the fic meme I've always wanted

[warmboys]

Felt like making a meme for some reason. Feel free to steal any or all of the questions for your own amusement :D Or even post your answers here. I'm really curious about other people's processes.



If you had to delete all but five of your stories, which five would you keep and why? (Or ten if you're more prolific.)

(If ten:)

The Ones We Were is one of the few stories I've written that consists of a legible plot and throughline.

Writing Sway showed me how much writing meant to me, that it could preoccupy me with a single, though convoluted, premise for an entire summer and not allow me to grow tired of it or cast it aside in favor of younger, shinier plunnies. I was gripped with the desire to tell the story, though I am not sure I did it well.

I feel inclined to include of us, a history complete because of how well it was received. I remember being proud of it at the time, having written it the night before I had to come back to school after my year off, and how writing it supposedly made me sick. Now I wonder if I would've been as proud had it'd been more coldly welcomed. Rereading it now makes me cringe.

Sweet Like Sugar, Baby is another one that would probably not survive a reread but made me ridiculously proud at the time. I can't remember why now? I think I hadn't written anything of substantial length at the time so just the act of telling a coherent story was exciting.

Through My Wires I Found God reminds me of a bad time made good with music. It also reminds me of Katie. Here began the descent of hanchul, haha.

First Chance, I guess, is my favorite. I think I started reading Western fandoms and it shows.

I felt that with something's gotta give I was striving for honesty. I hadn't written them in a while so the stylistic and tonal shifts occurred naturally.

This Is Hardcore is one of those 10281029 meta pieces I like to write when I have nothing else to offer (always). AKA lazy writing. But I do like the writing here, which feels like a triumph.

Test Drive--why was this included? Sometimes while writing I have to squint and envision what I'm trying to . . . see. If it makes sense in a realistic context. I kind of like the end product here.

And I'm going to add And You Unending Afterthoughts because it was my first real semi-successful venture into a non-Kpop fandom!

(If four, because I couldn't choose five:)

Sway, First Chance, something's gotta give, and
Somebody I Used to Know: This was not included in the above list because I couldn't figure out how to delete something without deleting a whole lot of other things for the express purpose of adding this one story. But if I delete everything else, it's a lot easier to keep this one.

What disappointed you the most about your last story?

I guess that would be the Pilsook/Hyemi I wrote for kpopvalentines. Um, it doesn't feel like a real story? There are many things wrong with it, I don't even know where to begin. In that sense it didn't so much disappoint me because I hadn't expected myself to do much good with it.

Pick a passage you're especially proud of. Ideally it'd be one of the best passages you think you've ever written.

For him, there are vignettes, immobile in their clarity. Heechul had grown his hair long a couple times in his life, once for at least a year until it grazed the small of his back. That one time they visited the beach with Donghae, Hyukjae, and Jungsu, who’d always been more of Heechul’s friend than his. . . well, they all had been-but that time. The three of them, Jungsu and him and Heechul, were in college now, but the younger ones were in their last year of high school, still worrying about entrance exams and a slightly less imminent future, and it’d been-springtime? Maybe. Yes. It’d been April, and Heechul had said, “I miss the water,” one morning, and it’d been only a year after that car hit him and kept going, so for the past twelve months Hankyung hadn’t once been able to say the word “no”; everything was “sure,” “okay,” “you want fries with that?” The last one with a wink and a sliding of his lips into a shape that no longer felt familiar; Hankyung had to have the strength to carry another person now, and sometimes he envied the others for their faith that at the end of the day, someone up there could do it for you. Someone was watching out for you. But that was his job, watching out for Heechul, spying out the corner of his eye even when he pretended to be asleep, because at that point he couldn’t leave him alone without feeling sick. Even after Heechul came off the crutches, he still couldn’t. So when Heechul said, “Hey,” and mentioned something about the beach, Hankyung’s head ticked and spun with road maps-Google didn’t own the world back then-and they outlined plans and packed sandwiches and in the end headed for the one just half an hour away-anticlimactic, like Heechul would say, but at least he never said Well, what’s the point? because the answer to that was clear.

Now tear it apart.

-but that time. Is this a cop-out? Could I have found a way to continue that line of thought without using an abrupt dash? (At least I aimed for consistency with -springtime? but still, something to think about.)

Maybe. Yes. This is so easy.

Were the semicolons necessary?

Even after Heechul came off the crutches, he still couldn’t. This doesn't feel particularly eloquent.

Some of the asides seem more me than Hankyung, like I can't resist making a bad joke when the opportunity presents itself.

Run-on sentences are almost never a good idea.

What's a favorite story by someone else? How would you describe the style, narrative technique, etc (whatever you want to say about it)?

14 forever by prillalar

Her style is obvious, which then feels like it shouldn't work, because a very obvious style can distract from what is happening in the story, but what she does is make it a part of the story. Her sentences are short and to-the-point, like the MomoKai dynamic. There is some careful repetition (enough so that it doesn't annoy us). The last line is heartrending and takes us by surprise. I think this kind of writing works best in short fanfic--I'm not sure how it'd translate over to a novel.

If you could choose to emulate one fic writer, who would it be and why?

traveller. I mean, she (she?) writes stuff like this and then like this. Just got it. Clear command of tone, style, diction, and a joy--fascination--to read.

How do you feel when or after reading something really good? Be honest.

Sometimes I feel like shit. Most of the time it's invigorating, a la Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up." I feel like shit when I realize anew the long road I've got ahead of me. There are different levels of inspiration. Some stories are good for characterization. "Natural writers" are the ones that awe me the most because they make it seem so easy. And then there are writers who inadvertently flaunt their intelligence and knowledge of the world through the details they choose to include in their stories and they make me aware of how little I know and how I must improve myself. Discouragement can be powerful! As long as you have an ounce of faith in yourself.

Pick an introduction to one of your stories and rewrite it as if it were not fanfiction but just plain fiction, ie. don't presume that the reader knows anything about the characters.

What are five of your favorite words?

Bonus: refrain from using any of those words in the next story you write.