Meeeeeeeme

[sholio]

Fanfic meme I've seen floating around in various forms at several people's journals. Give me a letter(s) and I'll answer! (Most of my fic is here on AO3; the Stargate stuff is here.)

A. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
B. Is there a trope you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
C. Is there a trope you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?
D. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
E. Share one of your strengths.
F. Share one of your weaknesses.
G. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
H. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
I. Which fic has been the hardest to write?
J. Which fic has been the easiest to write?
K. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?
L. Is there an episode or section of canon above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?
M. What's the best writing advice you've ever come across?
N. What's the worst writing advice you've ever come across?
O. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?
P. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
Q. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
R. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?
S. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?
T. Describe your perfect writing conditions.
U. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
V. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person asking the question is free to make suggestions).
W. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?
X. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?
Y. What do you look for in a beta?
Z. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
AA. How do you feel about collaborations?
AB. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
AC. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
AD. Do you accept prompts?
AE. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?
AF. How do you feel about smut?
AG. How do you feel about crack?
AH. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?
AI. Would you ever kill off a canon character?
AJ. Which is your favorite site to post fic?
AK. Talk about your current wips.
AL. Talk about a review that made your day.
AM. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?
AN. Write an alternative ending to a fic you've written (specify by title, link or general description).

Closing the meme now because I'm going to bed! No more letters, please, but you're still welcome to comment on my answers/ask questions about them.

You may have noticed me doing this lately (closing memes when I get tired) and I'll probably be doing it a lot more, because I've realized that a big reason why I largely stopped doing these question memes is because they became such a time-suck for me, so now I'm just taking meme questions when I'm actively feeling social, and closing them once I'm done. However, comments on my existing comments are always welcome. :)

Meme is open again - ask away!

Comments

[veleda_k]

B, C, and N.

[sholio]

B. Is there a trope you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I actually have an answer for this one (now) because I just wrote an answer to the dub-con/non-con question over on LJ, which made me realize that even though dub-con is a huge squick for me (basically I hate the whole concept of it; I think nearly everything that's fannishly labeled dub-con is something that should more properly be labeled non-con) now I want to see if I could come up with a dub-con scenario that actually does fall into what I consider a reasonable consent gray area and/or hits my personal kinks. Hmmm.

C. Is there a trope you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?

The only one I can think of that I can't imagine ever writing under any circumstances is A/B/O. Generally I am willing to try almost any trope, though it might have to be a trope subversion if it's something that squicks me to the point I don't think I could write it straight.

N. What's the worst writing advice you've ever come across?

You know, I think the only bad writing advice is advice that's presented as The One True Way To Do Things, and any advice that's given in that way is bad advice by definition. As long as it's not too dictatorial, I can generally glean something useful out of 'most any advice, even if it's not something that would work for me in its strictest form.

[veleda_k]

And since the meme opened up again, I'll ask about AL

[sholio]

AL. Talk about a review that made your day.

Awww man! But this one is embarrassing. /o\ I love all the reviews I get! I don't want to single anybody out!

The really long, detailed ones tend to delight me hugely, though -- to the point where I feel terribly inadequate when I answer them, because I want to give long detailed answers back, but I usually can't. And reviews on very old stories are extra special lovely (I still get reviews on my DBZ stories, which is really neat, even though it's been over a decade since I was in that fandom!).

I got one recently on one of my MCU fics that was something like "everything you write delights me" and that really made me happy too. :)

[spatz]

Q and/or V!

[spatz]

D'oh, should've checked LJ first. *sigh* Um, AB? Since it's mean and I enjoy asking it of people ;)

[sholio]

No worries, I forget to check LJ pretty much constantly when I'm answering memes like this. :D

AB. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

MEANIE. XD

.... no, it's an interesting question! Although, because I wander in and out of fandoms, it tends to vary a lot.

frith_in_thorns seems to share most of my narrative and tropish fic-kinks, which always makes her fic a delight for me, even in fandoms I'm not in. We seem to be in the process of fannishly diverging right now, which is a bit sad, but we also seem to like a lot of the same kinds of things, so I'm sure we'll be back in the same fandom eventually. And we seem to work well together as co-writers, too.

taste_is_sweet is a writer whose work I've enjoyed in several different fandoms; she writes lovely long plotty fic and shorty, heart-punchy fic too.

recessional is a new favorite of mine, because she has an amazing skill with wordcraft, and emotional wordcraft most of all. I first started reading her fic in a fandom I have absolutely ZERO knowledge of (Belgariad - the story in question was recced on my reading list somewhere, or I wouldn't have read it at all) and it took up residence in my head so thoroughly that I was absolutely delighted when we both ended up in the same fandom eventually. She writes worlds that feel like you could walk into them and characters that seem like they could walk off the page.

[spatz]

recessional is great, isn't she? I followed her for a while back in Sherlock Holmes (2009) fandom and when she was writing ATLA, then we separated fandoms. It was so great to see her turn up in CATWS fandom - especially since she came in with such a bang! I remember neery wishing there was a touch more comfort at the end of blue-eyed boys, and I told her 'just wait, she likes to write snippets in the world she creates' - and then she totally did, to my ongoing delight. Her worlds feel so lived-in.

[sholio]

"lived-in" - yes, exactly. :D There's a special talent a handful of writers have for bringing to life all those everyday details that make you feel like you're reading about real people, like you could step through the veil between realities and walk right into their living rooms, and she is so good at that. :) I was very happy that we eventually wandered into the same primary fandom!

[spatz]

And her OCs share that quality, too. I could read an entire novel about Mercedes from YBEB.

...It's especially notable since I don't usually *like* that level of domesticity sans any sort of superheroing for this fandom. I feel like 95% of post-CATWS fic is set in someone's apartment, because we all want Steve and Bucky to have some peace, but I just don't think Steve is ever gonna stop fighting. His brand of peace is always gonna involve standing up to bullies, because we're never gonna run out of those and Steve is constitutionally incapable of not getting involved.

(...gosh I should really go to sleep sometime soon, when did it pass 3AM?)

[sholio]

Yeah, ditto for me -- on pretty much all levels; my fandoms generally tend to be action or sci-fi fandoms, and while I enjoy short interludes of domesticity, I've frequently tended to be put off by fics that basically involve the characters retiring from their action life and having 100K of domesticity. It's not usually my thing. Come to find out, though, in the hands of a good writer, it's very much my thing!

[spatz]

I think it's also that people aren't great at coming up with...suitably atypical domesticity? Like, you wrote an entire series about Bucky gardening, which is kind of ultra advanced levels of domesticity, but it's so utterly inhabited in the weirdo homelife of the Avengers that it never bothered me. Like, even if they retire from active superheroing, they're never gonna be *normal*, you know? And there's a thin line between that and 'cracky', which is a whole other barrel of monkeys....

[umadoshi]

E! ^_^

[sholio]

E. Share one of your strengths.

Hmmm! :) I think I'm pretty good at sentence-level writing craft. I like my prose and I usually feel like it competently does what I want it to do. Or at least, it does it in a way I'm happy with.