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Predictable Chaos


Predictable Chaos

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Okay, so I wasn't planning on doing NaNoWriMo, but inspiration hit me in a timely manner so here I am. I'm working on a novel that I started four years ago. It's actually the sequel to my story, Even the Best Laid Plans which is the first novel I wrote. It's a Snape/OC that takes place in Books 5-7. The sequel focuses more on their twins who attend Hogwarts. Severus has refused to tell the children about his past, but of course, the truth slowly appears creating friction and anger between the Severus and his children.

I know I've been working on this forever, but I feel I might make a big dent in this for two reasons.

a) I actually outlined the rest of the story (kinda, sorta.)

b) I've already written 4000 words (which is a marathon for me.)

 

As far as goals, I'd love to say finish the story. Maybe I can do that, but the finale is going to be huge, so who knows how many words that will be.

 

Good luck everyone in your writing!

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I'm really looking forward to reading this story, seeing as how your previous story was so fabulous and I love your writing style.   I can depend on you to write a huge finale!  Here's hoping you make that big dent. :twothumbsup:

 

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Hey, Barbara! Welcome to the NaNo craziness! :D 

I have to admit I haven't been very good at keeping track of stories on your AP... I think I read a small bit of Even The Best Laid Plans at some point, but that was a long time ago... should come back at some point... :$ 

Anyway, it's so cool that inspiration struck for you! Good luck with this sequel and writing in general this NaNo month!

:freeze: :hug:

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I have a bit of a sneak peek below, but also need some advice. Severus is under pseudonym for 90% of the story (Stephen Prince) When the narrator is referring to him, should I use Severus or Stephen? Is there a typical procedure for this type of situation.

 

Background on the sneak peak. Severus (Stephen) and Maerna (my OC) live in Mexico and assume their 11 years will be attending Ilvermorny but the principal there has just told them the twins are on the school's list. 

For the first minute after the door clicked shut, neither of them said anything. Finally, Severus broke the silence. “I have a good idea of why they aren’t on the list,” he started. “It’s because they are on another list. These arrived soon after you left. I intercepted them before the boys saw them.” He handed his wife two letters. Both were on ivory colored parchment and neither had been opened. Emerald green ink adorned both, one addressed to Albus Brent Prince and the other to Remus Severus Prince, both at their home address. Maerna flipped one of them over and gasped when she saw what was on the other side: The Hogwarts Coat of Arms. Their past was coming back to haunt them.

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Yes, I can depend on you, Barbara, for a good story.  :S

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Barbara, hi! This sounds like an intriguing story!

As far as your questions go, I think it honestly depends. I've not read many stories where someone assumes another identity where it is known to the audience. When it's unknown it is always done so as part of a dramatic reveal for shock value. It probably also depends on how he feels about himself or his identity. Has he suppressed his past or does he sit with it? I would think if he's tried to suppress it and forget about it, maybe he thinks of himself more as Stephen. It could also be a survival tactic. He thinks of himself as Stephen, so that he answers to Stephen and/or is fully Stephen. I think of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings from The Americans in this instance. If you haven't seen it, they are KGB Agents who pose as American citizens and become fully integrated in life in the US.  

He could also very refer to himself as both. For instance, I go by two separate names in my life. Sometimes the same people (my husband) call me both and sometimes one name is ascribed to a relationship I have with some people (my early internet friends and friends in my current writers group outside of here) and the other to another group of people (family, colleagues, real life friends, all of you on FFT). Of course, I'm not trying to evade the law or trick anyone. I have the luxury of being fairly open about it. But sometimes I think of myself as Courtney and other times I think of myself as Lynnie, depending on who I'm talking to.

This might have muddied the waters more or helped bring you some clarity. I hope it is the latter, but I honestly think you can do whatever you like as long as you connect it with the character's psyche/relationshipt to the name(s).

Happy writing!

:lgbtqia: Courtney

 

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I'm so excited you are working on this story Barbara! I agree with everything Courtney said regarding how to refer to Severus/Stephen. (Also I love that Severus is going by Stephen when that's the alias Maerna made up for him)

Tell us about their kids! What are they like???

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Barbara! 

I am cheering you on for the last week of NaNo! Did you accomplish what you had hoped so far?

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Thank you! I never set a goal. Given that I've been "working" on this story for 4 years, I thought, "Why rush it?"  However, I've been pleased. I left a few holes but have reached the climax. Severus just revealed that he's alive and he and Harry have rushed off to save the day. I don't think I'll be done by the end of November but maybe a month or two after that.

 

I'm always in awe of how fast some people can write, like typing out 10,000 words in a day. Wow! I'll probably get 10,000 for the entire month.

 

@Pixileanin  How are the chapter titles going?

 

@inmyownlittlecorner Here's my mini outline of each of the children: 

Remus-more quiet/reserved of the two, loves to learning about werewolves, studious, wants to change the world through potions, constant reader, Slytherin, scholar 

Albus-more outgoing of the two, favorite is herbology and history studious; adventurer, Gryffindor, spokesperson

both are practical joker, but you would never suspect them,; remus plans the ideas for the jokes, albus has the details

Edited by Predictable Chaos
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LAST DAY!!!!

... of NaNo, of course! 

The chapter titles are not too hard to wrangle, thankfully! Glad you had a good NaNo run, and I'm excited to see your story come up when it's ready!

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Well NaNo is officially over in four hours (at least in my time zone) and I managed a lot over the last 3 days (nothing like a deadline.) 

  • 15,000 words
  • finished the grand finale twice. (outlined one, forgot about it, wrote a second, then found the outline of the first and decided I like that one better)

I still need to do an epilogue and there are a lot of spots with ADD DETAILS HERE, BARBARA, but overall, I'd call it a successful run. If anyone is interested in betaing (or just reading it), let me know and I'll send you a link. 

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I'm so glad that you did so well, Barbara.  I'd love to read it.  But you probably knew that already!

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Barbara!

 

I was reading through your journal and I wanted to see if you had any updates for this Severus/Stephen story yet. It seems that you've been going along with it for a while. I know exactly how that goes. My current wip has been with me for about four years, too, but that was because I had to push it away for a long while before I was able to face up to the idea of it and nail it down.

Sometimes, I still think I'm not ready. LOL!

Anyway, I saw that you had questions about Severus/Stephen, and whether to refer to himself as either from his POV. I'm sure you have a solution by now, but just in case you're looking for a fourth opinion (lol), I thought I'd throw in a thought. If Severus is going by his original name to people close to him, then it's easy for him to think to himself using his original name, and responding to his alt name. If Severus has completely given up his old name for the sake of safety, it would be fun for him to sort of struggle with that in his own head and have to remind himself who he is now, in contrast to who he used to be. And if he's using each name with different sets of people, like @Gallifrey Gal  mentioned, it'd be super cool for him to also have to remind himself which name he is at any given moment.

 

OR... because I like to complicate matters, and this might not even be the purpose of your story, if he's struggling with his identity of before and after, it'd be cool to see him have to return to his old identity, where he needs to think of himself as the person he had abandoned to become the person he's pretending to be. All of this could be fun to play with, using the different names in his POV.

Aaand that probably didn't help. But it was fun!

 

Happy writing!

 

Pix

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