Fanfic Year in Review
Jan. 3rd, 2017 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pedantherList of Completed Fics:
Ten Alternate Universes: Bernice Summerfield (481 words; Doctor Who & spinoffs)
Ten Alternate Universes: Kay Harker (606 words; The Midnight Folk et seq.)
Ten Alternate Universes: Havelock Vetinari (1062 words; Discworld)
New Flowers Bloom (100 words; Snow-white and Rose-red)
A week next Saturday at the Stork Club (401 words; Captain America: The First Avenger)
Stats:
Total number:
5 or 32, depending on whether one counts the 'Ten Alternate Universe' works as 3 or 30.
I think 5 is more accurate, since unlike some people who went the extra mile to make each of their AUs a complete drabble I shamelessly left most of mine as incomplete fragments.
Total word count:
2650
Ship/character breakdown:
Different in each work, so no patterns.
Except that, for probably the first time in my writing career, every one of these has at least a touch of shippiness. That's the fault of the AU meme, since "Regency" traditionally implies "romance" -- in this case, Benny/Jason, Kay/Maria, and Sam/Sybil respectively. "New Flowers Bloom" was a deliberate attempt to flesh out Rose-red's romantic arc a bit, since in the original it consists in its entirety of the phrase "and Rose-red was married to his brother". For "A week next Saturday" the recipient suggested Bucky/Peggy, so that's what they got.
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
"New Flowers Bloom" is the winner more or less by default, since the others were cases of putting in the minimum unavoidable amount of effort.
Best/worst summary?
"A week next Saturday". By default, again -- the summary for "New Flowers Bloom" is just the first sentence of the story, and the summaries for the AU collections are just the description of the AU meme -- but actually I think I did a pretty good job with it in its own right.
Best/worst first line?
Tricky, given the fragmentary nature of three-fifths of the field. I like "Havelock Vetinari owned the largest cattle outfit in the neighborhood, and also, in a less official but still very real sense, the entire town of Two Horse River."
Best/worst last line?
Again, the fragmentary thing. I'm still fond of the punchline to the Benny Summerfield Coffee Shop AU.
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Less than I'd hoped, but about what I expected.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
Several of the pairings and genres that came up in the AU meme were pretty unexpected, but I don't know if it counts as having written them if all I did was little fragments. I don't think I'd ever have written "Snow-white and Rose-red" fic unprompted.
What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
"New Flowers Bloom".
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
"Ten Alternate Universe: Havelock Vetinari", at 168 hits and 16 kudos.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
I don't think I have one this year; they were all appreciated by the people they were written for, which is the important thing.
Story that could have been better?
All of them, probably, but the one I notice is "A week next Saturday", which was written in something of a hurry.
Sexiest story?
"A week next Saturday" has got Innuendo in it, which is about as far as my stories ever go.
Saddest story?
The Kay Harker Shapeshifter AU, if I'd actually written the whole story and not just one suggestive paragraph.
Most fun?
One of the AUs, but I can't pick between them at this distance.
Story with single sweetest moment?
"New Flowers Bloom".
Hardest story to write?
The Vetinari AU set was interestingly difficult, because of the way Vetinari exerts himself to avoid being the centre of whatever story is going on. You'll notice that for many of them I resorted to coming up with a City Watch AU (or in one case an Unseen University AU) and then writing down the bit of it with Vetinari in.
Honorable mention to "New Flowers Bloom", which might have been much easier to write if it hadn't decided it needed to be in Margaret Hunt's prose style. Discursive 19th-century prose is all very well, but something of a challenge when one has to fit everything into 100 words.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
One of the AUs, but I can't pick between them at this distance.
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I don't think so, although "New Flowers Bloom" did deepen them a bit (not that that was hard, given how shallow the characters are in the original).
Most overdue story?
All of these were delivered promptly. As usual, the really overdue stories are the ones that have been sitting on a back burner for years (although I did actually poke at a few of those this year).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I signed up for a prompt bingo card in April, and proceeded to completely ignore it thereafter. The lesson is possibly a reminder that I'm more productive when there's a bit of structure in terms of deadlines and allowed fandoms; if I'm allowed to write in any fandom at any time, I never know where to begin.
(Hmm. Looking at the card again now, I can claim "New Flowers Bloom" as a fill for Episode Tags and Missing Scenes, but I can't see any good matches for "A week next Saturday" -- no, wait, maybe Determined...?)
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
Write something.
Maybe check off another square on the bingo card. Now that I'm looking at it again, some ideas are occurring to me...
Ten Alternate Universes: Bernice Summerfield (481 words; Doctor Who & spinoffs)
Ten Alternate Universes: Kay Harker (606 words; The Midnight Folk et seq.)
Ten Alternate Universes: Havelock Vetinari (1062 words; Discworld)
New Flowers Bloom (100 words; Snow-white and Rose-red)
A week next Saturday at the Stork Club (401 words; Captain America: The First Avenger)
Stats:
Total number:
5 or 32, depending on whether one counts the 'Ten Alternate Universe' works as 3 or 30.
I think 5 is more accurate, since unlike some people who went the extra mile to make each of their AUs a complete drabble I shamelessly left most of mine as incomplete fragments.
Total word count:
2650
Ship/character breakdown:
Different in each work, so no patterns.
Except that, for probably the first time in my writing career, every one of these has at least a touch of shippiness. That's the fault of the AU meme, since "Regency" traditionally implies "romance" -- in this case, Benny/Jason, Kay/Maria, and Sam/Sybil respectively. "New Flowers Bloom" was a deliberate attempt to flesh out Rose-red's romantic arc a bit, since in the original it consists in its entirety of the phrase "and Rose-red was married to his brother". For "A week next Saturday" the recipient suggested Bucky/Peggy, so that's what they got.
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
"New Flowers Bloom" is the winner more or less by default, since the others were cases of putting in the minimum unavoidable amount of effort.
Best/worst summary?
"A week next Saturday". By default, again -- the summary for "New Flowers Bloom" is just the first sentence of the story, and the summaries for the AU collections are just the description of the AU meme -- but actually I think I did a pretty good job with it in its own right.
Best/worst first line?
Tricky, given the fragmentary nature of three-fifths of the field. I like "Havelock Vetinari owned the largest cattle outfit in the neighborhood, and also, in a less official but still very real sense, the entire town of Two Horse River."
Best/worst last line?
Again, the fragmentary thing. I'm still fond of the punchline to the Benny Summerfield Coffee Shop AU.
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Less than I'd hoped, but about what I expected.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
Several of the pairings and genres that came up in the AU meme were pretty unexpected, but I don't know if it counts as having written them if all I did was little fragments. I don't think I'd ever have written "Snow-white and Rose-red" fic unprompted.
What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
"New Flowers Bloom".
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
"Ten Alternate Universe: Havelock Vetinari", at 168 hits and 16 kudos.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
I don't think I have one this year; they were all appreciated by the people they were written for, which is the important thing.
Story that could have been better?
All of them, probably, but the one I notice is "A week next Saturday", which was written in something of a hurry.
Sexiest story?
"A week next Saturday" has got Innuendo in it, which is about as far as my stories ever go.
Saddest story?
The Kay Harker Shapeshifter AU, if I'd actually written the whole story and not just one suggestive paragraph.
Most fun?
One of the AUs, but I can't pick between them at this distance.
Story with single sweetest moment?
"New Flowers Bloom".
Hardest story to write?
The Vetinari AU set was interestingly difficult, because of the way Vetinari exerts himself to avoid being the centre of whatever story is going on. You'll notice that for many of them I resorted to coming up with a City Watch AU (or in one case an Unseen University AU) and then writing down the bit of it with Vetinari in.
Honorable mention to "New Flowers Bloom", which might have been much easier to write if it hadn't decided it needed to be in Margaret Hunt's prose style. Discursive 19th-century prose is all very well, but something of a challenge when one has to fit everything into 100 words.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
One of the AUs, but I can't pick between them at this distance.
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I don't think so, although "New Flowers Bloom" did deepen them a bit (not that that was hard, given how shallow the characters are in the original).
Most overdue story?
All of these were delivered promptly. As usual, the really overdue stories are the ones that have been sitting on a back burner for years (although I did actually poke at a few of those this year).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I signed up for a prompt bingo card in April, and proceeded to completely ignore it thereafter. The lesson is possibly a reminder that I'm more productive when there's a bit of structure in terms of deadlines and allowed fandoms; if I'm allowed to write in any fandom at any time, I never know where to begin.
(Hmm. Looking at the card again now, I can claim "New Flowers Bloom" as a fill for Episode Tags and Missing Scenes, but I can't see any good matches for "A week next Saturday" -- no, wait, maybe Determined...?)
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
Write something.
Maybe check off another square on the bingo card. Now that I'm looking at it again, some ideas are occurring to me...
