that being said, though... I still don't think this fic is worthy of being tagged as Author's Favourite. maybe I'll change my mind later... I tend to be especially critical of my writing after I've just published them. like how Ritz told me reincarnation au was amazing and I didn't believe her until only recently when I went to reread it with fresh eyes. then again, the weight of you was still relatively fresh in my mind when I deemed it an Author's Favourite? I used to think prologue would be on my Author's Favourite list, but rn, between molten gold and prologue I'd choose molten gold. hmm...
(I'll talk about the Author's Favourite tag eventually...)
