#fwoan

“I wanted to watch you grow old,” Caitlyn murmured … “I told you,” [Vi] dropped her gaze, “Hunters don’t get to grow old.”

Some concept art for Older! Lucy from FWOAN. Give my baby some tatts, scars and muscles. Ayyyyyyy

Two words: Google Docs.

This would absolutely not have been possible without Google Docs, or definitely not so efficiently as we’d have had to keep mailing chapters back and forth.

Being in vastly different time zones was actually a benefit in some ways; sometimes I’d write until I got stuck, go to bed, and wake up the following morning to find that @ladywinterlight had written another half a chapter!

When we were both awake at the same time - morning for me, afternoon/evening for her - we quite often tag-teamed, writing in short sections, maybe making notes at the bottom. We didn’t worry about identifying Who Wrote Which Bit in the main story, but if we made notes we used colours to identify the text; purple for Winter and red for me. We then copied the notes, which were often a sort of brainstorming session, over to a separate Planning document.

We made the decision to try this in late March, I believe, and the first 30 chapters were written before we started posting. We had the fic planned up until the then-current canon point but had to wait until S2 ended before we could figure out the remainder.

Planning kind of depends just how detailed you like to plan, and how much your friend does. Winter is probably more of a organised planner than I am; I tend to write by the seat of my pants, but we really had to know where the story was going, writing in tandem.

3. What's your favorite line of narration?

Oh my God. You want me to pick my favourite. Out of a 200,000 word fic. Holy crap. I can’t pick one line - but I’ll give you a small section. I almost died laughing writing this, and every time I re-read it I make myself laugh with how absolutely PERFECTLY I think I managed to get Lance Hunter down. It’s Hunter’s thought process at the end of what I will forever call ‘the Hufflepuff Scene’ in Chapter 39.

Old Geezer, though, continued his condemnation of Coulson’s actions, and Hunter realised they’d already made their judgement. This wasn’t a court, and there wasn’t going to be any trial, much less a fair one. He wasn’t there to be a character witness for Coulson. Hunter was there to keep him out of the way. And perhaps, because Bobbi hoped to sway him to her way of thinking.

Well, they could all just fuck right off.

Lance Hunter had chosen his side. And he wasn’t going to flip for anyone. Most especially not for his lying hellbeast of an ex-wife and her gigantic minion who’d choked him out, tied him up in the boot of a car and then chained him to a fucking sink, and their precious Four Executives of the Apocalypse.

They weren’t Hufflepuff, he realised, looking around. They weren’t even fucking Slytherin. They were Death Eaters, the lying, cheating, traitorous bastards. And Lance Hunter was a Gryffindor through and through.

He was outta here.

4. What's your favorite line of dialogue?

Same problem, too many to choose from! Mmm... I’ll make it one of Rumlow’s to Ward, when he confronts him on the Bus on the way to rescue Lincoln and Mike: 

“Shut. Your. Filthy. Mouth. You pathetic excuse for a human being. Do you even hear yourself? You’re talking about your attempted murder of two of the people in this room, and your actual murder of some of their friends, and saying that the thing you feel worst about is that they don’t want to be your friends any more?”

God, that line was SO FUCKING satisfying to write. SO GOOD.

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Urrhhh, that’s a bit deep, isn’t it? Hmmm. I didn’t go into it with the idea of a Lesson. 

That said, if there IS one, I guess that it’s that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about redeeming oneself? Because this fic is really about Rumlow’s redemption arc, from a Hydra soldier to basically a superhero in his own right. Yes, it’s a Redeemed For Love trope, but... the way he tells Skye that he chooses her to be his moral compass, because his is so skewed he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong. He’s wrong about that, of course, though he isn’t ready to accept that at the time. 

Thank you, Roma! Hope you’re enjoying it all. I’m not as prolific lately because of stress and house moving (12 days to go, argh!) but I promise there are some awesome new stories brewing in my backbrain and I hope to get deep into them in the New Year, plus some AMAZING new collaborations on temporary hiatus.

Anyway, your questions!

2. What scene did you first put down?

We started right at the beginning. I did have another idea for Rumlow meeting Skye on the Bus early on, but I ended up not running with it. It still percolated in my brain, though, and when @ladywinterlight suggested a collaboration I presented it. 

We thrashed out a plot that took us through TWS and what Rumlow would be doing instead, and then we just dove in headlong and started writing that part where Jemma finds out Skye has a soulmark in Chapter 1, as I recall!

Honestly, when I look back over it now, I often can’t remember which bits I wrote and which Winter did, our writing styles mesh so well. Occasionally I catch a turn of phrase or a word I wouldn’t use and realise Winter wrote that section, but most of the time I really can’t remember!

5. What part was hardest to write?

Holy cats. We did it. I think we really did it! 

There’s a ‘The End’ at the end of our “For Want Of A Nail” document. You know, the story people have been following @ozhawkauthor and I for over the last six months? Yeah. We’ve actually hit the end. 66 chapters and an epilogue.

It’s not fully ready for posting. We always go back to review, edit and occasionally make small changes. But we’ve been discussing increasing the rate of posting once we actually finished. Possibly Mon/Wed/Fri evenings (US Time)