Do you feel your writing is recognizable? Why or why not? Interesting question -- if you mean fanfic writing, no, because I try to be inventive in different ways and few ever guess I wrote a story, and I work for a "transparent" style because there just doesn't seem a call for literary style, and the main characters I use for POV don't seem the sort to have a really identifiable style. If that makes sense. However, if lit crits WANTED to, I believe they could find my "tells;" I'm uncomfortably aware of them. What do you think gives you away? Some things just put me in certain categories: sf writer, doesn't like writing anyone as The Enemy, things work out in the end -- and in fanfic, plot as important as character to me. Characterisation is pretty recognisable too. I also tend to find the world funny, and words funnier, so there tends to be double meanings in most commentary. I also like to write dialogue as though I were an eavesdropper on a college campus where fairly smart people go. That's how I learned to write dialogue, after all. I don't think I can write dim characters credibly, or judgmental characters sympathetically, so those come out as if an elitist were making fun of them, alas. Have you written a fic that you feel best exemplifies what makes you recognizable? What was it? Gates, which is my rl magnum opus if I ever finish revising. In it, there are no completely bad guys, although there's a war and the audience will identify with one side (as I do;) character takes precedent over plot, so it gets quite longish with events that don't further plot at all -- with my original characters, one hangs out with them and they're procrastinators. There are lyrical passages, which is how I tend to write climactic scenes, because I have a lot of training in poetry and that's how I learned to write emotional action. These things, except the lyricism, are all present in my fanfic as well, but working with existing characters mean I can't spread myself as much creatively. I also note that in my H/D fiction I not only have recurrent themes, but recurring plot interests -- for example, somehow theatre keeps cropping up. PTSD has been referred to obliquely in all of them, but I think that's out of my system with Alohomora, so hopefully that won't give me away if/when I participate in future fests. What's a fic you've written that you feel is unrecognizable? If people read teh LOTR fics I wrote as Lost Owl, I think they wouldn't recognize the writer as the same person, just because I really am character driven and the characters are so different. for example, "Betters" is a Frodo/Sam fic and I don't think it resembles in plot OR character Harry/Draco, especially not Squib, which is my favourite H/D. But if you've "got" my sense of humour and my political interests, there would be resemblances to pursue. What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are recognizable? Oh, Maya for certain! She stands out, really, because her style is language timed for humour, and she has her own "voice." She brought so many things to fandom which are recognisably her characterisations: Harry as a kind of socially incompetent loser, Draco as a coffee addict, Hermione and Ron as not suited, Pansy as a delightful snarky person who would be well-suited to Ron (don't get me started on that one!) and so forth. I love her work, rl too, but frankly I think her characters were predictably similar. Again, that's fanfic for you. Recognizable styles? Tigersilver and Wemyss have really distinctive styles I think of as kinda "early Peter Wimsey," very before-the-Great-War language. Again, I love the work. Still, it's so very "period" pure that I can't read a lot at once without needing to read some transparent stylists just to clear my brain. Sarasgirl is another who's recognisable, though in her case her plots and to some extent her characters vary significantly, and her writing style is fairly transparent. I mostly recognise her because she's simply that good, and then I notice certain ... quirks? Standards? Her characters are good people in general, and the bad ones aren't "Darkly" bad but just human bad; there's always lots of unexpected sorts of magics, and she more than anyone else I've read gives me the sense of H/D as normal people living relatively normal lives. and Pir-8fancier like Maya has ordinary people slightly larger-than-life lives credibly, with enormous humour, but her characters strike me as somewhat more sophisticated than Maya's. Pir-8 is about the only writer I know who can write Snape well and still make me like him, consistently. I haven't figured out the rest of what makes her recognisable, unless you will accept the highly non-literary description of a quality I call "I'm in good hands." From the first sentence, you know this is going to be interesting, fun, and challenge your stereotypes of character. What gives those writers away? Oops. See above.
I will add one other kind of writer: those with a literary bent who use angst as character development. This will sound awful -- and I certainly won't name them -- but their style is so opaque that it's interchangeable among them, kind of like the novels I was required to read in high school -- Edith Wharton, The Mill on the Floss, and so forth. The really fine ones among those can write fic which would win a book prize. Nonetheless, I could never say, "This story is X's, and this is Y's because they sound too much alike, their characters are suffering, and a sense of humour doesn't manifest itself much, in either character or author. The style draws attention to itself by being ... again, I haven't a word, but I used to write like that because I thought I was supposed to: " The diamond panes' wood frames were so old that the rain was seeping through. The dust she ran her finger through turned to a small line of mud. It was so easy to remember then that glass was a liquid too, and in this old abbey had flowed for 600 years and thickened the lower window, while leaving the diamond tips vulnerable to shattering and to rain."
Well, that's an awful first draft, but I don't feel like editing it, so just believe me: the subject, the image, the sadness are all examples of the literary genre. What's a fic that you would rec that you feel best exemplifies their recognizability? Oh, I think one needs to rec at least two so they can be compared. But this is way too long anyway. So: if people HAVE any of Maya's fiction, probably the quintessential later work is ... oh blast my brain; an AU where Draco is a Ravenclaw. If you compare that to her first long fic, "Underwater Light," you can see that the characters and the themes and above all the tongue-in-cheek style (when she's not committing angst) are pretty much the same, though obviously she grew a heckuva lot as a write during that time. Pir-8s "Snape the home Fries Nazi" to me is perfect example: you believe the unbelievable (Snape as a cranky cook, Harry as a lost soul, both as lovers) willingly. My personal favourite is "Lettered" and its sequel, "Lush Life" (wrote it as "lust" the first time!) where you believe Draco in all his snarky, self centered, complicated wholeness and just... well, you're in good hands. Sarasgirl's recently finished "Turn" and her earlier, beautiful "Foundations" series exemplify her magical world building and the ordinary human beings who are struggling in it -- and also includes (in 'turn') the only Lucius I've both liked, laughed at hysterically, and believed in. What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are less recognizable? Resonant? Though that's cheating, because I haven't read much. But her writing shows literary discipline, in the sense that it's following various writing rules and knows how to do that well. I would expect if she wrote another major story that it would follow those rules, and would therefore look completely different in some ways. I never know what's up with a Stray-the-Grey story because they're profoundly original in plot, and the style's not recognisable because English isn't her first language so the betaing makes a difference to how things are said. I think she's 'way undervalued and should become Hungary's premium sf writer, but then, I'm a bit biased. What are some fics by those writers that you feel exemplifies difficulty in recognizing them? Try Stray's HDHols 10 fic on broomstick racing at Disneyland (Disneyworld?) . If you haven't read "Transfigurations" by Resonant, you probably aren't a member of H/D fandom anyway.But if you haven't, you HAVE to. I'm sorry about not-linking. I don't have the links and they always take up two or three lines because I can never remember how to code LJ links.
Sorry -- a lot -- for the length. Interesting questions; I look forward to reading other people's answers.
A Little about Recognisability
Interesting question -- if you mean fanfic writing, no, because I try to be inventive in different ways and few ever guess I wrote a story, and I work for a "transparent" style because there just doesn't seem a call for literary style, and the main characters I use for POV don't seem the sort to have a really identifiable style. If that makes sense. However, if lit crits WANTED to, I believe they could find my "tells;" I'm uncomfortably aware of them.
What do you think gives you away?
Some things just put me in certain categories: sf writer, doesn't like writing anyone as The Enemy, things work out in the end -- and in fanfic, plot as important as character to me. Characterisation is pretty recognisable too. I also tend to find the world funny, and words funnier, so there tends to be double meanings in most commentary. I also like to write dialogue as though I were an eavesdropper on a college campus where fairly smart people go. That's how I learned to write dialogue, after all. I don't think I can write dim characters credibly, or judgmental characters sympathetically, so those come out as if an elitist were making fun of them, alas.
Have you written a fic that you feel best exemplifies what makes you recognizable? What was it?
Gates, which is my rl magnum opus if I ever finish revising. In it, there are no completely bad guys, although there's a war and the audience will identify with one side (as I do;) character takes precedent over plot, so it gets quite longish with events that don't further plot at all -- with my original characters, one hangs out with them and they're procrastinators. There are lyrical passages, which is how I tend to write climactic scenes, because I have a lot of training in poetry and that's how I learned to write emotional action. These things, except the lyricism, are all present in my fanfic as well, but working with existing characters mean I can't spread myself as much creatively. I also note that in my H/D fiction I not only have recurrent themes, but recurring plot interests -- for example, somehow theatre keeps cropping up. PTSD has been referred to obliquely in all of them, but I think that's out of my system with Alohomora, so hopefully that won't give me away if/when I participate in future fests.
What's a fic you've written that you feel is unrecognizable?
If people read teh LOTR fics I wrote as Lost Owl, I think they wouldn't recognize the writer as the same person, just because I really am character driven and the characters are so different. for example, "Betters" is a Frodo/Sam fic and I don't think it resembles in plot OR character Harry/Draco, especially not Squib, which is my favourite H/D. But if you've "got" my sense of humour and my political interests, there would be resemblances to pursue.
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are recognizable?
Oh, Maya for certain! She stands out, really, because her style is language timed for humour, and she has her own "voice." She brought so many things to fandom which are recognisably her characterisations: Harry as a kind of socially incompetent loser, Draco as a coffee addict, Hermione and Ron as not suited, Pansy as a delightful snarky person who would be well-suited to Ron (don't get me started on that one!) and so forth. I love her work, rl too, but frankly I think her characters were predictably similar. Again, that's fanfic for you. Recognizable styles? Tigersilver and Wemyss have really distinctive styles I think of as kinda "early Peter Wimsey," very before-the-Great-War language. Again, I love the work. Still, it's so very "period" pure that I can't read a lot at once without needing to read some transparent stylists just to clear my brain. Sarasgirl is another who's recognisable, though in her case her plots and to some extent her characters vary significantly, and her writing style is fairly transparent. I mostly recognise her because she's simply that good, and then I notice certain ... quirks? Standards? Her characters are good people in general, and the bad ones aren't "Darkly" bad but just human bad; there's always lots of unexpected sorts of magics, and she more than anyone else I've read gives me the sense of H/D as normal people living relatively normal lives. and Pir-8fancier like Maya has ordinary people slightly larger-than-life lives credibly, with enormous humour, but her characters strike me as somewhat more sophisticated than Maya's. Pir-8 is about the only writer I know who can write Snape well and still make me like him, consistently. I haven't figured out the rest of what makes her recognisable, unless you will accept the highly non-literary description of a quality I call "I'm in good hands." From the first sentence, you know this is going to be interesting, fun, and challenge your stereotypes of character.
What gives those writers away?
Oops. See above.
I will add one other kind of writer: those with a literary bent who use angst as character development. This will sound awful -- and I certainly won't name them -- but their style is so opaque that it's interchangeable among them, kind of like the novels I was required to read in high school -- Edith Wharton, The Mill on the Floss, and so forth. The really fine ones among those can write fic which would win a book prize. Nonetheless, I could never say, "This story is X's, and this is Y's because they sound too much alike, their characters are suffering, and a sense of humour doesn't manifest itself much, in either character or author. The style draws attention to itself by being ... again, I haven't a word, but I used to write like that because I thought I was supposed to: " The diamond panes' wood frames were so old that the rain was seeping through. The dust she ran her finger through turned to a small line of mud. It was so easy to remember then that glass was a liquid too, and in this old abbey had flowed for 600 years and thickened the lower window, while leaving the diamond tips vulnerable to shattering and to rain."
Well, that's an awful first draft, but I don't feel like editing it, so just believe me: the subject, the image, the sadness are all examples of the literary genre.
What's a fic that you would rec that you feel best exemplifies their recognizability?
Oh, I think one needs to rec at least two so they can be compared. But this is way too long anyway. So: if people HAVE any of Maya's fiction, probably the quintessential later work is ... oh blast my brain; an AU where Draco is a Ravenclaw. If you compare that to her first long fic, "Underwater Light," you can see that the characters and the themes and above all the tongue-in-cheek style (when she's not committing angst) are pretty much the same, though obviously she grew a heckuva lot as a write during that time. Pir-8s "Snape the home Fries Nazi" to me is perfect example: you believe the unbelievable (Snape as a cranky cook, Harry as a lost soul, both as lovers) willingly. My personal favourite is "Lettered" and its sequel, "Lush Life" (wrote it as "lust" the first time!) where you believe Draco in all his snarky, self centered, complicated wholeness and just... well, you're in good hands. Sarasgirl's recently finished "Turn" and her earlier, beautiful "Foundations" series exemplify her magical world building and the ordinary human beings who are struggling in it -- and also includes (in 'turn') the only Lucius I've both liked, laughed at hysterically, and believed in.
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are less recognizable?
Resonant? Though that's cheating, because I haven't read much. But her writing shows literary discipline, in the sense that it's following various writing rules and knows how to do that well. I would expect if she wrote another major story that it would follow those rules, and would therefore look completely different in some ways. I never know what's up with a Stray-the-Grey story because they're profoundly original in plot, and the style's not recognisable because English isn't her first language so the betaing makes a difference to how things are said. I think she's 'way undervalued and should become Hungary's premium sf writer, but then, I'm a bit biased.
What are some fics by those writers that you feel exemplifies difficulty in recognizing them?
Try Stray's HDHols 10 fic on broomstick racing at Disneyland (Disneyworld?) . If you haven't read "Transfigurations" by Resonant, you probably aren't a member of H/D fandom anyway.But if you haven't, you HAVE to. I'm sorry about not-linking. I don't have the links and they always take up two or three lines because I can never remember how to code LJ links.
Sorry -- a lot -- for the length. Interesting questions; I look forward to reading other people's answers.