There is a meme going around

[nineveh_uk]

First seen by me courtesy of el_staplador, so she gets the credit!

Pick a number and I'll try to answer that question. Then you can do the meme or not as you choose.

1. Of the fic you’ve written, of which are you most proud?
2. Favourite tense That's really stupid. Make something up yourself. Actually, my favourite tense is the "passive aggressive".
3. Favourite POV
4. What are some themes you love writing about?
5. What inspires you to write?
6. Thoughts on critique
7. Create a character on the spot... NOW!
8. Is there a character you love writing for the most? The least? Why?
9. A passage from a WIP
10. What are your strengths in writing?
11. What are your weaknesses in writing?
12. Anything else that you want to know... (otherwise known as Fill in the Blank)

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

8

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Fic-wise, I’ve done an awful lot of Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane and in ye olden days, Bellatrix Lestrange (something of a Mary-Sue, as I well knew, but I never got called on it). I do like writing Peter enormously. This does not seem to be universal among Wimsey fandom. He isn’t easy, but can be rendered easier by dint of keeping a novel open at the elbow and listening to the Edward Petherbridge audio versions, which somehow seem to channel exactly the right tone. I am presently nearly 80,000 words into the Giant WIP, and while I could wish to have spent less time on it, it is has been enormous fun and I’ve loved the focus on Peter. I think I’ve managed to keep him tolerably in-character, despite his bizarre experiences, although the final verdict will not lie with me.

In contrast, while I don’t dislike writing Bunter, I find him very difficult. He is somehow opaque, and hard to present in an in-canon way while preserving him as a character and not a collection of traits.

I knew that my first* original novel was doomed when I could not be interested in the central character. Some things happened to her that I found easy to write, but as a character, she didn’t work for me. I spent too much time making sure it was clear to readers the she wasn’t me, which is impossible, because everyone I ever write is me if only on the level of “If they back into the sofa by accident, at what point on their legs will they hit the cushion?”

*Not counting the one when I was 20.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

spent too much time making sure it was clear to readers the she wasn’t me
On the grounds that people think first novels are always autobiographical and you had to prove it wasn't? Well 80,000 words of mpreg doesn't have that problem.

Everyone else has taken the best questions. If not favourite tense, which is a stupid question, is there a favourite anything - indoor scenes, outdoor scenes, conversations, action, insides of people's heads? i.e. question 8 but not about characters.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That would indeed be the problem. The Giant WIP has been helpful on that front, because I am ten years older than the main original female character and seem to be managing to believe that people will believe that she is a character, not me. This despite the person who thought that the Hilary/Bunter fic was the most disturbing fic she had ever read and how could anyone find that hot. I resisted the urge to get a tumblr account so I could say “I don’t”, and resolved to remember it in future next time I was making assumptions about an author.

But I digress. I don’t know that I particularly like writing one category of thing above all others. I like writing the thing that goes well, whatever it is: that conversation, that description, that incident, that plot. Anything can be a grind, but anything might flow easily and there are a thousand words before I know it. I had a lot of fun recently writing some description of a landscape that Wimsey was walking in, because I was basing it partly on a place that I’d been and I was trying to convey what it was like. I tend to have a very visual imagination, so description is fun for that reason – looking round and writing down what it looks like. Possibly I should do more of it. I used to find dialogue hard, especially between more than two people, but I worked on that a lot in a very conscious way when I first got into writing Harry Potter fic, and it paid off, because now, though like anything else a particular conversation may be very difficult, as a whole I tend to enjoy it.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don’t dislike writing Bunter, I find him very difficult. He is somehow opaque, and hard to present in an in-canon way while preserving him as a character and not a collection of traits.

Yes, he is. I suppose that's some excuse for JPW...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A fair point, although sometimes I feel that JPW's problem is that she is trying to avoid thinking about Bunter.