Writers Meme
Jul. 5th, 2015 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potentiality_26While I'm here flailing around with my million WIPs, I figured why not do this writers meme ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frozen_delight is doing? Give me a number (or more than one) and I'll answer.
1. Describe yourself how you would describe a character you’re introducing.2. Is there any specific ritual you go through while/before/after your writing?3. What is your absolute favorite kind of fic to write?5. How many words can you write if you sit down and concentrate intensely for an hour?6. First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot)7. Inspiration, time, or motivation. Choose two.8. Why do you choose to write?9. Do you ever have plans to write anything other than fic?10. What inspires you the most?11. Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.?12. A fic you wish you had written better, and why?14. Your favorite side pairings to put in?15. Your guilty writing pleasure?16. Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write?18. How old were you when you started writing?19. Why did you start writing?20. 4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of?
frozen_delight is doing? Give me a number (or more than one) and I'll answer.4. Are there any other fic writers you admire? If so, who and why?
13. Favorite fic from another author?
17. Would you describe yourself as a fast writer?
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Date: 2015-07-05 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-05 08:17 pm (UTC)3. What is your absolute favorite kind of fic to write?
I'm all over the place genre-wise, so I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction and say a mid-length oneshot, maybe 3000 to 6000 words. That's about the length where I can get into the meat of what I'm writing about pretty well, but also formulate the idea and then execute it in more or less one sitting.
7. Inspiration, time, or motivation. Choose two.
Inspiration and motivation, I would say. I'm very lucky in that if I go over an imagined sequence in my head a couple of times, I can remember it for at least a week. So if I'm really pumped about a story idea but not able to get down and write it, I'll usually be able to keep it in my head until the next time I can.
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Date: 2015-07-05 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-05 08:59 pm (UTC)Really young. So young I'm not sure I can give you a number. Maybe 6 or 7? My mother still has one of those early stories- I was 7 when I wrote that one, I think. It's called "A Perfect Princess" and it's stunningly bad, but I always wanted to write and I always did it with a lot of enthusiasm.
19. Why did you start writing?
Because I had so many stories in my head and I always wanted to share them. When I was really young I would get anyone I'd known for even a minute to read what I'd written, but then as I got older I started to get really paranoid and protective of my writing, so I started to just sort of hoard unfinished drafts. It was kind of an important step for me when I started writing fanfiction, because it made me start wanting to show off my work again and hear what people thought of it. I really loved the community, how people I would probably never meet might find and enjoy my story, and I started writing fic because it was such a cool idea.
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Date: 2015-07-05 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-05 11:48 pm (UTC)10. What inspires you the most?
All kinds of things. When I was first starting to write, I had a tendency to write things that were a lot like whatever I was reading at the time (I remember reading the Redwall books and writing a story about talking animals in a community). Now, with fanfic, I get ideas for stories all over the place. When I take the dog to the vet, I think about a vet AU. Also, I love tropes. I think some of my favorite fandoms are the ones were you can use any trope that strikes your fancy.
11. Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.?
That's tough. I've certainly written things (mainly darkfic, which you've heard me whine about before) where I just don't know where they came from, because they weren't ideas that I thought of myself as thinking about until the whole story dropped in my lap, but it's pretty hard to think of a single example.
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Date: 2015-07-06 12:10 am (UTC)Bless, lovie. I have heard you scream about it. But the results are so DELICIOUS...
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Date: 2015-07-06 12:29 am (UTC)One of the nice things about writing fic is that no matter how weird I think an idea is, there's always an audience.
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Date: 2015-07-06 01:42 am (UTC)(Quick one because I'm not a fan of the descriptive info-dump)
She was bent over her laptop with startlingly bad posture and dark hair falling into her eyes. She laughed at one of her own jokes and then looked around to see if anyone in the coffee shop had noticed.
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Date: 2015-07-06 03:16 am (UTC)*SQUISHES*
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Date: 2015-07-06 03:26 am (UTC)*cuddles*
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Date: 2015-07-06 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 04:57 am (UTC)It was for Les Miserables, a very gentle G-rated Enjolras/Combeferre fic.
12. A fic you wish you had written better, and why?
Back when I was first starting to write/post fanfiction (fully ten years ago now), I tried my hand at posting a chapter fic as I wrote it (something I have made a vow to myself never to do again). It's a little overly complicated, and obviously I write much better prose than I did back then, but otherwise it's not that it was bad, just that I never finished it and now I don't even know what the end was going to be. I'm sad about that because I know there were people who were enjoying it and they deserved an ending.
Other than that, if I really feel I'm not doing justice to the story I want to tell, I'll usually lose enthusiasm long before I actually finish and never publish it at all. I do have some WIPs that will probably always be WIPs, though, and I look through them sometimes and wish I was better able to execute them.
15. Your guilty writing pleasure?
I've seen some criticism recently of fics (particularly AUs) where the characters fall in love too fast and everything is too perfect, and I understand where people who don't like that are coming from. I like really well thought out and realistic romances too- but sometimes I also really like the fairy tale set up where the characters just know and they live happily ever after even if they've only known each other for three days. I would say that letting realism go when the impulse strikes is probably my guilty pleasure, because while sometimes I want to keep things true to life, other times I don't and I always feel like I have to apologize for that.
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Date: 2015-07-09 06:12 pm (UTC)because while sometimes I want to keep things true to life, other times I don't and I always feel like I have to apologize for that.
It happens sometimes, I guess. For me it usually depends on the pairing and the plotline I choose for them.
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Date: 2015-07-06 09:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-07 01:53 am (UTC)It depends on how clear what I'm writing is in my head. If I have general idea of where it's going but I don't know it word for word, I'd say about 1000. If I've gone over it a couple of times and I know exactly what I'm writing, more like 2500 or 3000.
20. 4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of?
“Cheer up,” Jefferson said. “She seems to-” adore you to a terrifying and frankly unreasonable degree- “like you too.”
This elicited a grumble.
“Really! I think you’ve got a shot!”
If looks could kill, Jefferson would be cinders- and since in this realm looks could and often did kill, and he felt a definite warming in his toes, he chose not to press the issue further.
Technically that's five sentences, sorry. I'm particularly proud of this (and the fic it comes from) because I sort of tend toward angst, and when I manage to write something that makes people laugh I'm always very proud of myself.
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Date: 2015-07-06 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-07 01:51 am (UTC)Not really. I like to know exactly what I'm going to write before I write it, though. I'll take a walk and go through it in my head before I sit down to write, but I'm not sure if that qualifies as a ritual.
6. First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot)
It was for Les Miserables, Enjolras/Combeferre. I wrote some Angel fic early on too that was Illyria/Wes.
8. Why do you choose to write?
It doesn't feel like much of a choice a lot of the time. I mean, I can come up with a story idea or a bit of dialogue and not write it down and then forget about it (and I have, plenty of times) but that just seems like a waste, so... *shrugs*
9. Do you ever have plans to write anything other than fic?
Yeah. I actually have a finished draft of a original novel (100K or thereabouts). By the time I was done with it I pretty much hated it. I've had some family members read it and they've convinced me that it's fine, I just need to let it rest for a while until I remember what I liked about it.
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Date: 2015-07-07 05:57 pm (UTC)I am with you on number 8! These days it is still sadly more of a struggle for me, but I so want to get back to the state of truly needing to :)
Yes, I remember you telling me about your novel. Good luck working on it again when you feel ready.
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Date: 2015-07-07 09:37 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's good to feel like you have to write.
Thank you!
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Date: 2015-07-08 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-08 02:43 am (UTC)14. Your favorite side pairings to put in?
This presupposes that I have some kind of manageable number of fandoms to deal with, which I don't, but I do a) love putting in side pairings b) tend to favor having side-pairings of a different type than the focus pairing, like an m/m fic with an m/f side pairing, or an m/f fic with an f/f side pairing.
For OUAT, I love background Aurora/Mulan. They had such a cool dynamic that I felt was wasted by the show, but since I dropped in and out of that plotline so much (my focus was on Rumbelle) I don't think I would ever be able to make that couple the star attraction.
16. Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write?
For the most part it's structured. I hardly ever make an actual outline, but usually when I wrote a story I already know all the important beats that will happen in it, and I only tend to run into problems with the filler in between those moments.
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Date: 2015-08-03 01:02 am (UTC)Ooh I agree, OUAT has the loveliest side pairings, especially canon-divergent ones. I think I have more non-het side ships in OUAT fic than any other fandom, and not from any intent, it just happens :) I don't even know I particularly ship them until they pop up in a Rumbelle fic :D esp f/f ones ♥
In a random sidenote, I was reading through your responses above and I LOVE your guilty writing pleasure: I've seen some criticism recently of fics (particularly AUs) where the characters fall in love too fast and everything is too perfect, and I understand where people who don't like that are coming from. I like really well thought out and realistic romances too- but sometimes I also really like the fairy tale set up where the characters just know and they live happily ever after even if they've only known each other for three days. I would say that letting realism go when the impulse strikes is probably my guilty pleasure, because while sometimes I want to keep things true to life, other times I don't and I always feel like I have to apologize for that.
...and I just wanted to add that this is SO my guilty reading pleasure, esp when it's Rumbelle AU. It's the perfect antidote to RL stress and I'm looong past apologizing to myself for it. In fact, I DREAD the almost-requisite angst bits that will be thrown in to make it not be 'too easy', cause durnnit I just want my babies to be happy for once! RL has enough drama, I just want their HAE, in as much slow burn sweet detail as possible please! There is a lovely tumblr Christmas in July WIP right now where it's a kind of western woobie!Rumple rescues young!virgin!Belle from life in a brothel and it's just every kind of smooth sailing perfection confection I need right now! ♥ and I'm almost reading it like you watch a horror movie, with a hand half over your eyes hoping and praying nothing jumps out at the heroes you are rooting for, cause I just want them to keep on being so sweetly happy!
/digression
Anyway, I love all your answers to this excellent thought-provoking meme!
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Date: 2015-08-03 02:49 am (UTC)That fic sounds lovely, although I do tend to wait until WIPs are finished so I can power through the sad parts if necessary.