Meme: On enjoying writing...
A meme for a quiet Friday afternoon.
A while ago lyras posted a meme asking writers to identify their favorite fics from among the stories they'd written. I'm not sure I've gained nearly enough distance from my own fics to do that kind of thing; I still tend to be very judgmental about the finished product. But the meme got me thinking about the ( Read more... )
A while ago lyras posted a meme asking writers to identify their favorite fics from among the stories they'd written. I'm not sure I've gained nearly enough distance from my own fics to do that kind of thing; I still tend to be very judgmental about the finished product. But the meme got me thinking about the ( Read more... )
Comments 14
Er, I've rambled a bit below, just to warn you.
3a. Would writing be more fun if I wrote more fluff and created happier universes?
Hmm. No? (I would like to hear your own response to this question.) Although I have to admit that writing my recent AoGG slushy ficlet made me all happy and teary-eyed. But writing anything with emotional power makes me happy, as long as the story is true to itself. I love that moment when you're so caught up in a story that when you're disturbed it takes you a few seconds to come back to earth. And I especially love those moments when you have a story that's quite good, and suddenly, bang!, something occurs to you that would transform the story from a competent one into a good one ( ... )
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*laughs* Mine was a very rational, Hermione-like post, wasn't it? Because this is also a very good description of how things feel when they're going well. *ponders* I suppose my version of the same experience (avoiding truly terrifying phrases like you still don't have any real control) would be this:
You start off with a blank slate, and then you select some characters and a social context, and there are certain ways the characters will interact with each other, and certain constraints determined by the context, and if you trust your instincts, you'll start to see that there's a pattern emerging, and all you need to do is see that pattern, and sketch the barest outline of it in your story, and your reader will know: this is how things are.
Or: Writing is having all these emotions, all these random objects, and being able to ( ... )
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things are bleak, the characters are coping as best they can
And that's meant to be depressing? Honestly, considering the state of the canon we have to work with, I think your stories are embued with a wonderful sense of hope despite everything that cannot be ignored.
And re: 1a., I don't know whether to be concerned that I often empathise with male characters more easily, it's slightly odd, especially when I do love the women of HP.
Anyway, the three things you've listed here, oh how I wish everyone in fandom stuck to those principles!
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Anyways, all of which is to say that I wouldn't be so quick to use the phrase "soppy romantic." There are soppy romantics writing fic, but that's not all the "happy ending" is. *smile*
About the men and women of HP? *sigh* I'm sure there's a PhD type writing a dissertation on it out there somewhere.
Thanks for reading, sweetie! This is a lot of introspection, so I'm both delighted and a bit embarrassed you made it to the end. M.
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I enjoy looking things up, still, maybe more than everything else.
What does it mean that I initially read that "I enjoy things looking up?" *smile* My semi-academic confession: I love diagramming stories. Timelines, character relationships, conflicts, you name it, I've mapped it out. M.
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I'm helpless as a beta reader because I get caught up in Big Issues and backstory at the expense of practical questions like the ones you just listed on your journal: who is the protagonist? What is the central conflict in the story? what can we do to make those more clear? Well, that's not entirely true, I'm fine at SPAG and editing for flow and catching small places in the story where a few extra sentence would help, but mostly I send the poor authors lengthly treatises on how gender is working in the story, or how the author's characterized someone, etc. *sigh* Not to discourage you from asking one day, but I clearly have a ways to go still.
Note to self: Currently academic work might be going more smoothly if I identified and clarified the central conflict in this section. *ponders* M.
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2. Ever since I started writing in the fandom I’ve felt I have something to say and that’s been the reason I write (unlike when I was young and wanted to be a novelist, later a poet, and tried to write but had to stop because I had nothing to say).
Ah, that's what good fic is, I suppose--authors writing in order to say something to the world. I hadn't though about it that way, so generally, when I first posted this comment. You're quite right.
I now realise I’m not exactly ignoring HBP and JKR’s statements outside the books - I’m defying them in order to set at least some things right. First of all, I’ve given Remus a supportive childhood environment as well as some healing experiences during the so-called lost years, so he can be a stronger person than the one we are likely to interpret in HBP Lupin.I really think both of these things you mention are essential. Remus strikes me as a perceptive, empathetic character, and while obviously everyone has a history of trials and emotional ( ... )
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I’m even less anxious about this next book than I was about the previous one. Now I know for sure that Remus for me is not only the Lupin for whom I have to worry in canon. We can always read and write other stories about Remus, Peter or anyone we are interested in.
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