Subject: Because we like to have a vague character-arc for agents
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Posted on: 2010-09-09 11:06:00 UTC
Pads and I tended to write missions in chronological order :) It's easier to develop character that way, I find. Although that's not to say we never skipped ahead for various reasons, usually because a badfic was really tempting or because some event was happening that we wanted to participate in, in say, March, but our Agent timeline wasn't yet past January.
I'm curious: When you write your missions, do you write them as taking place one directly after another, or do you allow room for something else to happen in between if you so choose?
I ask because it's been months - maybe a whole year - since I've written for Agent Sedri, and events that have a date stamp (the 2008 Mary Sue invasion, or when Iza was reassigned in January last year) don't match up with the narrative of my missions. Of course, I could simply blame it on the unstable nature of time in HQ, but I'm thinking that I'd rather make some unspecific comments about how Sedri has been doing other missions in between, perhaps leaving room to write missions set during that time at a later date.
There's no right or wrong, I'm sure, but I'm curious; how do all of you do it?
...but there is a definite breaking point for my characters - causing them to miss the 2008 Invasion - and so I'm trying to do missions from before then so I can at least have a history for them before all hell breaks loose. I am tempted to go out of order and do other stuff, though.
tl;dr I try and do it sequentially? But HQ allows for time anomalies.
I appreciate the input. And yeah, that's more or less what I expected, which is lovely, as it means I really can do whatever I like, which in this case means that my unfortunate Agent has been working on her own for an indeterminable while. This suits me very well.
Cassie, if you're reading this, I'll probably have my answer to your challenge ready by late next week. ;)
Pads and I tended to write missions in chronological order :) It's easier to develop character that way, I find. Although that's not to say we never skipped ahead for various reasons, usually because a badfic was really tempting or because some event was happening that we wanted to participate in, in say, March, but our Agent timeline wasn't yet past January.
I write mission mostly in chronological order (however, if I find a suitable badfic I'll write about when Sergio found Corolla), but not one right behind another. In some cases, as the one I am writing now, it would be cruel even by Flowers' standards.
That is, I have never mentioned at what time a mission took place or related it to invasions and other big events that took place at HQ. I don't write missions in chronological order. Sometimes an earlier mission comes after a later written one. I pretend that the order in which I post missions on lj is chronological.
If you were to look at original posting dates of missions. you'd find that in 2006 Trent was 10 and now, in 2010, he is 16. I was actually rather surprised to find that time in HQ is linear. The floor plan isn't. In my head, it's as difficult to get from one point in time to another at HQ, as it is to get from one place in the building to another.
My feeling is that time in HQ is relative to who you're talking to. The agents perceive it as linear because it's what they're used to, therefore missions happen one after the other, but because it actually isn't, Mission 1 can happen on Wednesday and Mission 2 can then happen the previous Monday. Years can go by in the span of a month if need be for basically the same reason. It's all due to plotholes/portal technology, not to mention the time spent in missions (which sometimes is like Narnia time, but sometimes isn't). I know Jay remarks at some point that if time worked normally, all the time spent in missions would mean that she was really old. But clearly that was not the case for her.
In my latest FicPsych story, I mention that the nurses are free to set their clocks however they like as long as they're on duty when they're supposed to be. It can be noon for you and 7:00 a.m. for the next person easily, depending on whether you're a morning person or not.
We didn't really start keeping track of "HQ time" until just a few years ago, and that was due to big events like Crashing Down and all the 2008 stuff. Aside from those things, and maybe noting what year it is, I don't think there's really any reason to bother with time except to say "this came first, this came second, this came a long time after the first thing," etc.
~Neshomeh
It depends for me. Miah and Cali missions tend to have unspecified time between them, but so far Kelok and Unger have been nearly continuous, with the beginning of one story beginning from them stepping through the portal from their last mission, or at least with it being specified that no missions happened in the missing time. Now that I have their introductory story arc done, I might space them out more.
Since it's been agreed on that missions are generally close together, it'd be kind of impossibly to write out each and every one of them. If that was the case, then it would take a year to write the missions they do in a week. If I do make references to these unwritten missions, I'll do it in the form of a Noodle Incident.
Well, for me (at the moment anyways), I basically started out my missions in late 2009 HST, but beyond that, the timeline's a bit up in the air. Of course, with current events (Lee lost somewhere between 'Verses and Ian back at HQ), I've got to stick with a somewhat strict sequence of events.
And yes, I do plan on getting a mission or two out soon; a combo of writer's block and RL have ganged up on me, but I'm trying to get at least one mission out before school starts back up again on the 21st.
My first few missions were written before we started keeping track of the actual passage of time, so they flow together without bothering much about any time or lack thereof in-between. That changed when I caught up to the events of 2008: it pinpointed my agents on a specific timeline, and I had to take that into account when I paired them up with Barid's agents. Therefore, over a year passed for them between the end of Ilraen's journal-interlude and that double-mission.
So basically, unless something specifically relative to something else happens in a story, I'm not too worried about how much time passes between one and the next. It IS Headquarters, after all. It can always be fudged if need be. {= )
~Neshomeh
...there are usually long intervals between my missions, unless one obviously picks up right/soon after another. For example, a few hours elapse between Weapon of Atlantis and The Joker's Destini, while six months elapse between TJD and The Legacy of Rust.
I know I only have two missions out at the moment, but I like to have them one right after the other. It helps me to keep the narrative flow of the characters' stories. I don't particularly care when things get finished in the real world, as long as the stories I am telling fit together in a good way.