A survey a day keeps the readers away
So, apparently we're gearing up to celebrate beta reader appreciation day again (October 13), or maybe it's beta reader appreciation week now. I'm okay with that. Beta reader appreciation month, beta reader appreciation year... I'm pretty sure I appreciate them all the time.
Who was your first beta?
I'm not sure. My introduction to the gentle art of beta-reading was a slow and gradual thing. I remember showing a chapter of The last gift to Steph because I felt very unsure of some of the plot elements... no, wait, C was my early reader system way before that, I sent her Pandora's box as I wrote it, I think. Susie beta-read a lot of my stuff in Voyager, coming closer to my current definition of what beta-reading is. Shoshanna is the first person who really edited my stuff, word by word and sentence by sentence. So I guess I had at least three first times.
What was the story and fandom?
Near as I can make out, is was Pandora's box in VampChron fandom (C), The name of the game in Voyager (Susie), and Lovers in X-Files (Shoshanna).
Are you still writing in that fandom?
Nope.
Which beta(s) had the most impact on your writing?
Well, there's impact and impact. Several people have had a lot of influence in terms of making me think about the characters and how I portray them. The person who's had most influence on the way I write is Shoshanna, though; she made me think about words and how I use them, and made me realize that everything in a story is there because I put it there.
What is your favorite story or series of what you've written? Why? Who was the beta? What are your next two favorite stories or series of what you've written? Why? Who was/were the beta(s)?
I have trouble choosing favorites, and I'll probably feel differently tomorrow, so I'm just going to pick three things that I like, in no particular order. Clouds and lions, because it still feels as though I managed to write Trowa the way I see him and make other people see it, too. Ellen and Cat beta-read that for me. Lovers (which I know I'm in a minority for liking better than Ghosts *g*), because it's the first story where I worked with an editor and had to think about every choice I'd made, because I'm pretty pleased with the plot and the pacing and the original characters, and because it makes me miss San Francisco so very badly. Editor: Shoshanna. And seek, because it's short and to the point and I'm not sure myself exactly what the truth is; editing and able asstance from Ellen, Sylvia, ari, and C.
Who beta-ed your most recent story?
Lemme see... Ellen, Beth, Temaris, and an offline friend who will remain nameless and blameless.
What do you consider the most important quality in a beta reader?
Intelligence.
The dream beta-reader/editor is smart, perceptive, honest, knows her grammar, knows the fandom, and is willing to spend an insane amount of time pointing out misplaced commas and discussing the exact nuances of characterization involved in choosing one adjective over another. Amazingly enough, I know several people like that.
What do you consider the most important thing to be accomplished in a beta read? (Grammar, spelling, continuity, plot, character, canon, fanon, hand holding, other?)
All of the above? I dunno. Okay, I can usually pass on the hand-holding (unless it's a first story in a fandom), and my spelling's decent, but I do want someone to read for grammar, someone to read for plot and continuity, someone to read for fandom knowledge/characterization... Sometimes, I can get one person to do all of that, and sometimes I end up with a beta-reader collective. If I had to pick one... it actually depends on the fandom. In some fandoms, I feel completely at home with canon, and more unsure of my commas. In other fandoms, canon is much harder to get a firm grip on, and I'd pass on help with clunky sentences if it meant I could get a good fact-checker.
How has your writing changed from your first stories?
Well, I like to think that it's gotten better. *g* I know more about plotting and pacing, I'm more careful (read: obsessive) when it comes to character voices, my dialogue's less stilted, and so on. I've posted earlier about how I use much less emotional exposition these days (but I think that's a question of taste rather than ability), and I think, on the whole, I'm less into pretty words and more into appropriate ones, these days.
What do you attribute that to?
Writing a whole lot for seven years. And, of course, the gentle but firm guiding hands of my legion of beta readers and editors.
Comments:
I like to talk about the joys of editing (or rather, the joys of being edited), and what a wonderful thing it is to have beta readers. That's true, as far as it goes, but this survey made me remember how long it took for me to get into the habit, or even think of it as a habit I might want to get into. I should remember that more often, and remember the persuasion of all the nice people who made, and still make, the editing process fun rather than painful.
(Side note: I'm fascinated by the "my beta reader is more brutal than your beta reader!" competition that sometimes seems to take place on lists. My beta readers aren't brutal. They're polite, honest, and frequently right.)
Your own and recommended URLs:
Fnu. URLs for stuff mentioned in the survey, anyway:
the flambeau factory
The last gift (Vampire Chronicles) Don't read it.
Pandora's box (Vampire Chronicles) See above.
The name of the game (Voyager)
Lovers (X-Files)
Clouds and lions (Gundam Wing)
And seek (Eroica)
I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank a whole bunch of people, and to apologize if I've left anyone out: C, M, catscradle, ari_, Cin, Amy, elynross, !Super Cat, Shoshanna, Maeg, Maria,Taffy, slimslash, Anna, without_me, Te, Jane Mortimer, Terri, Jessica, AnneZo, Kirby Crow, Yahtzee, Nonie, Cesperanza, mlynne, eponymous, kaneko, Sylvia, Laura, and Keiko. My apologies to the fifty or so people who provided inspiration and helped with research; if I weren't an ungrateful wretch, I'd list you, too.
A while back, minisinoo constructed a survey on influence in fandom that required both a friend to take it with, and a certain amount of math. Because I'm funny that way, the math took me this long. mlynne is my better half for this survey; she'll probably post her part when she gets over her bout with Martian Death Flu. (I'm sending good thoughts your way, babe. I'd send Chris, but I don't think he's very restful to have around when you're sick.)
1. Given feedback, awards, recommendation lists, archives requests, etc.....
a) what is/are your most popular story/stories? (Not the ones you consider best, but the most popular.)
Ghosts, with Lovers a sometime adjunct to it.
b) what is your average amount of feedback per story? (Throw out extremes to reach a correct mean.)
This is where I went away for about a week and played with stats. I had a hard time deciding if feedback letters talking about several stories counted as one piece of fb each for those stories, or just as one piece of fb, and if so, for which of the stories? I ended up doing a high count and a low count, counting and discounting letters like that. Throwing out the stories that are kinda off the scale gives me a low average of 19 and a high average of 22, but those numbers are still skewed. The low median count is 10, the high median count is 13. At both the low and the high count, the most common feedback frequency is 1. (Sorry. I like statistics. More numbers available on request. No pie charts, though.)
c) do you notice significant differences in your feedback for longer versus shorter? Serious versus humorous? More action versus less action? (indicate other types as applicable to you.)
The stories that have gotten the most feedback range from longish to very long, but not all long stories have gotten lots of feedback. Shortish humor pieces tend to get a lot of fb; very short vignettes get less. There's a lot of variation between fandoms, though, and there are so many possible variables there (size of the fandom, feedback trends in the fandom, my own participation in the fandom and how much exposure the stories get, me having a lousy handle on the characters, whatever) that I don't think I can speculate too much about that. One-offs in small or non-existent fandoms can get quite a lot of fb, presumably for the rarity value.
d) has any story received over 50 letters of feedback (from different people, not 50 letters from the same 10 people for stories of multiple parts published serially)? Any received over 100? Over 200? Why do you think that story was such a success?
Yes, yes, yes, no idea. I'm not surprised that Ghosts got a good reception when it was posted, because XF was a young, enthusiastic slash fandom then, with many people active in it, and I posted in four parts over a period of several months; long stories with a strong element of will-they-won't-they often move people to comment. But it keeps getting feedback even now, five years later, and that just amazes me. Lovers gets feedbacked as often because of Ghosts as on its own merits, I suspect. After those two (way after those two *g*), the most successful stories in terms of feedback are China (XF/HL crossover) and Crystallize (Phantom Menace). China seems pretty understandable to me: Mulder, Methos, casefile, smut. Many people like these things. Crystallize, otoh, is a quiet mood story with very little in terms of action-oriented plot, no smut, and not exactly what one would call romance. I don't get that one, either, but since it's one of my own favorites, I'm glad people like it.
2. Do readers likely associate you with a particular type of story, or with the exceptional handling of a particular character or characters?
I think it's been different in different fandoms. In Voyager, I wrote P/K, and I wrote what we called "teen angst," wallows with plenty of drama and angst and smut and heartbreak. In XF, I wrote M/K, and I think my stuff was generally considered to be a bit bleak and downbeat. After that, I'm not sure.
3. Have you ever written a story that .....
a) helped 'redeem' or alter (in a positive way) popular perceptions of a character/s? Have you written one that essentially formed a popular perception (postive or negative) of a particular character in a fandom?
I don't think so. I don't think I've ever written any particularly radical or unusual version of a character (okay, once, but that was definitely not a popular hit), or created any kind of distinctive backstory that's taken on a life of its own, or anything like that.
b) created something that became an article of "fanon"? (What was it?)
I can't really remember, but I know back in Voyager, we all traded bits of backstory back and forth and picked them up from each other, so possibly to some extent, yeah. See above, though.
c) created an original character that another author asked to borrow for a story? Who? (A)
A friend asked me just recently if she could borrow an OC of mine for a story she's writing, but that's the only instance I can think of.
d) had a story that you thought was copycatted by another author? (Be fair in this; a true copycat involves a high coincidence of similar details, not just a similar basic plot.)
No, not the way you seem to mean it here, at least not that I've noticed. I've been plagiarised, though; some chick in GW lifted a few sex scenes from my vampire stories and recast them with Duo and Heero, sentence for sentence and word for word, which made me rather cranky.
e) helped to create a subgenre within a fandom?
I think that depends on how you define "subgenre" and "help create." I was part of the first wave or whatever you want to call it of M/K writers in XF fandom, so in a way, yes, I suppose. I'm not sure a pairing can be called a genre, though. So maybe not.
f) had a noted (and publicly referenced) impact on another major/important/significant story?
I don't think so.
g) created an AU universe or round-robin?
No.
4. How well-known do you think you are, outside your own 'nitch' of the fandom? Do many people read your stories who are not fans of that particular type of fiction or subgenre?
I'm not sure I have a niche, unless slash counts (and I seem to be writing a little bit of gen lately, too), or a fandom, singular. I don't know if a lot of people read my stuff who don't normally read slash; sometimes I get feedback to that effect, but not every five minutes or anything. Probably reasonably well known in several other parts of slash fandom, though, other than the ones I've written in.
5. Regarding awards ....
a) If you've won an award or awards in your fandom, which one (or two) are you most proud of AND think that you earned most fairly? (Friends/fans ... which do you think the author earned the most fairly?)
I remember how pleased I was when Ghosts got a few Whammy awards in 1997, so I guess maybe those.
b) Have you ever won an award that you think you didn't earn, why do you think you won it, and who do you think should have gotten it instead? (A)
I dunno. These are difficult questions to answer; I haven't really thought about it. With the exception of the '97 Whammys and the first round of vampire fic awards, I've never paid much attention to any awards, voted, or had any very strong opinions one way or the other. Near as I can tell, with awards, people vote for stuff they like, and if they like my stuff, I say thank you. I'm not sure what "didn't earn" means in this context (or "earned most fairly" above, for that matter). I haven't gotten any awards for stories that I think are bad, or anything.
c) How many have you received, across how many years? (A)
*goes to see* Somewhere between 25 and 30, from '95 to '02 (not counting the ones where all nominees were declared co-winners on account of large-scale cheating).
6. What story have you written that you think has received less recognition/attention than -- in your estimation -- it should have? Why do you think that's the case?
I'd be pleased if it turned out that more people than I think have read the Velvet Goldmine story. I kind of like that one. Never posted it in any VG forum, though, or participated in the fandom at all, so it's not as though I've ever tried to draw anyone's attention to it.
Trying to answer these questions for mlynne made me realize that I am a lousy fannish friend.
1. Given feedback, awards, recommendation lists, archives requests, etc.....
a) what is/are your most popular story/stories? (Not the ones you consider best, but the most popular.)
Heart and Major Crimes. At least, that's what I think.
2. Do readers likely associate you with a particular type of story, or with the exceptional handling of a particular character or characters?
Snark and romance. Is that a story type? Stories with lots of snarky dialogue and romance, anyway. You've got good stories that aren't laugh-out-loud funny, but I think most people associate you most strongly with all that clever dialogue.
3. Have you ever written a story that .....
a) helped 'redeem' or alter (in a positive way) popular perceptions of a character/s? Have you written one that essentially formed a popular perception (postive or negative) of a particular character in a fandom?
I don't think so. I don't have the impression that any of the characters you write have been much in need of redemption in the eyes of other fans.
b) created something that became an article of "fanon"? (What was it?)
Probably something in Sentinel that I wot not of. And the Smallville mutant cows, are those fanon now? I've seen them referenced in various places, but I'm not sure they've made it into a lot of fiction.
d) had a story that you thought was copycatted by another author? (Be fair in this; a true copycat involves a high coincidence of similar details, not just a similar basic plot.)
I haven't heard anything about this. (Have I?)
e) helped to create a subgenre within a fandom?
I don't think anyone can be said to have created the first-time story. But you pretty much launched SN slash, along with Miriam. That's not a subgenre, though, is it?
f) had a noted (and publicly referenced) impact on another major/important/significant story?
(I'm not going to call this d) again.) I have no clue. Sorry.
g) created an AU universe or round-robin?
Not that I've heard of.
4. How well-known do you think you are, outside your own 'nitch' of the fandom? Do many people read your stories who are not fans of that particular type of fiction or subgenre?
Well, you're multi-fandom, and you're bifictional, so as niches go, that's a pretty big one. And you're well-known. Seriously. Like, really really well-known. I also think you've made a bunch of slash fans read gen in HL and Sen; I don't know if it's worked the other way around, but that would be neat, too.
5. Regarding awards ....
*pokes at site* I can't find any awards. (Hey, why don't you have any awards? You should have awards. Best Snark.)
6. What story have you written that you think has received less recognition/attention than -- in your estimation -- it should have? Why do you think that's the case?
Shouldn't this be author-only? I'll answer it anyway. I think A Quiet War should get more love. And more love. And even more love.
7. (For the friend/fan only) When you describe this author's work to others, how do you most typically do so? That is, what's distinctive about this person?
Snark. No, that makes you sound so one-track. Hmmm. I usually say, oh, you'll love her stuff, it's clever and funny and well-written and did I mention funny and romantic and with the mushy first-time stuff and brilliant dialogue and clever characterization and just. Smart. And often funny. And snarky. And sometimes it's smart and serious.
Other people probably put it better.
Why am I still awake? And is a Mint Aero bar really a good substitute for dinner?
Who was your first beta?
I'm not sure. My introduction to the gentle art of beta-reading was a slow and gradual thing. I remember showing a chapter of The last gift to Steph because I felt very unsure of some of the plot elements... no, wait, C was my early reader system way before that, I sent her Pandora's box as I wrote it, I think. Susie beta-read a lot of my stuff in Voyager, coming closer to my current definition of what beta-reading is. Shoshanna is the first person who really edited my stuff, word by word and sentence by sentence. So I guess I had at least three first times.
What was the story and fandom?
Near as I can make out, is was Pandora's box in VampChron fandom (C), The name of the game in Voyager (Susie), and Lovers in X-Files (Shoshanna).
Are you still writing in that fandom?
Nope.
Which beta(s) had the most impact on your writing?
Well, there's impact and impact. Several people have had a lot of influence in terms of making me think about the characters and how I portray them. The person who's had most influence on the way I write is Shoshanna, though; she made me think about words and how I use them, and made me realize that everything in a story is there because I put it there.
What is your favorite story or series of what you've written? Why? Who was the beta? What are your next two favorite stories or series of what you've written? Why? Who was/were the beta(s)?
I have trouble choosing favorites, and I'll probably feel differently tomorrow, so I'm just going to pick three things that I like, in no particular order. Clouds and lions, because it still feels as though I managed to write Trowa the way I see him and make other people see it, too. Ellen and Cat beta-read that for me. Lovers (which I know I'm in a minority for liking better than Ghosts *g*), because it's the first story where I worked with an editor and had to think about every choice I'd made, because I'm pretty pleased with the plot and the pacing and the original characters, and because it makes me miss San Francisco so very badly. Editor: Shoshanna. And seek, because it's short and to the point and I'm not sure myself exactly what the truth is; editing and able asstance from Ellen, Sylvia, ari, and C.
Who beta-ed your most recent story?
Lemme see... Ellen, Beth, Temaris, and an offline friend who will remain nameless and blameless.
What do you consider the most important quality in a beta reader?
Intelligence.
The dream beta-reader/editor is smart, perceptive, honest, knows her grammar, knows the fandom, and is willing to spend an insane amount of time pointing out misplaced commas and discussing the exact nuances of characterization involved in choosing one adjective over another. Amazingly enough, I know several people like that.
What do you consider the most important thing to be accomplished in a beta read? (Grammar, spelling, continuity, plot, character, canon, fanon, hand holding, other?)
All of the above? I dunno. Okay, I can usually pass on the hand-holding (unless it's a first story in a fandom), and my spelling's decent, but I do want someone to read for grammar, someone to read for plot and continuity, someone to read for fandom knowledge/characterization... Sometimes, I can get one person to do all of that, and sometimes I end up with a beta-reader collective. If I had to pick one... it actually depends on the fandom. In some fandoms, I feel completely at home with canon, and more unsure of my commas. In other fandoms, canon is much harder to get a firm grip on, and I'd pass on help with clunky sentences if it meant I could get a good fact-checker.
How has your writing changed from your first stories?
Well, I like to think that it's gotten better. *g* I know more about plotting and pacing, I'm more careful (read: obsessive) when it comes to character voices, my dialogue's less stilted, and so on. I've posted earlier about how I use much less emotional exposition these days (but I think that's a question of taste rather than ability), and I think, on the whole, I'm less into pretty words and more into appropriate ones, these days.
What do you attribute that to?
Writing a whole lot for seven years. And, of course, the gentle but firm guiding hands of my legion of beta readers and editors.
Comments:
I like to talk about the joys of editing (or rather, the joys of being edited), and what a wonderful thing it is to have beta readers. That's true, as far as it goes, but this survey made me remember how long it took for me to get into the habit, or even think of it as a habit I might want to get into. I should remember that more often, and remember the persuasion of all the nice people who made, and still make, the editing process fun rather than painful.
(Side note: I'm fascinated by the "my beta reader is more brutal than your beta reader!" competition that sometimes seems to take place on lists. My beta readers aren't brutal. They're polite, honest, and frequently right.)
Your own and recommended URLs:
Fnu. URLs for stuff mentioned in the survey, anyway:
the flambeau factory
The last gift (Vampire Chronicles) Don't read it.
Pandora's box (Vampire Chronicles) See above.
The name of the game (Voyager)
Lovers (X-Files)
Clouds and lions (Gundam Wing)
And seek (Eroica)
I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank a whole bunch of people, and to apologize if I've left anyone out: C, M, catscradle, ari_, Cin, Amy, elynross, !Super Cat, Shoshanna, Maeg, Maria,Taffy, slimslash, Anna, without_me, Te, Jane Mortimer, Terri, Jessica, AnneZo, Kirby Crow, Yahtzee, Nonie, Cesperanza, mlynne, eponymous, kaneko, Sylvia, Laura, and Keiko. My apologies to the fifty or so people who provided inspiration and helped with research; if I weren't an ungrateful wretch, I'd list you, too.
A while back, minisinoo constructed a survey on influence in fandom that required both a friend to take it with, and a certain amount of math. Because I'm funny that way, the math took me this long. mlynne is my better half for this survey; she'll probably post her part when she gets over her bout with Martian Death Flu. (I'm sending good thoughts your way, babe. I'd send Chris, but I don't think he's very restful to have around when you're sick.)
1. Given feedback, awards, recommendation lists, archives requests, etc.....
a) what is/are your most popular story/stories? (Not the ones you consider best, but the most popular.)
Ghosts, with Lovers a sometime adjunct to it.
b) what is your average amount of feedback per story? (Throw out extremes to reach a correct mean.)
This is where I went away for about a week and played with stats. I had a hard time deciding if feedback letters talking about several stories counted as one piece of fb each for those stories, or just as one piece of fb, and if so, for which of the stories? I ended up doing a high count and a low count, counting and discounting letters like that. Throwing out the stories that are kinda off the scale gives me a low average of 19 and a high average of 22, but those numbers are still skewed. The low median count is 10, the high median count is 13. At both the low and the high count, the most common feedback frequency is 1. (Sorry. I like statistics. More numbers available on request. No pie charts, though.)
c) do you notice significant differences in your feedback for longer versus shorter? Serious versus humorous? More action versus less action? (indicate other types as applicable to you.)
The stories that have gotten the most feedback range from longish to very long, but not all long stories have gotten lots of feedback. Shortish humor pieces tend to get a lot of fb; very short vignettes get less. There's a lot of variation between fandoms, though, and there are so many possible variables there (size of the fandom, feedback trends in the fandom, my own participation in the fandom and how much exposure the stories get, me having a lousy handle on the characters, whatever) that I don't think I can speculate too much about that. One-offs in small or non-existent fandoms can get quite a lot of fb, presumably for the rarity value.
d) has any story received over 50 letters of feedback (from different people, not 50 letters from the same 10 people for stories of multiple parts published serially)? Any received over 100? Over 200? Why do you think that story was such a success?
Yes, yes, yes, no idea. I'm not surprised that Ghosts got a good reception when it was posted, because XF was a young, enthusiastic slash fandom then, with many people active in it, and I posted in four parts over a period of several months; long stories with a strong element of will-they-won't-they often move people to comment. But it keeps getting feedback even now, five years later, and that just amazes me. Lovers gets feedbacked as often because of Ghosts as on its own merits, I suspect. After those two (way after those two *g*), the most successful stories in terms of feedback are China (XF/HL crossover) and Crystallize (Phantom Menace). China seems pretty understandable to me: Mulder, Methos, casefile, smut. Many people like these things. Crystallize, otoh, is a quiet mood story with very little in terms of action-oriented plot, no smut, and not exactly what one would call romance. I don't get that one, either, but since it's one of my own favorites, I'm glad people like it.
2. Do readers likely associate you with a particular type of story, or with the exceptional handling of a particular character or characters?
I think it's been different in different fandoms. In Voyager, I wrote P/K, and I wrote what we called "teen angst," wallows with plenty of drama and angst and smut and heartbreak. In XF, I wrote M/K, and I think my stuff was generally considered to be a bit bleak and downbeat. After that, I'm not sure.
3. Have you ever written a story that .....
a) helped 'redeem' or alter (in a positive way) popular perceptions of a character/s? Have you written one that essentially formed a popular perception (postive or negative) of a particular character in a fandom?
I don't think so. I don't think I've ever written any particularly radical or unusual version of a character (okay, once, but that was definitely not a popular hit), or created any kind of distinctive backstory that's taken on a life of its own, or anything like that.
b) created something that became an article of "fanon"? (What was it?)
I can't really remember, but I know back in Voyager, we all traded bits of backstory back and forth and picked them up from each other, so possibly to some extent, yeah. See above, though.
c) created an original character that another author asked to borrow for a story? Who? (A)
A friend asked me just recently if she could borrow an OC of mine for a story she's writing, but that's the only instance I can think of.
d) had a story that you thought was copycatted by another author? (Be fair in this; a true copycat involves a high coincidence of similar details, not just a similar basic plot.)
No, not the way you seem to mean it here, at least not that I've noticed. I've been plagiarised, though; some chick in GW lifted a few sex scenes from my vampire stories and recast them with Duo and Heero, sentence for sentence and word for word, which made me rather cranky.
e) helped to create a subgenre within a fandom?
I think that depends on how you define "subgenre" and "help create." I was part of the first wave or whatever you want to call it of M/K writers in XF fandom, so in a way, yes, I suppose. I'm not sure a pairing can be called a genre, though. So maybe not.
f) had a noted (and publicly referenced) impact on another major/important/significant story?
I don't think so.
g) created an AU universe or round-robin?
No.
4. How well-known do you think you are, outside your own 'nitch' of the fandom? Do many people read your stories who are not fans of that particular type of fiction or subgenre?
I'm not sure I have a niche, unless slash counts (and I seem to be writing a little bit of gen lately, too), or a fandom, singular. I don't know if a lot of people read my stuff who don't normally read slash; sometimes I get feedback to that effect, but not every five minutes or anything. Probably reasonably well known in several other parts of slash fandom, though, other than the ones I've written in.
5. Regarding awards ....
a) If you've won an award or awards in your fandom, which one (or two) are you most proud of AND think that you earned most fairly? (Friends/fans ... which do you think the author earned the most fairly?)
I remember how pleased I was when Ghosts got a few Whammy awards in 1997, so I guess maybe those.
b) Have you ever won an award that you think you didn't earn, why do you think you won it, and who do you think should have gotten it instead? (A)
I dunno. These are difficult questions to answer; I haven't really thought about it. With the exception of the '97 Whammys and the first round of vampire fic awards, I've never paid much attention to any awards, voted, or had any very strong opinions one way or the other. Near as I can tell, with awards, people vote for stuff they like, and if they like my stuff, I say thank you. I'm not sure what "didn't earn" means in this context (or "earned most fairly" above, for that matter). I haven't gotten any awards for stories that I think are bad, or anything.
c) How many have you received, across how many years? (A)
*goes to see* Somewhere between 25 and 30, from '95 to '02 (not counting the ones where all nominees were declared co-winners on account of large-scale cheating).
6. What story have you written that you think has received less recognition/attention than -- in your estimation -- it should have? Why do you think that's the case?
I'd be pleased if it turned out that more people than I think have read the Velvet Goldmine story. I kind of like that one. Never posted it in any VG forum, though, or participated in the fandom at all, so it's not as though I've ever tried to draw anyone's attention to it.
Trying to answer these questions for mlynne made me realize that I am a lousy fannish friend.
1. Given feedback, awards, recommendation lists, archives requests, etc.....
a) what is/are your most popular story/stories? (Not the ones you consider best, but the most popular.)
Heart and Major Crimes. At least, that's what I think.
2. Do readers likely associate you with a particular type of story, or with the exceptional handling of a particular character or characters?
Snark and romance. Is that a story type? Stories with lots of snarky dialogue and romance, anyway. You've got good stories that aren't laugh-out-loud funny, but I think most people associate you most strongly with all that clever dialogue.
3. Have you ever written a story that .....
a) helped 'redeem' or alter (in a positive way) popular perceptions of a character/s? Have you written one that essentially formed a popular perception (postive or negative) of a particular character in a fandom?
I don't think so. I don't have the impression that any of the characters you write have been much in need of redemption in the eyes of other fans.
b) created something that became an article of "fanon"? (What was it?)
Probably something in Sentinel that I wot not of. And the Smallville mutant cows, are those fanon now? I've seen them referenced in various places, but I'm not sure they've made it into a lot of fiction.
d) had a story that you thought was copycatted by another author? (Be fair in this; a true copycat involves a high coincidence of similar details, not just a similar basic plot.)
I haven't heard anything about this. (Have I?)
e) helped to create a subgenre within a fandom?
I don't think anyone can be said to have created the first-time story. But you pretty much launched SN slash, along with Miriam. That's not a subgenre, though, is it?
f) had a noted (and publicly referenced) impact on another major/important/significant story?
(I'm not going to call this d) again.) I have no clue. Sorry.
g) created an AU universe or round-robin?
Not that I've heard of.
4. How well-known do you think you are, outside your own 'nitch' of the fandom? Do many people read your stories who are not fans of that particular type of fiction or subgenre?
Well, you're multi-fandom, and you're bifictional, so as niches go, that's a pretty big one. And you're well-known. Seriously. Like, really really well-known. I also think you've made a bunch of slash fans read gen in HL and Sen; I don't know if it's worked the other way around, but that would be neat, too.
5. Regarding awards ....
*pokes at site* I can't find any awards. (Hey, why don't you have any awards? You should have awards. Best Snark.)
6. What story have you written that you think has received less recognition/attention than -- in your estimation -- it should have? Why do you think that's the case?
Shouldn't this be author-only? I'll answer it anyway. I think A Quiet War should get more love. And more love. And even more love.
7. (For the friend/fan only) When you describe this author's work to others, how do you most typically do so? That is, what's distinctive about this person?
Snark. No, that makes you sound so one-track. Hmmm. I usually say, oh, you'll love her stuff, it's clever and funny and well-written and did I mention funny and romantic and with the mushy first-time stuff and brilliant dialogue and clever characterization and just. Smart. And often funny. And snarky. And sometimes it's smart and serious.
Other people probably put it better.
Why am I still awake? And is a Mint Aero bar really a good substitute for dinner?