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Why I'm bad at commissions. Part 2
3 years ago
I'm looking at this YCH story I'm doing with Felix. The commissioner paid for an extra scene, which means the story is supposedly supposed to end at around 7k words.
As of writing this journal, the story is sitting at 6.3k words, and is barely at the first scene illustrated by Felix.
The idea was I wanted to try and ditch my usual silly, whimsical writing style and adopt a more detailed, fatty-focused writing style you'd see with polkishmok3 or mairari, but the problem is I just ended up combining both writing styles and ending up with double the story. I wouldn't be surprised if the story did get close to 14k words at this rate.
One issue I'm noting is my obvious size bias. I LOVE fatties who are approaching and teetering on the edge of mobility, it is my favorite size to write about, bar none. Sure, I occasionally have the mood for those larger than life furs, but even then, I find them very hard to write about, as it's no longer the character interacting with the environment, but rather the environment interacting with the character. It's hard to write about, and there are few writers I feel who pull it off successfully. I don't think I'm one of those writers.
It's because of these biases that I feel like I'd make a bad person to commission. Imagine two people commissioning me: one about a male wolf struggling to keep himself upright and is constantly one big meal away from staying grounded on his rump, the other about a female cheetah who eats a special candy that ends up the size of a planet. Both are paying the same amount for a 5k story, and while I may end up meeting that word count for the planetary cheetah story, I feel like I'd easily go overboard with the barely mobile wolf story and end up getting super into detail and adding several thousand words that the commissioner didn't pay for. It's not fair.
The obvious solution I can think of is to limit myself and make sure I keep myself to the agreed upon word count, not going more than a thousand above, but I feel like that would just completely kill my desire to write outside of just getting paid. It'd suck so much to get a story idea I'm passionate about and want to write forever, only to neuter it and cut out so many fun ideas I have just to make it fair for everyone. I know nobody would argue at getting more than what they paid for, I'm just worried about the cheetah commissioner seeing what the wolf commissioner got and getting frustrated they're not receiving the same treatment. Anyone with any knowledge of business would tell you that's not a good practice to treat your customers unequally.
"But Choice_D, you're not a business! You're just a dude who writes!"
Yeah, but I get paranoid whenever money is involved and I hate the idea of getting anyone upset with me. Yes, it's 5 Am and I know I'm being just as paranoid right now, but writing is the ONE thing I feel like I put a lot of effort into being good at that leaves me feeling proud of because of it. I don't want to ruin this one enjoyment of mine because of arbitrary reasons like this.
I'm sorry about the rant. This is just my roundabout way of saying I'm cancelling the commissions I opened...two, three months ago? Thankfully I haven't taken payments, so the only thing I've wasted was your time.
If money is involved again, I think I'll stick to YCH's like these. I like writing big stories, and these YCHs are an excuse to go crazy with absurd story ideas that the commissioner agrees upon before payment. They definitely won't be common, not even once a month, I feel, but I am having a lot of fun writing this YCH.
Just be expected to read a LOT about this blaziken's slow descent into immobility lol.
As of writing this journal, the story is sitting at 6.3k words, and is barely at the first scene illustrated by Felix.
The idea was I wanted to try and ditch my usual silly, whimsical writing style and adopt a more detailed, fatty-focused writing style you'd see with polkishmok3 or mairari, but the problem is I just ended up combining both writing styles and ending up with double the story. I wouldn't be surprised if the story did get close to 14k words at this rate.
One issue I'm noting is my obvious size bias. I LOVE fatties who are approaching and teetering on the edge of mobility, it is my favorite size to write about, bar none. Sure, I occasionally have the mood for those larger than life furs, but even then, I find them very hard to write about, as it's no longer the character interacting with the environment, but rather the environment interacting with the character. It's hard to write about, and there are few writers I feel who pull it off successfully. I don't think I'm one of those writers.
It's because of these biases that I feel like I'd make a bad person to commission. Imagine two people commissioning me: one about a male wolf struggling to keep himself upright and is constantly one big meal away from staying grounded on his rump, the other about a female cheetah who eats a special candy that ends up the size of a planet. Both are paying the same amount for a 5k story, and while I may end up meeting that word count for the planetary cheetah story, I feel like I'd easily go overboard with the barely mobile wolf story and end up getting super into detail and adding several thousand words that the commissioner didn't pay for. It's not fair.
The obvious solution I can think of is to limit myself and make sure I keep myself to the agreed upon word count, not going more than a thousand above, but I feel like that would just completely kill my desire to write outside of just getting paid. It'd suck so much to get a story idea I'm passionate about and want to write forever, only to neuter it and cut out so many fun ideas I have just to make it fair for everyone. I know nobody would argue at getting more than what they paid for, I'm just worried about the cheetah commissioner seeing what the wolf commissioner got and getting frustrated they're not receiving the same treatment. Anyone with any knowledge of business would tell you that's not a good practice to treat your customers unequally.
"But Choice_D, you're not a business! You're just a dude who writes!"
Yeah, but I get paranoid whenever money is involved and I hate the idea of getting anyone upset with me. Yes, it's 5 Am and I know I'm being just as paranoid right now, but writing is the ONE thing I feel like I put a lot of effort into being good at that leaves me feeling proud of because of it. I don't want to ruin this one enjoyment of mine because of arbitrary reasons like this.
I'm sorry about the rant. This is just my roundabout way of saying I'm cancelling the commissions I opened...two, three months ago? Thankfully I haven't taken payments, so the only thing I've wasted was your time.
If money is involved again, I think I'll stick to YCH's like these. I like writing big stories, and these YCHs are an excuse to go crazy with absurd story ideas that the commissioner agrees upon before payment. They definitely won't be common, not even once a month, I feel, but I am having a lot of fun writing this YCH.
Just be expected to read a LOT about this blaziken's slow descent into immobility lol.
I think it's healthy for some personal kink bias to bleed though while writing. While I admire the folks who can write like a machine without getting too invested, I think it's also a pity that they don't get to enjoy what they're doing the same way.
Having to argue with your muse definitely makes commission writing more difficult. XD
But turning to your concerns, I wonder if you can mitigate the “size bias.” If the details don’t come as naturally to you for planet-sized WG subjects than they do for barely-mobile WG ones, I would start by asking the commissioner of the former what details they are looking for—before, during, and even after you’ve written the draft story. You make a good point about the different nature of the interactions between the character and the environment. Commissioners will help you fill in any gaps in detail, and there are probably less gaps than you think, because
the characters are so fat they fill all the gapscommissioners aren’t making their commissions primarily to challenge you—their commissions are story ideas that they feel confident your writing style will intrinsically satisfy. If you stay true to your writing, they'll practically always be satisfied, regardless of how you feel about the final product.You are right: limiting yourself to the word count more strictly would be cutting off your nose to spite your face—a disservice to practically everyone. I agree with the_geekboy and Fauser346. Do whatever makes you comfortable.