What's easier for you to write - angst or fluff?

(Yep, I'm still bored and trying to write and yes, there is still chocolate involved!)

LOL! I have been eating Nutter Butter Bites as I got them for my road trip home this weekend and barely ate a handful on the drive. I'm not usually into peanut butter stuff, but I love Nutter Butters.

Angst. Always and forever. I feel like I understand the feelings associated with angst way more than I understand the feelings associated with fluff. That sounds extremely dark, but I didn't mean it like that - I can tap into those angsty feelings more easily. I think it's because I'm still a teenager in a lot of ways. LOL (I'm literally sitting on my couch in a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt, with no makeup on, and I'm on LJ. In the middle of the day. I watched Teen Wolf last night. I'm a 30-year-old teenager.)

I was going to say that I've never written fluff, but that's not really true. I think that parts of Bookstore AU are fluffy. New love tends to be fluffy by nature, and it's fun to write. :D

Yeah, I think drama and angst do come more easily (hence why no couple on tv can just be happy barring Peter and Elizabeth)

I think that's why I'm having so much trouble with my fic right now. It's outright fluff, and a teeny bit of angst got in and I'm trying to get them back to the fluff again. Plus it's not quite in character for Sara to say certain things without making Neal's ego even bigger, so it's a challenge to be light and fluffy.

Where do you write best?

I don't have a specific place, though I usually write sitting on my couch in my condo. I definitely do my best writing when I'm alone and it's relatively quiet - I can either have a WC episode that I've seen a million times on with the sound low or some instrumental music.

How about you? Do you have a special place?

Nope, I can write anywhere, on the boat, in the car, on the train, in a coffee shop, on the couch at home... I always have a laptop or old fashion note book with me, so....

oh fun!

What is it, about a show, that makes you want to write fanfics?

Good question! I had to think on it for a minute.

I think it's mostly about the characters. There has to be something about the characters that makes me want to write about them - part of it is a mysterious backstory, part of it is likability, part of it is feeling a connection to them, part of it is attraction.

I watched WC for a long time before I wrote anything about it, but I saw a moment where I wanted to write more than what was seen on the show - Neal getting shot in Most Wanted, specifically. Once I'd written one thing, the WC fandom was so welcoming that I wanted to write more.

That's another part of it - it's great to have a fandom that is involved. When people leave feedback and are open to discussion, it makes the experience that much better.

There are certainly shows that I watch that I've never wanted to read or write fanfic for, and those are mostly either well-written, well-plotted, well-acted shows or the complete opposite. I need some room to play with the characters and create a plot that doesn't feel like it's OOC, so I need a show that has some issues but not too many. WC for instance was very well-acted and the dialogue was well-written, but the plot was a complete mess. It left a lot of room to play.

Exactly. For me, I think it's really the characters. Characters that I like and can understand.

And you're right, the fandom is a big part of it. You feel encouraged to share and do more.

Old school or new school (i.e. paper or computer)?

New school, for sure. If I write something on paper, I usually cannot read it again later, and I'd never transcribe it. I did that years ago when I was in school and had free time to write but didn't have access to a computer, and I found that I edited more as I was transcribing so that I branched off on a new plot pretty quickly, and I could never reconcile the old plot and the new plot.

Also, I can type almost as fast as my brain can work on something that I'm truly passionate about, whereas I write at roughly the pace of a turtle if I ever want to be able to read it.

ETA: Fun fact! I taught myself to type by writing fanfic on an old laptop I inherited from my brother's friend. One day I realized that I wasn't looking down at the keys while I was typing. (This makes typing on ergonomic keyboards a pain because my fingers aren't on the right keys all the time, LOL)

Edited 2015-08-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

When you go back and read your early writings, do you beam with pride or cringe in shame? Or something in-between?

Something in-between, I think. Some of it is absolutely cringe-worthy, but some turns of phrase or bits of dialogue make me proud to this day.

I have definitely learned a lot about writing over the years, and I have a lot to learn still, but I'm proud of the effort and I'm proud that I put it out there for people to enjoy and got positive responses.

When I was in college, I took a Geography 101 class to fulfill a credit requirement, and the teacher was a Graduate Assistant who required us to write a 200-500 word paper about geography and our major. My major was English Lit, so I asked if I could write a story, and the GA approved that. I wrote this story that made me cringe so hard when I handed it in, but I got it back with smiley faces and lots of exclamation points in the notes. The GA had loved it and told me that he'd shown it to the entire department. I was half-mortified because I felt like I could have done better and half-excited because he was that enthusiastic about it. Looking back on my writings over the years, I kind of go through that every time I post something, and I don't know that it will ever change. I'm okay with that. :)

Where do you get your inspiration? Haha, and yes, I am aware that is the most writerly of questions ever!

LOL! That's okay - It's an interesting question for any writer. :)

It's almost always from characters. There's a spark of something that I can't quite describe because my favorite characters don't have a whole lot in common on the surface... Hmmm... now that I think about it, they are pretty much all emotionally broken, 'bad' boys or sassy women. The more emotionally damaged they are, the better the angst, I suppose. And I do so love to write the angst.

Any story idea that has been following you for ages but you haven't written it? :D

Now that I wrote Redraw the Lines, I don't have any that have been living in my head for any serious length of time. I would like to take that theme and apply it to a Teen Wolf fic - I'm constructing that plot in my head now.

There is one story I've been meaning to write for the Stand By Me/Lost Boys fic, but it's so incredibly angsty and painful that I haven't fully talked myself into finishing and then posting it.

Oh! And I've wanted to do some sort of teen pregnancy fic - one of my guilty pleasures is watching 16 and Pregnant. I don't know why! *facepalm*

All sounds like great ideas \o/ In Teen Wolf, what would be the set-up? Who would discover they're someone else's kid? :D

The TW idea is based more on the idea of someone going missing and then returning a few years later and everyone dealing with the aftermath of what happened.

Basically, Derek, Stiles, and Scott are friends as kids (Derek's 13, Stiles and Scott are 11), and Stiles and Scott are spending the night at the Hale house the night of the fire. They help get some people out, but Derek is taken by the baddies. Peter's family dies but he was away from the house that night, so he puts all his energy into finding Derek.

Three or four years later, Peter finally returns to Beacon Hills with Derek. Everything's awkward - Derek's traumatized, Stiles is traumatized by Derek's kidnapping and his mother's recent-ish death - they kind of gravitate toward each other.

I haven't fully worked it all out yet, but I think it could be interesting. :)

OOOoooh... me likes... me likes very much... me watching 3x06 now :P

Yay!

3x06! There's a scene at the end that's a bit of a tearjerker *pets people who shall not yet be named*

Oh! I have another idea where Stiles and Allison are twins though. I have no idea what the plot is, but Chris Argent and Sheriff Stilinski were together, and they had Stiles and Allison by surrogate, but then they separated when the kids were young. Now, Allison and Chris have returned to Beacon Hills (probably because of the rising werewolf population), and Stiles and Allison have to deal with being siblings. I'm not sure which is better drama - that they knew about each other and didn't have contact or that they didn't know about each other at all.

There are a couple of interesting Stiles-and-Allison-are-twins stories out there.

Oooh, love that idea, too, heeee :D

Just finished ep 3x08 :P 3x06 was epic, indeed, but in my weirdness, the thing that just got me excited now was the very ending of 3x08 cuz they used one of my favorite 16th century music pieces - Gregorio Allegri's Miserere and on top of that they used the version sung by the Tallis Scholars ♥ ♥ ♥ The scale of voice of one of the performers - OMFG!

LOL... it just blows my mind to find this in a - well - very teen show, lol :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpzdB0G3TJU

Ooooh! It sounds lovely!

I really liked 3x08 for the Derek backstory, as tragic as it was. Paige was an interesting character opposite him as a love interest.

Do you plot out everything beforehand, or just write and see where the story takes you, or something in between? :)

Very, very rarely I plot things out. Redraw the Lines was plotted in my head before I started writing it, but that's because I had been thinking on it for months. I never wrote an outline though as we were just starting to do word wars in chat, and I was banging out 1k+ words every 30 minutes. It did take me months to revise it though, and there were scenes that I think I should have written to flesh out other characters and have a B story. It's the one story that I've written that I feel like I could turn it into an original novel by adding a secondary story and writing for more characters than Neal.

I get bored when I plot things out, and then I don't write the story. That's been my experience, so I try to write shorter stories that don't require outlining.

However, I do almost always know the end of the story before I start. If I know the end, then I can get there in a coherent manner. It's the stories that I start because someone gave me a plot bunny that I really struggle with, and I've rushed some endings to be able to finish and post a story.

What effect did the WC finale have on you, writing-wise?

It made me see all the futures in which Neal and Sara can be together. As soon as I saw that he was in Paris, all I could think about was how close he was to Sara.

That's pretty much it. I tend to write AUs or things that diverge greatly from canon, so the closing of canon didn't matter that much to me.

Oooh, yes :D

I write very close to canon, so the finale was devastating for me.