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Everyone else did this a week or more ago, but I was slaving away on AlphaCen, so that's my excuse!
1. The story plays games with time
At the very least, I cannot resist the siren call of flashbacks - in fact, when I'm having trouble with a story, I often try to fix it by going to random flashback, either in a new set-apart section, or just by going into something like, "the first time blah ever happened to blah blah, it was only because of blah blah blah." Other stories do truly peculiar things, making chop suey out of timelines (Fire & Rain) or having a "present moment" storyline interspersed with lots and lots of flashbacks (Pink Ladies, Romance, Desert Rain). I wrote one story backwards (The Night Before The Morning After"). Basically, I get bored with chronological order.
2. The plot gets solved by everybody talking about their feelings
Dude, I don't know what to tell you. I was raised by psychologists -- it's like being raised by wolves, only we talk about our feelings more. During beta,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cesperanza once told me two of my characters had "diarrhea of the mouth," which, while not a lovely image, had some merit to it. I tend to build up a lot of issues, and then settle them through nothing but dialogue, which is sort of utopian and sweet of me, I think, although not the most dramatic technique on earth. (Be Your Own Best Friend, Release Mechanism)
3. There's at least one long sentence with lots of repetition and 2 billion clauses that sounds kind of breathless and jittery
It's just an aesthetic thing; I like the sound. And I think it expresses intensity of feeling and immediacy that otherwise I'd be reduced to cramming into dreadful narrative where I tell you how the characters feel.
4. Every pairing has at least three characters in it
There's no denying that I love a good OT3, but even in the much more common cases where my story has a pairing in the classical sense, there's practically always at least one fraught relationship on the side, an ex (Mercy) or a one-that-got-away (East O the Sun, West O the Moon, Nightshift), or both (Herrenvolk), or some other kind of seriously important connection (Close to the Chest, the entire Selfishly I'm" series), and not just in a sidekick kind of way. There's almost always someone else really impinging on the pairing's space somehow.
5. Similies, not metaphors
Things are always like something else. I'm a big fan of the similie -- no, we can't just call it a failsafe!
6. There's UST, and often a pivotal near-miss
Maybe it's just that writing porn is hard work, but I write a lot more unresolved longing than consummated sex -- in fact, I often don't feel that the actual sex in a story quite lives up to all the build-up, but that's just me. I'm really bad about making my characters ALMOST have sex, until one of them is suddenly like, "No, no, I can't!" and it goes to hell. There's nothing I love writing more than a sex scene that doesn't *quite* happen. (The Seahorse Story: nest, Commitment, Penalty Box -- actually, the entire 16 Instinctive Behaviors series is one long near-miss)
7. No internalized homophobia
I don't write sexual-orientation freakouts. I just don't like to, I don't feel comfortable with them, and it's my hobby, so I don't have to. Characters often don't have a clearly defined sexuality, but seem to operate as bisexual or queer without a lot being said about it. I do enjoy writing first-time-with-the-same-gender stories, but there's never ever a freakout; my characters are almost preternaturally blase about switching teams (The Seahorse Story: incubate, anyway the main thing is)
8. There's some story weight placed on names
When I can, I pull this from canon, particularly the issue of first and last names (Sheppard's a gold mine, because he goes by Sheppard, John, OR Colonel -- he's a triple threat!), and I'm all over a canon nickname like you wouldn't believe (Faith's B and Chris's J, Jim's Chief and Gunn's English). If TPTB won't help me out, however, I am not above inventing affectionate nicknames (Vecchio's Stanley Ray, Lindsey's Angel Almighty, Mal's Starchild, Oz's G), though I try not to be a goober about it. Often, the text itself will call attention to who calls whom what and when -- just in case y'all didn't notice it yourself, I want to make sure *g* (Conquest, Game of Kings)
9. It's located at a particular spot in canon
A lot of writers use whitespace-time for their stories -- things happen On Tour or On a Mission or whenever, and when exactly they take place is not an issue, though maybe you can guess it within a couple of seasons. I tend to link stories directly to the closest episode or major event I can find; even stories that aren't specifically post-ep often riff loosely off some particular event or make a specific time-stamped reference.
And I...don't have a #10. I'm taking suggestions, though. Anyone have a thought?
1. The story plays games with time
At the very least, I cannot resist the siren call of flashbacks - in fact, when I'm having trouble with a story, I often try to fix it by going to random flashback, either in a new set-apart section, or just by going into something like, "the first time blah ever happened to blah blah, it was only because of blah blah blah." Other stories do truly peculiar things, making chop suey out of timelines (Fire & Rain) or having a "present moment" storyline interspersed with lots and lots of flashbacks (Pink Ladies, Romance, Desert Rain). I wrote one story backwards (The Night Before The Morning After"). Basically, I get bored with chronological order.
2. The plot gets solved by everybody talking about their feelings
Dude, I don't know what to tell you. I was raised by psychologists -- it's like being raised by wolves, only we talk about our feelings more. During beta,
cesperanza once told me two of my characters had "diarrhea of the mouth," which, while not a lovely image, had some merit to it. I tend to build up a lot of issues, and then settle them through nothing but dialogue, which is sort of utopian and sweet of me, I think, although not the most dramatic technique on earth. (Be Your Own Best Friend, Release Mechanism)3. There's at least one long sentence with lots of repetition and 2 billion clauses that sounds kind of breathless and jittery
It's just an aesthetic thing; I like the sound. And I think it expresses intensity of feeling and immediacy that otherwise I'd be reduced to cramming into dreadful narrative where I tell you how the characters feel.
4. Every pairing has at least three characters in it
There's no denying that I love a good OT3, but even in the much more common cases where my story has a pairing in the classical sense, there's practically always at least one fraught relationship on the side, an ex (Mercy) or a one-that-got-away (East O the Sun, West O the Moon, Nightshift), or both (Herrenvolk), or some other kind of seriously important connection (Close to the Chest, the entire Selfishly I'm" series), and not just in a sidekick kind of way. There's almost always someone else really impinging on the pairing's space somehow.
5. Similies, not metaphors
Things are always like something else. I'm a big fan of the similie -- no, we can't just call it a failsafe!
6. There's UST, and often a pivotal near-miss
Maybe it's just that writing porn is hard work, but I write a lot more unresolved longing than consummated sex -- in fact, I often don't feel that the actual sex in a story quite lives up to all the build-up, but that's just me. I'm really bad about making my characters ALMOST have sex, until one of them is suddenly like, "No, no, I can't!" and it goes to hell. There's nothing I love writing more than a sex scene that doesn't *quite* happen. (The Seahorse Story: nest, Commitment, Penalty Box -- actually, the entire 16 Instinctive Behaviors series is one long near-miss)
7. No internalized homophobia
I don't write sexual-orientation freakouts. I just don't like to, I don't feel comfortable with them, and it's my hobby, so I don't have to. Characters often don't have a clearly defined sexuality, but seem to operate as bisexual or queer without a lot being said about it. I do enjoy writing first-time-with-the-same-gender stories, but there's never ever a freakout; my characters are almost preternaturally blase about switching teams (The Seahorse Story: incubate, anyway the main thing is)
8. There's some story weight placed on names
When I can, I pull this from canon, particularly the issue of first and last names (Sheppard's a gold mine, because he goes by Sheppard, John, OR Colonel -- he's a triple threat!), and I'm all over a canon nickname like you wouldn't believe (Faith's B and Chris's J, Jim's Chief and Gunn's English). If TPTB won't help me out, however, I am not above inventing affectionate nicknames (Vecchio's Stanley Ray, Lindsey's Angel Almighty, Mal's Starchild, Oz's G), though I try not to be a goober about it. Often, the text itself will call attention to who calls whom what and when -- just in case y'all didn't notice it yourself, I want to make sure *g* (Conquest, Game of Kings)
9. It's located at a particular spot in canon
A lot of writers use whitespace-time for their stories -- things happen On Tour or On a Mission or whenever, and when exactly they take place is not an issue, though maybe you can guess it within a couple of seasons. I tend to link stories directly to the closest episode or major event I can find; even stories that aren't specifically post-ep often riff loosely off some particular event or make a specific time-stamped reference.
And I...don't have a #10. I'm taking suggestions, though. Anyone have a thought?
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Date: 2006-02-02 09:21 pm (UTC)From:(1) Links. To stories! HUZZAH.
(2) I'm loving this meme, really I am. *geeky reader glee*
(3) Dude. *reads over own work* I think I must have imprinted on your writing style somewhere in the wayback.
(4) I'd suggest something for #10, but I'm still laughing over the one with Blair and Def Leppard and the frittata. The frittata: it slays me every single time.
(5) LINKS! Thank you.