Post-Uprising Series Note:
Hello all,
I finished the last fic in the Uprising series at 9:30pm on Monday the thirteenth of January, 2003. It was dark and everyone was asleep. I felt a mixture of joy, relief and sadness because something occurred to me: I'd been writing the After Earth and Uprising series over a period of three years and now it was over. It was time to say good bye to Diamond, Tourmaline and Joe and all the other characters I'd created. It was also time to say good bye to a version of Rattrap, Dinobot, Cheetor and Megatron, all of which I'd grown to love as my own. I experienced 'writer's remorse', if you will. The series was long and often complicated but the central focus was on Diamond and her struggles as she tried to grow in a world battered by war and wearied by prejudice. When I first began the series, I had no idea it was going to be a series at all! I just had an idea one day that turned out to be 'The Great Battle'. I used Diamond again and by the end of that fairly lengthy fic, I'd grown attached to her as a character. Things went on from there and before I knew it the After Earth series was born. Around the time of 'Invincible' the idea of a Predacon Uprising came to mind and that was really when I started to lay down the foundations for the Uprising series. I think if one looks back the implications of this foundation become more obvious in stories such as 'Whetting Calamity's Appetite'. I was excited about the idea - music and Beast Wars episodes were my inspiration and by the start of the Uprising series, I was watching war movies, doing military research on the Internet and even brushing up on my grammar in preparation for this war series. I wrote and wrote and my inspiration lasted right until 'Kaleidoscope'. After that I had a break and drifted away a little from the series. I came back again with 'The Lilac Horizon' which I'd had in my head for some time. After that fic, I totally lost interest in the series. It was frustrating because I had the ending in my mind and I was only about two fics away from it, but I had neither the energy nor the time for it anymore and for about five months I produced nothing but short stand-alone comedies semi-related to the series. Come the December holidays and I realized that I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. I'd lost interest in Beast Wars altogether by then. One day, though, I got bored and blew the dust off the cover of one of my BW tapes. I watched and sure enough, I was hooked again. I wrote 'The Planet of Youth' but in order to even remember what I was doing before hand, I had to re-read a lot of my previous fics. I really got into my series again and I have to thank Solar Blaze, Lady Venom, Crazy Ivan and Darkfire75 for all their support during this time.
So, what did I think of the series?
While reading through these fics I complimented and criticized myself on a few issues:
My plots were always solid but I left far too many loose ends, making the next fic very difficult to write. I often found myself having to explain my thoughts over and over to the reader and as a result parts of the fics got very complicated and technical and after a while, I even confused myself.
I made Rattrap too soft sometimes but that's very easy to do when trying to make a character fall in love. I'd read enough fan fiction where a stasis pod drops out the sky and in one fic a character like Dinobot (who the female writers tend to attack with romances) meets the new Maximal, falls in love and has five kids with her after only one fic! This kind of 'rushed romance', to me, comes across as cheesy and it is obvious that the writer was too impatient to rather wait and develop the relationship to make it more realistic. I was aware of these faults and looking back I commend myself on taking ten fics for Tourmaline to fall pregnant. Still, Rattrap got a little too soppy for my liking and I've even gone back and edited certain scenes between him and Tourmaline to make them a little lighter.
I handled Joe badly for the first few fics. It was the first time I'd written a character like him and I totally over-wrote him until it got vulgar and slapstick. The poor guy got really abused in the first part of the series but towards the end I matured as a writer and therefore so did he as a character.
I think Diamond was written well. In a way she reflected a part of me and my struggles and I really connected with her. I was honest with her and when she felt something, I explained the way she was feeling openly and with much emotion.
There were a lot of technical errors. In one chapter I'd say something and four chapters later I'd totally contradict myself. It happens like that when you write stories that are too complicated for their own good.
As a whole, I see the After Earth and Uprising series as a learning curve for me. I've grown as a person and as a writer and I feel more confident than ever that I can move away from Beast Wars and write my first book.
Thank you to all my fans for your comments, criticism and support. It's been a surge.
Take care,
Tessa Barratt (Sapphire)