Ask me about writing (icon unrelated, but awesome)

[starlady]

Great afternoon and evening hanging out in the southerly part of the bay, good feelings slightly soured by opening my email account when I got home & reading school stuff therein. Strongly suspect this is a "this too shall pass" moment, or at least a "the world does not revolve around you" moment; in any case, I don't want to talk about it now.

Instead, a meme! somewhat in honor of Yuletide.

I think it would be fun to talk about stories, but the usual memes are like, "What happens next?" "Tell me about Character A?" Which isn't so much talking about stories as it is writing more of a story. But you know how sometimes you read something and you're like, "I got ___ out of this story, I wonder if I have that right?" or "What on earth was ____ supposed to be?" and it's too awkward to ask the author? Now you could totally ask!

I've heard people say that writing is hard because you have to make decisions, but we never really talk about the decisions we make with stories or why we make them. We talk about plot bunnies, but not about how we actually turn them into a story.

And it seems like a lot more fun to do that than to do working.

So, if you wanted, ask me questions! (Or use this to ask your flist to ask you questions).

What were you trying to do [here]? Why did you decide to ____? This is what I thought about xyz, is that what you were going for? What made you write ____? Why did you decide to do this? And so on.

The master list (it's short) of my fic is here on DW; everything is also at starlady on the AO3. I feel like I've made…unusual choices in my writing; if you think the same, please do ask. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

Comments

[dancing_moon]

Euh, hello *waves*

I found a link to your manga meta and it was all very interesting and instructive. So I thought I'd friend you and do the polite thing and whatnot, and introduce myself. So, hi =)

[starlady]

Hi, and welcome!

[seekingferret]

I love the idea of this meme, yet I find myself not sure what to ask you. Which is odd. I usually don't struggle to get into literary criticism mode.

So let's talk about your Irene/John story.

What drives "I took that job to protect him"? To me, that line sticks out. I think at first it didn't strike me as an Irene line, I can't imagine her feeling the need to defend her professional life like that and then as you read on it seems to turn so you say "Oh, maybe that's the point. Maybe John is the only person she feels she does need to justify her professional life to."

Also, feel free to ask about any of my fic.