mariequitecontrarie  asked:

2, 14, & 15 also 26

2) Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?
*screams a little* I NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT A THING!!

A person in my NaNo region did something incredibly dangerous and they sent me a link to two things, which I had never heard of but for all I know are widely known (I am Captain Oblivious) – Trope Bingo and Trope Bingo Generator and ohhhhhh boy.

I have always struggled with really knowing the trope names. I mean I know the obvious ones like bedsharing, fake dating etc. but I was sure that there were others and I felt like I was in the dark, like everyone somehow had access to a secret list and … wait a minute! Did you all know about this list before hmm? *eyes you suspiciously* :p

But But But anyway that thing is Dangerous – look with a capital D – because I want to write ALL THE THINGS. So I think the answer to “is there a trope I haven’t done yet but want to” is ALL OF THEM!

14) What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
Ok there was this writing advice book and I read it and had stars in my eyes. I felt like the writer who had penned it was a real person, and a lot of what they said resonated and then they went on to say “if I did it – so can you!” which is the typical spiel of the self-help book but that was incredibly dangerous.

They said a lot of things, but I think the most toxic (for me at least) was the “you either want it or you don’t. If you do want it then you’ll make it happen.” – so basically if you failed, you didn’t try hard enough because you didn’t really want it. The technique he espoused was to get up an hour earlier because if writing was the #1 priority it should be the first thing you do.

I tried, I really did but I get easily tired and I got really vicious on myself for failing. It hurt so much because it felt like I didn’t really want it – but I really did! You see the thing is that advice might be fine for those who are healthy but I have certain issues and my mind and body couldn’t take the strain.

That advice wasn’t for me.

I know this question is supposed to be about some specific technique or something but this experience I had with this writing self-help book scarred me and I wanted to talk about it to say to people, yes the advice might sound perfectly reasonable but everybody is different and don’t beat yourself up if something doesn’t work for you. Don’t destroy yourself because you bought into a line that someone sold you.

15) If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?
Between Two Fires absolutely no question about it. I think the visuals of some fics would be great, I mean The Beauty and the Tragedy is the most ‘artistic’ fic I have ever written, but no it has to be my sci-fi/espionage favourite fic because I did so much world building and I can see the movie in my head already – to share with the world would be something else.

26) Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?
I beta for a few people and what kind of beta I am depends on what kind they want. I always ask first what kind of feedback they are after, and I will do multiple beta passes if they want that. So I’ll do story feedback (characterisation, plot etc.), I’ll do a soft edit (my punctuation is not good enough to do a proper edit) but I can check for typos, tense errors, grammatical mistakes, that kind of thing. I’ll do a mix of that and I can go deeper, or more superficial depending on what people want.

My goal as a beta is to support the author – it is NOT to tear them down. So I don’t sweat the small stuff, I’ll let certain things slide sometimes because it’s not important. What is important is that the author feels good about the story they are putting out AND also feels like it’s their story. My job is not to destroy their voice, or to inject my vision – it’s to help them achieve their vision.