An essay on writing a fanfiction, and grieving for an OC.
(Spoilers for You Only Live 18 Times are complete. If youāve not read it and have any intention of doing so, this essay isnāt a good idea to read first.)
I donāt know exactly who my target audience for this essay is honestly, but in my conceit, I felt like writing it anyway. Youāre welcome to ignore it. No sexy khajiits here, alas. But I wanted to write something about my process of writing fanfiction, and YOL18T is a good example of that.
First, the concept of my Spyjirra stories started out simply enough - I got the idea of basing a story on the old 007 movies, but with a sexy Ra'Jirra khajiit and set in a future Elder Scrolls universe. I wouldnāt say I literally copied from the movies, just got some general outlines from them. However, I had to upscale the TES technology to roughly 1700s era, with some bits of technology more advanced, others less than the literal period. So we have rifles and handguns, but no motorized vehicles. Magic still exists, but is fading.
When I started YOL18T I first watched the old Bond movie You Only Live Twice. Ā In it, āAmerican and Russian spacecraft go missing, leaving each superpower to blame the other.ā Ā The protagonist fakes his own death, then is sent to investigate in Japan. They discover itās a conspiracy by SPECTRE, the standard organized villain corporation.
So I start with a similar plotline, but spacecraft are obviously way too advanced for even my future-TES universe. Instead, the plot revolves around ships with a new technology - engines. Hammerfell and the Imperials are the two superpowers, with Hammerfell playing the part of the Russians, though not quite exclusively. Ā In fact, I have Hammerfell being the more technologically advanced of the two. Anyway, so instead of spacecraft, both countries are testing new powered ships, but they are both destroyed and each side blames the other.
In my story, Elsweyr plays the part of the English, ostensibly an ally of Cyrodiil but Ra'Jirra leans towards liking Hammerfell better after the last story. The Aldmeri Dominion plays the role of SPECTRE, and I conceived of them having a submarine and torpedoes that they used to destroy the ships - though the submarine is magically powered since the Altmer still possess decent magical abilities.
I was able to link the first story to the second by having Ra'Jirraās fake suicide done in Hammerfell where she meets a couple of characters from the original story. But the main new OC is Wears-Only-Ropes, an Argonian sailor who is on the Imperial ship that is destroyed. It seemed natural that, since this story would be very naval-oriented, the Argonians with their ability to breathe underwater would play an important role in any navy, even though their own country is resolutely neutral and not really even ocean-going.
(Forgive me pls for posting Wears-Only-Ropes images youāve already seen. I am still in mourning over her, in a more real sense than I have any right to be.)
In the Bond movie, a large portion of it is devoted to James Bond visiting Japan and some serious time is taken in describing the society there. I thought that having Ra'Jirra visit Argonia, (The Argonians wouldnāt call it the Black Marsh after all), would be a natural replacement for Japan. So similarly I spend some time imagining the society that the Argonians would have. Ā Even the Sumo wrestling scene gets an equivalent Argonian sporting event - chase the eel.
So while I do follow the plotline of the Bond movie in very broad terms, the specifics are very different obviously.
Anyway, as I was writing, I realized early on that Ra'Jirra needed a partner - primarily so she has someone to talk to and I donāt need to have internal dialogue, but also to give an alternate viewpoint on occasion. Since I tend to write sexy scenes once in a while, a male khajiit would make sense. (I donāt think itās too sexist to have her be hetero. Besides, I had a rather clear lesbian scene in the prior story with her anyway.) Ā Then I realized that it would be cute if her partner was an Alfiq - one of the more bizarre forms of khajiit in that theyāre basically the size and shape of a housecat, but intelligent - though TES sources indicate they canāt speak. So that would be a bit of a problem. I worked around that by having him be a biologist of sorts working with Lycanthropy who had been turned into an Alfiq. Also, he gets to turn back into his native form of a Cathay when the moons are aligned. So Ra'Jirra and he can occasionally have Sexy Fun Times. Plus he can talk. Okay, thatās a good OC and should be fun to play with! A spy organization like the HMSS would certainly have good use of someone like that.
I then started the story with a chapter on Wears-Only-Ropes and the destruction of her ship. Ā Rather liked how it turned out. I thought it made for a pretty good āhookā to start the reader out with something big. Ā Then I had to abandon her for most of the next half. In fact, she doesnāt actually meet Ra'Jirra till Ā¾ of the way through the story, so she gets a few more chapters from her point of view. But I came to really like her as a character. Mixing some bits I knew of pirates (women pirates would typically go shirtless as did the men) I had the concept of her āwearingā ropes as a bra of sorts, thus the name.
Another thing that originally came from the Bond filmā¦ in it, James Bond flys a mini-helicopter at one point. Well, a helicopter is way too advanced, but I came up with the CATv3 instead - a sort of Jet Ski/Waverunner thing. Once I had that, I had to give it some sort of weapon. A set of mines would make sense, as the thing would be bouncing all over the waves so trying to aim it with a gun in the front wouldnāt really work. Ā As soon as I got the idea of a mines on the CATv3, the logical way to destroy the sub became apparent. Ā
But the mines would be surface mines, meant to thwart attackers chasing her on boats or similar. Ā The submarine would be deep underwaterā¦ how? Oh. OH! OOOOOH!
Suddenly, Wears-Only-Ropesā fate was sealed. She would have to take a mine down to the sub. Ra'Jirra couldnāt do it even if she wanted to. Argonians can breathe underwater. Ra'Jirra can dog-paddle for a little bit.
Even then I had hoped to have her survive. I really had grown fond of her. But, minimal though it is, I do try to ground my stories in reality as much as possible given The Elder Scrolls-inspired world. I researched underwater explosions. Ā Iād hoped that perhaps an underwater explosion - given the density and non-compact-ability of water might allow her to live. But my research showed that, far from being safer than airborne explosions, an underwater explosion is even more deadly. And the explosion would be huge. The mine wouldnāt just detonate against the hull of the sub, it would trigger the explosion of all the torpedoes within.
Fight as I would as a writer, I couldnāt justifiably have her live. Any number of solutions were possible, but they all were just too outlandish and smacked of Deus Ex-Machina solutions. No, she had to die in the explosion. Granted, sheād expected to. All her āfamilyā and friends had died in the original ship torpedoing at the first chapter. It would be fitting that she would sacrifice herself to their retribution. I couldnāt deny her that. So, though I donāt explicitly make it clear, she died.
Itās weird how such a thing can affect me, her author. I really feel bad about it, even though it was both fitting and made for a more impressive story IMHO. Iāve toyed with the idea of her Twin Sister, etc, but that doesnāt feel right either. Ā No, sheās a one-story character, and YOL18T is her story as much as Ra'Jirraās.
One other thing, I needed a core motive for the Dominionās action. Sure, they were trying to instigate a war between Hammerfell and Cyrodiil - but WHY would they want to do that? The answer was right in front of me. Technology vs Magic. In my TES-future universe, magic is dying. The Altmer of the Dominion are the last capable magic-users (to any large extent), but the humans and their rapidly increasing technology were threatening. But not just that. I conceived of them using their magic to look far into the future, and what they saw there was a world in which humans were the only intelligent inhabitants. The khajiit, argonians and mer were all gone. It gave them a much more noble reason for their actions - even if they were also self-serving. And therein lies the core of the sequel and end of the trilogy actually. In YOL18T, I didnāt do much with that, other than have the Dominion explain their reasons to Ra'Jirra.
And thatās how YOL18T was conceived. I am currently doing an audio-recording of the story chapter-by-chapter. Iām not a good voice actor at all. In fact, I just pitch-shift my voice to portray the different characters in it. I spend most of my time adding background effects so itās not quite just a dry reading. Though Iām also currently writing the sequel and last story in the Spyjirra trilogy, I think YOL18T is the highlight - even though the current one is a ābigger pictureā story than either of the first two and really doesnāt track along with the Bond movie in any way.
But I do miss Ropes. She deserved more than a single story. The one thing I might do someday is write more of her backstory. But prequels are a tough sell, esp. when you know how her story has to end. Ehā¦ maybe not. Ā I tried to write a prequel once for Katia to explore her life before she came to Anvil. I aborted it as too depressing. I really prefer happy endings. So probably Ropes is gone for good. I hope her story is good enough for her.
