30 Days of Fan Fiction Meme, Day 16
Jul. 14th, 2011 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingi16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?
I kind of hate them. Summaries are one of the reasons I'm a very poor candidate for success in traditional publishing, where a vast amount of making it out of the slush pile is dependent on writing a nicely enthralling, self-propagandizing summary of your brilliant novel. I don't sell myself well that way. Some native sense of propriety says it's a cheap trick to sum up the "brilliant" highlights of your own work.
Thus, regardless of the actual tone of the story, my summaries tend to be brief and functional and often a bit ironic. There are exceptions: I summarized my Charles/Erik fic as "young and in love," which is probably strongly correlated to why it's gotten a lot of hits. But it's more usual to get summaries like my Erik/Raven fic: "Forty years together, and it does seem a day too much." (This is for a fic that's actually quite serious and angsty.) All in all, my summaries probably lose me more readers than they gain. But I do get a laugh out of some of them. I don't know how I come up with them...
17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?
19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?
20 – Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?
21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?
22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?
23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?
28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
29 – What is your current project or projects?
30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!
I kind of hate them. Summaries are one of the reasons I'm a very poor candidate for success in traditional publishing, where a vast amount of making it out of the slush pile is dependent on writing a nicely enthralling, self-propagandizing summary of your brilliant novel. I don't sell myself well that way. Some native sense of propriety says it's a cheap trick to sum up the "brilliant" highlights of your own work.
Thus, regardless of the actual tone of the story, my summaries tend to be brief and functional and often a bit ironic. There are exceptions: I summarized my Charles/Erik fic as "young and in love," which is probably strongly correlated to why it's gotten a lot of hits. But it's more usual to get summaries like my Erik/Raven fic: "Forty years together, and it does seem a day too much." (This is for a fic that's actually quite serious and angsty.) All in all, my summaries probably lose me more readers than they gain. But I do get a laugh out of some of them. I don't know how I come up with them...
17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka "bunnies") from?
19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?
20 – Do you ever get bunnied from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?
21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?
22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?
23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?
26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?
28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
29 – What is your current project or projects?
30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!
