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rsadelleThis contains spoilers for "You Have My Heart (in your hands)," so if you have any interest in the story itself, you should read it before you read this.
Story Origins
When![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schuyler said, "Dude, you know what Gabe loves in real life? Babies. Dude loves babies," I said, "Oooh! Victoria gets pregnant, doesn't want the guy involved in her life, and Gabe co-parents, and then they fall in love." I copied it into a file that was going to be my bandomrarepair ideas file that I planned to add to and then choose from, but the next day I wrote the first 1500 words of "You Have My Heart (in your hands)" and sent them to Sky. The thing that really kept me on track with this story was that I sent her a piece of it every single day, which meant I had to write a piece of it every single day. I did that for two months, and in the end, I had this story.
Women's Lives
"You Have My Heart (in your hands)" is, at its heart, a romance. In my head, I wanted everything in the story to lead up to Gabe and Victoria getting together. But then I was partway through, and I was bothered that my main character is a woman whose whole story life is centered on a man. I wanted the story to pass the Bechdel test, which is why I put Amber and Victoria's girl talk about Amber's dress into the story. In worrying about this, I also started wondering how much of my actual life passes the Bechdel test. Fandom, after all, involves a lot of women talking about men.
One of the other Amber bits also came from something outside of the story. I needed another hundred words to meet my writing goal for the day, so I had Amber talk about Victoria's lingerie collection (Victoria did say she likes stockings, so it's plausible), which then became a plot point.
I originally intended Gabe's blog post to be the entire epilogue. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked that. This is Victoria's story, told from her point of view, so the epilogue became Victoria reading the blog post.
Real People, Fake Names
Victoria really does (or did at one time: source) have a friend watch Gizmo for her while she's touring, but I didn't know the friend's name. She became Amber after someone in my ballet class. Ryland does (or did at one time) have a girlfriend, but I don't know her name either. Alex's girlfriend is named Lauren, and when I was thinking about that and trying to come up with a name, I thought of my next door neighbors in the dorms my first year of college. They were named Lauren and Meredith, which I remember partly because I remember them and partly because their last names were Tiger and Bull, which is how people referred to them. Ryland's girlfriend became Meredith because of that.
Sex Lives of Fictional Characters
I was doing something specific with Gabe and Victoria's first sex scene. Het sex in fic generally follows the pattern of he goes down on her and makes her come at least once before they get to the penetrative sex. As much as I like that model, I have a rebellious streak that means I like to do things with characters and sex scenes that are different from the accepted norm, which is why they skip the oral sex part. My idea about their sex life that didn't make it into the story in an explicit way is that it's very vanilla, not because they're not adventurous, but because they're so completely into each other that they can't wait for anything else.
The Hard Part
Gabe's interactions with Tyler were the hardest part of writing this story. They're raising a bilingual child, so Victoria always speaks English to Tyler (although she learned Spanish in self-defense) and Gabe always speaks Spanish. I don't have enough confidence in my Spanish to put very much in the story. I also didn't want to put too much of it in there because I didn't gloss it, and more of it would just confuse and annoy readers who don't speak Spanish.
Didn't Make It Into the Story
I wanted to put something in the story about Gabe writing lyrics, but saying they're not quite Cobra lyrics because they're all about Tyler, and Alex and Ryland pushing him to let them work with him on music to make them Cobra songs. It just didn't quite fit. But if you like, you can imagine that's part of their life.
My Favorite Source
I did a lot of research for this story, on everything from pregnancy to New York state custody laws to buying Christmas trees in New York City. One of the things I looked up was to find out when in pregnancy you can find out the sex of the baby. My favorite source for that is this article, which I come across every time I do the same research for a story. It's my favorite because it has lists of reasons why you might or might not want to find out the sex of your baby. One of the reasons not to find out is "To annoy relatives," which makes me laugh every time.
Things I Did That I Might Not Have Noticed
I love it when other people pick up things I didn't know I was doing. What did you notice in "You Have My Heart (in your hands)" that I didn't mention?
Story Origins
When
schuyler said, "Dude, you know what Gabe loves in real life? Babies. Dude loves babies," I said, "Oooh! Victoria gets pregnant, doesn't want the guy involved in her life, and Gabe co-parents, and then they fall in love." I copied it into a file that was going to be my bandomrarepair ideas file that I planned to add to and then choose from, but the next day I wrote the first 1500 words of "You Have My Heart (in your hands)" and sent them to Sky. The thing that really kept me on track with this story was that I sent her a piece of it every single day, which meant I had to write a piece of it every single day. I did that for two months, and in the end, I had this story.Women's Lives
"You Have My Heart (in your hands)" is, at its heart, a romance. In my head, I wanted everything in the story to lead up to Gabe and Victoria getting together. But then I was partway through, and I was bothered that my main character is a woman whose whole story life is centered on a man. I wanted the story to pass the Bechdel test, which is why I put Amber and Victoria's girl talk about Amber's dress into the story. In worrying about this, I also started wondering how much of my actual life passes the Bechdel test. Fandom, after all, involves a lot of women talking about men.
One of the other Amber bits also came from something outside of the story. I needed another hundred words to meet my writing goal for the day, so I had Amber talk about Victoria's lingerie collection (Victoria did say she likes stockings, so it's plausible), which then became a plot point.
I originally intended Gabe's blog post to be the entire epilogue. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked that. This is Victoria's story, told from her point of view, so the epilogue became Victoria reading the blog post.
Real People, Fake Names
Victoria really does (or did at one time: source) have a friend watch Gizmo for her while she's touring, but I didn't know the friend's name. She became Amber after someone in my ballet class. Ryland does (or did at one time) have a girlfriend, but I don't know her name either. Alex's girlfriend is named Lauren, and when I was thinking about that and trying to come up with a name, I thought of my next door neighbors in the dorms my first year of college. They were named Lauren and Meredith, which I remember partly because I remember them and partly because their last names were Tiger and Bull, which is how people referred to them. Ryland's girlfriend became Meredith because of that.
Sex Lives of Fictional Characters
I was doing something specific with Gabe and Victoria's first sex scene. Het sex in fic generally follows the pattern of he goes down on her and makes her come at least once before they get to the penetrative sex. As much as I like that model, I have a rebellious streak that means I like to do things with characters and sex scenes that are different from the accepted norm, which is why they skip the oral sex part. My idea about their sex life that didn't make it into the story in an explicit way is that it's very vanilla, not because they're not adventurous, but because they're so completely into each other that they can't wait for anything else.
The Hard Part
Gabe's interactions with Tyler were the hardest part of writing this story. They're raising a bilingual child, so Victoria always speaks English to Tyler (although she learned Spanish in self-defense) and Gabe always speaks Spanish. I don't have enough confidence in my Spanish to put very much in the story. I also didn't want to put too much of it in there because I didn't gloss it, and more of it would just confuse and annoy readers who don't speak Spanish.
Didn't Make It Into the Story
I wanted to put something in the story about Gabe writing lyrics, but saying they're not quite Cobra lyrics because they're all about Tyler, and Alex and Ryland pushing him to let them work with him on music to make them Cobra songs. It just didn't quite fit. But if you like, you can imagine that's part of their life.
My Favorite Source
I did a lot of research for this story, on everything from pregnancy to New York state custody laws to buying Christmas trees in New York City. One of the things I looked up was to find out when in pregnancy you can find out the sex of the baby. My favorite source for that is this article, which I come across every time I do the same research for a story. It's my favorite because it has lists of reasons why you might or might not want to find out the sex of your baby. One of the reasons not to find out is "To annoy relatives," which makes me laugh every time.
Things I Did That I Might Not Have Noticed
I love it when other people pick up things I didn't know I was doing. What did you notice in "You Have My Heart (in your hands)" that I didn't mention?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 03:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 04:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 05:46 pm (UTC)Another thing about the name that I forgot to mention in the commentary: in Jewish tradition, it's bad luck to name a baby before it's born and it's bad luck to name a baby after a living person, both of which I disregarded for a reason. The not naming after a living relative, at least, is an Ashkenazic tradition where Gabe's family (or at least his dad - source) is Sephardic. Plus, Victoria's not Jewish, so she wouldn't have the same superstitions.
I also love that you picked up on it! From an outside the story point of view, that was one of my romantic without being overtly romantic pieces of the story.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 07:08 pm (UTC)And I actually knew that it was bad luck to name a baby before it's born...one of those weird tidbits of trivia that I don't know HOW I learned. XD
And hee!
Another question or at least comment was that you didn't ignore the rest of the band, and more importantly, you touched on Victoria's affection for the other band members. That, to me, is what fleshes Victoria out even more in this fic.
Beautiful.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 08:59 pm (UTC)The rest of the band! I was talking with
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-30 06:51 am (UTC)annyywayy; this was fan-fucking-tastic. Gabe and Vicky-T are so real. Man, I don't even know what to say really. [but I will sometime tomorrow. ish. when I'm unlazy and not on my phone.]
and before I forget, timeline question/comment! I think you messed up the dates towards the end. If tyler was born in november then March would be four months(?). Also, you talked about a fight between Gabe and Vicky in feb of 2012 during the story but then the epilogue takes place in feb of 2012? I was super confused, especially because I don't know if 4/5 month old babies run around talking and taking dog toys. But I could be wrong - you did research, I just have a brother. lol
better comment tomorrow when I'm feeling less lazy, or whatever.
hk
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-30 06:21 pm (UTC)Yep, you're right. The epilogue should be 2013. Fixing it now!