(no subject)

[bluflamingo]

I'm writing a John/Keller friendship fic as part of the Dysfunction verse, where news comes through that Cam's lost off-world, presumed dead.

You all know me, doesn't that pretty much sound right up my street? friendship, John/Cam, angst...

So why am I completely stuck and reduced to staring blankly at the line I just wrote with no idea what comes next?!

Comments

[skieswideopen]

Ooh, I'm looking forward to reading this one!

If you want to run it past someone, I'm around for the next couple of hours.

[bluflamingo]

Thank you, but it really is barely a paragraph at the moment - there's nothing to look at :(

[skieswideopen]

Hmm, if it were me, I'd probably write an outline and/or figure out what I'm trying to say with the story. But that's how I write.

How are John's previous experiences in this universe going to change his reactions to Cam being missing/presumed dead, versus how (nearly) canon!John would react?

[bluflamingo]

I think I'm fundamentally incapable of writing an outline, at least until I'm a few pages in - I don't think I ever know where I'm going until I start.

How are John's previous experiences in this universe going to change his reactions to Cam being missing/presumed dead

I think...okay, for one, he's depressed, so everything is hard work anyway, even the stuff that wouldn't have been. And now he's lost someone who matters except he can't let on that Cam matters, or even really that he knows, because he has no reason to know since no-one else does, and that's hard enough to begin with without it happening now.

Plus, he's not been having a great few months, even before Jack and Daniel, and Cam's kind of the only person who noticed for one reason or another, and it's kind of...at the end of Keep Going, he thinks of Cam as almost like the reward for eventually killing the Wraith - if he can do this, which is sort of impossible, he gets to go back to Earth and have Cam. Except now he can't.

And I think there's also an element of it not really mattering that it's Cam, that it could have been anyone he cares about, but this is the final thing that tips him over the edge after everything bad that's happened for the last few years (of which there's certainly been more than enough).

Now if I just knew how to put that into an actual story :)

[skieswideopen]

Since the whole thing seems largely to be about John's emotional state, do you know where him to start and end? Does this help make him stronger, by showing him he can get through it? Break him further? Make him seek out help? Help realize he has the support of friends? Force him to acknowledge previously suppressed feelings for Cam? Something else entirely?

[bluflamingo]

Part of the story is that Keller's ended up being the only one who knows about John and Cam's relationship, and so she's the one John asks to find out about Cam when he doesn't get in touch. And part of that is that she knows because she's prescribing him with sleeping pills and trying to persuade him that he needs more and better help than that which he doesn't go for.

And so the story is partly about John and Cam, and partly about his and Keller's slightly odd friendship, and I think the ending has to have something to do with him acknowledging that she's right and getting help. Plus, I want him to end up going back to Earth for an extended period to have an actual break and see Cam, but I'm not sure how that will work yet - maybe she and someone at the SGC conspire to come up with a plausible reason for him to go that doesn't involve the words medically unfit for duty.

[skieswideopen]

I know you're probably in bed now, but if you're still having trouble next time you work on it...i guess the next thing I'd consider is what stages does John go through, and what specifically triggers each change? The original discovery, of course, and his realization that there's no one he can talk to or even get information about Cam from other than Keller. What else does he have to deal with then? Cheerful or bitchy conversation from Rodney, because Rodney has no idea what's going on (until maybe he notices there's something and makes a half-hearted inquiry that John brushes off)? Oblique conversations with Teyla? Or is it all John and Keller? Is it Keller's POV? In which case, what kind of stress is she under, covering for John? Who can she not talk with? Who does she wish she could seek advice from?

Hmm, but that's all kind of the scene-by-scene stuff that you don't usually do. So what do you usually do? How are you going to get John from devastation to realizing he probably needs help (from a non-military source?), and getting time on Earth?

Feel free to ignore anything that's not helpful here, too; you're under no obligation to answer all these questions! ;)

[bluflamingo]

How are you going to get John from devastation to realizing he probably needs help (from a non-military source?), and getting time on Earth?

I wish I knew :) I usually start writing, and eventually figure out where I'm going with it, usually about a third of the way through. I'm not far enough in to know how I get to the end yet.

Thank you for all the prompting though - I ended up writing about a thousand words last night so at least it's going *somewhere*

[scrollgirl]

Ooh, I've got such a hankering for John + Jennifer friendship! If it helps, tell me 3 things Jennifer really thinks of John, but is too polite to say to his face. Maybe that'll break the writer's block.

[bluflamingo]

She thinks...

1. That sometimes she wishes he had been trying to steal Rodney away from her, because at least then she'd have someone to blame other than herself. Because she thinks, some days, that she knew Rodney when she got involved, more than well enough to know that he wasn't going to change for her, and she hates feeling like a fool for sticking it out so long.

2. That he probably wouldn't get better - because he's actually not well - but he might feel better if he told someone any of what's in his head. Because she knows there are things that only she knows, and he has three best friends who would literally die for him, and they should be the ones who know, because they could actually help.

3. That the way he treated Teyla when she was pregnant was shameful, and he can give all the reasons he likes, but that doesn't excuse him for it. And he's really lucky that Teyla's the type to forgive and forget, not just let him get away with it (and that she wishes she was the former as well, but fears that she's actually the latter).

[carolyn_claire]

You're trying to make something happen instead of letting it happen? Maybe work on a different scene, one that wants to be written more than this one does, and see if it inspires something?

[bluflamingo]

I think you might be right, actually - or at least it's a good excuse to give in to my urge to time skip to the next day and move on :) Thank you!

[carolyn_claire]

If I have a talent, it's for finding the easier road. *g*

[bluflamingo]

That's a good talent - according to my mum, mine is for over-complicating everything because I like my life like that.

It's sort of sad to think she might be right

[rubygirl29]

Because that's what being a writer is all about!

[bluflamingo]

Apparently :) Usually it takes me a lot longer to get stuck though!