Fanfic year in review, 2013
My AO3 page, for reference.
In last year's fanfic review, I noted that my rather staggering output all occurred in the second half of the year. That's pretty much true in reverse for 2013, since from August onward I was concentrating on getting my original fiction into print YAY and dealing with my feelings about "Person of Interest" season 3 and just not having the urge to write much. Which is still true, unfortunately for the several fics that are still sitting unfinished/barely started on my hard drive (or actually "in the cloud"), and though I still owe something for the Irrelevant Gift Exchange it's not likely to be posted until the new year. Which is why I can write this review now.
In the first half of the year I wrote a good deal, if not as much as last year: over 79K words of fic. Most of it in one fandom. And so, this is clearly…
The Year of "Person of Interest." I may have fallen for Harold and John and the others in 2012, but 2013 is when I ramped that up and started making a serious contribution to the fandom (which was still relatively small at the beginning of the year, but has grown like crazy - which is nice, because kudos keep coming in on a regular basis from the new fans).
I did write in other fandoms, and for me personally I feel like this is the year of "Lost," since I swallowed it down in a big gulp in the spring and have been using a lot of my downtime since to watch it all over again several times. But I only wrote one actual self-contained fic in that universe (along with a crossover with "Cabin Pressure" and a heavy reference in a POI snippet), and though "To Make Amends In" has done quite well in hit count as "Lost" fics go, what fandom there is doesn't seem to hang around AO3. I do have another "Lost" fic on the burner, but if I finish it or write others it won't be to get nonexistent fandom points.
Aside from that, I'm not sure I have any defining themes for this year. I did get a trifle more adventurous in terms of ratings, and I did play with writing styles here and there, but I don't have last year's long-ass list of Year-Of and X-Is-The-New-Black. Though both Sam Shaw and Grace Hendricks made significant fashion contributions, and of course Harold Finch, though he doesn't wear solid black even to funerals.
So, under the cut, I'll just do the "best of" list as I define it. Read along if you wish! No spoilers.
Most Popular. Just to make the point again… my E-rated POI John/Harold fic "The Rest Is Silence" tops my all-time hit chart. And, I mean, it was entertaining to write and I think it's good, and this is a fandom for voice kink if ever there was one, but it's hardly the best thing I've written. Interestingly, the much tamer if still slashy "The Human Heart" from 2012 is #2 on the all-time list, with "Rich and Strange" (last year's winner) coming in a distant third. "Night's Candles" (also John/Harold and E-rated, though not by much) comes in second for fics written this year.
Most Fun to Write. I always enjoy things with lots of literary references, even when they're a bear to write, so I had a great time with "This Rough Magic," which was about Harold and his Machine and The Tempest. If you want simple and fun, with a bonus of the most positive feedback for the least effort, then "Horizontal Tango" from the ficlets collection (which also demonstrates how this was The Year of Tumblr). In general, though, I had fun with almost all of them.
Also, finding all those Shakespeare (mostly R&J) titles for the POI fics. One does have to amuse oneself.
Most Challenging. In terms of just sheer slogging-through (though with a good outcome), I'd pick "Goshawk," the sequel to last year's most-fun story "Sparrow." I really wanted to write it, but boy, it was hard. "Challenging" in the sense of "innovative": "Children of an Idle Brain," aka the POI dream fic. I'm still very proud of that one (and I still have an essay half-finished on writing dreams as a weird and satisfying exercise of creativity).
Best Writing. As a whole, perhaps "Children of an Idle Brain" should win, but there are good bits in a bunch of the stories. I think it was a pretty even year in terms of writing quality.
Favorite Story. To be honest, the story I hug closest to my heart is "To Make Amends In," the Ben Linus-centric "Lost" story which, incidentally, has the lowest hit count of anything I wrote this year (though as I said that's more a reflection on the lack of fandom than anything else). My favorite POI story is probably "All I Know Is Flight" (I don't know why; it just hits my buttons better than anything else?) with "Halcyon" a close second. I'm also very fond of "The Heart Has Its Reasons" (since it's a coda to last year's favorite story, this is not unexpected) and the Nathan-and-Grace snippet "Secrets" in the ficlet collection.
Favorite Characters to Write. Well, Harold and Ben, obviously, but also Shaw and Grace. I don't think I've hit the right canonical note with Shaw (and haven't tried a S3 version yet, though I may do so) but she's great as a sarcastic commenter on the foolishness of particular elements of mankind; with Grace, there's so little canonical evidence that I've had to make her up, and I was proud of what I did to that end in "Phoenix," "Halcyon," and "Fierce." And… the Machine is interesting to write as a character, which it looks like we'll have more and more scope to do.
I think that's it; questions and comments welcome. Aside from the gift exchange story, the next thing I really have to write is an epilogue to Time and Fevers (all the other books have them, and it felt left out), but I'm hoping I get inspired to finish at least the Bujold fic exchange story I promised
philomytha this summer, oh dear I am a terrible person. Just no writing brain at the moment, but it will return, I promise.
This entry was originally posted at http://hedda62.dreamwidth.org/72596.html. There are currently
comments there. Comment here or there.
In last year's fanfic review, I noted that my rather staggering output all occurred in the second half of the year. That's pretty much true in reverse for 2013, since from August onward I was concentrating on getting my original fiction into print YAY and dealing with my feelings about "Person of Interest" season 3 and just not having the urge to write much. Which is still true, unfortunately for the several fics that are still sitting unfinished/barely started on my hard drive (or actually "in the cloud"), and though I still owe something for the Irrelevant Gift Exchange it's not likely to be posted until the new year. Which is why I can write this review now.
In the first half of the year I wrote a good deal, if not as much as last year: over 79K words of fic. Most of it in one fandom. And so, this is clearly…
The Year of "Person of Interest." I may have fallen for Harold and John and the others in 2012, but 2013 is when I ramped that up and started making a serious contribution to the fandom (which was still relatively small at the beginning of the year, but has grown like crazy - which is nice, because kudos keep coming in on a regular basis from the new fans).
I did write in other fandoms, and for me personally I feel like this is the year of "Lost," since I swallowed it down in a big gulp in the spring and have been using a lot of my downtime since to watch it all over again several times. But I only wrote one actual self-contained fic in that universe (along with a crossover with "Cabin Pressure" and a heavy reference in a POI snippet), and though "To Make Amends In" has done quite well in hit count as "Lost" fics go, what fandom there is doesn't seem to hang around AO3. I do have another "Lost" fic on the burner, but if I finish it or write others it won't be to get nonexistent fandom points.
Aside from that, I'm not sure I have any defining themes for this year. I did get a trifle more adventurous in terms of ratings, and I did play with writing styles here and there, but I don't have last year's long-ass list of Year-Of and X-Is-The-New-Black. Though both Sam Shaw and Grace Hendricks made significant fashion contributions, and of course Harold Finch, though he doesn't wear solid black even to funerals.
So, under the cut, I'll just do the "best of" list as I define it. Read along if you wish! No spoilers.
Most Popular. Just to make the point again… my E-rated POI John/Harold fic "The Rest Is Silence" tops my all-time hit chart. And, I mean, it was entertaining to write and I think it's good, and this is a fandom for voice kink if ever there was one, but it's hardly the best thing I've written. Interestingly, the much tamer if still slashy "The Human Heart" from 2012 is #2 on the all-time list, with "Rich and Strange" (last year's winner) coming in a distant third. "Night's Candles" (also John/Harold and E-rated, though not by much) comes in second for fics written this year.
Most Fun to Write. I always enjoy things with lots of literary references, even when they're a bear to write, so I had a great time with "This Rough Magic," which was about Harold and his Machine and The Tempest. If you want simple and fun, with a bonus of the most positive feedback for the least effort, then "Horizontal Tango" from the ficlets collection (which also demonstrates how this was The Year of Tumblr). In general, though, I had fun with almost all of them.
Also, finding all those Shakespeare (mostly R&J) titles for the POI fics. One does have to amuse oneself.
Most Challenging. In terms of just sheer slogging-through (though with a good outcome), I'd pick "Goshawk," the sequel to last year's most-fun story "Sparrow." I really wanted to write it, but boy, it was hard. "Challenging" in the sense of "innovative": "Children of an Idle Brain," aka the POI dream fic. I'm still very proud of that one (and I still have an essay half-finished on writing dreams as a weird and satisfying exercise of creativity).
Best Writing. As a whole, perhaps "Children of an Idle Brain" should win, but there are good bits in a bunch of the stories. I think it was a pretty even year in terms of writing quality.
Favorite Story. To be honest, the story I hug closest to my heart is "To Make Amends In," the Ben Linus-centric "Lost" story which, incidentally, has the lowest hit count of anything I wrote this year (though as I said that's more a reflection on the lack of fandom than anything else). My favorite POI story is probably "All I Know Is Flight" (I don't know why; it just hits my buttons better than anything else?) with "Halcyon" a close second. I'm also very fond of "The Heart Has Its Reasons" (since it's a coda to last year's favorite story, this is not unexpected) and the Nathan-and-Grace snippet "Secrets" in the ficlet collection.
Favorite Characters to Write. Well, Harold and Ben, obviously, but also Shaw and Grace. I don't think I've hit the right canonical note with Shaw (and haven't tried a S3 version yet, though I may do so) but she's great as a sarcastic commenter on the foolishness of particular elements of mankind; with Grace, there's so little canonical evidence that I've had to make her up, and I was proud of what I did to that end in "Phoenix," "Halcyon," and "Fierce." And… the Machine is interesting to write as a character, which it looks like we'll have more and more scope to do.
I think that's it; questions and comments welcome. Aside from the gift exchange story, the next thing I really have to write is an epilogue to Time and Fevers (all the other books have them, and it felt left out), but I'm hoping I get inspired to finish at least the Bujold fic exchange story I promised
philomytha this summer, oh dear I am a terrible person. Just no writing brain at the moment, but it will return, I promise.
This entry was originally posted at http://hedda62.dreamwidth.org/72596.html. There are currently
comments there. Comment here or there.