Sharing oxygen || Closed rp with classification-newt-scamander
Percival Graves had spent ten months between Grindelwald’s hands. Ten months during which the dark wizard had taken everything from him - His name, his pride, his face, his wand, his reputation. But, worse of all, his hearing. Percival Graves, Director of Magical Security and head of MACUSA's Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was deaf.
Fortunately, no one had seemed to notice it - No one but Picquery, when she had visited him at the hospital, five days later, and she had noticed that he couldn’t answer to her when she wasn’t facing him. She had asked him to tell her the truth, and so he had. He had explained her that Grindelwald’s hexes and curses had left more than one scar, and that he had been deaf for three weeks now. He only managed to talk with people by reading on their lips.
And so, a month later, he had been sent back home - his old house, where he had been kept prisoner. Where his blood was still on the floor of his bedroom, where every wall reminded him of blond hair and mismatched eyes. It had taken him another couple of months to be able to walk around with a cane without having to stop every five minutes, and another month to go back to work.
He had found a spell to inform him when people talked to him, but it didn’t work that well, and he lived in the constant fear of people noticing that something was wrong with him. Fortunately, it had always been a habit for him to look at people when they talked to him, and to not accept when people didn’t look at him in return, so it made reading on their lips easier, but there were still moments when he didn’t quite catch what they were saying.
He hadn’t gone to meetings neither, as keeping track of a conversation between several people who talked at the same time was near impossible for him. And, most importantly, he hadn’t come back in the field. He was useless, now, unable to defend himself, to hear the curses flying to him, and despite Picquery’s encouragement, he had refused to leave his office.
It was in that state of mind that, five months later, he waited for Mr. Scamander to meet him in his office. He had sent him a letter a month ago to ask him to come back to America, as he wanted to hear - haha, what a joke - his side of the story, and he knew that the man had finally arrived in boat the day prior.
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How long does it take you to outline? Also, do you have any brainstorming tips for the first stages of a fanfic idea, like coming up with scenes and backstories and subplots and all? Thank you!~
Outlining usually doesn’t take long for me at all because I basically write down everything as I think it and then delete/add as needed, which relates to my main brainstorming tip:
Write it down.
Whatever it is, write it down. Klaus is a chicken farmer in addition to being a scary vampire hybrid?? Sure, whatever. If you don’t use it delete it later. No idea is too “stupid” to be written down during brainstorming. Hitting backspace is what computer word processors are for! And like, who knows, maybe he’s the secret owner of KFC and that’s how he makes his buckets of money! Maybe his family raised chickens back in viking times (did they have chickens back then?? was that a thing??). Maybe there will end up being zero chickens ever, but it was an idea and hey, at least you now have it just in case.
"Stupid” ideas in writing are never stupid because anything can lead anywhere. I’ve totally written down bits of dialogue or random ideas that spawned an entirely different drabble or story, and a lot of them started out in a place where I would look at them and be like “ha, well that’s never going to happen!” And then it’ll end up growing into an idea vaguely like that but better lol
In general for outline construction, try to think of what major plot points you need. For instance, I’ll take Sharing Oxygen, which is a story about KC as counselors at a summer camp. It spawned out of a drabble, which I used as the starting point.
Spoilers for the story, so I’m putting how I constructed the outline under the cut.
So I had when they get to camp already. Then, to build the “skeleton” of the outline, I listed the major plot points:
They meet
CPR scene at the pool
Scene when they gave into their feelings for each other
Reveal at the end.
However, if I just left the story like that it would take out the build in the middle, in other words how they got to those major plot points, so I needed to flesh that out to make the story more believable and engaging. I needed some unresolved sexual tension between the beginning and the CPR scene, and then after the CPR scene I wanted a hospital scene to show more of Klaus’s feelings and then a scene for Caroline to figure out her feelings. Then, after the scene where they gave into their feelings, I needed to show the way they’d act when they were together before camp was over, and then have a scene where they figure out whether they want to try long distance. I also loved it enough once I was a little bit in that I wanted to do an epilogue, so I needed to figure that out too. That made the outline look more like this:
They meet
Counselor training at pool - UST
CPR scene at the pool
Hospital - Klaus recognizes feelings
Aftermath of near drowning - Caroline recognizes feelings
Scene when they gave into their feelings for each other (smut)
Secret relationship at camp
The discovery by others of their relationship
Aftermath of discovery
Decide whether or not to do long distance
Epilogue
After that, I split it up so that there would be a distinct beginning, middle and end to each chapter. So, chapter one became the period of time between the camp arrival to Caroline nearly drowning, which was the first big plot point. The second big plot point was when they gave into their feelings, and the third was the discovery of their relationship. You’ll notice that all of those plot points came at the end of those chapters. The epilogue ended up being everything after the discovery of their relationship. In retrospect, I probably should have split up the ‘during camp’ and ‘post-camp’ bits, but I didn’t.
I also wrote down a bunch of stuff that I didn’t end up using, like a hike through the woods with the campers involving very sweaty workout clothes and some first-time lake sex instead of first-time tree sex. I ended up cutting those and changing it a bit, but it was good to have them down so that I could shelf those ideas for something else.
For a longer ensemble fic like Travelers that had a lot of world building, I needed to make separate outlines for each plot I wanted to include and a timeline that mixed with the others. I made a list of all the major plot points again, and then I made a list for all the different ships (because there are a lot in that fic) and their own plots and how I wanted to develop them, and then put them all together in a coherent timeline.
So, now you have your beginning, middle, and end. For backstory, figure out how the characters got to the starting point. What were their relationships with the other characters like before the story started? What are their goals and why? What do they want? How does what they want change throughout the story?
In Sharing Oxygen, Caroline starts out by having gone to the camp before, and she’s friends with Bonnie and has a petty grudge against Klaus. She wants to get through the summer and have fun and not have to interact with him. This changes to wanting to tease him and bait him, and then to wanting to be in a relationship with him and keep it from Bonnie (for fear of upsetting her friend), and then to staying in the relationship while still living her life the way she wants to and meeting her goals outside of Klaus.
Sorry about how long that was, but I hope it helped? I’m about to answer your other ask now, but let me know if you have any other questions. :D I’m happy to try to help in any way I can.
toklarolinetvd replied to your post: “Hey! Did you ever update the second part to the HP AU baby project?...”:
I'm always patient with your awesome stories! Keep me posted once you do update. Btw just read "Sharing Oxygen" and I loved it. Thanks for being such an great writer ❤️
Thank you!! I'm so happy you liked SO! I will definitely keep you posted ;) Hopefully sooner rather than later. 💜💖💙
how old are klaus & caroline supposed to be in sharing oxygen?
Hi anon! Nineteen, though they were originally 21 in the early drafts, so it’s possible some timing things that slipped through. Sorry if that was confusing! I’ll go back later tonight and check. :)
hello! i loved "sharing oxygen"! can i make a suggestion? i loved seeing that klaus felt something more for caroline than physical attraction. should you make an epilogue, can we see more of them getting to bond beyond the physical stuff? like them getting to know each other?
I’m so happy you like the fic!! I really love that idea, so I will definitely do that :D It’ll be good practice (I am like, the least romantic person alive, so it can be hard to figure out what to do for that kind of stuff)! I’ll try to get it done soon.
I assume you were also the another anon I got right after this asking why Bonnie hates Klaus, and my reasoning is generally that Bonnie is very loyal, and she tends to take more offense to people being dicks to her friends than dicks to her personally.
I also was filling a prompt that called for Klaus and Caroline’s friends who hate each other making a bet on when kc would finally get together where CPR didn’t count ;)
I might expand more on that in the next chapter if people are interested?
Also, I know I’ve been updating super fast, and I want to give an unrelated-to-this-ask-but-important shoutout to @garglyswoof who has been a blessing like I have written a lot of things in the span of a few days and she’s been amazing about looking at everything.
Anyway, thanks for sticking this in my box. It made my morning 💜
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1) yes to an epilogue! for sharing oxygen 2) they need to stop playing and send caroline to nola!
1) That seems to be the consensus, so I’ll try to fit it in! :P
2) I AGREE
I know that people are iffy about it because they don’t want the writers to ruin it, but honestly at this point I feel like its the best chance for both of them to get any sort of their previous characterization.
PLEASE UPDATE SHARING OXYGEN SOON. THAT CLIFFHANGER WAS TOO GOOD, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Thank you!!! I’m so happy you liked it :D :D
So, I’m not actually sure what my update schedule is. There is little to no chance that my regular multi-chapters will be updated anytime soon bc Sophie is very very busy with real life and I’m having an intense case of writer’s block. Because of that, I selfishly kind of want to stretch out my updates a little. Feedback is what keeps me going, and if I go a long period without it, I get a little discouraged and it can be hard to start up again.
@garglyswoof has been helping out with my drabbles/short fics and she’s fabulous, so chapter two is basically done, and all I have left for chapter three is the smut. I’m thinking weekly updates on Wednesdays? Don’t quote me on that, but that’s the most likely at this point.
@she-walked-away‘s drabble is turning into a similar kind of monster, so it’s possible there might be another three-parter for her.
As usual, probably more info than you wanted, but I hope that answered your question?? Thanks for your message! You made my morning <3
