wild-ass guesses
As I've mentioned before, I enjoy playing guess-the-author games with anonymous fests. Today I sat down with an Excel spreadsheet and the Due South Seekrit Santa stories (and hee, I typo'ed that first as 'Sue South' and it made me think about a Mary Sue challenge, la la la) and put together my guesses for, well, all the stories for which I think I can identify the author. (Actually, I mostly go about it the other way around; my approach is generally, 'what story did this person write?' rather than 'who wrote this story?' although sometimes I read a story and it's clear to me who the author must have been.)
This was a lot harder going than my previous guessing games (last year's sga_santa and the previous year's merry_smutmas) because I didn't have access to people's offers (what they were willing to write). These guesses are based on a combination of the following: general story quality (and how much it pings me personally), general story style, title, pairing, rating, dialogue tag usage, amount of dialogue, choice of tense and POV, typographical quirks, other elements I associate with individual writers, the assumption that every recipient wrote a story, and the assumption that the author hasn't commented on her own story. And a few other things in specific cases. There are a few notable omissions, writers for whom I could not find stories that matched my mental criteria. I didn't guess multiple stories for anyone, even though I know there were a few people who wrote more than one.
I am not including the two stories I beta-read, the pinch-hit I didn't get that I therefore know who did, or the story that the author has already told me she wrote. I'm fairly confident of about a third of these, making reasonable assumptions for about a third, and stabbing in the dark for a third.
My True Love Gave to Me - aingeal8 *
a state of mind that no one knows - brooklinegirl *
Floating islands are invariably Krakens -buzzylittleb *
Say Goodbye This Time - china_shop *
excuse me if I may be staring - etben *
It Was Very - j_s_cavalcante
flying into the ocean, driving with their eyes closed - justbreathe80 *
Ray's Life as a Turtle - lamardeuse
In The Deep - llassah
If It Ain't Broke, It Will Be - lordessrenegade *
Need, Want, Love - lucifercircle *
Romance is Romance - maryavatar
Fourth Floor, Dawn - mazily *
A Goose Pimple or a Scar - pearl_o *
Auld Lang Syne - sageness
Tally at reveal: 10 right (marked with *) 5 wrong.
I'm screening comments, so if you want to confirm or deny, you may (but you don't have to). You're also welcome to post anonymously, if you want to tell me I guessed someone else wrote your story, but you don't want to identify yourself. I'll keep a running total of the number of confirmations and denials, but I won't mark which I got right and which wrong.
I'll unscreen anything that isn't a confirmation or denial, and if you want to know my reasoning behind any of choices, ask and I'll tell you.
(Incidentally, nobody has ventured any guesses about my yuletide stories. I will give you a hint: the guessable stories - the pinch hit and the stocking stuffer - are in fandoms in which I have written before.)
This was a lot harder going than my previous guessing games (last year's sga_santa and the previous year's merry_smutmas) because I didn't have access to people's offers (what they were willing to write). These guesses are based on a combination of the following: general story quality (and how much it pings me personally), general story style, title, pairing, rating, dialogue tag usage, amount of dialogue, choice of tense and POV, typographical quirks, other elements I associate with individual writers, the assumption that every recipient wrote a story, and the assumption that the author hasn't commented on her own story. And a few other things in specific cases. There are a few notable omissions, writers for whom I could not find stories that matched my mental criteria. I didn't guess multiple stories for anyone, even though I know there were a few people who wrote more than one.
I am not including the two stories I beta-read, the pinch-hit I didn't get that I therefore know who did, or the story that the author has already told me she wrote. I'm fairly confident of about a third of these, making reasonable assumptions for about a third, and stabbing in the dark for a third.
My True Love Gave to Me - aingeal8 *
a state of mind that no one knows - brooklinegirl *
Floating islands are invariably Krakens -buzzylittleb *
Say Goodbye This Time - china_shop *
excuse me if I may be staring - etben *
It Was Very - j_s_cavalcante
flying into the ocean, driving with their eyes closed - justbreathe80 *
Ray's Life as a Turtle - lamardeuse
In The Deep - llassah
If It Ain't Broke, It Will Be - lordessrenegade *
Need, Want, Love - lucifercircle *
Romance is Romance - maryavatar
Fourth Floor, Dawn - mazily *
A Goose Pimple or a Scar - pearl_o *
Auld Lang Syne - sageness
Tally at reveal: 10 right (marked with *) 5 wrong.
I'm screening comments, so if you want to confirm or deny, you may (but you don't have to). You're also welcome to post anonymously, if you want to tell me I guessed someone else wrote your story, but you don't want to identify yourself. I'll keep a running total of the number of confirmations and denials, but I won't mark which I got right and which wrong.
I'll unscreen anything that isn't a confirmation or denial, and if you want to know my reasoning behind any of choices, ask and I'll tell you.
(Incidentally, nobody has ventured any guesses about my yuletide stories. I will give you a hint: the guessable stories - the pinch hit and the stocking stuffer - are in fandoms in which I have written before.)