A Writers' Questionnaire
Taken from complexlight and paperscribe. Thanks for the idea!
I'm answering based on my Lewis writing, simply because my work in my earlier fandoms isn't as fresh in my memory these days.
1. What is your most popular fic?
If I go by hits, then Recuperation, but comments and kudos suggest that it’s Love Knows Not Its Own Depth.
2. What is your favourite thing you’ve written?
Hard to say, as I go through love-hate relationships with my fic. Right after I’ve posted something, I generally conclude that it’s clearly the worst thing I’ve ever written. Then I might re-read a few months later and think ‘hey, maybe it’s not so bad’. Favourite? That changes - sometimes it’ll be a crackfic that I’m proud of having pulled off; sometimes it might be a drabble that really did seem to work - or sometimes Love Knows Not....
3. What fic was the hardest to write?
Omne Trium Perfectum - my threesome fic. That was well over a year in the writing, though admittedly I barely touched it for almost a year. I started writing it immediately after S7 ended, but a couple of threesome fics got posted fairly quickly after that, which made me feel that anything else might be overdoing it. So I lost confidence in the idea, and didn’t resurrect it again until uniquepov’s birthday was coming up, when I decided to try to finish it for her. Even then, I wouldn’t have managed it without divingforstones’ help and encouragement.
4. What’s the fic you really loved that doesn’t get as much attention as the others?
Hmm. I often think it’s Terra Incognita, and then I check the kudos and see that it’s not really the case. Part of the problem with that fic, for me, is that it’s multi-chapter, but because it was for a big bang I had to post it all in one day - I prefer to spread out longer fics over several days, or a week or two, because I like to see reactions to individual chapters and how they end. A personal preference thing, but it also helps me to gauge reader response and learn from it.
I do have a few fics with none or few comments, but that’s okay; not everything will appeal to everyone, or even anyone! ;)
5. What fic was the easiest to write?
Most of my drabbles - and, perhaps, my very first Lewis fic, To Rise from the Ashes. That one attacked me as I was still working my way through the first few series for the very first time, and I wrote it more or less in one sitting.
6. What fic/book (by someone else) made you want to write?
I don’t think I’ve ever been motivated to write by something I’ve read, although of course there are many great fics and books out there that I enjoy reading and re-reading. What makes me want to write are always great characters and situations I want to revisit. That’s been the case in every fandom I’ve been active in. The characters grip me, get inside my head and won’t let me go.
7. What’s one thing you’d like to improve about your writing?
So much. I’d love to have a better handle on description and scene-setting, and so admire authors who can paint an image with words and have the readers visualise the setting, right down to the scents and colours of the backdrop. Something like this leaves me in awe:
Once he’s ended the call-after thanking her, he’ll later hope-he stands in his kitchen and finds the hand that was holding the phone has released it onto the countertop, which he leans against for a moment. The sunlight continues to spread agreeably across the base of Robbie’s garden wall. The leaves swirl a little, some of them extracting themselves from the pile as a reminder of a mundane task that’ll need to be carried out. The kitchen clock ticks away, audible only when you stand still and silent but quite loud right now. And somewhere, half a world and several timezones away-There’s that feeling of losing James, somehow, building even before he left, and now all of a sudden sharpening into something undeniable, like it’s been a premonition after all.
I’d love to be able to get inside James’s head in all his erudition, abstract and esoteric quotes and all, and be sure that I have the balance right between the inner turmoil we catch glimpses of and the intelligent, strong, capable officer.
And many more things that will no doubt come back to me later.
8. What’s one thing you like about your writing?
That’s not a question I’m any good at answering! If pushed, I’d say I love writing drabbles, and when a drabble really works I love the rhythm of the phrasing, and the challenge of coming up with the perfect last line, something that will stick with the reader. My favourite drabbles are those where the final line is a gut-punch.
9. What’s the hardest part about writing?
Keeping the motivation going when I’m tired, as I am a lot lately. I long for the days when I used to write 5000+ words in a day and finish a long fic in a week or two. Mind you, then I’d be putting far too much stuff out there and overloading AO3 with my fic, so it’s probably just as well! Writing and finishing a short fic is easy; finishing a multi-chapter fic these days is very difficult. I have two long stories I’m actively working on, with a further two or three currently stalled.
10. The easiest?
Coming up with inspiration And writing drabbles.
One thing I also love is co-authoring, so very many thanks to those I’ve already co-authored with (paperscribe, divingforstones, complexlight, and my How To Train Your Sergeant partners in crime, lindenharp, uniquepov and sasha1600). And I look forward to finishing some works in progress with others.
11. Any fic you wish you could go back and make changes to? What fic? What changes would you make?
I honestly can’t say. If I spot typos in something that’s posted, I will always go and correct them, and the same goes for minor errors.
If I were to go back to fic in earlier fandoms, I’d edit a lot of my Lois and Clark fics: the earliest ones to fix some egregious POV switches made before I really understood POV, and some later ones where my writing grew really bloated and repetitive in parts with too much internal narrative, the same scene repeated from two characters’ POVs - those I would rewrite and reduce probably by about a third in length.
12. What advice would you give to other writers just starting out?
Watch, watch, and watch again. Watch episodes until you can hear the characters’ voices in your head, and you know how they would react to particular situations. As you write, listen to your characters; do they sound like they do on TV? Are they reacting to situations as they would on TV? Do they seem like themselves? If you’re not sure, ask someone to give you feedback.
Start small; if you try to write a novel first time out, you’ll be biting off more than you can chew. You may get discouraged and not finish - which will be worse still if you’ve tried to post as you go along. Try something relatively short, such as an episode tag or brief scene; that will give you a sense of accomplishment, and it’ll be something you can post to get some feedback.
Find a beta-reader - not necessarily your best friend, but someone who is an experienced writer. Take their advice, or be very clear about why you’re not taking it (BRs are not always right, just 99% of the time ;) ). And be open to constructive criticism - most of the time, those offering it (if they do; it’s not often offered) mean well and want to help you improve.
I'm answering based on my Lewis writing, simply because my work in my earlier fandoms isn't as fresh in my memory these days.
1. What is your most popular fic?
If I go by hits, then Recuperation, but comments and kudos suggest that it’s Love Knows Not Its Own Depth.
2. What is your favourite thing you’ve written?
Hard to say, as I go through love-hate relationships with my fic. Right after I’ve posted something, I generally conclude that it’s clearly the worst thing I’ve ever written. Then I might re-read a few months later and think ‘hey, maybe it’s not so bad’. Favourite? That changes - sometimes it’ll be a crackfic that I’m proud of having pulled off; sometimes it might be a drabble that really did seem to work - or sometimes Love Knows Not....
3. What fic was the hardest to write?
Omne Trium Perfectum - my threesome fic. That was well over a year in the writing, though admittedly I barely touched it for almost a year. I started writing it immediately after S7 ended, but a couple of threesome fics got posted fairly quickly after that, which made me feel that anything else might be overdoing it. So I lost confidence in the idea, and didn’t resurrect it again until uniquepov’s birthday was coming up, when I decided to try to finish it for her. Even then, I wouldn’t have managed it without divingforstones’ help and encouragement.
4. What’s the fic you really loved that doesn’t get as much attention as the others?
Hmm. I often think it’s Terra Incognita, and then I check the kudos and see that it’s not really the case. Part of the problem with that fic, for me, is that it’s multi-chapter, but because it was for a big bang I had to post it all in one day - I prefer to spread out longer fics over several days, or a week or two, because I like to see reactions to individual chapters and how they end. A personal preference thing, but it also helps me to gauge reader response and learn from it.
I do have a few fics with none or few comments, but that’s okay; not everything will appeal to everyone, or even anyone! ;)
5. What fic was the easiest to write?
Most of my drabbles - and, perhaps, my very first Lewis fic, To Rise from the Ashes. That one attacked me as I was still working my way through the first few series for the very first time, and I wrote it more or less in one sitting.
6. What fic/book (by someone else) made you want to write?
I don’t think I’ve ever been motivated to write by something I’ve read, although of course there are many great fics and books out there that I enjoy reading and re-reading. What makes me want to write are always great characters and situations I want to revisit. That’s been the case in every fandom I’ve been active in. The characters grip me, get inside my head and won’t let me go.
7. What’s one thing you’d like to improve about your writing?
So much. I’d love to have a better handle on description and scene-setting, and so admire authors who can paint an image with words and have the readers visualise the setting, right down to the scents and colours of the backdrop. Something like this leaves me in awe:
Once he’s ended the call-after thanking her, he’ll later hope-he stands in his kitchen and finds the hand that was holding the phone has released it onto the countertop, which he leans against for a moment. The sunlight continues to spread agreeably across the base of Robbie’s garden wall. The leaves swirl a little, some of them extracting themselves from the pile as a reminder of a mundane task that’ll need to be carried out. The kitchen clock ticks away, audible only when you stand still and silent but quite loud right now. And somewhere, half a world and several timezones away-There’s that feeling of losing James, somehow, building even before he left, and now all of a sudden sharpening into something undeniable, like it’s been a premonition after all.
I’d love to be able to get inside James’s head in all his erudition, abstract and esoteric quotes and all, and be sure that I have the balance right between the inner turmoil we catch glimpses of and the intelligent, strong, capable officer.
And many more things that will no doubt come back to me later.
8. What’s one thing you like about your writing?
That’s not a question I’m any good at answering! If pushed, I’d say I love writing drabbles, and when a drabble really works I love the rhythm of the phrasing, and the challenge of coming up with the perfect last line, something that will stick with the reader. My favourite drabbles are those where the final line is a gut-punch.
9. What’s the hardest part about writing?
Keeping the motivation going when I’m tired, as I am a lot lately. I long for the days when I used to write 5000+ words in a day and finish a long fic in a week or two. Mind you, then I’d be putting far too much stuff out there and overloading AO3 with my fic, so it’s probably just as well! Writing and finishing a short fic is easy; finishing a multi-chapter fic these days is very difficult. I have two long stories I’m actively working on, with a further two or three currently stalled.
10. The easiest?
Coming up with inspiration And writing drabbles.
One thing I also love is co-authoring, so very many thanks to those I’ve already co-authored with (paperscribe, divingforstones, complexlight, and my How To Train Your Sergeant partners in crime, lindenharp, uniquepov and sasha1600). And I look forward to finishing some works in progress with others.
11. Any fic you wish you could go back and make changes to? What fic? What changes would you make?
I honestly can’t say. If I spot typos in something that’s posted, I will always go and correct them, and the same goes for minor errors.
If I were to go back to fic in earlier fandoms, I’d edit a lot of my Lois and Clark fics: the earliest ones to fix some egregious POV switches made before I really understood POV, and some later ones where my writing grew really bloated and repetitive in parts with too much internal narrative, the same scene repeated from two characters’ POVs - those I would rewrite and reduce probably by about a third in length.
12. What advice would you give to other writers just starting out?
Watch, watch, and watch again. Watch episodes until you can hear the characters’ voices in your head, and you know how they would react to particular situations. As you write, listen to your characters; do they sound like they do on TV? Are they reacting to situations as they would on TV? Do they seem like themselves? If you’re not sure, ask someone to give you feedback.
Start small; if you try to write a novel first time out, you’ll be biting off more than you can chew. You may get discouraged and not finish - which will be worse still if you’ve tried to post as you go along. Try something relatively short, such as an episode tag or brief scene; that will give you a sense of accomplishment, and it’ll be something you can post to get some feedback.
Find a beta-reader - not necessarily your best friend, but someone who is an experienced writer. Take their advice, or be very clear about why you’re not taking it (BRs are not always right, just 99% of the time ;) ). And be open to constructive criticism - most of the time, those offering it (if they do; it’s not often offered) mean well and want to help you improve.