rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2010-05-05 07:33 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2010-05-05 07:33 pm
in which I talk an awful lot about my own stories
Because I think it's interesting (even if no one else does), here's a list of the stories I purposely included in Golden Key:
That whole idea of reusing stories has been on my mind lately.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaila43 started it by mentioning that she liked to rewatch her own fanvids, and then taragel asked how fanfic writers feel about their stories after posting.
It made me start thinking about why I like to reread my own stories. I definitely do--as I mentioned to Tara, I reread my own stories far more often than I reread anyone else's. So I came up with some explanations that work as my own reasons.
1) The story uses retold/repurposed stories (or other sources). Fairy tales and mythology are my favorite for this, and I've been using them in my own fanfiction almost since I first started posting three and a half years ago. Those four mythology ficlets are the first explicit examples of that. Battlestar Galactica is a great fandom for using mythology, because it's in the source material. It's not just myths and tales, though. Songs I like get woven in as well: Distant Ships on the Horizon uses lots of lines from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."
Here's the thing with repurposed material. Storytellers steal stuff all the time, but I know the full extent of my own thievery. So it makes me happy to reread "Distant Ships," because I'm aware of all the lines from the song that I was able to bend to fit the story. (Even mangled quotes from JRR Tolkien and obscure French films.)
2) The story was hard work, but I was pleased by the final result. Nemesis is the perfect example for this category. (It fits in the first category as well! Whee!) I worked on it for weeks. It was hard, because dialogue has never been easy for me and Leoben kept talking and talking to Jean, and Jean's taciturn, which is also hard to describe... See? Hard work! But when I was finally done, it felt fantastic, and I loved the result.
3) Other people like the story. Yeah, I'll admit it: if a story gets more comments, I tend to like it more. That's not always the case, but frequently comments do make a difference later on for how much I appreciate my own stories.
4) It just works for me. I like my own ideas. If I didn't like them, I'd never follow through and actually write them. I'm my first, best audience. (Please don't take this as a reason not to comment if you like a story of mine. I LOVE COMMENTS. See #3.) Sometimes I like writing as a process; other times it frustrates me, annoys me or makes me feel like committing acts of violence against my computer or notepad. The final result, though, is satisfying. My idea, the idea I liked well enough to poke at it and write stuff down, finally in a complete form and not just in my head.
That's why I started writing fanfic in the first place. My first idea came one morning without any warning/precedence and forced me to write until I had a story done. That was Prophecy. It still fascinates me, the concept that the Colonial Fleet could find our Earth, but the languages wouldn't be the same and there are sleeper cylons. I was so interested in it that I then wrote Second Winter in the same universe. "Prophecy" makes me cringe a bit with some of the awkward phrasing here and there, but I love that story idea and all its implications. (I haven't gone back to fix it, other than a few formatting issues, just because it's interesting to see the starting point--and by comparison, see what practice and a helpful beta-reader can do.)
Yay, stories!
I can tell you one reason that's usually not part of why I like my own stories: my prose. Every once in a while I'll hit a phrase that pleases me and makes me giddy when I reread, but that's rare.
If my Mozilla Firefox 'most visited sites' toolbar is to be believed, the stories I've reread the most are "Nemesis," Jealous Gods and Never Get Back Home.
Wow, that was a lot of typing about me me me. So for you fellow creators of fannish output, what pleases you the most about your own work? Do you reread/rewatch?
Time to go find some dinner and watch last night's episode of Lost now. Hurrah!
The title is from The Golden Key, a story that totally fits the theme of telling tales.
Little Red Riding Hood, of course. It was fun to see how far I could get in the fairy tale without making my story completely creepy. (Hopefully it caused some worry for Hera without making people click the backbutton.)
Snow White:LeobenHermes as the Huntsman, Hera as Snow White (with her berry-red mouth), mentions of mirrors being like magic.
Sleeping Beauty, via Athena Agathon. Hera mentions that her mom has a spindle that's sharper than hers, and that she's not allowed to touch it.
Rumpelstiltskin, with a brief reference to spinning straw and the story Two tells mentioning spinning wheels and protecting babies.
In quick succession and with fleeting mentions, Jack and the Beanstalk, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Violet, who turned into a blueberry) and The Seven Ravens (the sister who saved her brothers from an evil spell).
The Alvin Maker stories get a tiny nod with Hera stating that her plow isn't magic. (Card was probably referring to a Nordic myth about a golden plow. And as a random side note to the search, I didn't realize before now that Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen and Summer Queen stories had some Norse myths as well. Cool!)
Sleeping Beauty again, when Hera thinks that a nap would be lovely. Then back to Little Red Riding Hood several times at the end.
I did try and avoid mentioning princesses, even though I was using some princess fairy tales. Hera's life wouldn't be like that of a fairy-tale princess at all, so I didn't want to mention them.
If
That whole idea of reusing stories has been on my mind lately.
chaila43 started it by mentioning that she liked to rewatch her own fanvids, and then taragel asked how fanfic writers feel about their stories after posting. It made me start thinking about why I like to reread my own stories. I definitely do--as I mentioned to Tara, I reread my own stories far more often than I reread anyone else's. So I came up with some explanations that work as my own reasons.
1) The story uses retold/repurposed stories (or other sources). Fairy tales and mythology are my favorite for this, and I've been using them in my own fanfiction almost since I first started posting three and a half years ago. Those four mythology ficlets are the first explicit examples of that. Battlestar Galactica is a great fandom for using mythology, because it's in the source material. It's not just myths and tales, though. Songs I like get woven in as well: Distant Ships on the Horizon uses lots of lines from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."
Here's the thing with repurposed material. Storytellers steal stuff all the time, but I know the full extent of my own thievery. So it makes me happy to reread "Distant Ships," because I'm aware of all the lines from the song that I was able to bend to fit the story. (Even mangled quotes from JRR Tolkien and obscure French films.)
2) The story was hard work, but I was pleased by the final result. Nemesis is the perfect example for this category. (It fits in the first category as well! Whee!) I worked on it for weeks. It was hard, because dialogue has never been easy for me and Leoben kept talking and talking to Jean, and Jean's taciturn, which is also hard to describe... See? Hard work! But when I was finally done, it felt fantastic, and I loved the result.
3) Other people like the story. Yeah, I'll admit it: if a story gets more comments, I tend to like it more. That's not always the case, but frequently comments do make a difference later on for how much I appreciate my own stories.
4) It just works for me. I like my own ideas. If I didn't like them, I'd never follow through and actually write them. I'm my first, best audience. (Please don't take this as a reason not to comment if you like a story of mine. I LOVE COMMENTS. See #3.) Sometimes I like writing as a process; other times it frustrates me, annoys me or makes me feel like committing acts of violence against my computer or notepad. The final result, though, is satisfying. My idea, the idea I liked well enough to poke at it and write stuff down, finally in a complete form and not just in my head.
That's why I started writing fanfic in the first place. My first idea came one morning without any warning/precedence and forced me to write until I had a story done. That was Prophecy. It still fascinates me, the concept that the Colonial Fleet could find our Earth, but the languages wouldn't be the same and there are sleeper cylons. I was so interested in it that I then wrote Second Winter in the same universe. "Prophecy" makes me cringe a bit with some of the awkward phrasing here and there, but I love that story idea and all its implications. (I haven't gone back to fix it, other than a few formatting issues, just because it's interesting to see the starting point--and by comparison, see what practice and a helpful beta-reader can do.)
Yay, stories!
I can tell you one reason that's usually not part of why I like my own stories: my prose. Every once in a while I'll hit a phrase that pleases me and makes me giddy when I reread, but that's rare.
If my Mozilla Firefox 'most visited sites' toolbar is to be believed, the stories I've reread the most are "Nemesis," Jealous Gods and Never Get Back Home.
Wow, that was a lot of typing about me me me. So for you fellow creators of fannish output, what pleases you the most about your own work? Do you reread/rewatch?
Time to go find some dinner and watch last night's episode of Lost now. Hurrah!
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