Jumping on the good ship Writing Meme
Top ten signs you're reading a story by hiyacynth
1. If Guarnere appears, he goes "Jeezus!" at least once, and probably more. If he is mentioned peripherally, he's mocking someone.
2. Regional dialects are underplayed, revealed more in grammar and word choice and sequence than in the Rowling tradition of spelling things how they sound in that accent. There are two reasons for this. First, I find it distracting when I read it. Second, I suck at doing accents myself, so I can't verbalize the words well enough to figure out how to spell them.
3. Long, complex (but almost always grammatically defensible) sentences that rely heavily on commas and em dashes to relay parenthetical information. These are interspersed with short sentence fragments that are my way of reminding myself that fiction writing and journalistic writing are different beasts, and just because I would have been flunked out of J school for breaking basic rules of grammar doesn't mean I can't get CRAZY with the grammatical cheezewhiz from time to time. Within reason.
4. Someone "cracks wise." I've officially forbidden myself from using the term anymore.
5. The story starts firmly within a canonical moment and by its end slips right back into canon. writerj says he respects canon too much to inhabit it, which raised my hackles a bit, since it implies that those of us who choose to write within canon don't respect it. This is not so. For me, writing within the limits canon timeline is part of my BoB fic boundaries. It keeps it firmly enough rooted in movieverse to make it okay to be writing; moving outside of canon--particularly into pre- and post-war experience--takes me closer than I'm comfortable with to Real!Easy. I developed a fairly significant case of hives over "Give a Man Luck" expressly because it existed in part before and after the miniseries. Obviously the AWMSFOD is a completely alternate universe, but it still fits into the canon timeframe. And there's a whole mountain of other rationalizations I made (and my fellow h00rs helped me make) that aided in my acceptance of the abhorrence I was creating with that story. But those aside, and with one exception each in Buffy and The X-Files, everything I write happens within the canon as it existed at the time the story was written (I did get Jossed a couple of times, but I meant well). And that's how I like it, thank you very much.
6. Shorter-than-average paragraphs. Holdover from my journalism training.
7. Dialogue: Shortish, quick-moving exchanges used mainly to punctuate a scene or to bring it closer to the reader. Even longer exchanges--Doc and Malarkey's conversation in "Et Maneat Semper," Bill and Joe's in "Give a Man Luck," and that last part of "Ask Marlene"--are all one- or two-sentence exchanges.
8. Linearity is my very best friend. My stories start at point A and proceed in a very alphabetical order to their conclusion. Even in the two ("Give a Man Luck" and "Ask Marlene") that deal with two distinct eras or events, the overall approach is chronological. I almost said my writing is unexperimental, but I don't think that's true. I just experiment with other things, primarily with finding and manipulating different voices, narrative perspectives, and style. But for the life of me, the closest thing I can get to stream of consciousness is that one messed-up sex-drugs-leg-ripped-open paragraph in "Ask Marlene."
9. Buddylove. I'm just not a slasher. I wrote one kiss in "Warmth in Cold Places," but, as cunien said about her own work, it came more from a place of desperation and fear and loneliness and grief than from either Doc or Babe waking up gay. I read the slash, I enjoy it, and in other people's stories I generally buy it. I just don't see my version of the characters that way. I did write a bit of Mulder/Krycek back in the day (ah, my long-abandoned epic post-apocalyptic masterpiece, reverentially nicknamed "Uncle Tit," how I love/hate you as I love/hate Mulder and Krycek themselves), but again, they were embracing their situational bisexuality. Or, Mulder was. Krycek's a sexual opportunist and always has been.
10. Self-referential shout-outs to the AWs. *checks* Yep, I was doing it as early as "One Lucky Son of a Bitch." I amuse myself way too much and will never grow weary of that sekrit pretend world.
And, because it became obvious to me several months ago that not having my stories collected in one place was a pain in the ass, here is a list of links to everything I've posted since joining LJ. I also have a folder full of Buffy and X-Files fiction written in the long dark before LJ and will email stories to anyone who might be interested. Me, I'm particularly proud of my After-School Special of a Dawn story. There were awards and high praise from BNFs along the lines of "Everyone who has been a teenage girl or might ever have a teenage girl needs to read this story."
Supernatural
Occasions of Sin
Posted 10/24/06
Inventory
Posted 11/26/06
Battlestar Galactica
Yet-Untitled Billy-fic
Posted 2/11/06
Band of Brothers
Blue
Posted 9/24/2005
One Lucky Son of a Bitch
Posted 10/15/2005
Still bugs me that I misquoted Skip when I named this thing and made its accompanying icon.
Warmth in Cold Places
Berlin by Christmas 2004 story
Posted 12/25/2005
The Aldbourne Whores Mary Sue Fic of Doom
Posted 1/05/2005
Et Maneat Semper
Posted 20/05/2005
Give a Man Luck
Drop into Holland story
Posted 9/17/2005
Ask Marlene
Berlin by Christmas 2005 story
Posted 12/25/2005
Lord of the Rings (or, more specifically, baylorsr's "Gangsta Hobbits" subuniverse within LotR)
Cheap Knock-Offs and Questionable Language
Posted 7/13/2005
PHEW. That was fun.
1. If Guarnere appears, he goes "Jeezus!" at least once, and probably more. If he is mentioned peripherally, he's mocking someone.
2. Regional dialects are underplayed, revealed more in grammar and word choice and sequence than in the Rowling tradition of spelling things how they sound in that accent. There are two reasons for this. First, I find it distracting when I read it. Second, I suck at doing accents myself, so I can't verbalize the words well enough to figure out how to spell them.
3. Long, complex (but almost always grammatically defensible) sentences that rely heavily on commas and em dashes to relay parenthetical information. These are interspersed with short sentence fragments that are my way of reminding myself that fiction writing and journalistic writing are different beasts, and just because I would have been flunked out of J school for breaking basic rules of grammar doesn't mean I can't get CRAZY with the grammatical cheezewhiz from time to time. Within reason.
4. Someone "cracks wise." I've officially forbidden myself from using the term anymore.
5. The story starts firmly within a canonical moment and by its end slips right back into canon. writerj says he respects canon too much to inhabit it, which raised my hackles a bit, since it implies that those of us who choose to write within canon don't respect it. This is not so. For me, writing within the limits canon timeline is part of my BoB fic boundaries. It keeps it firmly enough rooted in movieverse to make it okay to be writing; moving outside of canon--particularly into pre- and post-war experience--takes me closer than I'm comfortable with to Real!Easy. I developed a fairly significant case of hives over "Give a Man Luck" expressly because it existed in part before and after the miniseries. Obviously the AWMSFOD is a completely alternate universe, but it still fits into the canon timeframe. And there's a whole mountain of other rationalizations I made (and my fellow h00rs helped me make) that aided in my acceptance of the abhorrence I was creating with that story. But those aside, and with one exception each in Buffy and The X-Files, everything I write happens within the canon as it existed at the time the story was written (I did get Jossed a couple of times, but I meant well). And that's how I like it, thank you very much.
6. Shorter-than-average paragraphs. Holdover from my journalism training.
7. Dialogue: Shortish, quick-moving exchanges used mainly to punctuate a scene or to bring it closer to the reader. Even longer exchanges--Doc and Malarkey's conversation in "Et Maneat Semper," Bill and Joe's in "Give a Man Luck," and that last part of "Ask Marlene"--are all one- or two-sentence exchanges.
8. Linearity is my very best friend. My stories start at point A and proceed in a very alphabetical order to their conclusion. Even in the two ("Give a Man Luck" and "Ask Marlene") that deal with two distinct eras or events, the overall approach is chronological. I almost said my writing is unexperimental, but I don't think that's true. I just experiment with other things, primarily with finding and manipulating different voices, narrative perspectives, and style. But for the life of me, the closest thing I can get to stream of consciousness is that one messed-up sex-drugs-leg-ripped-open paragraph in "Ask Marlene."
9. Buddylove. I'm just not a slasher. I wrote one kiss in "Warmth in Cold Places," but, as cunien said about her own work, it came more from a place of desperation and fear and loneliness and grief than from either Doc or Babe waking up gay. I read the slash, I enjoy it, and in other people's stories I generally buy it. I just don't see my version of the characters that way. I did write a bit of Mulder/Krycek back in the day (ah, my long-abandoned epic post-apocalyptic masterpiece, reverentially nicknamed "Uncle Tit," how I love/hate you as I love/hate Mulder and Krycek themselves), but again, they were embracing their situational bisexuality. Or, Mulder was. Krycek's a sexual opportunist and always has been.
10. Self-referential shout-outs to the AWs. *checks* Yep, I was doing it as early as "One Lucky Son of a Bitch." I amuse myself way too much and will never grow weary of that sekrit pretend world.
And, because it became obvious to me several months ago that not having my stories collected in one place was a pain in the ass, here is a list of links to everything I've posted since joining LJ. I also have a folder full of Buffy and X-Files fiction written in the long dark before LJ and will email stories to anyone who might be interested. Me, I'm particularly proud of my After-School Special of a Dawn story. There were awards and high praise from BNFs along the lines of "Everyone who has been a teenage girl or might ever have a teenage girl needs to read this story."
Supernatural
Occasions of Sin
Posted 10/24/06
Inventory
Posted 11/26/06
Battlestar Galactica
Yet-Untitled Billy-fic
Posted 2/11/06
Band of Brothers
Blue
Posted 9/24/2005
One Lucky Son of a Bitch
Posted 10/15/2005
Still bugs me that I misquoted Skip when I named this thing and made its accompanying icon.
Warmth in Cold Places
Berlin by Christmas 2004 story
Posted 12/25/2005
The Aldbourne Whores Mary Sue Fic of Doom
Posted 1/05/2005
Et Maneat Semper
Posted 20/05/2005
Give a Man Luck
Drop into Holland story
Posted 9/17/2005
Ask Marlene
Berlin by Christmas 2005 story
Posted 12/25/2005
Lord of the Rings (or, more specifically, baylorsr's "Gangsta Hobbits" subuniverse within LotR)
Cheap Knock-Offs and Questionable Language
Posted 7/13/2005
PHEW. That was fun.