Dear Yuletide Author
Nov. 19th, 2011 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scissorphisheDear Yuletide author,
Hello! I am excite! Please don't be intimidated -- I am easily pleased, and invariably adore my Yuletide experience. Thank you for signing up for one or more of my fandoms! I am so happy at the thought that someone out there shares them with me. (One thing: I may be editing this letter and not necessarily always announcing it, but it will only be for little things like typos, clarification, or "oh yes and I also enjoy XYZ," not big things like "hey, those things I said I like? I totally hate them now," so don't worry about missing anything.)
A general note: I am fine with slash, femslash, gen, bob, and het, although I tend to prefer the first four over het. Now I am going to write way too long a letter, just in case you are like me and want ALL THE DETAILS, but if you don't, then never mind, be free, write away!
Here are some things I especially like (which is not to say, “so include these in your story”; like everything else here, they’re just ideas that may or may not be helpful to you):
-passion, whether it's for a person, a place, a field of study, or whatever
-geekery -- when characters (or authors) love something and know lots about it and delight in trivial details
-competence
-anything queer or gender-bendy
-worldbuilding
-languages and linguistics (descriptive not prescriptive)
-characterization
-introspection
-banter
-UST
-stories that are both funny and serious -- anyone who can make me laugh and cry in the same story has earned my worship
-really close relationships of any kind, especially when characters can communicate in ways that would be opaque to others (whether this is passing the broccoli test, or just having lots of inside jokes by virtue of worked together closely, or whatever)
-complicated relationships, especially when they are made more complicated by virtue of characters being crap at communication
-mentor/student relationships (platonic or not)
-travelfic (where the characters are traveling in a car/train/plane/boat etc.)
-important settings, strong sense of place
-revelations/epiphanies, whether to oneself or to others
-unexpected perspectives, especially involving “outsider” accounts (like in “How To Talk To Girls At Parties”)
-happy stories, sad stories with silver linings, bittersweet stories
-apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic stories
Here are some things I’d prefer not to read in my Yuletide this year:
-noncanonical torture (some of the stuff in Dr. Franklin’s Island is pretty torture-ish, and that’s fine to include)
-rape or consensual role-played rape
-heavy kink
-people having sex with animals (or people in animal bodies); animals having sex with each other is fine, but please not in a very graphic or porny way
-porn without plot/characterization (like, where you could replace the names without really taking away from the story)
-infidelity angst -- infidelity is fine as long as no one gets very upset about it
-obvious racism, misogyny, transphobia, fatphobia, etc. in the narrative, unless you’re going the unreliable narrator route -- in-character stuff is fine, I'd just prefer not to get the feeling that you as the author agree with it.
Here are some things I don’t necessarily feel strongly about, but am fine with if you want to include them:
-zombies (to be honest I never quite understood their popularity, but I have read zombie stories I enjoyed, if that's your thing)
-death
-explicit sex (aforementioned exceptions aside)
-underage (at least 15) sexual situations
-polyamory/theesomes/moresomes/open relationships
-”Five Things” fics
-fannish tropes/cliches, e.g. hurt/comfort, cuddling to preserve body heat
-children, babies, pregnancy, mpreg (hey, let your freak flag fly)
-AUs
-addiction or self-harm, if it's handled respectfully
-ETA: holiday stories. Apparently this is a thing? That some people specifically anti-request? Anyway, holidays -- any holidays, of any culture and any time of year -- are fine with me.
Also, I saw this in someone else’s letter and thought it looked like a good idea: I will link you to some of my favorite fics, not to tell you that you should try to imitate them if they’re not your style, but just to offer a sense of sort of prototypical things I like. Don’t feel you have to look at them or take them into consideration -- only if you feel like it. There are so many times I've heard a description of a story and went, "Nooooo thank you," and then ended up loving it, so write to whatever you consider your strengths to be and we'll be good!
-The Shoebox Project (Harry Potter) by ladyjaida and dorkorific. I know, I know, unoriginal choice, but IMO it’s really good at two things I love: characterization, and blending humor and seriousness.
-Basically everything weatherfront has written in Inception fandom, especially Desiderata and the political operative AU.
-New Beautiful Things Come by Raven/singlecrow, an X-Men bakery AU. Some of the things I like about this are the slight mysteries, the way things happen that we don’t understand at first; what seems to me to be a well-thought-out portrayal of disability; and the thought put into the details that fill out the basic concepts (like, we know that mutants are an oppressed class, and in this fic we see details of mutant political movements; we know that Eric can control metal, and in this fic we see how that feels for him, the awareness of metals that wouldn’t be so prominent in anyone else’s consciousness).
-Goodnight Room by Skogkatt, last Yuletide’s post-apocalyptic retelling of Goodnight Moon.
***
Here are my requests:
Dr. Franklin's Island - Ann Halam
Some kind of concept fic would be great -- say, future fic where they somehow turn back into their animal forms (as suggested at the end of the book). Interplanetary travel is mentioned as a research goal, which always presents interesting possibilities. I especially love Semi and Miranda, either as a pairing or as close friends, but I feel every single character in the book, even unnamed background characters (or complete OCs, if you like), has lots of potential for interesting stories. In particular, I've always wanted to know more about the jungle cat -- how is its story different from Semi's and Miranda's, having lived all its life as a regular non-human animal and then receiving an infusion that "did something to its brain"? Or the stories of any of the other animals there -- the story of the pig that escaped, or the birds with hands, or anything.
If you're still looking for more specific ideas, here are some possibilities: I imagine future fic where a legit, (more) ethical research project is genetically modifying fully consenting people and sending them to other planets for the first time, and Semi/Miranda/Arnie/some combination of them choose to get involved with the project to help guide the volunteers through the transformation process, since they've done it before. Or maybe there's no genetics project, it's only interplanetary travel, and Semi/Miranda/Arnie travel to other planets where their animal selves come in handy. Or maybe there's no interplanetary travel at all, but they get involved in secret missions or something on Earth, perhaps as spies. It would be nice if these things could be voluntary, since the characters have gone through so much trauma already, but involuntary works too -- I love the canon, after all.
And for anyone reading this who doesn't know, the narrator, Semi, is of Jamaican descent and would qualify for the Dark Agenda Challenge, if that is something you are interested in.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) RPF
I don’t really have anything specific in mind except more fun in the gloriously ridiculous vein of the show. I enjoy theater geeks (though I don’t actually know much about theater, so if you get something wrong I will probably not know or care), and I think rehearsals or other behind the scenes stuff would be fun. Or actual performances from the perspective of one or more of the actors, or the original guys in the process of creating it (because seriously, how much fun would that be? SO MUCH). I'm happy for you to write any cast you want, including real casts, OCs, characters from your favorite fandoms (if I know them, it'll be even more interesting, and if I don't, I'll just pretend they're OCs), or any combination of the above.
Or, if you somehow suddenly decide you don’t want to write about Shakespeare, or if you feel like being extra creative, what if they did the same thing with something else, if they took a different source and made it into a ridiculous performance? I think, say, The Complete Works of J. K. Rowling or J. R. R. Tolkien (Abridged) would be hilarious.
I love this fandom for its ridiculousness and sheer sense of fun. I don’t mind if the story is somewhat more serious than the show, if that’s what’s working for you, but don’t worry about exceeding my capacity to appreciate silliness, either. On a character level I am also very fond of when they accidentally break character because it is too hilarious to quite keep a straight face (I know this is scandalous and unprofessional and whatever, but I find it terribly endearing), and also when they ad-lib, especially when they are ad-libbing jabs at each other (all of which happened the time I saw it live). Also, RANDOM TRIVIA TIME, I think my favorite line is, “A couch for incest!” “Incest!” “A couch!”
Feel free to take liberties with the degrees of crackiness and/or of the “R” in “RPF,” as you see fit, since the show canonically has a barely existent fourth wall and is basically all crack all the time. If you are...decisionally challenged, like me (shut up that’s totally a word), and really want me to pick characters for you, I saw a production where Jeffrey Hawkins played Hamlet (among other characters), M. A. Taylor played Juliet (among others), and Lynn Robert Berg played other people, I forget, but anyway I liked them all, especially Jeffrey Hawkins. But totally feel free to write about whoever; ultimately most names are pretty interchangeable in this context, since it’s not like I’m intimately familiar with the specific nuances of any of these guys’ personalities.
And here is a link where you can watch a video of the show: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=170335550077595599
How To Talk To Girls At Parties -- Neil Gaiman
I would love anything, but especially worldbuilding or missing scenes! What is the aliens' society like? Are they all even from the same one? Or maybe tell me the history of Triolet’s people (I have a crack theory that they're us from the future, but definitely don't feel bound by that), or the story of Jessa who “spun webs between galaxies,” or why Nameless Girl’s first experience with tears left such an impression on her, or who Hola Colt is, or more about the trip where they swam in the sun with the whales. Or show me what the Whisper is, or the tachyon swans. Or, okay, I get that the Stella/Vic thing is so creepy because it’s left up to our imaginations, but that’s what fandom is for, so I’m totally up for reading your idea of what happened between them.
And in case this is useful, the story is legally available for free here:
I love all the tantalizing, fascinating-sounding mysteries that are just hinted at -- it provides so much fertile ground for fanfiction. Also, this is a little detail, but I like the odd speech style the girls have, the little things that help clue you in to the fact that something is off: “progenitor,” “deepward,” “I could learn more in sun.” And the beauty of their language, too: “We wrapped our dreams in words and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable. Then we sent the poem as a pattern of flux, to wait in the heart of a star, beaming out its message in pulses and bursts and fuzzes across the electromagnetic spectrum, until the time when, on worlds a thousand sun systems distant, the pattern would be decoded and read, and it would become a poem once again.” “The last tour, we went to sun, and we swam in sunfire pools with the whales. We heard their histories and we shivered in the chill of the outer places, then we swam deepward where the heat churned and comforted us.” Etc.
If you’re wondering about the crack theory (I’m honestly not angling for you to write it preferentially over any other idea, I just thought if it were me I’d be curious), it’s because when she said her “world was swallowed by the sea,” it made me think of global warming, and then the “towers of glass and diamond” sound like futuristic skyscrapers.
One caveat: if you write the Stella/Vic scene, I’d really prefer that the shocking/horrifying/traumatizing thing not be the whole transphobic “omg she secretly has manparts” thing. I realize it’s unlikely to be an issue, since she’s, you know, an alien, but I wanted to mention it just in case.
***
I hope that was helpful! Above all, I really honestly want you to write something you enjoy, because that way we are both guaranteed to have fun with Yuletide! Happy holidays and happy writing!
-”Five Things” fics
-fannish tropes/cliches, e.g. hurt/comfort, cuddling to preserve body heat
-children, babies, pregnancy, mpreg (hey, let your freak flag fly)
-AUs
-addiction or self-harm, if it's handled respectfully
-ETA: holiday stories. Apparently this is a thing? That some people specifically anti-request? Anyway, holidays -- any holidays, of any culture and any time of year -- are fine with me.
Also, I saw this in someone else’s letter and thought it looked like a good idea: I will link you to some of my favorite fics, not to tell you that you should try to imitate them if they’re not your style, but just to offer a sense of sort of prototypical things I like. Don’t feel you have to look at them or take them into consideration -- only if you feel like it. There are so many times I've heard a description of a story and went, "Nooooo thank you," and then ended up loving it, so write to whatever you consider your strengths to be and we'll be good!
-The Shoebox Project (Harry Potter) by ladyjaida and dorkorific. I know, I know, unoriginal choice, but IMO it’s really good at two things I love: characterization, and blending humor and seriousness.
-Basically everything weatherfront has written in Inception fandom, especially Desiderata and the political operative AU.
-New Beautiful Things Come by Raven/singlecrow, an X-Men bakery AU. Some of the things I like about this are the slight mysteries, the way things happen that we don’t understand at first; what seems to me to be a well-thought-out portrayal of disability; and the thought put into the details that fill out the basic concepts (like, we know that mutants are an oppressed class, and in this fic we see details of mutant political movements; we know that Eric can control metal, and in this fic we see how that feels for him, the awareness of metals that wouldn’t be so prominent in anyone else’s consciousness).
-Goodnight Room by Skogkatt, last Yuletide’s post-apocalyptic retelling of Goodnight Moon.
***
Here are my requests:
Dr. Franklin's Island - Ann Halam
Some kind of concept fic would be great -- say, future fic where they somehow turn back into their animal forms (as suggested at the end of the book). Interplanetary travel is mentioned as a research goal, which always presents interesting possibilities. I especially love Semi and Miranda, either as a pairing or as close friends, but I feel every single character in the book, even unnamed background characters (or complete OCs, if you like), has lots of potential for interesting stories. In particular, I've always wanted to know more about the jungle cat -- how is its story different from Semi's and Miranda's, having lived all its life as a regular non-human animal and then receiving an infusion that "did something to its brain"? Or the stories of any of the other animals there -- the story of the pig that escaped, or the birds with hands, or anything.
If you're still looking for more specific ideas, here are some possibilities: I imagine future fic where a legit, (more) ethical research project is genetically modifying fully consenting people and sending them to other planets for the first time, and Semi/Miranda/Arnie/some combination of them choose to get involved with the project to help guide the volunteers through the transformation process, since they've done it before. Or maybe there's no genetics project, it's only interplanetary travel, and Semi/Miranda/Arnie travel to other planets where their animal selves come in handy. Or maybe there's no interplanetary travel at all, but they get involved in secret missions or something on Earth, perhaps as spies. It would be nice if these things could be voluntary, since the characters have gone through so much trauma already, but involuntary works too -- I love the canon, after all.
And for anyone reading this who doesn't know, the narrator, Semi, is of Jamaican descent and would qualify for the Dark Agenda Challenge, if that is something you are interested in.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) RPF
I don’t really have anything specific in mind except more fun in the gloriously ridiculous vein of the show. I enjoy theater geeks (though I don’t actually know much about theater, so if you get something wrong I will probably not know or care), and I think rehearsals or other behind the scenes stuff would be fun. Or actual performances from the perspective of one or more of the actors, or the original guys in the process of creating it (because seriously, how much fun would that be? SO MUCH). I'm happy for you to write any cast you want, including real casts, OCs, characters from your favorite fandoms (if I know them, it'll be even more interesting, and if I don't, I'll just pretend they're OCs), or any combination of the above.
Or, if you somehow suddenly decide you don’t want to write about Shakespeare, or if you feel like being extra creative, what if they did the same thing with something else, if they took a different source and made it into a ridiculous performance? I think, say, The Complete Works of J. K. Rowling or J. R. R. Tolkien (Abridged) would be hilarious.
I love this fandom for its ridiculousness and sheer sense of fun. I don’t mind if the story is somewhat more serious than the show, if that’s what’s working for you, but don’t worry about exceeding my capacity to appreciate silliness, either. On a character level I am also very fond of when they accidentally break character because it is too hilarious to quite keep a straight face (I know this is scandalous and unprofessional and whatever, but I find it terribly endearing), and also when they ad-lib, especially when they are ad-libbing jabs at each other (all of which happened the time I saw it live). Also, RANDOM TRIVIA TIME, I think my favorite line is, “A couch for incest!” “Incest!” “A couch!”
Feel free to take liberties with the degrees of crackiness and/or of the “R” in “RPF,” as you see fit, since the show canonically has a barely existent fourth wall and is basically all crack all the time. If you are...decisionally challenged, like me (shut up that’s totally a word), and really want me to pick characters for you, I saw a production where Jeffrey Hawkins played Hamlet (among other characters), M. A. Taylor played Juliet (among others), and Lynn Robert Berg played other people, I forget, but anyway I liked them all, especially Jeffrey Hawkins. But totally feel free to write about whoever; ultimately most names are pretty interchangeable in this context, since it’s not like I’m intimately familiar with the specific nuances of any of these guys’ personalities.
And here is a link where you can watch a video of the show: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=170335550077595599
How To Talk To Girls At Parties -- Neil Gaiman
I would love anything, but especially worldbuilding or missing scenes! What is the aliens' society like? Are they all even from the same one? Or maybe tell me the history of Triolet’s people (I have a crack theory that they're us from the future, but definitely don't feel bound by that), or the story of Jessa who “spun webs between galaxies,” or why Nameless Girl’s first experience with tears left such an impression on her, or who Hola Colt is, or more about the trip where they swam in the sun with the whales. Or show me what the Whisper is, or the tachyon swans. Or, okay, I get that the Stella/Vic thing is so creepy because it’s left up to our imaginations, but that’s what fandom is for, so I’m totally up for reading your idea of what happened between them.
And in case this is useful, the story is legally available for free here:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties_(Text)
I love all the tantalizing, fascinating-sounding mysteries that are just hinted at -- it provides so much fertile ground for fanfiction. Also, this is a little detail, but I like the odd speech style the girls have, the little things that help clue you in to the fact that something is off: “progenitor,” “deepward,” “I could learn more in sun.” And the beauty of their language, too: “We wrapped our dreams in words and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable. Then we sent the poem as a pattern of flux, to wait in the heart of a star, beaming out its message in pulses and bursts and fuzzes across the electromagnetic spectrum, until the time when, on worlds a thousand sun systems distant, the pattern would be decoded and read, and it would become a poem once again.” “The last tour, we went to sun, and we swam in sunfire pools with the whales. We heard their histories and we shivered in the chill of the outer places, then we swam deepward where the heat churned and comforted us.” Etc.
If you’re wondering about the crack theory (I’m honestly not angling for you to write it preferentially over any other idea, I just thought if it were me I’d be curious), it’s because when she said her “world was swallowed by the sea,” it made me think of global warming, and then the “towers of glass and diamond” sound like futuristic skyscrapers.
One caveat: if you write the Stella/Vic scene, I’d really prefer that the shocking/horrifying/traumatizing thing not be the whole transphobic “omg she secretly has manparts” thing. I realize it’s unlikely to be an issue, since she’s, you know, an alien, but I wanted to mention it just in case.
***
I hope that was helpful! Above all, I really honestly want you to write something you enjoy, because that way we are both guaranteed to have fun with Yuletide! Happy holidays and happy writing!
