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alixtiiEnd-of-the-year fic memes are going to have to wait until the year's ended, so that my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide and prettylightsfic fics can be incorporated into the list. (3_ships counts for 2008, I think is the way I've been doing it?) In the meantime. . .
Tell us which of your stories...
(1) you would show your mom if you didn't think she'd freak out.
Didn't think she'd freak out about what part? Even the gen stories would raise too many questions about how I'm wasting my life writing unpublishable stories. (Obviously, I don't believe that, but for as long as I live under my mother's roof, she is not going to be reading my fanfiction--even though my brother and I make enough references she has to have some idea it exists. She knows y'all exist and that I'm doing a paper on [redacted].)
If we take out all the parts she'd freak out over I don't think there'd be a lot left, but it might be interesting to show her my RPF.
(2) is most representative of you as a writer (however you choose to define that).
Where the River Meets the Dawn has a River POV and a Dawn POV, potentials, gratuitous nudity (Buffy's bikini top), a clear "written forfemslash_minis" structure (it's all lead-up to the sex), etc.
(3) is your best shot at "ventriloquizing" a voice or style that you don't normally use.
The River and Drusilla fics are clearly ventriloquized (my Dawn voice is more Sue-ish) and I think I'm fairly good at those voices, but I've written them too much to say I don't normally use them. So I'd say Requiem at Reichenbach, my Holmes fic foryuletide 2006 written in Moriarty's voice--so very Victorian and ornate and with complex grammatical structures and OMG, how much fun was it writing in that voice.
(4) contains characterization you're proudest of.
Hmm. This one's tough, because most of the work of characterization in fanfiction is trying to keep the character recognizable from canon, but I feel like a characterization of which to be proud should go beyond that, should also reveal complexities that aren't apparent in canon. Which, I suppose, is what I try to do with a lot of my fic, especially the shorter ones, but making them more complex does make them feel different, y'know?
You know, I've literally spent the last half-hour searching through my fic index for the characterization of which I am the proudest, so I think I'm going to just give up now.
(5) has the cleverest premise (in your opinion) or contains the cleverest ideas.
So much of my writing is written in response to prompts, so I'm not sure how much credit I can take for the premises. (Then again, the plot structure is almost always my own invention--insofar as plots can ever be invented, of course.) I mean, my thought process is usually, "What can go on in this (neglected) corner of the text?" "How can I return agency to this minor character?" and then I just go from there, fleshing out the scene as best I can. I guess if I had to pick something, it'd be one of my RPF fics, Bullshit or Experience or the like, where I use sex to explore the nature of textuality.
(6) feels the most emotionally genuine to you (however you choose to define that).
My Girlfriend is a Telepath, in which Kitty finds herself in a relationship with another girl and isn't sure what to think. As opposed to my Dawn, who'd just be all "Yay sex!" (Dawn would definitely have had all three Cuckoos as notches in her bedpost by the end of the story. Which, erm, plotbunny?) The image of Kitty, sitting in her room and afraid to call her parents and tell them? There's nothing really like it in any other fic I've written.
(7) you'd give to an editor as a writing sample (pretend that porn isn't an issue).
This is similar to the "mother" issue--porn isn't the only issue, I am using someone else's characters, OTW arguments aside. Depends on the needs. Divine Interventions to show that I can sustain plot over a novella-length work, The Fairest of Them All to show what I can do with language, &c.
(8) you would actually reread for pleasure.
Richard the Third, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen (aka "R3 2.3.16" for short), without a doubt. Rereading that story brings me so much pleasure, because yeah, that's my Peter and Valentine, and the whole thing just hits my kinks so hard.
(9) contains your best sex writing.
With Love and a Hippo, which is pretty much the most explicit thing I've ever written.
(10) you really want somebody to illustrate.
If I'm taking the bother to visualize a scene beyond the basics, it's usually because someone is at least partially undressed; I'm just not a visual person. (Or an aural one, for that matter; I'm strictly verbal, interacting with the world as text, which is why I always watch movies with subtitles on.) So my mind goes to the porny scenes first: River undressing in front of the bulkhead in The Fairest of Them All; Amanda's green panties in First Time's Not the End of the World; everybody naked in Dayswimming and Daywalking.
For a gen scene, maybe something from the non-porny bits of School of Lost Souls?
Actually, what I really want? Is a photomanip for Divine Interventions, with Dawn in the middle flanked by Dark Willow on one side and Light Willow on the other. (I suppose it could be illustrated and still be at least as awesome, too.)
(11) has the best title.
A lot of my stories have titles that make sense, and I can't imagine them being called anything else, and I'm not really sure how a title is supposed to blow one away besides that. I'm fond of A Chondrichthyes out of Hydroxylic Acid, though, because of the way in which it plays with the familiar and the extraordinary, taking a well-known phrase and rendering it strange and exotic.
(12) you wish more people had read.
Well, I wish all my stories had more people reading them, at least with the exceptions of the ones I hate (there are two or three). In terms of wanting more people to read it because I put a lot of work in it, there's my novella Divine Interventions. In terms of wanting more people to read it because I'm proud of it, there's My Girlfriend is a Telepath. And wanting more people to read it because I feel it has been overlooked, there's my recent Up, Up, and Away, which seems to have been read almost exclusively read by people not familiar with the relevant canon (the Peter David run of Supergirl, particularly "Many Happy Returns").
yuletide and prettylightsfic fics can be incorporated into the list. (3_ships counts for 2008, I think is the way I've been doing it?) In the meantime. . . Tell us which of your stories...
(1) you would show your mom if you didn't think she'd freak out.
Didn't think she'd freak out about what part? Even the gen stories would raise too many questions about how I'm wasting my life writing unpublishable stories. (Obviously, I don't believe that, but for as long as I live under my mother's roof, she is not going to be reading my fanfiction--even though my brother and I make enough references she has to have some idea it exists. She knows y'all exist and that I'm doing a paper on [redacted].)
If we take out all the parts she'd freak out over I don't think there'd be a lot left, but it might be interesting to show her my RPF.
(2) is most representative of you as a writer (however you choose to define that).
Where the River Meets the Dawn has a River POV and a Dawn POV, potentials, gratuitous nudity (Buffy's bikini top), a clear "written for
femslash_minis" structure (it's all lead-up to the sex), etc.(3) is your best shot at "ventriloquizing" a voice or style that you don't normally use.
The River and Drusilla fics are clearly ventriloquized (my Dawn voice is more Sue-ish) and I think I'm fairly good at those voices, but I've written them too much to say I don't normally use them. So I'd say Requiem at Reichenbach, my Holmes fic for
yuletide 2006 written in Moriarty's voice--so very Victorian and ornate and with complex grammatical structures and OMG, how much fun was it writing in that voice.(4) contains characterization you're proudest of.
Hmm. This one's tough, because most of the work of characterization in fanfiction is trying to keep the character recognizable from canon, but I feel like a characterization of which to be proud should go beyond that, should also reveal complexities that aren't apparent in canon. Which, I suppose, is what I try to do with a lot of my fic, especially the shorter ones, but making them more complex does make them feel different, y'know?
You know, I've literally spent the last half-hour searching through my fic index for the characterization of which I am the proudest, so I think I'm going to just give up now.
(5) has the cleverest premise (in your opinion) or contains the cleverest ideas.
So much of my writing is written in response to prompts, so I'm not sure how much credit I can take for the premises. (Then again, the plot structure is almost always my own invention--insofar as plots can ever be invented, of course.) I mean, my thought process is usually, "What can go on in this (neglected) corner of the text?" "How can I return agency to this minor character?" and then I just go from there, fleshing out the scene as best I can. I guess if I had to pick something, it'd be one of my RPF fics, Bullshit or Experience or the like, where I use sex to explore the nature of textuality.
(6) feels the most emotionally genuine to you (however you choose to define that).
My Girlfriend is a Telepath, in which Kitty finds herself in a relationship with another girl and isn't sure what to think. As opposed to my Dawn, who'd just be all "Yay sex!" (Dawn would definitely have had all three Cuckoos as notches in her bedpost by the end of the story. Which, erm, plotbunny?) The image of Kitty, sitting in her room and afraid to call her parents and tell them? There's nothing really like it in any other fic I've written.
(7) you'd give to an editor as a writing sample (pretend that porn isn't an issue).
This is similar to the "mother" issue--porn isn't the only issue, I am using someone else's characters, OTW arguments aside. Depends on the needs. Divine Interventions to show that I can sustain plot over a novella-length work, The Fairest of Them All to show what I can do with language, &c.
(8) you would actually reread for pleasure.
Richard the Third, Act Two, Scene Three, Line Sixteen (aka "R3 2.3.16" for short), without a doubt. Rereading that story brings me so much pleasure, because yeah, that's my Peter and Valentine, and the whole thing just hits my kinks so hard.
(9) contains your best sex writing.
With Love and a Hippo, which is pretty much the most explicit thing I've ever written.
(10) you really want somebody to illustrate.
If I'm taking the bother to visualize a scene beyond the basics, it's usually because someone is at least partially undressed; I'm just not a visual person. (Or an aural one, for that matter; I'm strictly verbal, interacting with the world as text, which is why I always watch movies with subtitles on.) So my mind goes to the porny scenes first: River undressing in front of the bulkhead in The Fairest of Them All; Amanda's green panties in First Time's Not the End of the World; everybody naked in Dayswimming and Daywalking.
For a gen scene, maybe something from the non-porny bits of School of Lost Souls?
Actually, what I really want? Is a photomanip for Divine Interventions, with Dawn in the middle flanked by Dark Willow on one side and Light Willow on the other. (I suppose it could be illustrated and still be at least as awesome, too.)
(11) has the best title.
A lot of my stories have titles that make sense, and I can't imagine them being called anything else, and I'm not really sure how a title is supposed to blow one away besides that. I'm fond of A Chondrichthyes out of Hydroxylic Acid, though, because of the way in which it plays with the familiar and the extraordinary, taking a well-known phrase and rendering it strange and exotic.
(12) you wish more people had read.
Well, I wish all my stories had more people reading them, at least with the exceptions of the ones I hate (there are two or three). In terms of wanting more people to read it because I put a lot of work in it, there's my novella Divine Interventions. In terms of wanting more people to read it because I'm proud of it, there's My Girlfriend is a Telepath. And wanting more people to read it because I feel it has been overlooked, there's my recent Up, Up, and Away, which seems to have been read almost exclusively read by people not familiar with the relevant canon (the Peter David run of Supergirl, particularly "Many Happy Returns").
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-24 03:23 pm (UTC)(I have had my first dose of presents and lots of coffee and am in a madly gleeful and in love with the world mood so....)
Merry Christmas Eve!
<3
(And oh, your Yuletide06 story! <3!)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-24 03:30 pm (UTC)(And thank you again. I don't think anything I've written this year quite lives up in it, in terms of getting to inhabit a voice, unfortunately. But . . . 13 hours, 32 minutes!)