Meme: 2016 Fanfic Year-in-Review

[argentum_ls]

Total Word Count in 2016 = 72,311*

*This a difficult stat. Two stories posted on AO3 in 2016 were fully written and posted on LJ on 2015 ("Something Called Living" and "Ace in the Hole"), so I'm not counting them here. Also, "Something Called Honor" has substantially more written for it than has been been posted so far; I'm also not counting its unposted words. Whereas, "Something Called Justice" which was also written almost entirely in 2015, wasn't posted at all until 2016, so I am counting that.)

Stories written: 7
Number of fandoms written in: 6
Shortest story: 962 words
Longest story: 39187 (so far)
Average story length: 10,3330


Crossovers

Something Called Justice - Highlander: the Series/Highlander: the Raven/Forever - 23000 words - A headless body tests Henry and Jo's developing relationship, and makes Henry question his role in protecting Richie and Liam's world from outsiders.

Something Called Honor - Highlander: the Series/Highlander: the Raven/Forever - 39187 (chapters 1-12) - Between her immortal boyfriend and her Immortal friends, Jo's world view is expanding in new - and sometimes painful - ways. But when a young child is the only witness to a brutal beheading of a known Immortal, Jo has to learn how the Game really works in order to find out the truth, before it gets her killed.

Screen Test - Highlander: the Series/Forever - 962 words - Lucas tries to talk Methos out of his movie choice. fandom_stocking

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. - Leverage/DC's Legends of Tomorrow - 2000 words - Hardison finds an incriminating photograph of Eliot that reveals surprises in Eliot's past and future. crossovering

Highlander: the Series

19 - 3000 words - On a dark night, Richie Ryan was shot and killed. He made it ten days before needing to talk to someone, anyone, about what happened. With Duncan gone and Tessa dead, there's only one person left. myoldfandom

Where the Love Light Gleams - 2400 words - Nick only wants his family together for the holidays. hlh_shortcuts

Houdini & Doyle

Find a Penny - 1761 words - Adelaide hasn't always been Adelaide, and she doesn't know if she always will be. yuletide_admin

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Overall Thoughts:

Have I spent a whole year on this crossover? I really have, haven't I.

My best stories of the year

I really don't know. I think this year was a pretty strong crop of stories.

My favorite story of the year:

Hmm... probably "Something Called Justice."

Story of mine most unappreciated by the universe:

"Find a Penny" is the only story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, relative to its fandom size.

Most fun story to write:

It's gotta be "Justice." I didn't do a year-end-review in 2015 because the year was overall a complete mess. However, as mentioned elsewhere, when NaNoWriMo hit, I sat down to start "Something Called Living"--and got the whole thing done in eight days. On day nine, I started "Justice," which was nearly completely written by the 20th (save for editing and a final chapter, which didn't get written until a month later), and then a third story (tentatively called "Sacrifice," which I got about half way through before running out of month). Basically, it was a month of writing madness, the like of which I've never experienced before.

Story with the sexiest moments:

I don't think anything qualifies this year.

Most “Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you” story:

There's definitely nothing that qualifies this year.

Story that shifted my perceptions of the characters:

Prior to starting the SCF universe, I had seen Raven, but I had no recollection of any characters in it aside from Amanda and Nick. While trying to work out how to approach the assignment, I rewatched the series and came to the conclusion that Father Liam was a neat character. By the time I finished writing "Living" and "Justice," I had fallen in love with him.

Hardest story to write:

"Something Called Honor." Holy buckets has this one been a challenge. I joined wipbigbang to get this one finished, and did succeed in getting almost the entire thing drafted by all the required deadlines. Then I started posting it, revising while I went--and hit a chapter (5, if you're curious) that needed to be completely re-written because it hadn't come together at all. And then another one (9, irrc). And then the cascading effects of substantial revision caused everything else in the draft to turn into, what was effectively, a very wordy placeholder. I ended up bowing out of the fest on the day before my extended post-date because I just couldn't get everything properly revised. Now I'm stuck on chapter 13, which is a perfectly functional scene that no longer fits into the story at all as written.

Biggest disappointment:

I don't have one of these either, this year.

Biggest surprise:

"Honor." I was not expecting it to be so long.

OK, that's a lie. When I originally started bandying around the idea for it, I told my beta reader that I didn't want to pursue this one because it would have to be a 50K story. She talked me into it. And it turns out it's going to be about 75K.

Most unintentionally telling story:

What does this even mean?

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

I didn't make any predictions for this year, though I was really surprised when I tallied up the numbers and found out it was over 70K.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2015?

Katherine/Nick.

I never had much interest in these characters, so writing a story about them didn't cross my mind until I did it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Longfic. This was definitely the year of the longfic.

I didn't learn, so much as have confirmed, that I need good beta-readers to keep me from crawling too far up my own ass when telling a story.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Finish "Honor." Finish the SCF story "Impersonation," which was supposed to come before "Honor." Finish things!

I'd like to thank the academy...

htbthomas, tptigger, and truthisademurelady who are my fic life.

Comments

[brightknightie]

> "I need good beta-readers to keep me from..."

I entirely empathize with the sentiment, though I wouldn't phrase it precisely the same way. ;-) If I don't get to talk through a story idea with a thoughtful, challenging, supportive person, that story idea will never grow into all it can be.

Thank you again for your very generous engagement on HLH_Shortcuts!

[argentum_ls]

Talking through a story is absolutely necessary, though my sentiment goes a bit beyond that. idelthoughts is busily tearing apart one of the pending SCF stories now, pointing out all the places where what I thought was clearly expressed and in-character really isn't.

Also, I'm more than happy to fill that role for you whenever it's not finals. Please never hesitate to ask :)