End-of-Year Fic Meme

[kelly_chambliss]

Now that all my holiday fests have had their reveals, I can post my (only slightly belated) end-of-year fic meme. I always enjoy these -- both writing my own and reading other people's. I love the chance to pull together an assessment of a year's worth of disparate stories. (I suppose I like it for the same reason I used to enjoy [in a masochistic sort of way] final exams -- I'd never have gone through the difficult process of synthesizing my learning if I hadn't been forced to, and I was always glad once I had. I learned loads from the process.)

Here's what I wrote in 2011:

Drabble
• Bittersweet for hp_halloween (Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch; 200 words)

Femmeslash
• Down to Earth for dysfuncentine (Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch; 2850 words)
• Friday Night at the Three Broomsticks for femmefest (Minerva McGonagall/Madam Rosmerta; 5260 words)
• In Its Deepest Being for daily_deviant (Poppy Pomfrey/Narcissa Black; 2025 words)
• Logos for daily_deviant (Rita Skeeter/Dolores Umbridge; 1425 words)
• Miss Grubbly-Plank Finds Herself for daily_deviant (Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank/Irma Pince; 3450 words)
• Muggle-icious for therealsnape (Minerva McGonagall/Poppy Pompfrey; 3300 words)

Gen
• Memo for hp_footballbets (Dolores Umbridge; 1850 words)
• Reckoning for dh2_challenge (Minerva McGonagall, OCs; 2750 words)

Het
• Inamorata for tetleythesecond (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape, Adele Edwards [OC]; 888 words)
• Mutability for snapecase (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape; 10,000 words)
• 'Now That I'm Older' by Adela for severusbigbang Birthday Open House 2011. (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape; Adela Edwards [OC]; 10,100 words)
• Rita-Good for hoggywartyxmas (Rita Skeeter/Severus Snape; 6200 words)
• That Good Night for daily_deviant (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape; 2500 words)
• To Some a Gift for snapelyholidays (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape; 6350 words)
• Vital Little Sliver for daily_deviant (Minerva McGonagall/Tom Riddle [sort of]; 4380 words)

M/M Slash -- Apparently none, unless you can think of something I'm missing.

Multiple Pairings/Multiples
• ????? for "Kinky Kristmas" at daily_deviant (Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape/Narcissa Black/Tom Riddle/Nagini; 15,000 words)
• Reflections in a Golden Frame for daily_deviant (The Mirror of Erised and friends; 1850 words)
• Triptych for hp_beholder (Eileen Prince/Tobias Snape, Eileen Prince/Sybill Trelawney; 14,000 words)
• Watches of a Samhain Night for samhain_smut (Minerva McGonagall/Elphinstone Urquart, Minerva/Amelia Bones, Minerva/Severus Snape; 4875 words)

Fandoms Other than HP
Foyle's War
• They Didn't Fight in the Fielding (birthday present for my partner) (Christopher Foyle/Barbara Hicks; 4500 words)

Pride and Prejudice
• Solace and Solitude for femgenficathon (Lydia Bennet, Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; 3500 words)

My Fest Participation, 2011
• dh2_challenge
• dysfuncentine
• femgenficathon
• femmefest
• hoggywartyxmas
• hp_beholder
• hp_footballbets
• hp_halloween
• "Kinky Kristmas" at daily_deviant
• samhain_smut
• snapecase
• snapelyholidays

Some Stats

(Note: All totals include the drabble)

Total number of fics = 22
Total number of words = 107,253
Total number of HP fics = 20
Total number of HP words = 99,253

Fics Under 1000 words = 2
1000-4999 words = 13
5000-9999 words = 3
10,000+ words = 4

Total number of het fics (including multiples; not including the Mirror) = 11
Total number of femmeslash fics (including multiples; not including the Mirror) = 10
Total number of gen fics = 3

Total number of HP fics that include Minerva McGonagall in the main pairing/focus = 13
Total number of HP fics in which Minerva is mentioned but is not central = 3
Total number of Minerva-free HP fics = 4
Total number of HP fics including Severus Snape in the main pairing/focus = 8
Most common pairing = Minerva/Severus (7)
Character with largest number of different partners = Minerva (are you surprised?) She got busy with Severus (7), Amelia (2), Rolanda (2), Tom Riddle (2), Rosmerta (1), Elphinstone (1), Poppy (1), and Narcissa (1). (No Moody or Wilhelmina, to my sorrow. I'll have to change that next year.)
Total Number of Pairings I'd Never Written Before = 10 (Eileen/Tobias, Eileen/Sybill, Wilhelmina/Irma, Poppy/Narcissa, Rita/Dolores, Rita/Severus, Minerva/Tom, Minerva/Elphinstone, Minerva/Rosmerta, Severus/Nagini [!])

From the Department of Shameless Self-Aggrandizement: Total Number of My Fics Recced at quibbler_report, the daily HP rarepairs-and-gen recletter: All but one! Not including the drabble or the fics written for just my flist ("Inamorata," "Muggle-icious"), almost all of my HP stories garnered recs at QR. The only one that didn't make the cut was "Mutability." I even scored an "Editor's Pick" for "Triptych."

I'm very lucky with recs overall. I've been honored with a fair number of recs at crack_broom, too, and I usually receive about a 50% return of mentions on snapenews as well.

I don't mean to sound like a cocky braggart here; I just want to take this opportunity to thank all the reccers, both in comms and personal journals, and let you know how much I appreciate it. People in fandom are amazingly generous, and you, dear flisties, are kinder than most.

Other Fandom Activities for 2011
• I did several months' worth of reccing crack_broom in the "Femmeslash" and "Rarest Reccer" categories.
• In January, I joined the writers at daily_deviant; my posting day is the 15th of even-numbered months.
• In June, I joined the rec staff at quibbler_report; I'm the Tuesday editor. (But since most of my own stories have been recced at QR while still anonymous, I don't think it's favoritism /g/).
• In July, I attended DiaCon Alley in Canterbury, UK, where I presented a paper on old-lady fic along with those best of collaborators, therealsnape, and tetleythesecond and met many of my favorite flisties. Not coincidentally, I had the time of my life.
• In October, I attended the "Fangirls Retreat" at the home of the gracious venturous1, where I met probably a dozen fangirls and had a marvelous time.

Fic Q and A
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? Less than my first full year in HP fandom (2009; ~124,000 words); more than my second year (2010; ~72,000 words). In general, more than I expected. I keep thinking that I've written myself out in terms of HP -- and then I keep finding that I'm wrong.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? I didn't expect to write "Foyle's War" fanfic and probably never would have had my partner not asked for it specifically. But I thoroughly enjoyed the writing. I've been in HP long enough now that it's difficult not to repeat myself; in "Foyle," though, everything was still fresh. It was a freeing feeling.

I also never expected to write blood-play and snake sex and pornographic mirrors and nurse/student. Daily Deviant has been a remarkable experience.

This year is also the first one in which I wrote HP stories in which Minerva is not only not a main character, but she's not even mentioned.

What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Ah, here's a tough one. It always takes me a while to get a reasonable perspective on my own writing -- either I'm too hard on it, or else I'm still under the spell of a certain character or writing mood and think a story is better than it really is.

But at the moment, these stories make me happy: "Now That I'm Older" (I do think that Severus and Minerva aren't completely IC here, but they please me anyway, as does Adela); "Miss Grubbly-Plank"; "?????"

And I'm pleased with "Logos," too: I think it's tight, and provocative in good ways.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Yes, I did -- each Daily Deviant month was a risk in terms of leading me to characters and content I'd never imagined myself writing. Writing kink-on-demand turned out to be harder (and more complicated) than I expected; it also led me to think more deeply about the politics of writing kink than I'd ever done before.

In taking these risks, I learned (and relearned) useful things:

a) I am capable of being pretty ruthless as a writer. I've found that I'm willing to go to whatever places the characters and plot take me and to write about people and acts that I find disturbing or morally problematic or just not my usual cuppa. I try not to be sensationalistic about such things (like bloodplay or caning of children or fantasized rape [or snake sex, but that was AU /g/]), but to explore them as realistically as I can, as a doorway into character.

b) I am capable of over-reaching myself and/or missing the mark, so that I sometimes end up writing things that cross a line I don’t want to cross. Luckily, I have an excellent beta (*waves at therealsnape*) who is willing to be honest with me and pull me back from the brink. But such is the nature of risk-taking: you have to go beyond your comfort zone and venture down into those Knockturn Alleys of your mind and be willing to stumble and make mistakes.

From my past year of writing, what was....

My best story of this year: From a literary standpoint, I think "Triptych" is my best-written fic of the year, a story that could be enjoyed by someone who didn't know much about HP. I think "Mutability" is my best McGonagall/Snape for 2011, and in terms of concept/execution, I'm fond of "?????"

My most popular story of this year (based on comments): "Mutability" received the most attention, both in number and fullness of comments -- which is interesting, because it started out very slowly and took a while to build an audience. But build one it did, and the responses have been very gratifying. It's my most-read story on The Petulant Poetess; on FFN, it gets the second-largest number of hits per month. (My number-one story every month at FFN, oddly, is A Whiter Shade of Pale, which is one of the earliest I wrote and not one of my best. But this is FFN, so I shouldn't wonder.)

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: As a rule, I get far more appreciation than I have a right to -- you, my dear flist (and readers in general) are very generous, attentive, and supportive regarding my work. So I rarely have reason to complain about the responses to a story.

This year I did have a disappointment, though. My Kinky Kristmas fic ("?????") pretty much sank like the proverbial stone.

I think I understand why: KK comments were down overall this year; my story was l-o-o-o-n-n-g (15K, when KK and Daily Deviant stories are usually 3K or shorter); it contains bestiality, which isn't popular even with self-identified Deviants; Tom/Minerva isn't a popular pairing. And it was AU.

Still, I thought the fic was one of my better efforts for the year, and I'm sorry it didn't find much of an audience. But again, my wonderful flist came to the rescue -- the comments I did receive are mostly from you lovely lot, and you provided generous recs, too. If people didn't read the story, it wasn't for lack of advertising and flist support. So thank you, my dears! (Who would have guessed that the world had no interest in steampunk!AUs featuring five-somes and snake sex?)

Most fun story to write: There were actually quite a few I enjoyed, despite my constant whinging about how much I had to write. "Now That I'm Older" was an exceptionally pleasant experience. The inspiration just flowed, and I knocked out the first 10,000-word draft in a weekend. "Miss Grubbly-Plank" was also a joy. And once I got over my anxiety about doing justice to a period piece, I enjoyed writing "?????"; I really got sucked into the world of it. Then "Logos" was really liberating, too: writing two dubious characters cutting each other -- it was just such an outlandish premise that it was wonderfully freeing, and I felt like Rita, slashing my quill with confident abandon no matter where it took me.

Story with the single sexiest moment: For greatest amount of sex in the shortest period of time, I have to vote for the fivesome from "?????" I think the sex scene in "Mutabiliity" is fairly erotic as well (in an "I-can't-stand-the-sexual-tension-another-second" kind of way). "Miss Grubbly-Plank" makes the sexiest use of library books, and I have a soft spot for Severus on his knees in front of Rita in "Rita-Good."

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
• "Logos" (Rita and Dolores and a blood quill sex-toy)
• "?????" (Snape and Nagini and five little intercourses all in a row)
• "Vital Little Sliver" (Voldy's rape fantasies)
• "Reflections in a Golden Frame" (Mirror pr0n)
• "Watches of a Samhain Night" (ghost/living person sex)

(Do you think it’s a coincidence that four of the five stories were written for Daily Deviant?)

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I'm always pleased if I can write stories that make me understand characters that I either don't like in canon or don't pay much attention to. This year, "Triptych" gave me a new and deeper understanding (and greater appreciation) of both Tobias Snape and Sybill Trelawney.

Hardest story to write: "That Good Night" was a total struggle; I wrote nearly 3000 words that I had to dump before I figured out an angle that would work. And I still don't feel that the story fully comes together or has sufficient context. "To Some a Gift" was also difficult, at least in the initial construction; it was a story that involved more work in the planning than in the actual writing. It took me ages to figure out how to approach the material, and I had a lot of missteps, but once I got a workable plan in place, the drafting was relatively smooth.

And "Triptych" -- argh. The "Tobias" section went swimmingly, but I had initially planned (and written) an entirely different femmeslash pairing for Eileen. I even got to the stage of sending all but the ending to my beta-reader (*waves at woldy*). But as I tried to write the final scene, I simply couldn't do it. I couldn't hear the speakers in my head. Usually by the end of a fic, the characters are so clearly set that each one is full and distinct as I write -- it's that old conceit of "the characters tell the story."

When I was a beginning writer, comments of that sort used to annoy me; I thought they were affected and coy. But the more I wrote, the more I understood -- if you've done your work properly, if you've constructed your characters believably, they will take on lives and voices of their own. If they don't -- if you find yourself, as I did, writing dialogue with no sense of which character is speaking, then (for me, at least), it's a sure-fire indication that the story isn't working.

That's what happened with "Triptych," and I finally accepted the fact that I was going to have to junk about 5000 words and recast the roles. Once I got rid of Eileen's first partner and replaced her with Sybill, it all came together. The characters started speaking to me again, and I was able to finish. (Probably one of the few times when hearing voices in your head is a good thing /g/.)

Easiest Story to Write: I was lucky enough to have several stories that reached that "zone" where they just seemed to write themselves. "Now That I'm Older" was one; "Miss Grubbly-Plank" was another. "Friday Night" was a pleasure, too; Rosmerta just came alive for me as I wrote.

And I'm not sure what this says about me, but I found it very easy to get into the heads of Dolores Umbridge, Lydia Bennet, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Story That Could Have Been Better: All of them, of course. But the one that I'm least satisfied with is "That Good Night." And "Vital Little Sliver" isn't what it could have been. "Mutability" doesn't read well to me any longer. I could go on, but if I think about it too much, I'll hate them all.

Story With the Single Sweetest Moment: Something with Adela, no doubt. Then there's "Muggle-icious," which is not only fluffy, but also contains a lot of sugar and chocolate (the story is really just a peg to hang a recipe on).

And I think the ending of ????? is sort of sweet -- all one happy family, even the snake.

Most Overdue Story: OCDer that I am, I hate missing deadlines. But I think I was almost two weeks late for both Kinky Kristmas and HP Beholder.

Story That Made You Cry: I don't think any of them did. I'm not much of a crier anyway, but when I do, it's usually from reading, not writing. As the writer, I'm too involved in the construction, in the nuts-and-bolts, to be swept away by the emotion. When you know too well how something is put together, you're less susceptible to its effects, I think -- like the special-effects person who knows how the "magic" is really done. In general, if my own stuff makes me cry, I'm probably being too self-indulgent in the writing of it and need to be tougher.

Now, that's not to say that I don't feel an emotional aura (for lack of a better word) as I write -- an atmosphere, a mind-set. Stories do create a "feeling" for me in their writing. But for me, that's different from actually creating in myself the emotion I want to create for readers. Of course, I'm just speaking for myself; I'm sure others of you may be affected differently.

Fic-writing goals for 2012: I'm still toying with the idea of evil!Minerva, but I may just have to face the fact that I'll never write this story. I'd like to try another gen HP fic, and I hope to continue to experiment with characters I haven't written before. I'm also feeling the itch for a new fandom (not to take the place of HP, but just for a bit of variety): more Austen fic and perhaps some Downton Abbey.

And I've got to cut down on the number of fests. I'll try to stay flexible, because I don't want to rule out anything that might be really fun, but I'm thinking maybe four-five fests instead of twelve. I'll definitely do hoggywartyxmas and hp_beholder. I've already signed up for dysfuncentine. And I'm going to mod another run of minerva_fest.

I'm still signed up for every-other-month at daily_deviant, but I may have done what I need to do with kink for the moment. I'll see how it goes.

I also plan to continue contributing to quibbler_report and crack_broom. I'm doing "threesomes" this month; I've also signed up for gen and femmeslash.

And don't forget minerva_fest! Stay tuned for further info.