Fanfic Meme
Mar. 26th, 2009 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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pfeifferpack
1 Why do you write fanfic?
For fun and profit!
Okay, so no profit is involved. And, yeah, it's sometimes as torturous as it is fun. Still, I find it both challenging and entertaining, so there you go. I'm a masochist. :)
2 When did you write your first fanfic and which fandom was it for?
As a kid I wrote fanfic, I just didn't know that's what it was. I would recast characters I loved, sort of turn them into original characters and write stories about them.
As far as online, writing, way back in the early days of Usenet and the heyday of Rec.Arts.Tv.Soaps (1993-ish) I became involved with a group that wrote "Alternative Days" which was fanfic inasmuch as it tool the characters from "Days of Our Lives" and did entirely different things with them. It wasn't exactly like fanfic, though, because the set-up. We had a designated headwriter (Why? I do not know). Headwriter basically handed out the long term arc and we were assigned on a rotating basis to be break-down writer, which meant that we were chosen to write the scene-by-scene outline of a specific episode. Then it was first come first serve volunteer for 3 scenes in an episode (with headwriter being the tie breaker if two people wanted the same scene). Then you'd write your chosen scenes in script format before turning them over to headwriter/editor who would then review and edit the scenes into a single script. And, wow, looking at it that way, we sure had a hell of a lot of rules and abdicated a lot of control over the fic. Shocking that it managed to actually work for about four years.
When Alt_Days went defunct, I began devouring X-Files fanfic, which is your classic fanfic. However, the XF folks were so intimidating, I didn't have the nerve to begin writing fanfic there. So, ultimately, my first fanfic in the form of what we generally mean when we say 'fanfic' was in the Roswell fandom.
3 Which fandoms do you, or have you, written for?
Roswell, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4 Do you read much fanfic or do you mainly write?
Both. Used to read more than write. Probably write more than read these days.
5 What comes easiest for you when writing? (dialogue, descriptions, plot, characterizations, humour, angst...)
Dialogue and plot. Usually I think up more dialog or plot than I ever use. What I'm not particularly good at is finishing.
6 Which genres do you mainly write? (action, angst, dark, drama, horror, humour...)
Action, humor, drama
7 Which genres will you not write?
Wow. Hmm. Dunno. I'm not particularly good at true dark-fic. I tend to always find myself inserting silver linings with some optimism.
8 Are reader comments/responses important?
They certainly don't hurt!
9 Do you use a beta reader?
Always.
10 Which is your favorite character to write fanfic for and why?
Spike is my fave. He's complex and, I suppose, his story was never resolved to my complete satisfaction.
11 Which are your favorite ships (including friendships) that you write the most?
Spike/Buffy
Mulder/Scully
Wes/Lilah
I write friendships, but I don't know that I can really place it in this category.
12 Do you have characters that are so strongly established that they're in your heads?
Oh yeah. Spike, Buffy, and Scully all live there somewhere.
13 Which characters are you most comfortable doing a POV for?
Strangely, it's Buffy. Which is weird because I writer Spuffy for Spike. But Buffy is the POV I tend to naturally default to... just as when I wrote XF stuff, I always regularly defaulted to Scully. And, believe it or not, there's some overlap between the two characters. It's strang because in so many ways they're nothing alike, but both of them tend heavily towards emotional self-preservation with hefty doses of denial and resistance. For whatever reason, that always provides a certain 'in' to those characters. It provides adequate grist for internal conflict and a path towards a character arc.
Which is the hardest?
I find Angel to be especially difficult. He has a difficult 'voice' to find.
pfeifferpack1 Why do you write fanfic?
For fun and profit!
Okay, so no profit is involved. And, yeah, it's sometimes as torturous as it is fun. Still, I find it both challenging and entertaining, so there you go. I'm a masochist. :)
2 When did you write your first fanfic and which fandom was it for?
As a kid I wrote fanfic, I just didn't know that's what it was. I would recast characters I loved, sort of turn them into original characters and write stories about them.
As far as online, writing, way back in the early days of Usenet and the heyday of Rec.Arts.Tv.Soaps (1993-ish) I became involved with a group that wrote "Alternative Days" which was fanfic inasmuch as it tool the characters from "Days of Our Lives" and did entirely different things with them. It wasn't exactly like fanfic, though, because the set-up. We had a designated headwriter (Why? I do not know). Headwriter basically handed out the long term arc and we were assigned on a rotating basis to be break-down writer, which meant that we were chosen to write the scene-by-scene outline of a specific episode. Then it was first come first serve volunteer for 3 scenes in an episode (with headwriter being the tie breaker if two people wanted the same scene). Then you'd write your chosen scenes in script format before turning them over to headwriter/editor who would then review and edit the scenes into a single script. And, wow, looking at it that way, we sure had a hell of a lot of rules and abdicated a lot of control over the fic. Shocking that it managed to actually work for about four years.
When Alt_Days went defunct, I began devouring X-Files fanfic, which is your classic fanfic. However, the XF folks were so intimidating, I didn't have the nerve to begin writing fanfic there. So, ultimately, my first fanfic in the form of what we generally mean when we say 'fanfic' was in the Roswell fandom.
3 Which fandoms do you, or have you, written for?
Roswell, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4 Do you read much fanfic or do you mainly write?
Both. Used to read more than write. Probably write more than read these days.
5 What comes easiest for you when writing? (dialogue, descriptions, plot, characterizations, humour, angst...)
Dialogue and plot. Usually I think up more dialog or plot than I ever use. What I'm not particularly good at is finishing.
6 Which genres do you mainly write? (action, angst, dark, drama, horror, humour...)
Action, humor, drama
7 Which genres will you not write?
Wow. Hmm. Dunno. I'm not particularly good at true dark-fic. I tend to always find myself inserting silver linings with some optimism.
8 Are reader comments/responses important?
They certainly don't hurt!
9 Do you use a beta reader?
Always.
10 Which is your favorite character to write fanfic for and why?
Spike is my fave. He's complex and, I suppose, his story was never resolved to my complete satisfaction.
11 Which are your favorite ships (including friendships) that you write the most?
Spike/Buffy
Mulder/Scully
Wes/Lilah
I write friendships, but I don't know that I can really place it in this category.
12 Do you have characters that are so strongly established that they're in your heads?
Oh yeah. Spike, Buffy, and Scully all live there somewhere.
13 Which characters are you most comfortable doing a POV for?
Strangely, it's Buffy. Which is weird because I writer Spuffy for Spike. But Buffy is the POV I tend to naturally default to... just as when I wrote XF stuff, I always regularly defaulted to Scully. And, believe it or not, there's some overlap between the two characters. It's strang because in so many ways they're nothing alike, but both of them tend heavily towards emotional self-preservation with hefty doses of denial and resistance. For whatever reason, that always provides a certain 'in' to those characters. It provides adequate grist for internal conflict and a path towards a character arc.
Which is the hardest?
I find Angel to be especially difficult. He has a difficult 'voice' to find.
