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Hours Gone By ([personal profile] hoursgoneby) wrote2018-12-17 11:04 am
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Fandom Meme

Snagged from [personal profile] spikedluv :

Questions:
What made you start writing fanfic?
  1. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?
  2. Which of your own fanfics have you reread the most?
  3. Describe the differences between your first fanfic and your most recent fanfic.
  4. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?
  5. You've posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you'd written it?
  6. Name three stories you found easy to write.
  7. Name three stories you found difficult to write.
  8. What's your ratio of hits to kudos?
  9. What do your fic bookmarks say about you?
  10. What's a theme that keeps coming up in your writing?
  11. What kind of relationships are you most interested in writing?
  12. For E-rated fic, what are some things your characters keep doing?
  13. Name three favorite characters to write.
  14. You're applying for the fanfic writer of the year award. What five fanfics do you put in your portfolio?
  15. Question of your choice!
Answers
  1. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?

    2. It definitely has. I mean, I started writing fanfic before I even knew there was a name for it, let alone that other people might want to read it. My intro that it wasn't even online, it was in some secondhand Star Trek fanzines! Probably the biggest change over the decades is learning to go back and thoroughly edit - yes, even if it means chucking out that one bit you really like. Of course, when I started I could only write for myself because I was too shy to show it to anyone else AND there was no real way to get anything to an audience so editing wasn't important but unfortunately once I began haunting the newsgroups I still didn't pick up the habit of going back and editing things for content, clarity, and flow.

    Many years later, writing training and process documentation became part of my job and doing those things became an absolute necessity. The habit spilled over, fortunately.

  2. Which of your own fanfics have you reread the most?

    3. Right now it's probably the Assassin AU, a Transformers AU "In which Prowl is a legendarily ethical assassin, forensic accountant Jazz is his target, and nothing happens the way Jazz expects it to" because I wrote another part to it after publishing the initial four and am working on a sixth. I need to go back to reference things. Before that, it would have been Honesty, a Supernatural fanfic set during the episode The End.

  3. Describe the differences between your first fanfic and your most recent fanfic.

    4. First fanfic: Being written privately, scribbled on looseleaf paper with a ballpoint during a class I probably should have been paying more attention to in junior high, no one to share it with. Bad prose, no descriptions, poor structure, flat dialogue, FILLED with Mary Sue/Gary Stu OCs. Aggressively G-rated. Praise to whatever powers may be it never existed online.

    Most recent fanfic: Written for an audience, for the aforementioned Assassin AU actually since I had requests for more (and assassin!Prowl is fun), in a word processor when I probably should have been writing resumes and cover letters or something I could earn money for as I have no current income, and published on AO3, sharing it with people I've never even met. The prose is better, I still think I need to do more with descriptions, the structure and the dialogue are greatly improved, and the characterization is, well, existent. Definitely NOT G-rated!

  4. You've posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you'd written it?

    5. Probably by the use of the word 'actually' or the phrase 'in order to', particularly if it were comment fic or something I hadn't run through Grammarly to catch things like that for me. I'm sure there are more that I just haven't caught on to using repeatedly yet - I did catch myself using the phrase 'laughed breathlessly' repeatedly recently and edited accordingly. Don't think I'm in Furmanism territory yet, though.

  5. Name three stories you found easy to write.

    6. Visitor, Chapter 7 of the October Writing Challenge (in which Prowl is a wizard) came pretty easily. I think I did 4K words the first day on that one.
    Bloodstain, Chapter 29 of the same writing challenge came along quickly as well. It pretty much popped straight into my head when I saw the prompt. ("I'd hug you right now but you're covered in evidence. And I also really don't want to." "Evidence is a really nice euphemism for blood, gore, and guts." "You're totally missing the point. Do you know how pissed I am at you right now?")
    Second Act, the most recent fanfic mentioned above. (Well, most recently written, not most recently published. It slots in between parts 3 and 4 of the Assassin AU.) But, y'know, it's a PWP, so that probably goes without saying.

  6. Name three stories you found difficult to write.

    7. Adoption, Chapter 3 of AU Yeah August 2018. Doing the research on how to treat a survivor's PTSD shortly after the traumatic event was extremely rough because it really hammered home just how badly I was failed in the time during which my own PTSD developed. On the other hand, it made writing a character's anxiety rather easy, seeing as I was experiencing my own, so there's that.
    Mythology, Chapter 29 of AU Yeah August 2018. It just did not want to be written for some reason and I don't know why. I knew what I wanted to happen and I knew how to get there, just getting it down in type proved to be extremely difficult.
    Lines of Fire back in 2015 for [livejournal.com profile] bbcmusketeerskink back in 2015 but that's mostly because I was going "OMG its porn I am actually writing it and putting somewhere for people to SEE, OMG." Contrast that with Second Act, which is entirely porn and shamelessly admits it in the blurb.

  7. What's your ratio of hits to kudos?

    8. Roughly 12:1.

  8. What do your fic bookmarks say about you?

    9. Mostly teen and up Transformers fanfic starring some variation on Prowl/Jazz - or, apparently, Megatron/Optimus Prime which surprises me looking at them but, okay. I think there's a couple of series I really like bumping that count up though.

  9. What's a theme that keeps coming up in your writing?

    10. Prowl + Jazz = Awesome. Which is interesting because fourteen years ago I was like "...do they even have dialogue together?" and now I'm all like "My OTP, let me show you it!"

  10. What kind of relationships are you most interested in writing? 
    • Developing romantic relationships, from the time the characters meet to the time they get together and then beyond that.

    • Familial relationships - either parent-or-parent-figure & child or sibling relationships.

    • Relationships that show people changing each other.
  11. For E-rated fic, what are some things your characters keep doing?

    12. I've a grand total of two E-rated fics at the time of writing so there isn't enough to pick out themes or common acts yet.

  12. Name three favorite characters to write.

    13. 1. Prowl 
    2. Jazz
    3. Knock Out.

  13. You're applying for the fanfic writer of the year award. What five fanfics do you put in your portfolio?

    14. 1. Honesty - Supernatural.
    2. The Longest Night - Lord of the Rings
    3. Through the Gates - The Goblin Emperor
    4. Senses (Chapter 22 of the October Writing Challenge) - Transformers
    5. Mythology (Katabasis) of AU Yeah August 2018 - Transformers

    Though if they don't have to be stand-alone then Assassin AU and The Adventures of student!Jazz and wizard!Prowl would definitely be in there. (That last link goes to the last part of the story because it has the links to all the rest. I've not separated it out into its own series.)

  14. Will they or won't they?

    15. They almost certainly will.