Fanfic Year In Review Meme

[pedanther]

(via john_elliott)

1. Her Silvery Nemesis (300 words, Doctor Who)


2. Elementary Particles: reprinted from the reminiscences of Professor Bernice S. Summerfield (1245 words, Doctor Who)


3. Poor Relations (100 words, Blackadder)


4. C is for Conjuration (1741 words, Sesame Street)


5. Sesame Treats (260 words, Sesame Street et al.)

Total: 5 stories, approximately 3650 words.

I also wrote seven stanzas of a multi-fandom filk song, but I don't know if it counts as complete; it feels like one of those songs that continues to gradually accumulate verses for as long as people keep singing it.

As usual, these were all things I started in 2013: all my unfinished works from earlier years remain unfinished.


Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Definitely more. I wasn't really expected to get anything much done this year. I certainly wasn't expecting to break the 1000-word mark twice.


Where did you publish/archive your stories?

Four of the stories went straight onto AO3; two of them because they were for a formal exchange being run through there, the others just because that's become my default place to post fanworks. "Poor Relations", the exception, was a spur-of-the-moment commentfic that I haven't decided yet whether it's worth archiving.

I also posted "Her Silvery Nemesis" to alt.drwho.creative, because it was my first attempt at a Doctor Who drabble in ages and I was feeling nostalgic.


What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2013?

That'd be the filk song, probably.


What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

"C is for Conjuration". I took the time to get it right, and had a lot of fun with the little details, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.


Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Either "Sesame Treats" or "C is for Conjuration", depending on how you're measuring. (One has the highest number of hits and of kudos, the other has the highest rate of kudos-per-hit and the most comments.) It's probably not insignificant that they were both written for Yuletide, which has a large built-in audience, and "Sesame Treats" is deliberately playing with popular fandoms, which probably didn't hurt either.


Story most underappreciated by the universe?

I don't think I have a candidate for this category this year. Most of them at least gained the enthusiastic appreciation of their intended audiences. A couple didn't even achieve that, but might well not have deserved to.

As a cheering side-note: The story that I nominated last time I asked this question, as a story that I would have liked to see reach a wider audience, got recced on calufrax this year. So that was nice.


Story that could have been better?

Several of the stories were rushed, to meet actual or perceived deadlines, and might have done better with a bit more time and work spent on them. In retrospect, I think cramming "Her Silvery Nemesis" into drabble form was a mistake; I've kind of got into the habit of trying for a drabble whenever I write a Doctor Who ficlet, but in this case I think it might have done better with a bit more room to breathe. "Elementary Particles" suffers from being what Kit Whitfield calls "an idea about a story rather than an idea for a story"; I think I could possibly have got an idea for a story out of it if I'd revisited the relevant bits of canon in more depth and let it simmer for a while, but there was this deadline...


Sexiest story?

"Elementary Particles" is ever so slightly suggestive in places; on originally posting it, I described it as "if anything, slightly less suggestive regarding [the relationship in question] than the show itself", but even so that's more than any of the other stories have to offer.


Most fun story?

"Sesame Treats" and "C is for Conjuration" were both a lot of fun; I think "Sesame Treats" wins out through being much shorter and not having a plot to worry about.


Story with single sweetest moment?

I don't know. "C for Conjuration", maybe? I wasn't really trying for sweet in any of the others.


The story that made you cry?

As I said the first time I did this meme, it takes a better writer than me to make me cry. And, again, not really something I was aiming for in any of these.


Hardest story to write?

"Elementary Particles", which I think goes back to me not actually having an idea for the story.


Easiest story to write?

"Poor Relations" rolled straight off my fingertips onto the page. It didn't even need much tweaking to make it 100 words.


Most overdue story?

None of them were overdue, although as I've already mentioned there's at least one that might have come out better if I hadn't rushed it to get it in before a deadline.

(And, of course, there are all the unfinished stories that are overdue and only getting more so...)


Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Signed up for Yuletide for the first time, and got through with honour intact.

More generally, I notice that half my works this year were from prompts in fic exchanges or ficathons (with the other half being comment-fic / ideas sparked by conversations that maybe don't make as much sense outside the context of the conversation). And looking back over the past few years, a lot of my completed works - and certainly the ones I still like - have had similar origins.

So perhaps the lesson for the future is to sign up for more promptings. (And continue to get involved in interesting conversations.)


Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?

Not really. Generally I just saunter along and see what happens.

But let's say "Sign up for at least one prompt meme or ficathon or bingo card or like that", and see what happens...