Self Indulgent Rambings on my Writing

[grenegome]

This post is me wittering on about my fic. About posting, writing, prompts, commenting, kink memes and kink bingo. Mostly Dresden Files with a pit stop for the Mentalist:

I hate posting fic. Not in a will people like this/will they comment kind of way, but in a copypasting/remember the headings/is this too long for the character limit/where do I put a chapter break/remember to link to all the chapters/have I done the cut-tag right/what the hell size font is this/oh crap tags kind of way. Essentially, it’s fiddly, and I’m a deeply lazy person with a fundamental objection to the kind of careful checking I need to do to make sure I don’t cock everything up. And sometimes I cock it up anyway :-D

I’ve been wondering if posting to the AO3 instead would solve some of this fussing (I’ve never tried it, but if it’s set up by fans specifically for the purpose of posting fic, it MUST be more user friendly). But I have a sneaking suspicion that people comment less there? (And I’m a shameless comment whore, regardless of content. Seriously, you can just be pointing out I’ve abused punctuation and I’ll light up.) I may be entirely misguided in that assumption though. But the kind of commenting I like, that can segue off topic into fannish squee about something completely irrelevant, I kind of feel I shouldn’t indulge in that there. Because it isn’t a blogging forum, it’s an archive for stories and feedback on those stories. I think. Perhaps people do use it in this way and I just haven’t hung out there enough to notice.

I shall continue in my pondering.

Ficcishness

My Redjohnloves you fic seems to actually be done on time. Which is a little, well, scary to be honest. I’m amused that I wrote for the prompt that I took one look at and thought “can’t do that”. Except I kept coming back to the idea. And poking it. And then somehow it got written.


Writing to prompts (and kinkmemes!)

It’s confirmed something about my writing that should have sunk in from my time lurking on the Mentalist kink meme where I discovered I REALLY like writing to prompts. Even (especially?) ones I might struggle with. Because the prompt is the essence of all the times I’ve spent ploughing through google and LJ and fic archives looking for a particular set up or a particular pairing, more trying to hit narrative kinks than sexual ones (though, hey, they overlap, I’m not fooling anybody :-D). And just being able to throw that particular query out there with a “pretty please” and crossed fingers, and see what you get? That’s really cool. Being the answer to another fan’s particular craving? Yeah, I really like that. I’ve always enjoyed giving people presents, even just little here’s-a-chocolate-bar things. And, frankly, it gives me the opportunity to justify things I wouldn’t always write. Instead of being honest and saying here’s something a little mad or disturbing that popped into my head, I get to say hey, here’s a prompt I filled! Which, thinking about it, may actually be a little cowardly. Hmm.

I’ve tried to envision a Dresden Files kink meme (though I doubt we’re a large enough fandom to sustain one?) and the sheer volume of possibilities kind of floored me. Because the cast is huge and the canon is cracktastic and I would request so very many badfic setups that were entirely id-indulgent.

Kink bingo (Dresden Files)

I’m not going to get a bingo, but I started with lowered expectations, figuring I just wanted to post something in the amnesty period, and I think it’ll actually be a couple of somethings. I’ve got Harry/original!Luccio for authority figures, which features no actual sex but just seems to cover the ground leading up to it. It’ll need a massive edit, because I want to re-read all the books before I commit more Dresden fic. There are some voices I’m not clear on (Luccio, Ramirez) and really, this is a ridiculous canon to be playing in after only one read through.

Harry/Marcone has half a fic written that’d fit either penance or obedience. There were bits of ideas for a genderswap for body modification, but that was threatening to blow out of proportion and has just been done really well by lightgetsin . I was kind of using it as a vehicle for exploring issues of trust and paranoia between Harry and Marcone in an established relationship, and also include a gratuitous amount of Hendricks being BFFs with Marcone and trying to give Harry a heads up about not being an entirely shit boyfriend (It’s his birthday on Friday, Dresden). So, I might run with it, or I might pull those issues out and graft them on to a different plot, I don’t know. And, uh, if I did write epic and ridiculous plot, it’s STILL going to be set before Changes. Like Harry, I get set in my ways. I was fond of the status-quo damn it, and I didn’t find the books early enough to have my fill of playing in it. Though post-Changes has equal and different kinds of awesome awaiting me, I’m sure.

 And, uh, I want to write Harry/Kincaid. For gunplay. But I keep backing away from that idea in terror. None of these would link up in such a way as to make a bingo for me, so I haven’t tried to get them down before the 31st. But yes, I think I’m going to be amusing myself in the amnesty period.

Comments

[grenegome.livejournal.com]

Crossposting (aside from the number of comments issue) does appeal to me, cos I like the stability AO3 offers fandom. The stories would still be there no matter what happened to my presence on LJ. But, yes, laziness has to be overcome first :-D

I do the read only thing too! Though last time I committed formatting craziness that didn't show up in the browser I'd done the dummy run in...well, at least I'm creatively incompetent?

Interesting, do you know why you'd find it difficult?

[unsentimentalf]

I think I start from a different sort of point when writing. It doesn't tend to be the sort of situation that can be briefly described; it's more the idea of setting this particular element of this character against an different characterisation of another. And without that I can't write anything that isn't cardboard. So it's those contrasts that spark a story, and then the plots and situations come out of that.

So I tend to look at the prompts and think, yes, that would be fun to read, but it doesn't give me any way to start writing. Possibly if I spent more time with them I'd find ones that did; I might try sometime.

[grenegome.livejournal.com]

That's intriguing, and oddly, I think most of my non-prompt derived fic starts in a similar manner, though rather than, say, a broad element of a character it'd be a particular manifestation of that character trait that's stuck in my head as a particular interaction. And then I have to write the story to justify the interaction. (In fact, I struggle writing porn because I have to know WHY everyone is in the bed and doing what they're doing, and how they got there.) I kind of struggle with plot, because for me it's an excuse to write the character interactions rather than the point of the story, whereas as a reader I'm like OMGWHATHAPPENSNEXT?

Prompts are an interesting exercise, even if you chose not to take them anywhere.