Thinking About Writing

[lea_hazel]

I'm thinking about writing. Specifically, I'm thinking about classic fanfic plots and which ones I want to try that I haven't written yet.


Historical A/Us are right out, I think. I wouldn't be comfortable writing about any period that I didn't know a fair bit about, or leaning on shallow Google-level research. Any historical setting I might know something about would be wildly inappropriate, I.E. there's no way I'm writing a Warsaw ghetto uprising A/U no matter how tempting it is. And I could never manage Victorian or Regency or any of the other classics.

Space A/Us are nice but I have trouble jiving with science fiction. I don't relate to it quite enough to become as invested as I need to be for completing a coherent story. But maybe there's one important exception to this rule.

Modern A/Us are nice because they allow one to play around with ideas that don't make sense in medieval-style settings. They also allow for a wide diversity of settings and themes that are pretty familiar, but provide great sources of drama. The challenge is translating the tensions from canon into a modern setting, although that depends on which characters you use. School A/Us are great but the idea of writing a story set in a nominally USian school is kind of hilarious. Then again writing about the school system as I know it is equally ludicrous. Concerns like these are why I hesitate to write modern setting fiction in English. I wrote a snippet of high school A/U and it was a little awkward, I don't think I would want to write a longer, more structured fic in that atmosphere.

I think I'd like to write a coffee shop A/U. That seems like it would be a lot of fun.

A superhero A/U could be awesome. I have so much fun with the tropes of superhero comics but the comics themselves are often so depressingly disappointing. This is like a fusion, the best of both worlds.

Fairy tale A/U... would probably end up being more of an allegorical tale. Hmm.

Urban fantasy A/U... I could do werewolves, although I tend to gravitate towards a tone of werewolves that would seem obscure. Less of a sexual power play dynamic, more of a tight-knit, vaguely dysfunctional extended family dynamic. I can't think of quite the right cast to work with.

Hooker A/U. I've actually written something like this, albeit anonymously, and I doubt I'll ever complete it. Just something I threw together one day when I needed to think about something new and unusual (to me).

Time travel -- an egregious omission on my part, but I wouldn't know where (when?) to start. Not the type of plot I'm good at structuring, and plot is not my strength anyway.

Animal transformation is... actually something that I've done. I've also done something that's sort of akin to wingfic, but not exactly. Both meme fills, both anonymous.

Most tricking-people-into-relationship shortcut devices. The sort of thing I would write, but only twisted beyond recognition. Like the relationship happens, but it fails to end in puppies and curtain shopping and instead everyone is very resentful and hurtful and crap.


This is getting too long already so I'm gonna cut it off abruptly. Maybe more thoughts tomorrow morning.

Comments

[mizz_destiny]

I, for one, would ADORE a Warsaw ghetto AU. I'm not sure if that's at all helpful...

[lea_hazel]

I'm just too familiar with the depressing notion of working really hard on something that almost no one will notice. And I think the story itself would be depressing to write, and require lots of research which will be depressing to read. Meanwhile in the back of my mind are characters clamoring that they would make great resistance fighters and, look! We made you a Molotov cocktail.