Fanfic writing meme

[john_amend_all]

(Meme from daibhid_c)

1. Why do you write fanfic?

Two reasons. Either because I've had an idea (quite often a reaction to current series/fandom events), and think it might be fun to embody it in prose; or because I want to read a particular story and no-one else has written it, so I have to do it myself. Very occasionally, the step from idea to fanfic takes place because someone asked me to write it.

2. When did you write your first fanfic and which fandom was it for?

7 January 2001, according to the datestamp. A This Time Round story for the Doctor Who fandom, written in response to rumours that the series would be revived with Sean Bean as the Doctor. Still waiting for that one to happen.

3. Which fandoms do you, or have you, written for?

Doctor Who, almost exclusively. Crossed, at various points, with:

• Absolute Power
• Babylon Five
• Blackadder
• By the Way
• The Code of the Woosters
• Girl Genius
• Futtock's End
• Harry Potter
• I, Claudius
• I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue
• Inspector Morse
• Inspector Morose (sic)
• Knightmare
• Life on Mars
• The Magician's House
• Nebulous
• Neverwhere
• The News Quiz
• Peter Simple
• The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town
• The Prisoner
• QI
• Scrapheap Challenge
• Sharpe
• Sherlock Holmes
• Star Terk (sic)
• Star Trek Enterprise
• Star Trek TNG
• Star Wars
• Wacky Races

Nearly all of which occur in drabbles or flashfics where the crossover is the only point.

4. Do you read much fanfic or do you mainly write?

I find, since I started writing, I read less. But correlation doesn't imply causation. With the explosion of the Doctor Who fandom since 2005, I can afford to be picky about what I read.

5. What comes easiest for you when writing? (dialogue, descriptions, plot, characterizations, humour, angst...)

Isolated scenes, as a rule. I've got a file on my hard drive of orphaned scenes waiting for the right story. Quite often, dialogue comes out quickly, too. Plot I find difficult, which could be why I've written so many Storytimes: you start off with the plot of the tale-within-a-tale to build around.

6. Which genres do you mainly write? (action, angst, dark, drama, horror, humour...)

Humour, I suppose, though I prefer the term 'silliness'. With the very occasional intermissions of original flavour and filk.

7. Which genres will you not write?

Pornography. There are also a lot of other genres I only seem to be able to write with my tongue in my cheek, such as Doctor/companion shipping.

8. Are reader comments/responses important?

I'm always pleased to see them.

9. Do you use a beta reader?

No.

10. Which is your favourite character to write fanfic for and why?

It's fairly obvious if you've read my longer fics: Zoë Heriot. Because I can imagine what she'd do in a lot of situations, and it's usually something helpful to the story. Like a Swiss Army knife, she contains a number of useful tools.

11. Which are your favourite ships (including friendships) that you write the most?

I seem to have ended up with a friendship: Jamie's Angels {Jamie, Victoria, Zoë, Isobel Watkins, Samantha Briggs, Gia Kelly} despite the fact that they never all met each other in canon.

12. Do you have characters that are so strongly established that they're in your heads?

I don't have multiple heads.

13. Which characters are you most comfortable doing a POV for? Which is the hardest?

Victoria seems to be easiest for me; in Trouble in Store the POV gravitated to her about halfway through and stayed there. Hardest (as in, "I did actually write their POV" rather than "I didn't even dare to go there") was Bertie Wooster, but that's more the prose style.