Fest Entries Roundup
May. 19th, 2014 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argentum_lsMy entries into the first round of fests were decidedly multi-fandom.
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
shipswap, I was assigned to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amathela, who requested a Scott/Lydia story with the prompt: makeouts. (Interestingly, amathela wrote for me last year in this same exchange.)
After much pondering and testing of ideas, I decided to do a post-season 2 story in which Lydia experiments on Scott. I had ambitious plans for this one. The story was going to be written like entries from a journal that Lydia was keeping, with each research session focusing on her addressing one specific hypothesis. Unfortunately, with the deadline quickly approaching, I realized that the ratio of other stuff to making out was incredibly skewed--as in, there were thousands of words and no kissing--and I was forced to do some radical retooling. I selected one of the sessions, pulled in establishing info from other bits, and reworked everything to make the making out the point of the scene rather than a throw-away line.
The final result was: Learning Curves, 1700 words, PG-13.
rarewomen had me matched to malinaldarose twice. She requested both Tomorrow People '73 and '92, which are both fandoms dear to my heart. Naturally, I wanted to write her everything, and just as naturally, that couldn't happen. I don't know what it is about exchanges that makes my fannish eyes so big.
Unfortunately, the prompts she gave were a selection of quotes which I read, went away to mull over, and then never could find again. Either the letter was deleted or I have lost my ability to read blogs that are primarily words. So, I have no idea if I came close to fulfilling any of the prompts.
In the end, the story came together rather quickly. I knew that I wanted to focus on Elizabeth from the '73 series and have the story be about a) tea and b) fitting in. What I came up with was a story about her working as a Federation Ambassador and learning that she's been away from Earth for so long that everything changed and it's not the Earth she left. Personally speaking, I find that as I get older, I lose track of larger chunks of time faster and I'll look up one day and realize that it's been 5 years or 10 since I last did something or saw someone, and I have no idea how that happened. The idea of Elizabeth spending so much time among aliens that she becomes alienated really resonated with me, so that's what I aimed for. I also tossed around the idea of her disliking the decision the Federation Council hands down so much that she accidentally leads a coup and becomes the new Chairbeing. This bit never made it past the concept stage because the decision she does make in the story felt a lot more organic to her.
The resulting story was: All the Little Background Noises, 6100 words, G.
The title here is a reference to the idea of being so distracted by the little things that one misses the big things. It's taken from the song "Sticky Jazz" by Shriekback. For some reason, Shriekback is my go-to group when I want a title that doesn't fit my usual pattern of one or two word titles, with the side-effect being that I'm well on my way of being able to simply post the lyrics for "Sticky Jazz" and link a story to every line.
Last up,remixers_lounge threw two completely new challenges at me. One, obviously, was the remix itself, since I've never done that before. The second came in my match to sevendeadlyfun on a match for an Angel story, which is a fandom I've never written in before.
After browsing through all the potential stories, I finally settled on Five Times Angel was Happy (and the world didn't end) as my target. Again with big fannish eyes, I originally thought to remix the whole story. Fortunately, I came to my senses and decided to focus on the earliest of the happy moments: a section of about 70 words in the original.
My first attempt was written very quickly, as I was out-of-town and unable to guarantee internet access for a long stretch. Nearly all of this first draft was dumped on re-write (thank goodness), though it served as a decent thematic framework for what emerged: an examination of the little boy who would grow up to be Angel confronting some of the hypocrisies of his religion. My goal was to illustrate some of the forces that shaped young!Angel into the hedonistic layabout that the canon introduces us to before he was bitten.
The resulting story was: It's a Special Kind of Thing (A Happiness Is Remix), 1500 words, PG-13 for underaged kissing.
Like my rarewomen story, the title comes from "Sticky Jazz" by Shriekback and refers both to what young!Angel is feels at the end of the remix and to the overall idea from the source story that happiness is a rare feeling for Angel.
For
shipswap, I was assigned to amathela, who requested a Scott/Lydia story with the prompt: makeouts. (Interestingly, amathela wrote for me last year in this same exchange.)After much pondering and testing of ideas, I decided to do a post-season 2 story in which Lydia experiments on Scott. I had ambitious plans for this one. The story was going to be written like entries from a journal that Lydia was keeping, with each research session focusing on her addressing one specific hypothesis. Unfortunately, with the deadline quickly approaching, I realized that the ratio of other stuff to making out was incredibly skewed--as in, there were thousands of words and no kissing--and I was forced to do some radical retooling. I selected one of the sessions, pulled in establishing info from other bits, and reworked everything to make the making out the point of the scene rather than a throw-away line.
The final result was: Learning Curves, 1700 words, PG-13.
rarewomen had me matched to malinaldarose twice. She requested both Tomorrow People '73 and '92, which are both fandoms dear to my heart. Naturally, I wanted to write her everything, and just as naturally, that couldn't happen. I don't know what it is about exchanges that makes my fannish eyes so big.Unfortunately, the prompts she gave were a selection of quotes which I read, went away to mull over, and then never could find again. Either the letter was deleted or I have lost my ability to read blogs that are primarily words. So, I have no idea if I came close to fulfilling any of the prompts.
In the end, the story came together rather quickly. I knew that I wanted to focus on Elizabeth from the '73 series and have the story be about a) tea and b) fitting in. What I came up with was a story about her working as a Federation Ambassador and learning that she's been away from Earth for so long that everything changed and it's not the Earth she left. Personally speaking, I find that as I get older, I lose track of larger chunks of time faster and I'll look up one day and realize that it's been 5 years or 10 since I last did something or saw someone, and I have no idea how that happened. The idea of Elizabeth spending so much time among aliens that she becomes alienated really resonated with me, so that's what I aimed for. I also tossed around the idea of her disliking the decision the Federation Council hands down so much that she accidentally leads a coup and becomes the new Chairbeing. This bit never made it past the concept stage because the decision she does make in the story felt a lot more organic to her.
The resulting story was: All the Little Background Noises, 6100 words, G.
The title here is a reference to the idea of being so distracted by the little things that one misses the big things. It's taken from the song "Sticky Jazz" by Shriekback. For some reason, Shriekback is my go-to group when I want a title that doesn't fit my usual pattern of one or two word titles, with the side-effect being that I'm well on my way of being able to simply post the lyrics for "Sticky Jazz" and link a story to every line.
Last up,
remixers_lounge threw two completely new challenges at me. One, obviously, was the remix itself, since I've never done that before. The second came in my match to sevendeadlyfun on a match for an Angel story, which is a fandom I've never written in before. After browsing through all the potential stories, I finally settled on Five Times Angel was Happy (and the world didn't end) as my target. Again with big fannish eyes, I originally thought to remix the whole story. Fortunately, I came to my senses and decided to focus on the earliest of the happy moments: a section of about 70 words in the original.
My first attempt was written very quickly, as I was out-of-town and unable to guarantee internet access for a long stretch. Nearly all of this first draft was dumped on re-write (thank goodness), though it served as a decent thematic framework for what emerged: an examination of the little boy who would grow up to be Angel confronting some of the hypocrisies of his religion. My goal was to illustrate some of the forces that shaped young!Angel into the hedonistic layabout that the canon introduces us to before he was bitten.
The resulting story was: It's a Special Kind of Thing (A Happiness Is Remix), 1500 words, PG-13 for underaged kissing.
Like my rarewomen story, the title comes from "Sticky Jazz" by Shriekback and refers both to what young!Angel is feels at the end of the remix and to the overall idea from the source story that happiness is a rare feeling for Angel.
