Seven Days of Self-Promotion Meme – Day 1

[aadler]

 
snickfic instituted this meme, and others are following:

“I think that many of us like talking about our and linking to our work but are embarrassed to do so without excuse, so I am making us an excuse. Behold, the Seven Days of Self-Promotion Meme, inspired by another recent meme but with more categories, all obviously customizable as you see fit. Notice that the categories are very broad, so you can talk about your art or vids or meta or whatever if you don’t write fic.

The Days:
     1.

Something old:

“Old” is a relative term when it comes to fanfic. I think I qualify, though; I wrote my first Buffyfic fifteen years ago, so I have quite a selection to choose from.

I think I’ll go with “Solitaire Till Dawn”. This one was done in summer of 2000, and — like most of my stories at the time — didn’t feature any of the major BtVS characters. Back then, I focused almost solely on minor or peripheral characters, telling of events that took place ‘backstage’ of canon, and “Solitaire Till Dawn” was (IMNSHO) one of the better examples. It was perhaps the darkest fic I’ve ever done, and definitely unhappy, but it holds together in its structure.

If there’s any weakness there, it’s that almost the entirety of the story is focused on a non-canon character (unpowered human) dealing with finding himself in the middle of a nightmare (localized zombie apocalypse). Another possible weakness, though I did it by choice, is the voice of the narrator: deliberate, precise, almost bloodless, a man desperately trying to hang onto his sanity in a world that’s gone insane, and doing so by focused unemotionality.

“Solitaire Till Dawn” won a few awards Back In The Day, and I still think of it as one of my better efforts.
- - - -
     2. Something new
     3. Something you made for someone else
     4. Something you made just for yourself
     5. Something for a major fandom/pairing/character
     6. Something for a minor fandom/pairing/character
     7. Something you’re just really proud of

And then other people can read your discussion and follow your links to your fanworks (and maybe comment on them?) and you can read their discussion and follow their links and comment on them, and it will all be lovely.”

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I am definitely going to go back and give this one a look-see.

It's kind of interesting going back through your old stuff, isn't it?


Gabrielle

[aadler]

It is. I’m looking forward to following out the process.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I've been doing it myself as part of my 10th anniversary in fanfiction. You've got 5 years on me - wow!


Gabrielle

[aadler]

And I’ve been following those posts with some interest. Your endeavor is a bit more ambitious than I’m looking to attempt, but I believe I can handle Snick’s more limited meme.

So, does your later advent mean that you didn’t start writing Buffyfic till BtVS was already over?

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's right. I was a beta reader for several years before I was finally goaded by two of my authors into taking the plunge and writing my own stories in 2004.

Thanks for reading my posts, btw. I am looking forward to more of this meme from you.


Gabrielle

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

You've definitely piqued my curiosity, so it's going on my to read list. (Although I'm hopelessly behind with my reading at the moment...)

[aadler]

Well, thanks. If you do get to it, be sure and let me know what you think.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've always enjoyed about your fic (which I first saw way back in the day when I was doing a lot of judging) is that you focus on the minor characters, or even original characters finding themselves in Buffyverse situations. It's very different and appealing from the more common pairing stuff.

[aadler]

As I’ve acknowledged elsewhere, I encountered Blair Provence’s “Not Even Jimmy Olsen” in my first few months of reading Buffyfic. This made a permanent impression on me, especially in that the OC narrator was not inserted into the proceedings as a dominant figure, but found herself very much an extra in a drama that wasn’t about her. That’s the rule I try to follow with OCs: they’re best used to illustrate the fictional world we enjoy, even if they’re ‘central’ in the story it’s not about them.

As for minor characters, I can’t really explain that, I just started doing it because I liked it. And it’s still fun, even so many years later: you can explore a well-known character by adding layers, but a minor character has so much more unknown territory that can be filled in by imagination. (I actually speak of this in a later segment of this same meme, how much I enjoy working with the non-majors.)

And pairings, well, I just don’t do a lot of that, period. When I do, it’s a departure from my normal practice … and most of the time, it seems to involve Xander. What can I say? the guy’s got magic.