Thirty Days of Fanfiction: Day Three
3 - For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?
I'll limit the fandoms to those I wrote more than five stories in, because less than that don't really cut it for favourites.
Babylon 5: I started with the Centauri - Londo, Vir, Timov, Adira, Mariel, Cartagia - and of course one Narn, G'Kar - and then branched out to the telepaths - Bester, Talia, Lyta, and in a combination of what interested me most, Centauri telepaths, i.e. the four women serving Emperor Turhan - and eventually the humans (Garibaldi, Morden, Sinclair, Anna Sheridan and Lochley). What surprised me was that I found the human characters, who hadn't been my main focus as a watcher, as easy to write as the characters whose dialogue I could have recited at some point, and that I enjoyed writing them a lot instead of feeling I was just doing my duty for various challenges. This being said: I'd lie if I said Londo wasn't my favourite here as well. Closely followed by Timov and Vir. Their voices were just instantly accessible to me; I never hand a ponder for long what they would say or think, whereas I did that for G'Kar. Oddly enough, my favourite G'Kar pov story is one which features Londo only a secondary character, and Mariel as a main character; I had a blast writing Mariel and her affair with G'Kar which is about many different things for both of them, and none of them involves love. Also, this was where I felt I got G'Kar's darker side which isn't much dealt with in fanfiction because his arc is one of enlightnment. Someone I loved writing nearly as much as my Centauri was Bester, both about from someone else's pov and from his own. Not to mention that he's one of those characters born for crossovers because no matter which universe you put him in, the dialogue almost writes itself, conflicts are inevitable, and plot is guaranteed to happen.
Heroes: Oh, Petrellis. How I used to love you all. Also Bennets. And Hiro. And Molly. And Matt. And unexpectedly, in the second season, Mohinder. And Bob. And Nikki. And... anyway. If I have to narrow it down, my favourite character to write was Nathan (both in the sense of writing about and writing pov), but I had expected that, whereas Nikki, for whom the show writing as shaky for even in season 1, was the character who surprised me most because I had never expected to want to write her, and writing her I did. I first wrote her pov as one of three sections in a post-s1 story. And then when I wrote my Heroes-as-Runaways story which is, depending on my mood, my favourite or second favourite of anything I wrote for Heroes, I need someone other than Peter to talk back to Nathan and (as opposed to Peter) be immune to the big brother treatment, and teenage Nikki was perfect. The last Heroes story I wrote before quitting the fandom was about Bob and Nikki and the curiously affectionate relationship that developed between them (especially in the lights of what Bob did to his own daughter and what Nikki's father did to her), and somehow that fit. I also enjoyed writing Claire a lot, but the memory of one single story - the other one who is either my favourite or second favourite - which was basically my attempt to venture into Gaiman territory, makes Molly my favourite female to write. She was the ideal child heroine to experience the Heroesverse via dreams and fairytales. So: Nathan, Nikki, Molly.
Angel: the Series: Darla and Connor, no ifs, no buts. Most of my AtS stories feature one or the other, and in one instance I'm very fond of, both. Surprise third: Lorne, because I never planned on writing him, but first bimo dared me, which resulted in a Lorne and Wesley tale and then he just had to meet post-Not Fade Away Connor, and then he showed up in my SFU crossover as well, and every time, his lines just flowed to my pen, err, computer.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Quark. Which surprised me as my Quark fondness did, because back in the day like most people I fell for Garak when getting into DS9. And I did and do enjoy writing Garak just as I enjoy watching the character, but somehow Quark snuck up on me and became not only my favourite DS9 character but also commandeered a lot of my stories. Most recently he smuggled himself into a DS9 Yuletide story where the prompter had asked about Worf, Ezri, Jadzia and Julian and stole every scene he was in. I also tend to partially blame him of making me fall for Dax just as he did, and somehow this resulted not only in Jadzia being a key character in several stories but an epic tale about an obscure bit of Curzon (and also Jadzia) backstory, and most recently Ezri. Now I might have written Kira as often as Dax (and Five things that never happened between Kira and Dukat is certainly one of the DS9 tales I'm proudest of), but if we're talking about whom I loved to write more? Dax. And then there was Winn, Winn Adami, Kai Winn, whom I loved writing, too, bless her Renaissance cardinal self. Character whom I didn't expect to love writing but did: Jake Sisko. My two Jake stories came unprompted and unrequested, they simply happened because he talked to me.
Alias: give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. Arvin Sloane. Second favourite: Marshall.
Merlin (TV): I love them all, our regulars (plus Morgause), but I have to choose the hapless Sir William of Deira, because he was such a blast to flesh out, and Kilgarrah, because I have a thing for the wily old beast and could indulge my mythic vein as well as the one for old-and-messed-up when writing the Great Dragon.
Doctor Who: Jooooooooo. I mean, I tried my hand at several incarnations of the Doctor and am told this came across credibly for the regenerations in question, which made me relieved and proud, but writing Jo Grant just was my favourite thing in this fandom ever.
X-Men (Comicverse): Abigail Brand and Hank McCoy. Bet you're surprised. I was a bit frightened to dabble in the comicverse at first because of the decades of backstory, and started with a vignette about Emma Frost, but then basically Brand captured me and never let me go, and Hank is, well, how can you not love (comicverse) Hank? And there was a distinct lack of fanfiction about the former, while the later mostly showed up with Bobby, and not that I begrudge any Iceman/Beast shippers their rich comicverse history, but it wasn't my thing. Hence the call of the muse.
Highlander: The Series: Cassandra. Death and the Maiden is still one of the stories which I think put me on another level as a writer to where I was before, and Cassandra was actually the first case of me falling for a fandom underdog who was hated in wide circles for her attitude towards the fandom favourite. It's a bit like with Quark and Garak - Methos was the character I loved first and certainly expected to love and write about, and he shows up in most of my HL fanfiction, but Cassandra is the one I ended up loving most writing.
Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Well, he did get me into the fandom to begin with, so this is no surprise, though of my SW stories most are actually of another pov; he's one of those characters that work best for me (in a story) explored from the outside, with one exception; the story about the newly renamed, crippled and rebuild Vader experiencing life in his shell.
Battlestar Galactica (2003): I think most of these were crossovers, but a few weren't, and anyway, the answer is Laura Roslin. She did not stay my favourite character - which she was at the beginning - but she was my favourite to write about, either from her or someone else's pov.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy. Most of my few BTVS pieces were disguised meta, more or less, except for City Girls; I never had the urge to write for BTVS the way I did for AtS despite loving both shows equally.
Torchwood: To my surprise, I find Jack is in all my stories, and several of them deal with someone else's relationship with him (Owen's and Alice's, to be precise, which reminds me: too bad they never met. Not that a meeting would have gone necessarily well, but it would have been interesting.) "Surprise" because he never was my favourite character on either TW or DW. But he's undeniably a good catalyst. This being said, I don't think I have a favourite character to write in my stories. (As opposed to having some on the show itself.) Other than Jack showing up (even if just in the sense of being talked about, as in "Backstage Management"), there is no red thread, and they all cover different aspects of Torchwood.
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.
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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/688818.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
I'll limit the fandoms to those I wrote more than five stories in, because less than that don't really cut it for favourites.
Babylon 5: I started with the Centauri - Londo, Vir, Timov, Adira, Mariel, Cartagia - and of course one Narn, G'Kar - and then branched out to the telepaths - Bester, Talia, Lyta, and in a combination of what interested me most, Centauri telepaths, i.e. the four women serving Emperor Turhan - and eventually the humans (Garibaldi, Morden, Sinclair, Anna Sheridan and Lochley). What surprised me was that I found the human characters, who hadn't been my main focus as a watcher, as easy to write as the characters whose dialogue I could have recited at some point, and that I enjoyed writing them a lot instead of feeling I was just doing my duty for various challenges. This being said: I'd lie if I said Londo wasn't my favourite here as well. Closely followed by Timov and Vir. Their voices were just instantly accessible to me; I never hand a ponder for long what they would say or think, whereas I did that for G'Kar. Oddly enough, my favourite G'Kar pov story is one which features Londo only a secondary character, and Mariel as a main character; I had a blast writing Mariel and her affair with G'Kar which is about many different things for both of them, and none of them involves love. Also, this was where I felt I got G'Kar's darker side which isn't much dealt with in fanfiction because his arc is one of enlightnment. Someone I loved writing nearly as much as my Centauri was Bester, both about from someone else's pov and from his own. Not to mention that he's one of those characters born for crossovers because no matter which universe you put him in, the dialogue almost writes itself, conflicts are inevitable, and plot is guaranteed to happen.
Heroes: Oh, Petrellis. How I used to love you all. Also Bennets. And Hiro. And Molly. And Matt. And unexpectedly, in the second season, Mohinder. And Bob. And Nikki. And... anyway. If I have to narrow it down, my favourite character to write was Nathan (both in the sense of writing about and writing pov), but I had expected that, whereas Nikki, for whom the show writing as shaky for even in season 1, was the character who surprised me most because I had never expected to want to write her, and writing her I did. I first wrote her pov as one of three sections in a post-s1 story. And then when I wrote my Heroes-as-Runaways story which is, depending on my mood, my favourite or second favourite of anything I wrote for Heroes, I need someone other than Peter to talk back to Nathan and (as opposed to Peter) be immune to the big brother treatment, and teenage Nikki was perfect. The last Heroes story I wrote before quitting the fandom was about Bob and Nikki and the curiously affectionate relationship that developed between them (especially in the lights of what Bob did to his own daughter and what Nikki's father did to her), and somehow that fit. I also enjoyed writing Claire a lot, but the memory of one single story - the other one who is either my favourite or second favourite - which was basically my attempt to venture into Gaiman territory, makes Molly my favourite female to write. She was the ideal child heroine to experience the Heroesverse via dreams and fairytales. So: Nathan, Nikki, Molly.
Angel: the Series: Darla and Connor, no ifs, no buts. Most of my AtS stories feature one or the other, and in one instance I'm very fond of, both. Surprise third: Lorne, because I never planned on writing him, but first bimo dared me, which resulted in a Lorne and Wesley tale and then he just had to meet post-Not Fade Away Connor, and then he showed up in my SFU crossover as well, and every time, his lines just flowed to my pen, err, computer.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Quark. Which surprised me as my Quark fondness did, because back in the day like most people I fell for Garak when getting into DS9. And I did and do enjoy writing Garak just as I enjoy watching the character, but somehow Quark snuck up on me and became not only my favourite DS9 character but also commandeered a lot of my stories. Most recently he smuggled himself into a DS9 Yuletide story where the prompter had asked about Worf, Ezri, Jadzia and Julian and stole every scene he was in. I also tend to partially blame him of making me fall for Dax just as he did, and somehow this resulted not only in Jadzia being a key character in several stories but an epic tale about an obscure bit of Curzon (and also Jadzia) backstory, and most recently Ezri. Now I might have written Kira as often as Dax (and Five things that never happened between Kira and Dukat is certainly one of the DS9 tales I'm proudest of), but if we're talking about whom I loved to write more? Dax. And then there was Winn, Winn Adami, Kai Winn, whom I loved writing, too, bless her Renaissance cardinal self. Character whom I didn't expect to love writing but did: Jake Sisko. My two Jake stories came unprompted and unrequested, they simply happened because he talked to me.
Alias: give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. Arvin Sloane. Second favourite: Marshall.
Merlin (TV): I love them all, our regulars (plus Morgause), but I have to choose the hapless Sir William of Deira, because he was such a blast to flesh out, and Kilgarrah, because I have a thing for the wily old beast and could indulge my mythic vein as well as the one for old-and-messed-up when writing the Great Dragon.
Doctor Who: Jooooooooo. I mean, I tried my hand at several incarnations of the Doctor and am told this came across credibly for the regenerations in question, which made me relieved and proud, but writing Jo Grant just was my favourite thing in this fandom ever.
X-Men (Comicverse): Abigail Brand and Hank McCoy. Bet you're surprised. I was a bit frightened to dabble in the comicverse at first because of the decades of backstory, and started with a vignette about Emma Frost, but then basically Brand captured me and never let me go, and Hank is, well, how can you not love (comicverse) Hank? And there was a distinct lack of fanfiction about the former, while the later mostly showed up with Bobby, and not that I begrudge any Iceman/Beast shippers their rich comicverse history, but it wasn't my thing. Hence the call of the muse.
Highlander: The Series: Cassandra. Death and the Maiden is still one of the stories which I think put me on another level as a writer to where I was before, and Cassandra was actually the first case of me falling for a fandom underdog who was hated in wide circles for her attitude towards the fandom favourite. It's a bit like with Quark and Garak - Methos was the character I loved first and certainly expected to love and write about, and he shows up in most of my HL fanfiction, but Cassandra is the one I ended up loving most writing.
Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Well, he did get me into the fandom to begin with, so this is no surprise, though of my SW stories most are actually of another pov; he's one of those characters that work best for me (in a story) explored from the outside, with one exception; the story about the newly renamed, crippled and rebuild Vader experiencing life in his shell.
Battlestar Galactica (2003): I think most of these were crossovers, but a few weren't, and anyway, the answer is Laura Roslin. She did not stay my favourite character - which she was at the beginning - but she was my favourite to write about, either from her or someone else's pov.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy. Most of my few BTVS pieces were disguised meta, more or less, except for City Girls; I never had the urge to write for BTVS the way I did for AtS despite loving both shows equally.
Torchwood: To my surprise, I find Jack is in all my stories, and several of them deal with someone else's relationship with him (Owen's and Alice's, to be precise, which reminds me: too bad they never met. Not that a meeting would have gone necessarily well, but it would have been interesting.) "Surprise" because he never was my favourite character on either TW or DW. But he's undeniably a good catalyst. This being said, I don't think I have a favourite character to write in my stories. (As opposed to having some on the show itself.) Other than Jack showing up (even if just in the sense of being talked about, as in "Backstage Management"), there is no red thread, and they all cover different aspects of Torchwood.
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.
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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite 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 favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/688818.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.