year-end writing meme

[oiran]

Snagged from shaggirl - Stories I wrote (and posted): 8 Smallville, 2 Yami no Matsuei, 1 Ai no Kusabi.

My favorite: Either White Bees & Sunflowers (SV) or Otsuya (YnM)at the moment.

My best: White Bees & Sunflowers. I'm also proud of Huitlacoche (SV) because of the challenges I set for myself in writing it.

Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: In actuality, none. In the light of my grasping, divaish need, all of them.

I do know that my version of a (as opposed to the) Bruce Wayne was annoying/confusing/unrecognizable to a great number of comics fans. That's not so much the stories being unappreciated as me coming up against certain facts of fandom and losing. I really like the stories, but I can understand why others didn't.

Most fun story: Hmmm, if we're talking about "fun to read," I don't think I wrote any fun things this year :) No silly stories, no parodies, no humor. However, if the question is actually "fun to write," I loved writing White Bees & Sunflowers and Raping a Slave (AnK). WB&S had the dream sequences and the fairy tale story, and RaS was melodramatic smut. Anime fic is fun to write because most source material has so much built-in, canonical melodrama that actually needs toning down to read as even remotely possible.

Sexiest story: Raping a Slave was definitely the dirtiest. Otsuya was the most romantic and the sex was written accordingly.

Story with single sexiest moment: One of the above, probably, depending on whether you like non-con or emotional sex scenes better.

Hardest story to write: The ones that were started and remain unfinished. Of the finished pieces, Huitlacoche was the most troublesome because aspects of canon kept changing while I wrote, and then a canon character briefly developed the ability to ascertain truths, and I just about gave up since my plot, as such, had been used. Except not really. And then I calmed down and finished the story.

Most unintentionally telling story: White Bees & Sunflowers is not unintentionally telling, but I think it's the most telling. Dreams, fairy tales, stream-of-consciousness, conclusions drawn from inference rather than solidity, and porn. All my favorite things without the negatives that do show in other stories. For instance, I wrote Huitlacoche based on things people said they hated in fic, just to prove that I could get people to read and enjoy things they claimed to hate. It was a fun challenge, and I really like the way the story turned out, but it was written with a lot of expectations and ego weighing on it, which isn't necessarily the best way to write.

If you write fanfic and haven't done this meme yet, I would encourage you to do so. I love knowing what other writers think of their own work.

Comments

[vylit.livejournal.com]

I find these so interesting. We already know what we think of a writer's work, and it's interesting to see what the writer likes. I love Otsuya and White Bees & Sunflowers.

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

There are stories of my own that I love for one reason or another and I really have to stop myself from demanding that people read them instead of, say, Primary. I do love Primary, but I don't think it's my best by a long shot.

I think pretty much any of my stories could be taken out of the fandom realm and rewritten as just "fiction" or something vaguely sci-fi/fantasy, and I like that about them. I did start this fanfic business at least in part to improve my non-fannish writing, after all. I enjoy other people's stories that are more deeply connected to the canon and genre of whatever fandom - some of rivkat's older SV stories are favorites that have the sort of plotty, "super" stuff I'm talking about - but I'm 1) no good at that, and 2) more interested in creating character-driven pieces anyway.

It's tempting to force myself to get back to some SV stuff because the audience is so much larger for that than for, say, YnM or the minuscule Ai no Kusabi, but I've really lost interest in the show following that stupid, offensive sex = evil equation that seems to have been the focus of this season.

Blah, blah, blah. I love to talk about writing :)

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

Have I told you how much I love Raping A Slave? I read it all the time. It's very hot, and dirty, and mmmmm naughty. Good job on that story.

Why am I not asleep?

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

You mentioned you'd read it, but not that you'd re-read it ;) Yay! I'm glad you liked it well enough for repeats!

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

For instance, I wrote Huitlacoche based on things people said they hated in fic, just to prove that I could get people to read and enjoy things they claimed to hate.

I might be a weird SV fan, but it's my favorite story you've written. It's the one I think about from time to time, and the one I've reread an embarrassingly number of times. 'Cause grown up in HL fandom- I hate OFC's, having read a lot of XF fiction -I don't like titles I can't pronounce, and having read too much HP- I hate second person- but you did indeed manage to make me love something I claim to hate. *g*

[velvetglove.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! You have no idea how happy that makes me! As mentioned, it was the most problematic story I'd written for reasons both external (that damn Truth episode) and internal (angst!), and I was really pleased with it when I was done, but I was also very anxious about how it would be received. After all, I had deliberately written the potentially most annoying fanfic possible (albeit without the inclusion of a violet-eyed Sue). Happily, if anyone truly hated it, I didn't hear about it ;)

I think it's the most interesting SV story I've written, mostly due to those hated elements. It's the most like a non-fanfic story, also, IMO. I can see stripping the fannish stuff out entirely and writing a creepy fantasy novel along the same lines. The stories I list as my favorites are closest to my heart, but I think Huitlacoche is probably the best overall story I've posted. It has an actual plot, i.e., things happen outside of people's heads (though not many things, admittedly). It also has the most universal appeal - it's got Clark and Lex (and porn), but there is probably more in this story that would appeal to the non-fan than in anything else I've written.

I knew I liked voyeurism before writing this story, but I didn't realize how much I liked it. I probably should have listed those sex scenes as the hottest ones...

I tend to write a lot of second-person in my original work, though usually in the form of a sort of vignette, rather than a long story. I do think second-person often comes across as inappropriate or even presumptuous in fanfic (as does first-person) with the implication that this particular author believes s/he knows the characters better than anyone else, even if that's not the author's intent. I have a second-person Lex fic tucked away that I might post some day, but it's a pretty bleak piece and I'm not exactly in a hurry to delve into bleakness at the moment.

I really liked the way the Remix stories were handled by the organizers, i.e., going up without author's names first. It gave the story a much better chance of being read, I think. I heard from a lot of people who hadn't read my writing before and a few hinted (rather graciously, considering) that they'd been under the impression they wouldn't like my work for one reason or another and so had avoided things with my name attached. It was very gratifying to hear that the story had changed their minds.