Meme--no idea who I stole it from, sorry to say

[x_losfic]

Entirely self-indulgent, I know, but WOMG work was FOUL and then today was v. sad, so I feel entitled? Also as a writer you live in a world wherein you only know your writing as YOU see it, and can't really perceive it as a reader does? Which is frustrating, and leads to Hardy writing foul poetry instead of more brill novels and Conan-Doyle loathing Holmes. So it's good to try to gain some perspective of how you work/don't for other people!




What would you say are the trademarks of my writing? What themes or quirks or turns of phrase have you noticed? What is it that makes a story/tag by me -- well, a story/tag by me? (...Man, person I stole this from, what IS a tag? Like, a skin tag? O_o)

And I'm adding, b/c am glutton for improving!punishment: what are the consistent points that you feel need improvement? ...tense and quotation issues, obviously, but, y'know, anything else? Particular voices? General style issues?




Also, have added anon-option on comments, in case you feel you can't tell me that you hatehatehate my metaphors or something to my user-icon and NEED to do it anonymously. Though obviously I'd feel more comfy if you, er, just said it, and would not in any way dislike you for pointing out that I should take more time with drafts or something (just an example, but I know I should on that particular one, and actually feel v. guilty for not ruminating more over a draft before I post it).

Comments

[blinkidybah.livejournal.com]

A tag is a chunk of prose that forms a reply in an RP setting.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. Huh. Dandy, thx!

[bagheera-san.livejournal.com]

Your fic usually requires research. You always reference stuff, either cultural or intertextual, and often in a way that fills me with a burning desire to google/wikipedia what the hell you're on about. Most of the time it's way smart/sort of academia-related.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Huh. Academia-related? Well, we do both have that linguistics kink... Thanks!

[aralias.livejournal.com]

mainly, as you pointed out yourself, i can tell its you because you still (sometimes, less now) do that thing with your quotations.

but you're writing style is always very beautiful, very lyrical, very dialogue (accurate, in character dialogue) heavy. you often describe the fifth doctor as 'the blond'. you switch comfortably between POVs without any markers and (possibly as a consequence) you're very keen on names, rather than ambiguous personal pronouns. there is usually a lot of very well written sex, which occasionally gets in the way of the plot, but usually not. you often think of tiny brilliant things that have no relevent to the plot which are so brilliant that you make me want to hurl things across the room and shout 'it's not FAIR' at any listening deities.

other stuff too obviously but apparently curry has been here for a while so i am going to eat it. you're very distinctive, but in a very good way. not arubbish hardy poetry type of way, though i have fondness for drummer hodge thanks to 'history boys' which i've just recalled you havent' seen...

anyway- curry :)

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Ah, that thing with quotations. It's my Signature Move, you know.

Gah. I need to stop calling him that. It's like, so uke/seme fanfiction, to call the character who typically bottoms by his hair color and avoid characterizing 'the top' by physicality.

A lot of people LOATHE 3rd omniscient. *wince* I can't help it, I just /live/ there. Writing other perspectives is challenging and limiting, like wearing an ill-fitting dress.

We clearly need to have a pillow fight over our writerly jealousy of each other. I say we schedule this. Trafalgar Square, amid the pigeons, or Speaker's Corner, amid the last surviving remnants of true believers in communism? No cheating by bringing one of those heavy memory-foam pillows.

Now I want curry!

Also I still need to read/see that...

[aralias.livejournal.com]

well, trafalgar square would be extremely convenient for me so just drop me a line should you be wandering around with bedding ;) i'm sure i have enough repressed frustration to carry me to victory *grins*

and i think 3rd person omniscient is cool, though i usually stay firmly in close 3rd person myself becuse the switches confuse me. i really can't bear fanfic written in the first person. which seems vaguely unfair, but it sets my teeth on edge.

aaand history boys is made of win. the best way to experience it is probably to listen to the original cast recording which means you miss the visuals (very sad) but get the proper script and cast. i think i saw a copy hanging around on that audiobooks community so i'll see if i can rustle one up. the film is a pale un-funny substitute and almost not worth watching even though harriet jones is in it.

p.s. uke/seme? what now?

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Oh, so speaking of: two summers ago I was staying with an uncle in London, just wandering around the National Portrait Gallery, and smacked directly into a friend from high school who I hadn't seen in years? A continent away from home? O_o I mean, serendipitous, but how /weird/.

I feel that: I hatehatehate first person fanfic. I know it might theoretically be well written, but it seems too much like self-insertion and I feel uncomfortable. Also first person at any length, other than as a narrative trick to showcase a unique perspective, kind of annoys me? I mean, you can't do much more then inhabit that single person. Which sounds like an obvious thing to say, but from a craft POV it's a little exhausting?

Oh, do tell me if you find that!

uke/seme? what now?

*eyeroll* This wiki kind of does it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi#Seme_and_uke

My knowledge of it and discomfort with it comes from having spent part of high school tangentially involved in anime fandom, and having been enough of a bitch to rip someone's head off for one too many 'lulz, he's just /so uke!!/' comments re: a character. Which granted, was stupid on my part, but I was what, 16? Stupid's like, par for the course.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

i like first person fine in novels, though i don't like i as much a third person, but in fanfic it never feels like the character talking and it just makes everything feel a bit... comical almost. it's just bad - particularly in a tv fandoms when you're naturally excluded from the character's minds. except in shows with annoying voice overs. i could probably accept a first person JD perspecive, but i don't know why i would be reading scrubs fanfic anyway.

and the bumping into people is scary/awesome. if you're in london again tell me :)

aaand everything about the breasts scares me. it also annoys me that if she's on screen i can't concentrate on the doctor or the plot because im too busy thinking 'man, peri's breasts are prominant. really... excessively prominant'.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

You know what's weird? After having said I pretty much exclusively do om-third I realized a LOT of my kinkmeme stuff ends up in close third b/c it's short and the tension relies on not knowing what one of the characters is thinking,, and almost anything of length ends up falling into omniscience.

I'm trying to think of novels I'm enjoyed in first person: Jane Eyre was in first, right? And I'll admit to finding Bridget Jones charming, but that was like, a full epistolary conceit rather than straight first person.

I certainly will!

Yeah, but the breasts distract me from Six, and after ToTL and audios got me to like him, watching more of him made me like his episodes better and him worse. His first season is pretty solidly un-endearing.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

also i haven't said it yet, but i really like the new layout :) pretty and practical - the scrolling down necessary in the library one was not convenient.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it fell under the rubric of Pretty but Annoying. Henceforth to be known as a 'Peri dilemma.'

[aralias.livejournal.com]

peri's breasts scare me...

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Er, what, the size? The firmness? I have to say, while I'm fine with the Mighty Mamaries, the outfits she chooses to encase them in frighten me. Blue lycra aerobics suit, why?

[ushas42.livejournal.com]

Man, its going to be hard to write this without drooling on your shoes. Above person is right about the details. You'll start talking about architectural styles on Gallifrey and it doesn't rip you out of the plot. It's just a natural part of the world these people live in that happens to be relevant. It's hard to categorize your works as darkfic or fluff or crack because you make crack seem plausible and you mix dark and fluff so well. I don't know what to call "Spoiled for Choice". Dark!fluff I suppose.

I do notice that you have a few words that you like using, like "lathe" or "keen" or "farrago". There are a few others, but those are the ones that come to mind because I've either never heard them before, or never heard them used that way. I'm sure you're using them right because you have such a grip on the english language it would be uncharacteristic of you to just misuse a word out of laziness. Its just fun to see them pop up and go "Oh, there's that word again!"

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Aw, I like Dark!fluff! Let's spread that like this was a highway system in Africa and it was AIDS...*wince* or a less horrifying comparison. I'm...kind of jarred by that myself, and I said it.

Ahahaha. Did not know I did that. Oh, farrago. You're a silly little word. Thanks!

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

You tend to focus on their relationship in a way I've seen with few other writers--the, oh god how do I explain this, the subtleties of it, following the threads of emotion and history and whatnot to make it feel the way it does feel when you share a relationship with someone. It underlies and drives your stories so that they feel like they're grounded in something, which just mingles right in with what somebody above pointed out about the way you come up with those brilliant things like Time Lord architecture or that they have established sides of the bed they sleep on. I can usually tell your writing even in the anon meme because this all makes it feel more substantial, easier to place in setting or headspace than most.

Things to work on? Nothing really jumps out at me as "things you do wrong." If anything, I'd say you've carved out a space where you're comfortable writing and especially skilled, and that stretching your boundaries wouldn't be a bad thing. But then, you do that too.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Man, you did like that bed thing! :p

Huh. So like, relationship!worldbuilding. *nod* Okay. Thanks! Good stuff to know.

Hm. I should boundary-push more. I'm not going to run off and go write a crapton of Jack/Doctor *blech*, but... I could deff. go plottier or try a pairing I enjoy like Brig/Liz. Though I couldn't make them do smut. I mean. Brig. I would feel his disapproval through the keyboard or something.

Maybe even a little gen-thingie, someday. When I grow up...

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

*cough* It just...stuck in my head as a good example, is all.

Maybe even a little gen-thingie, someday. When I grow up...

Now, now, we don't need to go to wild extremes! ;)

(Actually, I've always quite liked gen. There's a lot to be said for good old-fashioned adventure stories...though having read some Who-gen, I think it may be impossible to do if you include the Master.)

(Certainly the show's writers have never managed it.)

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, I could step away from him as a character and Write Other People. B/c yeah, I can't go to gen-land with him, it doesn't work for his MO in my mind. I mean, that's totally one of the reasons I couldn't rp him for those friends at the panfandom rp who wanted me to. The idea of trying to gen him/think of him sans shippiness up is like trying to make Nathan Lane straight, or Mel Brooks goy. Unless I don't get in his head AT ALL. And that would just bore me.