sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

Writing asks: 11, 22, and 31, please!

Thank you so much for the ask!!

11) Three tropes that are fine but overrated
Hmm this is a hard question because first the instant anyone asks me to name things like tropes – head empty, no thoughts. Total brain fail. Second, I don’t know, I don’t like to judge things. This is how I wound up writing Time Will Tell (Sanctuary Soulmates fic) because I never liked the Soulmates trope. So I challenged myself to see if I could write a version I liked and I did.

If a trope is ‘overrated’ is that less the problem of the trope, and more just the versions being read? Not everything can be to everyone’s taste. One person’s absolute favourite fic, can be somebody else’s ‘backspace, run far away’, or just ‘meh’.

I’ve been enjoying rambling about the romance tropes that purlturtle picked for the bracket lately. There are some there, that just are not my thing at all. Does that make them overrated? It means they aren’t for me.

I’m sorry this doesn’t really answer the question but it’s the only answer I feel like I have.

22) What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?
I touched on this actually in one of my recent rambles on the bracket. I think I was talking about soulmates and fate, and saying that I didn’t like it because love is a choice, and it takes work. Thank Eve Baird for saying that real love is hard and that’s how you know it’s real. But I do love those two quotes about (paraphrased) “no matter the universe I would find you, and choose you” and “I hope in every world there’s an us” and it’s sort of like that with the infinite ways the OTP can be together. It’s transcendent. It’s like that multi-verse spanning love in action. Sort of ‘proving’ how right they are for each other because they just fit. It doesn’t matter if it’s canon or AU, canon-divergent etc. Some things are just meant to be.

In other words it’s comforting. Bringing order to the chaos of the universe. Saying that in this corner all is well because these two (or three) idiots have each other.

31) What was the most difficult fic for you to write (but in the end you made it)?
I think I have a “kill it with fire”, it’s awful, it’s unfixable, I can’t do this, I’m fed up, I don’t want to, I hate it etc. moment with most fics – or at least the longer ones. Although short fics can be buggers as well, especially if they have to be short for some reason. I loathe word limits with the fire of a thousand suns.

I don’t know if I can really say that any particular fic was harder than any other. I would probably say that when I was struggling with it, but after? when it’s done? The pain is temporary and it’s hard to remember after. Each fic brings it’s own challenges. Besides if anything was truly too much then it wouldn’t qualify for the ‘in the end I made it’ because I didn’t. My abandoned Librarians fic in the structure of the Rashoman Job (from Leverage) attests to this.

(as I’m not sure that I really answered a couple of these I’ll tack on another for you)

25) Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?
It is better because there’s no risk of writing myself into a corner, and then having to abandon the fic. If I make a mistake I can go back and revise etc. I can post with absolute confidence as I know it’s complete. Plus if something goes wrong then it can just live on my HD indefinitely and I can switch to a different project. It’s very freeing. Would 110% recommend (I wrote all my fanfics like this from 2020 onwards).

BUT there is something to be said for a live audience. Back in the day when I first joined tumblr/AO3 and I was writing for Rumbelle, I wrote everything ‘live’. I don’t know if it was the fandom, the time, or what but I got a lot more engagement. There was more community and that was nice. Writing is lonely and what I miss more than anything is being able to talk to someone about my WIP, them being enthusiastic and sort of bouncing off each other. Never posting a WIP means there is zero possibility of that ever which is sad.

Still I would recommend writing it all out first. I feel like it makes for a more coherent story but that’s the novelist in me.

kira-nerys-rocks asked:

Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

How do you come up with fic titles? What’s the one you’re most proud of?

Thanks for the ask! 🙂 🙂

19) Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.
Part of me wants to skip this and substitute another question but I am working on some art for the Librarians exchange at the moment. That has to be secret but I don’t think it’s too much of a #Spoiler to do one line like

“Librarians win with what they know – not magic!”

36) How do you come up with fic titles? What’s the one you’re most proud of?

• I’m quite fond of song titles to be honest. Not usually lyrics, or not formatted as such anyway.
• Another place I have looked for titles are episode titles. Not for the show I am writing for usually, but from any show I have watched and liked. I used to keep a text file with a list of titles I had seen that I liked, and when titling a fic I checked that list first to see if anything fit.
• Sometimes there is a line in the fic, or the prompt that inspired the story, that just demands a certain title.

As for the one I’m most proud of? Monstrare, Monere perhaps. A Warehouse 13 oneshot. The actual fic itself I am a bit meh about after all this time, but the title and summary I am like “I wrote that?” I also really like and the Sins of Atlantis. Totally self-indulgent ridiculous fic which I enjoy more than I should. It uses the same episode title structure as the Librarians show (I did that for all my prompt month fics that year, which I loved). I particularly like this one though as I feel like there’s so many layers to it. Sins – so evocative, so many questions. Atlantis – how? why? I don’t know. It was fun.

(Under the cut for the writing advice because despite making myself stick to just one point, I still went on a lot. Oops.)