End of year fic review thing.
Jan. 1st, 2021 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcOkay, let's do this.
Completed fics:
Ten Alternate Universes: Danger Mouse (Danger Mouse)
A Review of Pride and Extreme Prejudice (Discworld)
The Crisis Convergence of Countless Captain Carrots! (DC Comics)
Total number: 3. Which is two more than I completed last year. (Or 12 if you count all the AU ficlets seperately. One of these years I'm going to pick a count and stick to it.)
Total word count: 5314
Character breakdown: Counting the AUs as one, nobody appears in more than one fic.
Counting the AUs seperately: DM 8, Penfold 5, Baron Greenback 3, everyone else 1.
(Yes, I know, but while it's totally unclear, the Professor Squawkencluck in 10 AUs:DM:Shapeshifters is meant to be Heinrich from the original series, while the one in Coffee Shops is his neice from the reboot.)
Best/worst title?
I really like the alliteration in the Captain Carrot one, as well as the absurdist piling-up of DC Crisis imagery. The other two are functionally descriptive, I guess.
Best/worst summary?
Best, probably the P&EP review. I'm sure I stole "esteemed (or possibly just steamed) " from somewhere, but I can't place it.
Boilerplate 10 AUs summary continues to be boilerplate.
Best/worst first line?
I like the decription of the comic Rodney's working on at the start of CCoCCC, because I know exactly which actual comic I'm parodying, but I'm not sure anyone else will care. Beyond that, I dunno.
Best/worst last line?
A Review of P&EP. For both. I like how it sums up the main point of the story (that Brian Yeast is a pompous buffoon who has no idea how to read a detective story and thinks that's its fault) but I also feel it does so by hanging an unnecessarily large lampshade on it.
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Less. After the last couple of years, I don't know why I thought I'd write more, but I did.
I honestly expected I'd have at least two of my languishing Longer Fics done by the summer, and I barely managed one within the year.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
CBBC cartoons, Discworld, DC Comics. Nope, nothing there.
EDIT: Actually, now I think about it, I'd probably have been pretty surprised if you'd told me I was going to do a Batrachomyomachia crossover. Largely because it would have taken me a while to even remember what that was.
What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
I'm very pleased that I finally finished Crisis Convergence and it (IMO) mostly works.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
A Review of P&EP got a lot of kudos. One of those moments when I have the utterly illogical reaction of "Gosh, if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have tried to write a better fic!"
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
I realise it's been up for less than a fortnight, but Crisis Convergence has two hits and no kudos. Maybe I don't have the right tags to find the audience.
Story that could have been better?
Possibly all of them!
Sexiest story?
Saddest story?
As usual, N/A.
Most fun?
I think they're all pretty fun.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Not sure.
Hardest story to write?
Well, the DM AUs are a holdover from a couple of years ago, and, like with the Granny Weatherwax ones back then, the only way I got them completed was by swapping a couple of AUs I was stuck with for ones from previous versions of the meme. I've been trying to do the Captain Carrot thing for even longer, and my problem there was figuring out where the story was going, or even if there was one.
(It's a problem I've noticed with a few of my WIPs: I come up with a formalist idea like "the various incarnations of a character meet" or "story set in multiple time periods featuring a character's historic predecessors", I work out exactly which characters I want to use and how they'll relate to each other, I maybe even write a few set pieces ... and then I suddenly realise I need a plot.)
Easiest/most fun story to write?
It was fun writing in Brian Yeast's voice, and the format was the point, so I didn't have the above problem. It still took me longer than I expected, mostly through worrying about the name of the female lead. (She can't be a Bennett pun, because the Gordons are already doing that, so I eventually went for a Dashwood pun, but I kept changing what it was, and I'm still not convinced I chose the right one.)
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
Nope.
Most overdue story?
All of them!
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I don't think I did, really.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
All together now: "Generally write more, do some of the 1000 prompts and look into Yuletide"! This year for sure, maybe!
How did you do on last year's goals?
I didn't actually make any, but if I had, they'd probably have been the usual, and as usual, I didn't.
Completed fics:
Ten Alternate Universes: Danger Mouse (Danger Mouse)
A Review of Pride and Extreme Prejudice (Discworld)
The Crisis Convergence of Countless Captain Carrots! (DC Comics)
Total number: 3. Which is two more than I completed last year. (Or 12 if you count all the AU ficlets seperately. One of these years I'm going to pick a count and stick to it.)
Total word count: 5314
Character breakdown: Counting the AUs as one, nobody appears in more than one fic.
Counting the AUs seperately: DM 8, Penfold 5, Baron Greenback 3, everyone else 1.
(Yes, I know, but while it's totally unclear, the Professor Squawkencluck in 10 AUs:DM:Shapeshifters is meant to be Heinrich from the original series, while the one in Coffee Shops is his neice from the reboot.)
Best/worst title?
I really like the alliteration in the Captain Carrot one, as well as the absurdist piling-up of DC Crisis imagery. The other two are functionally descriptive, I guess.
Best/worst summary?
Best, probably the P&EP review. I'm sure I stole "esteemed (or possibly just steamed) " from somewhere, but I can't place it.
Boilerplate 10 AUs summary continues to be boilerplate.
Best/worst first line?
I like the decription of the comic Rodney's working on at the start of CCoCCC, because I know exactly which actual comic I'm parodying, but I'm not sure anyone else will care. Beyond that, I dunno.
Best/worst last line?
A Review of P&EP. For both. I like how it sums up the main point of the story (that Brian Yeast is a pompous buffoon who has no idea how to read a detective story and thinks that's its fault) but I also feel it does so by hanging an unnecessarily large lampshade on it.
Less. After the last couple of years, I don't know why I thought I'd write more, but I did.
I honestly expected I'd have at least two of my languishing Longer Fics done by the summer, and I barely managed one within the year.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
CBBC cartoons, Discworld, DC Comics. Nope, nothing there.
EDIT: Actually, now I think about it, I'd probably have been pretty surprised if you'd told me I was going to do a Batrachomyomachia crossover. Largely because it would have taken me a while to even remember what that was.
I'm very pleased that I finally finished Crisis Convergence and it (IMO) mostly works.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
A Review of P&EP got a lot of kudos. One of those moments when I have the utterly illogical reaction of "Gosh, if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have tried to write a better fic!"
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
I realise it's been up for less than a fortnight, but Crisis Convergence has two hits and no kudos. Maybe I don't have the right tags to find the audience.
Story that could have been better?
Possibly all of them!
Sexiest story?
Saddest story?
As usual, N/A.
Most fun?
I think they're all pretty fun.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Hardest story to write?
Well, the DM AUs are a holdover from a couple of years ago, and, like with the Granny Weatherwax ones back then, the only way I got them completed was by swapping a couple of AUs I was stuck with for ones from previous versions of the meme. I've been trying to do the Captain Carrot thing for even longer, and my problem there was figuring out where the story was going, or even if there was one.
(It's a problem I've noticed with a few of my WIPs: I come up with a formalist idea like "the various incarnations of a character meet" or "story set in multiple time periods featuring a character's historic predecessors", I work out exactly which characters I want to use and how they'll relate to each other, I maybe even write a few set pieces ... and then I suddenly realise I need a plot.)
Easiest/most fun story to write?
It was fun writing in Brian Yeast's voice, and the format was the point, so I didn't have the above problem. It still took me longer than I expected, mostly through worrying about the name of the female lead. (She can't be a Bennett pun, because the Gordons are already doing that, so I eventually went for a Dashwood pun, but I kept changing what it was, and I'm still not convinced I chose the right one.)
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
Nope.
Most overdue story?
All of them!
I don't think I did, really.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
All together now: "Generally write more, do some of the 1000 prompts and look into Yuletide"! This year for sure, maybe!
How did you do on last year's goals?
I didn't actually make any, but if I had, they'd probably have been the usual, and as usual, I didn't.
