30 Days of Fanfic Writing: Days 1-3
1) How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
"The X-Files" fandom: Talk about the Golden Age of fan fiction! Man, we started this art form right!! With ‘Baby Internet’ still in formation, the X-Files fan fiction was high quality, no one phoning it in, it was FABULOUS. There was no online fan fiction before The X-Files.
Fortunately for me, because my mother worked for the IEEE, we had access to a great deal of technology before it became mainstream. I remember the day she told me to come downstairs (to her in home office) so she could show me this thing called, "America Online". "What is it?" I asked. "You can't describe it, just come down. It's incredible!" And she was right.
This was 1996, The X-Files had already been on the air for three years. It was the fanbase that soon occupied 1/3 of the entire Internet. it was this fanbase that pioneered internet fanfiction, shipper language that has become universal, and it was our persistence and quality writing that is the reason online fan fiction is legal today. I remember how terrified we were that we would be sued for posting fanfiction and how worried we were that at any second, it would all be taken down. Every time we posted a story, we had to be wary of big brother - something Mulder taught us about quite well.
We were quite brave, quite intelligent in proving our worth and validity in this new Internet age. I don't think any other fanbase will experience what X-Philers did. I remember the fans self-teaching themselves website design and photo/video editing before there was any such career field. Hell, it was before photoshop, before Google, and before social media. It was so much more personal. I miss it.
I was known as “The X-Files Girl” in my high school. It was a huge high school, and even though they didn’t know anything about me, they’d call out, “Hey X-Files girl!” “Yeah!?” lol. I used to bring printed outs of various fan fics to class so I could, you know….stay awake. Often they were NC-17. The teachers always thought I was the most dedicated student as I read, always *studying*. I actually was dedicated. I won a special award in high school for ‘most conscientious’…I just happen to also have read a lot fan fiction. xD
I remember the woman who uploaded me the first X-Files fan fiction I ever read. She was a good fandom friend from Ohio named Rita Waters, and we were good friends for several years. When she used the term "fan fiction", I was completely lost on the concept. She tried to explain, "It's the fans writing stories of Mulder and Scully." I responded, "Errrr, like writing up transcripts? Or quotes of the characters?" "No, like our own stories of the characters, as if we were the show's writers, but without the show." And I replied, "What's the point?" It sounded so pointless to me, as it would if you'd never heard of it. I mean what's the point if David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson aren't going to be acting it? I was only 13, and she was a grown woman with two teenage children. So she was extremely responsible about sending me NC-17 stories. She actually requested my mother send her an email authorizing her to share her favorite stories with me, some of them NC-17. My mother did so - 'cause my mom rocks - and Rita started sharing stories with me.
The first MSR fan fiction she ever sent me was "Playing Goddess" by Shalimar. OMG, what a great story to begin with. This is one of my favorite X-Files fan fictions of all time. Now at the time, I was so young and so inexperienced with life and boys and romance and just plain...good writing, that even though I wrote dozens of X-Files stories, it's a HARD genre to write believably. Scully speaks with words that are literally not in the dictionary (like "edematous", for example), and it's full of grown up concepts and themes. A 13-year old-child simply doesn't have the ability to do it justice. So I wrote them, posted them on The Gossamer Project and later, removed all of them. They're still on my harddrive, I shudder sometimes re-reading my very first NC-17 fan fiction, but on my hard drive is where they shall stay.
Still, we all owe every fan fiction we've ever written or read to the X-Files fandom. My shipper heart and soul began with the X-Files. The first characters I ever wrote were Mulder and Scully. My first muses, plot bunnies, and fandom friends were all born from the X-Files. It's quite incredible, when you think about it.
2) Name the fandoms you've written in, and how much you've written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.
These don't quite match up with what's on my hard drive, but this is an accurate list of what I have posted online. Dozens of stories will remain unpublished, and for good reason -- they sucked.
- X-Men Movieverse - 4 fics (various lengths), may write again
- Alias - 3 ficlets, may write again
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 1 ficlets, may write again
- General Hospital - 2 fics (various lengths), may write again
- Smallville - 14 fics (varous lengths), may write again
Rogue and Wolverine of The X-Men come in second place. The whole X-Men universe was so vast and incredible with so many incredible characters to revolve around W/R that it really fed my creative energies for many happy years.
Tess and Oliver of Smallville come in first place. They still feed my creative energies and whenever a story comes into my mind, it becomes theirs instantly. They are so different than any other characters that I've written, and the height of their romantic and fiery passion is still the source of many of my latest fics.
30 Days of Fan Fiction Meme
1) How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
2) Name the fandoms you've written in, and how much you've written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.
3) For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favourite characters to write?
4) Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?
5) If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your "muse" or not, what did you do about it?
6) When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?
7) Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?
8) Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they're not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.
9) Pairings - For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favourite pairings to write?
10) Pairings - Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?
11) Genre - do you prefer certain genres of fic when you're writing? What kind do you tend to write most?
12) Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" fic of a favourite book or movie but set in a different fandom?
13) Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?
14) Ratings - how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you're comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you're writing is G-rated instead?
15) Warnings - What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what's the strangest thing you've warned for in a fic?
16) Summaries - Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?
17) Titles - Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
18) Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?
19) When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?
20) Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?
21) Sequels - Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?
22) Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favourite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?
23) When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?
24) Betaing - How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
25) Music - Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
26) What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
27) Where is your favourite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?
28) Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
29) What is your current project or projects?
30) Do you have a favourite fic you've written? What makes it your favourite? And don't forget to give us a link!