Warning              : LONG, self-centered rant.

This blog is created to express the personal rant/fear/insecurity that I have concerning Das Marchen Club. It’s just something I want to post as a precaution. And if one day I decide to get a review for DMC, the reviewer shall know that I’ve seen the following flaws of my story, hehe.

Rants/Issues concerning “Das Märchen Club” (DMC)

-          Length vs. Flow

As the current readers might have noticed, there are plenty of matters I still conceal intentionally in DMC. DMC is a big project for me, because I’ve never written (or been writing) a fanfic that has more than 45 chapters. Yes. I have outlined each of the chapter, and so far, DMC will have 49 chapters + 1 side chapters.

The length scares me myself. I know I don’t read a lot, but when I read, as a reader, I avoid long fanfiction. 20-25 chapters are always my maximum limit. Almost in 90 % instances, I won’t read a fanfiction if it extends more than 30 chapters (unless if I really can’t be separated from the story). The reason is because I personally think that writers often elongate the chapters only to succumb to readers’ demand and in result, they only add drama/unnecessary fillers. That’s why I avoid long story.

But I… (as much as I want to) … cannot do that to DMC. I cannot just cut the story into 20-25 chapters, because it will disrupt the flow of the plot. There are… too many things that I have to write, and I know I’ve never been an effective writer myself, so I know if I insist to jam all the plots into a 20-25 chapters worth of fanfiction, it’ll be messier than it may already be.

Then again, I know there are countless readers out there who have similar reading perspective like I do (not wanting to read a long fanfiction). However, as to this, there’s really nothing I can do…

-          Characters

Truth be told, I cannot handle all the characters in DMC. Just like the length rant, creating a story with more than 20 characters are…getting out of my hand. Honestly, it’s so damn hard trying to pull off the flair of each of these characters. I’m not sure whether they are distinguishable already. Some characters are developed well enough (personally, I like Kibum and Heechul’s characters development. Jessica’s character development comes next), but the others are just…underdeveloped. I haven’t explored them all.

I know that one of the ground rule is to just stick and focus on several characters –even in a story that has a lot of characters. But I… just seem to be torn in between. One of the underlying motives of creating DMC is to incorporate my love to all Suju & SNSD’s members. I just have to insert them all. That’s my selfishness, yeah.

Yuri, is one of my biggest characterization flaw. She’s like the evil side of Mary Sue. As opposed to the perfect Mary Sue, Yuri’s character is exaggeratedly flawed. I won’t make all characters lovable, true. I don’t care if my readers got irked with some characters, because that means the characters serve their purposes. But Yuri… is a different kind of loathsome. I don’t hate her in this fic. I feel guilty for writing her that way. I think how I depict her cunningness is too illogical, my way of characterizing her is simply shallow.

-          Pairings

I know a lot of readers have tried to assure me that they’re reading DMC not because of the pairing anymore. In some of the comments’ replies, I’ve often stated how this kind of comment pleases me a lot. However, even when I’m honestly grateful with all these kind of encouragement, I cannot deny the fact that the insecurity still lingers. I think this kind of insecurity will only end once I post the final chapter of DMC, read the last comment, and close the story forever.

The readers’ encouragement cannot dissipate the fact that eventually I’ll disappoint someone. I’ll disappoint one or two or three shipping fandom. And considering the type of story DMC is, there’s a high possibility I’ll end up disappointing all shippers who decide to stick up with my story to have their biases end up together. I have my OTP, but I may end up hurting my own OTP. On the other hand, I may also hurt other peoples’ OTP. I am quite a coward/shallow person myself. I fear rejection. I fear peoples’ hatred. Knowing that eventually some shippers will probably hate me… I fear it.

-          Plot

There are times when I am very satisfied with my plot. In general, actually, I like DMC’s plot. It is the plot holes, however, that bug me slightly.

During my experience of writing fanfic, I’m more of a plot-oriented author, rather than a character-oriented or writing style-oriented author. Nonetheless, writing a scheme like what occurred in DMC…it’s quite a burden. What I hate is that sometimes I couldn’t see the plot holes until I posted the chapters and people pointed it out. Well, they don’t point the current plot holes, but they mentioned things that made me realize some part of the future chapters are going to be choppy. It’s a good thing, actually. That way, I can fix the chapters before I post them.

Part of the plot I’m most unsure of: definitely the motive of DMC. DMC is an AU fic, but that does not give justification to be lousy in the motive/reason behind the killings in the fic. I think I’ve just followed the mainstream-typical motive. For now, since I’m incapable of thinking anything new, I’ll settle with this for the moment.

-          Dark Themes (the Warnings)

There are some issues in the future in which I fear would not be appropriate for the readers. I know some of the readers are even below 13 years old. I’m not sure whether the heavy materials in the future shall be posted. On one hand, I feel like as an older one, I have the responsibility not to “taint” the younger generation. But on the other hand, I’m a selfish writer and I just want my writing to come out originally –uncensored.

-          Writing Style

At some times, I am comfortable with my writing style. At the other times, however, I feel like I fell into the “tell, and not show” trap. I know it’s impossible to keep showing things (some type of scenes are better told than shown, IMO), but if you scruntinize my writing, you can actually spot how lazy I’ve become in the later chapters.  I rush and I just want the readers to know the plot. There are times when I remember I have to flair my writing a bit, and at such time, I think my writing style improves. But most other times, lately, I am too lazy to make it beautiful. Again, I’m quite a plot-oriented author rather than a writing-style oriented author.

-          Attention-

That’s me.

This post (if you still read it, haha) might change your perception (if you do have it) of me. I am not as professional as some other authors out there. I’ve been holding myself not to rant like this, because I want to keep my personal fear detached from my writing (DMC). But I realize that that’s not the person I am. Sometimes the fear for DMC suffocates me so much, it really bugs me on my other daily chores.

That leads me to create this post. I just need to let it out. I am quite an expectation-phobic. So maybe, those who expect me to do something mindblowing with DMC…should lower down their expectation. Need to be quite vocal here, that’s where I got to be a contradictive coward and arrogant person at the same time. Then again, now you know the type of a person I am.

Thank you.

Pinboo

And here’s the video for my 3^rd trailer of DMC. Those who read this blog can watch it faster, as I will only the trailer in my fanfic later.