It's Only Fair ...

[therealsnape]

If one asks friends to answer questions, one should join the meme oneself.

So here goes (seen at tetleythesecond's journal):

***

Give me a # and I'll answer it. The mission for those of us who answer it, should we accept it, is to stay positive about our writing and ourselves, but to also be fair about our shortcomings.

1. Of the fic you’ve written, which are you most proud of?
2. Favorite tense (past/present/future)
3. Favorite POV (first/second/third/etc)
4. What are some themes you love writing about?
5. What inspires you to write?
6. Thoughts on critique
7. Create a character on the spot…. NOW!
8. Is there a character you love writing for the most? the least? why?
9. A passage from a WIP
10. What are your strengths in writing?
11. What are your weaknesses in writing?
12. What’s your favorite place for writing resources?
13. Who are your favorite writers?
14. Anything else that you want to know ... (otherwise known as Fill in the Blank)

Comments

[miss-morland.livejournal.com]

4?

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

Small but fairly consistent themes are food and my characters' reading habits.

In terms of greater themes, I think my writing is more characterized by what I don't write: dark, angsty fic, and issue-fic.

I mostly write feel-good stories, and they usually end well. Not necessarily so that all's well, and there are always some darker elements. But the darker elements are there because without them one wouldn't be able to notice the light. And because stories need some sort of a tension arc. You can't write a readable story where everything is well from start to finish.

But I don't like to plunge my characters in despair or to expose them to violent acts without any light at the end of the tunnel.

By issue-fic I mean the sort of fic that is written to make a point about a social issue. In its best form, Uncle Tom's Cabin and several works by Dickens (notably Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist.

I'm no second Dickens. I'm just a story-teller, and if there is an issue, it's because the story needs it. Not the other way around. The one time I had a story that ended on an issue-fic section, my wonderful beta spotted it at once for what it was: sloppy writing to finish the tale. The rewrite she inspired was one hell of an improvement and led to the most-quoted line of that fic.

So mostly my stories are feel-good tales by a simple story-teller. With perhaps the small sub-theme of 'annoyances that working women encounter, especially teachers'. They fit in well with my Hogwarts Staff stories, and as a teacher, I know what I'm talking about.

[tetleythesecond]

Six, please!

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

I think that writing really good critique is one of the hardest things there is, which is why it's a good thing it's discouraged at fests, where authors can't even reply at once.

The kind of critique I enjoy most is the one that helps improve one's writing. POV switches that don't work, sections that are telling where showing would have worked better, character developments that aren't clear to the reader.

I also enjoy discussions based on different interpretations of a character, as long as they are discussions. That is, based on 'your version is interesting, because you take this view on X, where I always saw them as ...'

Unfortunately, in fandom, this very often goes towards 'your version is incorrect, because X simply isn't ...' There is a bit of a tendency to base critique on 'I would have written this so differently'. Well, yes, but they didn't write it. And I think quite often stories aren't read for what they are, but for what the reader thinks they should have been. Which is a pity, I think.

[perverse-idyll.livejournal.com]

I'm going to steal someone else's idea of smushing 10 & 11 together.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

To start on the weaknesses, I suck at making up plots. I always need a really good prompt to get me going, and once I have that prompt, I can work out a story. But the kind of prompt that says, 'I like staff room scenes, or daily life scenes, or the story of how two characters got together' usually leaves me paralyzed. Hence my inability to write original fic.

And I'm not very good at action scenes, either. My characters tend to sit down and waffle. Like their author.

I do manage good character voices, though.

And I think I'm fairly good at giving minor characters a good, three-dimensional presence, too.

[squibstress.livejournal.com]

As on Tetley's journal, I'll request #13, because I always want to know.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

In terms of comfort-reading, Miss Read. As Downton's Lady Violet says, "I hanker for a simpler world. Is that a crime?" Miss Read provides a delightful one.

In terms of 'wish I could do that', Maeve Binchy. She's one of the few authors whose short stories I love, and I admire both the way she comes up with plots that are manageable within the space of a short story, yet very full and complete, and the way she creates such vivid, likeable characters.

In literary terms, Austen, Dickens, Choderlos de la Clos, Sagan, Louis Couperus (Dutch author).

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

12? (And general favourite place for writing?)

7? :D

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

The Harry Potter Lexion (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/) is always on stand-by when I write. Ideal for double-checking all sorts of details, and their timelines are a wonderful aid.

The boxed set of books is also invaluable, since I tend to write canon-compliant.

And the internet, and especially Wikipedia, is a wonderful source of information on just about anything, from the name of the wicca shop in Canterbury to the requirements for the Supreme Cat Show to the kind of people who visited Gertrude Stein's salon and who was in Paris at the same time (Hemingway and Kiki de Montparnasse) and who wasn't (Hemingway and Josephine Baker).

magnetic_pole has also asked about my favourite place for writing, so I'll answer that one there.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

I love the HP Lexicon! Great choice. Wikipedia, too; I check Google Maps a lot these days or history sites for certain towns. Love getting some of the background resources to your stories. (:

[librasmile.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Okay just for the fun-ness of it all ( apologies for Bogarting )
1. Of the fic you’ve written, which are you most proud of? --- Hmm, there are 3: Grace, an unpublished original; and 2 fan fics, For the Price of My Familiar ( Harry Potter, completed ) and Love's Divine ( Superman Returns, incomplete )

2. Favorite tense (past/present/future) ----- Probably past tense. I loathe writing in present tense and can't fathom how to write in future tense.

3. Favorite POV (first/second/third/etc) --- third person omniscient but I've gained a new respect for the power of first person since writing my Harry Potter WIP Confessions of a Cornwall Grad.

4. What are some themes you love writing about? ---- It's all one big knot for me but my writing always fears off into angst/trauma land with a strong sexual or family component ( although I'm fine folks! No Oprah sessions for me! ). Or to sum it up - the MORALITY OF POWER RELATIONSHIPS whether power comes from being a lover or a parent or 1%-er or a clergy person.

5. What inspires you to write? -- See above.

6. Thoughts on critique -- Only good if it helps you to crystallize or clarify. Useless if it's just there to bash.

7. Create a character on the spot…. NOW! -- I don't have to. I have a whole stable. Try John Rhone, illegitimate son of Hannes Rhone of Pennsylvania, a billionaire who was a little too fond of his wife's cousin. Don't you hate when your family goes all Flowers in the Attic?

8. Is there a character you love writing for the most? the least? why? -- Hmm are we talking original characters or fan fic characters already created by other authors? I can't give you a specific character. But I most love writing about characters who have some strong connection to my own personality or temperament (idealistic). I most hate writing about characters who are completely unlike me ( materialistic, athletic ). Hey what can I say? I'm a Mary in a Martha world...

9. A passage from a WIP -- "Sherlock Holmes had always made her feel like a pixie in the land of the giants" Put that in your pipe and smoke it, lol.


10. What are your strengths in writing? == character construction and world building, showing as opposed to telling ( took me a long time to get there and still working on it ), presenting the TELLING detail, letting the reader decide what's happening instead of pushing in on them and maybe dialogue. Oh and I'm pretty damn good with opening lines.

11. What are your weaknesses in writing? Plot development. Pacing. Action and physical conflict. I suck at those. Working on them though.

12. What’s your favorite place for writing resources? --- Reference and history books actually as well as books on folklore, mythology and symbolism. I'm more interested in stocking up on ideas that I can use and symbol systems as opposed to physical tools. But I'm getting more interested in the tools.


13. Who are your favorite writers? ---- Hmm. Hard to separate from my favorite books because I don't always like everything an author writes. In fact I usually don't. But: Nathaniel Hawthorne for the Scarlet Letter, Margaret Zimmer Bradley for The Mists of Avalon, Francess Hodgeson(sp?) Burnett for A Little Princess, Lewis Carroll for Through the Looking Glass ( but NOT Wonderland ), Margaret Atwood for The Handmaid's Tale ( and actually parts of Life Before Man ) and Delphi whose fan fic prose is both profound and lighter than air.


14. Anything else that you want to know ... (otherwise known as Fill in the Blank) --- I want to know the secret to writing quickly with the quality I demand so I can quit my day job and be a successful fiction writer ( notice my naive little assumption that quality equals financial success...I'm so cute...)

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

Such fun to read your version! I totally agree on 6 and 11!

And you're a Frances Hodgson Burnett fan, too! I've read most of her books, and I love them.

[magnetic-pole.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... could I suggest one of my own? Where do you writ, physically? Favorite places, favorite times of day? What does a writing session look like for you? M.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

I mostly write at my desk, which has a great view, so I can stare at the view when I'm stuck with the story. I prefer the mornings, but it's not often I get uninterrupted writing time. So afternoons or evenings work too.

And I also like to use evening spent at hotels to write.

Most of the plotting is done during long drives or boring household work. Cleaning is much more fun when one works out who nobbled the cat, and why, and how Minerva finds out.