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poppyseedheartWow! Long time no extended a/n. That's not really true it's only been two weeks. But hey I'm here to tell you in shortish form about the last couple of chapters! I don't have thaaaat much to say mostly because I'm tired but I'm hopeful that if I sit down and start writing this the words will come and you'll get to hear all about how the revision process went.
Also, twitter is fully down as I type this, so I hope that anyone who wanted to see the new chapter is subscribed on AO3 lol. Or maybe sees this here! How exciting.
Okay, I'll start with chapter three! The last scene didn't get overhauled necessarily, but I rewrote the last 4 or 5 paragraphs in my continue effort to fix the issues in this draft related to Changbin and Hyunjin's relationship. I backed myself into some corners later on that I hope will become invisible by the time we get there! More than anything the tweaking here is just to set myself up better for edits coming down the line. Otherwise almost every ch3 change was really minor. Wording stuff, continuity things, line edits. I am always line editing. I've unlocked a love for line editing in myself and now I can't stop. There is just something so satisfying about crafting a deeply effective sentence.
I've really enjoyed buffing out some of the confusing or more sprawling lines in this story. Hyunjin does think in really visual, expansive ways. I personally am an abstract thinker. I don't really see stuff in my head! So marrying those two perspectives has been an interesting and I think valuable challenge for me as a writer. I hope if you're a visual person that particular scenes in this story sparkle the way I want them to!
Side note, I think my favorite scene of chapter three is actually the 3racha show. I love writing about music. Live music is such an experience and I am by and large a person who processes sound more emotionally than I do visuals. I wrote a locked post on here a while back reviewing Maxident by Stray Kids and it was so fun! I want to do more music writing in the future. This felt like a little taste of that wrapped up in character moments and our usual Emma AU mess.
I didn't research a ton of specifics for this chapter but I did look up more on linguistics PhD programs in Korea for Seungmin's sake, potential music venues and bar interiors, and the academic school year for elementary schools (actually hard to find!! maybe my search terms just sucked) for Jeongin's timeline.
Ch3 and 4 are probably the most image-heavy and social media-heavy chapters of this story, so I did spend a lot of time sourcing pictures. I'm happy with how they came out! I enjoyed the process of finding exactly the right picture and trying to trace continuity across hairstyles, outfits, etc. It wasn't perfect but I think it did the job and that's what counts.
For chapter 4, there was a lot of finicky revising to set up future stuff, as usual lol. Readers familiar with Emma already have a feeling about what could end up going on with Minho and Hyunjin and Jisung. Those who don't, I hope you enjoy the ride lol. But I needed to be careful about setting it up well! Also because my readers have been champion close readers, oh my god. The level of comments on this story has blown me awayyyyy. Y'all are so cool and perceptive and analytical and brilliant. I feel like I'm working even harder to try to live up to the level of time and energy you're putting into reading this story. It means a lot!
I also had to fix some pacing. With a story this long, there are inevitably going to be moments that are paced weirdly. I think I'm getting better at identifying those and making appropriate changes in as little space as possible to adjust! Sometimes it takes more than "as little space as possible" though, lol. Chapter 4 grew over 1k during revisions. Chapter 3 actually shrunk like 300 words? So it all depends on the individual chapter. But I did find that really interesting.
My favorite chapter 4 moment is the post-show scene at the bar! Chan's absence! Hyunjin's continued obliviousness! Things are getting set in motion and it feels like the kind of scene you can only appreciate mid-story (side note, can you believe we're over 40k? god), where you know the characters and every new thing that happens echoes and pings against things we've already seen.
I was joking with my beta underwaternow when I was visiting her last week that Emma AU is actually just five hundred parallels in a trench coat. It was a joke, but I think it's something I'm learning about myself as a writer, too.
Anyway, that's what I've got for you with this chapter! My Pinterest is full of interior decor party pics I didn't use, and next week shit hits the fan in a new and exciting way.
Thank you as ever for reading <3
Also, twitter is fully down as I type this, so I hope that anyone who wanted to see the new chapter is subscribed on AO3 lol. Or maybe sees this here! How exciting.
Okay, I'll start with chapter three! The last scene didn't get overhauled necessarily, but I rewrote the last 4 or 5 paragraphs in my continue effort to fix the issues in this draft related to Changbin and Hyunjin's relationship. I backed myself into some corners later on that I hope will become invisible by the time we get there! More than anything the tweaking here is just to set myself up better for edits coming down the line. Otherwise almost every ch3 change was really minor. Wording stuff, continuity things, line edits. I am always line editing. I've unlocked a love for line editing in myself and now I can't stop. There is just something so satisfying about crafting a deeply effective sentence.
I've really enjoyed buffing out some of the confusing or more sprawling lines in this story. Hyunjin does think in really visual, expansive ways. I personally am an abstract thinker. I don't really see stuff in my head! So marrying those two perspectives has been an interesting and I think valuable challenge for me as a writer. I hope if you're a visual person that particular scenes in this story sparkle the way I want them to!
Side note, I think my favorite scene of chapter three is actually the 3racha show. I love writing about music. Live music is such an experience and I am by and large a person who processes sound more emotionally than I do visuals. I wrote a locked post on here a while back reviewing Maxident by Stray Kids and it was so fun! I want to do more music writing in the future. This felt like a little taste of that wrapped up in character moments and our usual Emma AU mess.
I didn't research a ton of specifics for this chapter but I did look up more on linguistics PhD programs in Korea for Seungmin's sake, potential music venues and bar interiors, and the academic school year for elementary schools (actually hard to find!! maybe my search terms just sucked) for Jeongin's timeline.
Ch3 and 4 are probably the most image-heavy and social media-heavy chapters of this story, so I did spend a lot of time sourcing pictures. I'm happy with how they came out! I enjoyed the process of finding exactly the right picture and trying to trace continuity across hairstyles, outfits, etc. It wasn't perfect but I think it did the job and that's what counts.
For chapter 4, there was a lot of finicky revising to set up future stuff, as usual lol. Readers familiar with Emma already have a feeling about what could end up going on with Minho and Hyunjin and Jisung. Those who don't, I hope you enjoy the ride lol. But I needed to be careful about setting it up well! Also because my readers have been champion close readers, oh my god. The level of comments on this story has blown me awayyyyy. Y'all are so cool and perceptive and analytical and brilliant. I feel like I'm working even harder to try to live up to the level of time and energy you're putting into reading this story. It means a lot!
I also had to fix some pacing. With a story this long, there are inevitably going to be moments that are paced weirdly. I think I'm getting better at identifying those and making appropriate changes in as little space as possible to adjust! Sometimes it takes more than "as little space as possible" though, lol. Chapter 4 grew over 1k during revisions. Chapter 3 actually shrunk like 300 words? So it all depends on the individual chapter. But I did find that really interesting.
My favorite chapter 4 moment is the post-show scene at the bar! Chan's absence! Hyunjin's continued obliviousness! Things are getting set in motion and it feels like the kind of scene you can only appreciate mid-story (side note, can you believe we're over 40k? god), where you know the characters and every new thing that happens echoes and pings against things we've already seen.
I was joking with my beta underwaternow when I was visiting her last week that Emma AU is actually just five hundred parallels in a trench coat. It was a joke, but I think it's something I'm learning about myself as a writer, too.
Anyway, that's what I've got for you with this chapter! My Pinterest is full of interior decor party pics I didn't use, and next week shit hits the fan in a new and exciting way.
Thank you as ever for reading <3