Dear Yuletide writer
Nov. 19th, 2010 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroyFirst off, thank you a million times for your efforts. Know that you are already appreciated and loved before you even set fingers to keyboard. You're volunteering to be part of my Christmas, and I'm truly glad of it.
As to guidance for you in your writing: love your story. I want you to be passionate about what you write, to find something that makes you laugh or think or feel. If you love it, I probably will too-- and if I'm surprised by it, so much the better. Don't try to please me if you can't also please yourself, and don't take anything either in my requests or this letter as inviolable gospel. You're the writer, so ignore any suggestion that gets in your way. :-)
That said, if you're looking for jumping off points, here's some things that usually work or don't for me:
* Judging by my requests, clearly I'm looking for the funny this year. Probably the easiest place to get funny out of any of those fandoms is just to put the characters in a room and let them talk-- they all mesh in ways that make me smile out of the box without having to dream up some "comedic" situation to put them in. This does mean writing comic dialogue, but my passion for comic dialogue burns with the heat of a thousand suns. So, you know, it would make me happy. :-)
* To jump off from that, I really like the fandoms as they already exist. Feel free to add new and interesting elements to your story (I like surprises!), but don't feel obligated to try and shake things up just for the sake of shaking things up. I'm perfectly happy with vanilla stories that use the established formula from the canon.
* On the other hand, fix-it fic is made of win. I don't think there's a show/book/movie/comic in existence that doesn't have something I wish would have gone differently. Seeing someone do it better than the real thing always makes me do a little dance in my chair.
* Slash fiction usually doesn't work for me in fandoms I know really well. I always start to think about how the relationship would change this thing, and this other thing, and how this other relationship would be totally different... and eventually it doesn't seem like the fandom I love anymore. I just can't seem to detach the part of my brain fixated on canon long enough to enjoy it. However, slash fiction for fandoms I don't know really well is a blast. :-)
* Explicit sex is probably the only thing that will just destroy a story for me. Romance is always welcome and sex in the story is totally fine; I just don't want detailed descriptions of the act.
* If you're looking for further information about me as a person so as to write for me better, check out this note and its through-links. That and the Rules of Drama tag will probably give you enough to go on.
And that's that. Thank you again for everything, and I look forward to Yuletide morning!
ETA: Because I'm a moron, my actual requests were for anything good and Middleman-y, a case story from Castle, a funny Sarah Jane Adventures preferably with Clyde being awesome, and a missing Series VII Red Dwarf with some good Kochanski action. Self of the future, take note: put your actual requests here so that you can get treated.
As to guidance for you in your writing: love your story. I want you to be passionate about what you write, to find something that makes you laugh or think or feel. If you love it, I probably will too-- and if I'm surprised by it, so much the better. Don't try to please me if you can't also please yourself, and don't take anything either in my requests or this letter as inviolable gospel. You're the writer, so ignore any suggestion that gets in your way. :-)
That said, if you're looking for jumping off points, here's some things that usually work or don't for me:
* Judging by my requests, clearly I'm looking for the funny this year. Probably the easiest place to get funny out of any of those fandoms is just to put the characters in a room and let them talk-- they all mesh in ways that make me smile out of the box without having to dream up some "comedic" situation to put them in. This does mean writing comic dialogue, but my passion for comic dialogue burns with the heat of a thousand suns. So, you know, it would make me happy. :-)
* To jump off from that, I really like the fandoms as they already exist. Feel free to add new and interesting elements to your story (I like surprises!), but don't feel obligated to try and shake things up just for the sake of shaking things up. I'm perfectly happy with vanilla stories that use the established formula from the canon.
* On the other hand, fix-it fic is made of win. I don't think there's a show/book/movie/comic in existence that doesn't have something I wish would have gone differently. Seeing someone do it better than the real thing always makes me do a little dance in my chair.
* Slash fiction usually doesn't work for me in fandoms I know really well. I always start to think about how the relationship would change this thing, and this other thing, and how this other relationship would be totally different... and eventually it doesn't seem like the fandom I love anymore. I just can't seem to detach the part of my brain fixated on canon long enough to enjoy it. However, slash fiction for fandoms I don't know really well is a blast. :-)
* Explicit sex is probably the only thing that will just destroy a story for me. Romance is always welcome and sex in the story is totally fine; I just don't want detailed descriptions of the act.
* If you're looking for further information about me as a person so as to write for me better, check out this note and its through-links. That and the Rules of Drama tag will probably give you enough to go on.
And that's that. Thank you again for everything, and I look forward to Yuletide morning!
ETA: Because I'm a moron, my actual requests were for anything good and Middleman-y, a case story from Castle, a funny Sarah Jane Adventures preferably with Clyde being awesome, and a missing Series VII Red Dwarf with some good Kochanski action. Self of the future, take note: put your actual requests here so that you can get treated.