Random fic musings
Jan. 27th, 2011 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nineveh_ukFanfiction doesn’t have to be practice for ‘professional’ writing in order to be of worth. On the other hand, thinking of it as such can help justify having spent the evening writing 1200 words of Hilary/Bunter when you really ought to be doing something else.
It is not in fact easier to write badfic, or even spoof-fic, than it is to try to produce something good. It is easier to write short excerpts of almost anything. No doubt if I tried to sustain badfic over a thousand words that would present its own challenges. Fantasy!Bunter is at least proving not too grim so far. Mind you, he still has most of his clothes on.
I have not been managing to write the Wimsey/Potterverse crossover, but I have at least been thinking about it and it is developing reasonably well. I now have the “they meet at a party” scene so beloved of Potterfic (not least me. The percentage of my Potterfic involving parties is embarrassingly high), and a bit of jokey RPF has turned into plot. It is always pleasing when a random idea becomes thematic. I still need to work on the purpose of the Corsican bandits, though.
It is not in fact easier to write badfic, or even spoof-fic, than it is to try to produce something good. It is easier to write short excerpts of almost anything. No doubt if I tried to sustain badfic over a thousand words that would present its own challenges. Fantasy!Bunter is at least proving not too grim so far. Mind you, he still has most of his clothes on.
I have not been managing to write the Wimsey/Potterverse crossover, but I have at least been thinking about it and it is developing reasonably well. I now have the “they meet at a party” scene so beloved of Potterfic (not least me. The percentage of my Potterfic involving parties is embarrassingly high), and a bit of jokey RPF has turned into plot. It is always pleasing when a random idea becomes thematic. I still need to work on the purpose of the Corsican bandits, though.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 12:10 pm (UTC)It is easier to write short excerpts of almost anything.
*sigh*
So, um, who met at a party?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 12:58 pm (UTC)So, um, who met at a party?
Wimsey and an as-yet unnamed witch with a good figure and strong feelings about the state of magical education in New Zealand. The latter is entirely irrelevent to the main plot, but gives them something to talk about.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 01:24 pm (UTC)Wouldn't it solve your plot-irrelevance problem if she had strong opinions about Corsican bandits instead?
I am looking forward to making the acquaintance of fantasy!Bunter.
It is easier to write short excerpts of almost anything
This really ought to be a truth universally acknowledged (along with the one about a young woman with a good salary necessarily being in want of a house).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 02:31 pm (UTC)It isn't really plot irrelevent - the political complexities will allow them to bond over class snobbery ("the lower orders are so prejudiced") whilst also allowing LPW to function as effectively a bit of rough (this latter bitis important). It just doesn't matter that it is magical education in New Zealand as opposed to another subject fulfilling the same function. But someone else at the party could definitely mention the Corsican bandits.
Fantasy!Bunter would be greatly helped by knowing exactly what one could get away with publishing without being prosecuted for obscenity, or whatever it was. But I haven't got to that bit yet.
a young woman with a good salary necessarily being in want of a house
Definitely a truth to be acknowledged!
I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 03:06 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 03:14 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 03:25 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 04:14 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 04:51 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Just Sayin'
Date: 2011-01-27 05:06 pm (UTC)However I am very tempted by the thought of writing off skiing holidays as gathering material...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 01:29 pm (UTC)(Now I feel all pressured to work on mine, too, and keep my end up or something.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 02:50 pm (UTC)I do not pressure anyone. Well, except to say you shouldwork on yours. When you want to ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 06:11 pm (UTC)Mine, which I am posting in arbitrary bits and refuse to ever arrange into an Actual Longfic Project, is a Hilary/St. George fic where they are at Hogwarts together! And Hilary is a Triwizard Champion and there is a sort of love triangle with the Beauxbatons champion and lots of adolescent drama, and . . . somewhere in there I swear there is a murder mystery plot and Peter and Charles are hanging around to sort it out :D? And Harriet is Potions Mistress and has just about the same kind of relationship with Peter that she does in 1932 in canon, really. So no mpreg, but plenty of other embarrassing fluff to make up for it. >.>
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-28 03:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-28 06:46 pm (UTC)I actually have enough of a plot to go on, which is kind of extraordinary for me; what I really need is to work out the particulars of the three Triwizard challenges.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-28 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 01:36 pm (UTC)My complete ignorance about what is going to happen in S2 of Downton Abbey has not stopped me from speculating about High Life Above and Below Stairs involving LPW and Bunter Apres-Guerre.
ION, I have acquired the Other Source I needed for That Fic I'm Dropping Hints About.
cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 02:43 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 03:03 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 03:10 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 04:48 pm (UTC)WWI does have a habit of doing that. But I doubt the scriptwriters think we want a series based around the elderly and infirm. Perhaps the setting will move to a foreign field and there will be lots of class barrier defying bonding in the trenches... And all the women will turn into Vera Brittain and go and be nurses (but that has rather been done before).
Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 04:59 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 05:05 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 06:47 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 03:14 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 03:16 pm (UTC)You mean the ones where the belt is well above the navel?
Perhaps he could be standing tummy-deep in blue mediterranean water at the time...
Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 04:17 pm (UTC)Well, yes, but still below the nipples.
I am not sure what he will be doing. Possibly walking up the beach in the manner of the subject of "You're So Vain", beds of water dropping from his tousled hair to slide down his manly chest. I feel that the inadvertant discovery of him skinny-dipping ought to be reserved for Harriet, for maximum embarrassment potential.
Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 04:48 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 05:32 pm (UTC)This raises a very important issue, which I feel needs to be cleared up before I can allow my imagination to proceed any further - this tousled hair, is it on his chest, or is it only Charles who has a rug there?
I feel that the inadvertant discovery of him skinny-dipping ought to be reserved for Harriet, for maximum embarrassment potential.
I can only concur. And having made this inadvertent discovery, perhaps she is then able to confirm that Hilary's description is only slightly exaggerated.
Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-27 06:45 pm (UTC)This particularly tousled hair is on his head, being thus distinguished from it's usually neatly brilliantined quality. As for his chest, I think that Bunter's will be moderately hairy, being more obviously symbolically masculine than Peter's, but less animal than gorilla-rugged Charles.
perhaps she is then able to confirm that Hilary's description is only slightly exaggerated
I was going to say that you'd think Peter would have picked this information up in 20 years, but the handing of the towel to the chap in the bath is only a one-way service.
Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-28 04:45 am (UTC)Fine. I can cope with that. I don't mind Charles looking like a gorilla because I never fancied him anyway.
the handing of the towel to the chap in the bath is only a one-way service.
Ditto scrubbing under pumps. I'm sure there was a fair amount of non-hierarchical widdling in the trenches, giving plenty of opportunity for a noticing man to notice things ("will the neighbours say/'He was a man who used to notice such things'?"), but that was more than twenty years ago and Peter may have doubted that his memory was still accurate.
Hail, Blithe Spirit, Bird Thou Never Wert
Date: 2011-01-28 01:59 pm (UTC)Yes, but anybody named Charlie Parker can improvise...
bada-bing!
Re: Hail, Blithe Spirit, Bird Thou Never Wert
Date: 2011-01-28 03:58 pm (UTC)Re: cheers everyone else on
Date: 2011-01-28 03:15 pm (UTC)Or perhaps he trained himself out of that specific noticing at school very quickly after the first time he got his head flushed in the bogs.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 03:02 pm (UTC)Definitely not! But it is probably easier to write him being upright and fully-dressed in a garden than his fantasy persona initiating the young heroine into the Art of Lurve.
A Downton Abbey crossover - fantastic! I expect S2 to bear about the same resemblance to reality as S1, so I am sure you can do anything you like to bring us Bunter and LPW.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 03:05 pm (UTC)Hmm. The legal problems should be even worse in S2, so perhaps Sir Impey and Murbles can also drop in.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 08:29 pm (UTC)You'll Find Us All, Doing the Lambeth Wand. Oi!
Date: 2011-01-27 09:06 pm (UTC)and almost as upset if it's Kipps or Bill Snibson (Me and My Girl).
The Dursleys will be JOLLY upset if it's Harry.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-27 05:30 pm (UTC)*hopes for fantasy!Bunter to continue to disrobe without becoming grim!*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-28 03:13 pm (UTC)Fantasy!Bunter will not be grim. He will be virile, well-dressed, and slightly more recognisable than the author realises.