balance game fic commentary

[loveair]

 

fic commentary for balance game, a fic that ive been meaning to write since november 2020 !

idea

ive already written one nohyuck sports fic before so when i think of sports nohyuck is the first ship to come to mind to me ? idk they’re both very competitive and so hardworking and also good team players so yes sports = nohyuck to me. 

anyways i first thought of the climax/the clashing of the 2 characters when one comes back home for the other when They Shouldn’t Be Home and it was really vague when i first came up w it. here’s the initial note i put in my phone in nov last year that i left untouched until like a month ago:

after realizing that i wanted to write nohyuck i picked soccer as the sport bc i have experience w it and ive already written nohyuck football. from there it was just me figuring out the plot/reason for their fight and honestly the fact that it’s nohyuck made it so easy for me bc jeno is always putting others before himself and donghyuck is always so focused on his end goal that sometimes he disregards other things ? thats my fav nohyuck characterization so thats what i went for :D

writing timeline

i had this idea in nov 2020 and did not write a single word until july 2021 um… i blame it on the 2 hunhee fics i wrote instead of working on either oats or this fic. anyways:

nov2020: had the initial idea

jan2021: started planning but put it on hold when i started writing dream of me

jun2021: outlined nearly the entire fic in like 2 days

jul2021: wrote the full fic in 26 days 

i think im getting better at realizing what scenes i want to include and what scenes are better left out/summarized and that really speeds up my writing process. my approach on writing is to write a fairly short amt everyday bc breaking my flow of writing everyday really just makes it harder for me to get back into the fic so even just writing a sentence or two is better than writing nothing. that being said, i wrote the majority of this fic during 2 different times: jul 7-9 and jul 20-26. the rest of the month i just wrote a couple hundred words most days. 

im also not a Huge editor like i generally dont rewrite the entire fic, i just tweak things here and there, which makes my editing process pretty short. 

content

um i didnt have That many outside references/inspirations since alternate universes give me the space to do whatever i want but i made jeno a midfielder bc of how dependable he is and how well-rounded he is, him running up and down a field to help both offense and defense is literally perfect to me. donghyuck’s a forward bc he’s a star and deserves to be in the limelight,,, plus everything w how donghyuck is more of an outright leader and isn’t quiet by any means while jeno is more behind the scenes and doesnt call as much attention to himself,, yeah. 

i also didnt make the rest of dream soccer players bc idk its more reflective of actual friend groups when not all of them are involved in the same things,, and also i wanted to include other 99-00 liners on the soccer team and i am theb so hak and sunwoo were the perfect choices. also me making eric haechan’s friend in london is so self-indulgent bc to me eric is pretty similar to jeno just more energetic so like… haechan finding comfort in someone who’s like jeno when he’s away from him,,, yeah i am nohyuck fan.

i ended up cutting this fic short a little ? when i had the initial thought ab this fic last year, it was meant to be around 30k like ad esse optimum was, but by the time i started outlining it this year, i realized i didnt really wanna write all of that. i was planning on writing all of jeno’s recovery step by step and donghyuck wasnt supposed to come back so early in the fic, but i lost a lot of interest in this idea between nov20 and jun21. i ended up including all of the big scenes that i had thought of, but a lot of the smaller moments ended up getting cut or summarized. 

i still like how it came out since i tend to draw things out sometimes, but i wonder how different this fic wouldve been if i wrote it in november when i first thought of it.

struggles

i didnt struggle as much as i thought i would w this fic hence why i was able to write it in under a month bc i was writing consistently. i think the biggest struggle was to make jeno’s anger when donghyuck came back reasonable bc he wants hyuck back obviously but he also doesnt want hyuck to miss out on a huge opportunity bc of himself.

i think i pulled it off pretty well,, his downward spiral clearly is the reason that he picks a fight w donghyuck and its bc he’s demotivated and afraid of ruining donghyuck’s career along w his.

other than that, i didnt really have too many other struggles except i kept switching into donghyuck’s pov while writing ??? see when you’ve been a sunflower for 3 years,,, but i didnt find jeno’s pov too hard to write, its just the first time that i have written his pov.

music

tbh i dont really have specific playlists for different fics i just listen to whatever as long as it doesnt distract me, so i often listen to krnb (this playlist) or my monthly playlist (JUL2021). i think about square (2017) - yerin baek and make the lyrics fit for every fic i write, though thats more bc thats my fav song ever rather than bc it fits the fic well. im not someone who ever puts a song on repeat bc after like 3x in a row i start hating the beginning bc thats what i hear before tuning it out again so i always just opt for music i wont pay attention to.

overall

sports fics come really easily to me so i never have too many problems writing them, though actually writing the sport scenes always result in me overthinking how im describing things and if it’ll make sense to people who dont know the rules as well. theres only one in this fic and i think it came out pretty well, though its def the scene that took me the longest to finish. 

this is actually my last nct fic that i wanted to write ! i have to edit and post oats so im not quite done w nct ficdom but i can definitely step back from the twt side a little ! this has been a long time coming so im happy to be finally doing it ! excited to write more tbz ! im happy w how this fic turned out though and im excited to write more sports fics even though this is was my 4th sports fic <3