writing + prompts

Folks, I promise I will start talking soon about something other than fics that you can't read yet. Right now, though, I'm all YAY BIG BANG (my draft came in at 21k, but I think it'll gain a couple thousand words in the rewrite) and YAY RAREWOMEN (reveals on Monday).

However. Next year, plz remind me not to move two weeks before a major fic deadline, 'kay?

In other things. Um. I've been thinking about prompts, and what works for me in a prompt and what doesn't. brutti_ma_buoni talked in her Writercon discussion on prompts last year (Brutti, wasn't there an audio recording, too?) about writing to prompts from the kink meme. She contrasted between prompts that are all about action (Faith/Dawn/Kennedy strap-ons) vs. emotion (Wesley/Fred frantic comfort sex during the Beast rampage), and how for her, emotion prompts and action prompts don't.

I think I'm the same. This crystalized for me this morning while I was looking at the prompts at the latest commentfic meme over at ohsam. It seems to me that prompts like "Sam has asthma, and Dean helps him through an attack" (not an actual prompt) functions like the h/c equivalent of an action prompt on the kink meme. Apparently I find them equally uninspiring whether they're sexy or h/c.

Now, if we add an emotional dimension with maybe some conflict built in, then I'm interested again. For example, "Sam developed food allergies while at Stanford, but never told Dean. When Dean finds out during an attack, Dean takes it as evidence that Sam doesn't trust him."

Obviously, this is very much a YMMV topic; what works for me doesn't work for everyone. It occurs to me that it also depends on just how deeply someone is invested in a particular kink. Like, you can give me a fandom, a pairing, and the word 'mpreg', and you know I'll go to town, no additional details required.

Semi-related, I'm having trouble with commentfic memes over in the more Buffy-centric corner of fandom because single words and random song phrases as prompts are in vogue right now, and those usually only work for me if I haven't written in ages and am just boiling over with writing energy. I'm much better off with a what-if prompt. Of course, then I want to write a big long plotty thing that's 10k+ words, but that's a separate issue.

Original entry posted at Dreamwidth. Feel free to reply here or there. ( DW replies)

writing + prompts

Folks, I promise I will start talking soon about something other than fics that you can't read yet. Right now, though, I'm all YAY BIG BANG (my draft came in at 21k, but I think it'll gain a couple thousand words in the rewrite) and YAY RAREWOMEN (reveals on Monday).

However. Next year, plz remind me not to move two weeks before a major fic deadline, 'kay?

In other things. Um. I've been thinking about prompts, and what works for me in a prompt and what doesn't. brutti_ma_buoni talked in her Writercon discussion on prompts last year (Brutti, wasn't there an audio recording, too?) about writing to prompts from the kink meme. She contrasted between prompts that are all about action (Faith/Dawn/Kennedy strap-ons) vs. emotion (Wesley/Fred frantic comfort sex during the Beast rampage), and how for her, emotion prompts and action prompts don't.

I think I'm the same. This crystalized for me this morning while I was looking at the prompts at the latest commentfic meme over at ohsam. It seems to me that prompts like "Sam has asthma, and Dean helps him through an attack" (not an actual prompt) functions like the h/c equivalent of an action prompt on the kink meme. Apparently I find them equally uninspiring whether they're sexy or h/c.

Now, if we add an emotional dimension with maybe some conflict built in, then I'm interested again. For example, "Sam developed food allergies while at Stanford, but never told Dean. When Dean finds out during an attack, Dean takes it as evidence that Sam doesn't trust him."

Obviously, this is very much a YMMV topic; what works for me doesn't work for everyone. It occurs to me that it also depends on just how deeply someone is invested in a particular kink. Like, you can give me a fandom, a pairing, and the word 'mpreg', and you know I'll go to town, no additional details required.

Semi-related, I'm having trouble with commentfic memes over in the more Buffy-centric corner of fandom because single words and random song phrases as prompts are in vogue right now, and those usually only work for me if I haven't written in ages and am just boiling over with writing energy. I'm much better off with a what-if prompt. Of course, then I want to write a big long plotty thing that's 10k+ words, but that's a separate issue.

Original entry posted at Dreamwidth. Feel free to reply here or there. ( DW replies)