[Meme] Forty Questions for Fic Writers

[edenfalling]

I've seen slight variations of this floating around both Dreamwidth and Tumblr, and I'm bored, so why not?

Pick no more than three letters and I will answer those questions.

1. Describe your comfort zone — a typical you-fic.
2. Is there a trope you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
3. Is there a trope you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?
4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
5. Share one of your strengths.
6. Share one of your weaknesses.
7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you're proud of it.
9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?
10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?
12. Is there a section of canon above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?
13. What's the best writing advice you've ever come across?
14. What's the worst writing advice you've ever come across?
15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?
16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?
19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?
20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).
23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?
24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?
25. What do you look for in a beta?
26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
27. How do you feel about collaborations?
28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
30. Do you accept prompts?

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?
32. How do you feel about smut?
33. How do you feel about crack?
34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?
35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?
36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?
37. Talk about your current WIPs.
38. Talk about a review that made your day.
39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?
40. Write an alternative ending (or the summary of one) to a fic you've written. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions.)

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Answers!

--2, 14, and 18, for akatsuki210

--8, 29, and 38, for lady_songsmith

--5 and 7, for rthstewart

--13 and 37, for heliopausa

Comments

[heliopausa]

13, 18 and 37. :)

[edenfalling]

I already answered #18 over here. Would you like to pick another number?

But moving on!

13. What's the best writing advice you've ever come across?

Ursula Le Guin's essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie," which I encountered printed in her book The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. The whole book is worth reading, but that piece is the one that has stuck with me the most. It's superficially about appropriate language for fantasy dialogue, but it's also about knowing what kind of story you're telling, and learning to trust your own voice.

37. Talk about your current WIPs.

All of them? We'd be here all night! *wry* I have never had under a dozen technically "in progress" stories in my life... but that doesn't mean I'm actively working on most of them at any given moment.

The ones that have been most "alive" most recently are my unexpected love Cotton Candy Bingo fill, which has been driving me up the wall for over a month now. The thing is, I decided to answer it via a prompt from somebody on Tumblr, which means I am writing about Mary Pevensie (from my Narnia genderswap AU) finding something to love after she's banned from Narnia at the end of PC. And I decided, because of Reasons, that she gets into nuclear chemistry (which is her father's passion) and goes to America during VDT, because it would be socially awkward to have her stay alone with Professor Kirke. (Stephen stays instead, since he could use the intensive tutoring; like Susan, he's not good at school. (My headcanon is that Susan is dyslexic, btw.)) But I've gotten hung up on Mary's sense of duty and her notion that going to America while her siblings stay home would be a return to her old habits of running away from her problems, and I can't figure out how to get around that block. Gnrgh.

I'm toying with some ideas for my NFE assignment, and in fact checked a couple books out of the library today for background research. *zips lips for anonymity rather than say more*

I have a half-written response to a Homestuck kinkmeme prompt about Jane Crocker writing to either Rose or Dave to verify that her friends are actually related to the famous people they claim as their family. That one stalled out for lack of an obvious and coherent endpoint, though I think I might be able to combine it with a really old prompt about Jane going to one of Rose's book signings and talking about Roxy without Rose giving away the secret that Roxy and Dirk live four hundred years in the future. I just need to shift some dates around a bit.

I added a few hundred words to an old GI Joe: The Rise of COBRA WIP, which is titled "Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis." Three of the five are finished in rough draft. The fourth is the one where the siblings' backstory is made explicit, though I've hinted around it in the first three sections. But right now I'm sorting through some logistics before I can get Ana and Rex to talk -- it's tricky because he broke into her apartment intending to drug and kidnap her (this is canon, btw), but she woke up and shot him. Whoops!

(I am fully aware that maybe three people on the planet will have any interest in that story. I don't care. I'm writing it mostly for my own satisfaction.)

I've been poking a little at "Harvest" again, which is an original story about Ekanu Thousandbirds and Denifar Rollesdun at the Ileara Chapterhouse on Na'eraelu in the Gwynorae Archipelago. It's basically the story of how they attempt a serious romantic and sexual relationship, and it falls apart spectacularly; the secondary plots are Ekanu coming to terms with being an adult despite not having undergone the adulthood rites of passage of her people, Ekanu learning how to be a teacher and mentor, and Denifar assisting in an irrigation project.

And there's that story about lesbians saving the world with shades of Sleeping Beauty I posted about a few days ago. I'm still hashing out world-building stuff there, but I think I finally found the right opening scene for when I start writing. \o/