My fic, graded from dire to awesome

[hmpf]

Copied from a discussion in comments further down the page.

Farscape fandom must be very puzzled by my fic output...

2001: A River in Egypt: mediocre
2003: Rise and Shine: decent
2006: Normal: awesome.
2010: The Breakfast of Losers: decent
2012 (I think): Dead Man's Jacket: mediocre

It must look like I'm two different writers. :D

Come to think of it, my output in LoM follows a similar pattern [in terms of quality fluctuations]:

2007: Starving on the Jump Down: decent
2008: How to Love a Madman: decent
2009: The Last Lost Generation: mediocre
2012: The Mad Doctrine: awesome

And as for Highlander...:

2000: This Is Your Time: dire
2001: Sometimes We Believe: decent
2001: Epilogue: mediocre
2002: Names: decent
2003: Endure: flawed awesomeness
2010: 68 Wives: awesome

**

For completeness' sake, here's the stuff from my minor fandoms, too:

2003: Together (Harry Potter): mediocre
2004ish?: Family Portrait (It's Walky!): mediocre
2004ish?: A Case For the Christmas Bunny (Zebra Girl): mediocre
2006: Atlas (BSG): decent

As for bunnies, here's how I'd rate them at the moment:

Found in Translation (Highlander): awesome
(untitled) (Farscape): decent
Terro(u)rists (Farscape): awesome
Cut Along the Dotted Line (LoM): decent
(untitled) (LoM/Sandman): awesome
The Man Who Fell to Earth (LoM): potentially awesome, but troubled (and yes, I know the title has been done. It's a working title, anyway.)
Round the Bend in 80 Days (LoM): decent
A Black-and-White Picture (HP): awesome

Next up for finishing - apart from the surprise FS fic I mentioned yesterday - will probably be Cut Along the Dotted Line (Sam/Maya). Wish I could say I'd make it awesome, but I don't think I have it in me to elevate that one beyond what it is. I've been trying for years. Anyway, decent isn't bad. If I felt like it would turn out bad I wouldn't keep working on it at all.

Comments

[bimo]

It must look like I'm two different writers. :D

Oh, how do I know that feeling... . Never really found out why, though. Sometimes I appear to have hit The Magic Zone, but more often than not my stories feel little more than basically okay to me. Both hits and misses completely regardless of fandom or subject.

But I'm curious. What's the basis for your assessment? Your own opinion after re-reading, or are you judging from feedback?

My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Feedback is only additional evidence (and does not in every case agree with my own judgment of a given story).

Gotta trust your own feelings on stuff like this.

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Also, after all these years I couldn't possibly tally all my feedback. Some of these stories have been out there so long, and in so many different places; others have been offline for years...

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Though high-profile recs seem to be in fairly good agreement with my judgment of what's awesome, come to think of it. Out of all my fic, the only ones that have been recced in central fandom comms or at The Crack Van are:

Endure
Normal
68 Wives

The MAD Doctrine hasn't been recced yet, but it hasn't been out very long yet. It may very well never get recced, though, as that's a small fandom and it also doesn't hit the major preferred reading kinks of the fandom.

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Actually, no, on second though, I don't think 68 Wives got high-profile recced. Ah well, there goes that theory.

Rec or no rec, though, it's one of my best fics. Normal is *the* best, The MAD Doctrine is probably second, 68 Wives and/or Endure are third.

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Sorry, I'm really spammy today, it seems.

I'll go and mop the stairs now, to distract me from analysing my own fic performance, lol.

Re: My own judgment.

[bimo]

No need to apologize, especially as I very much enjoy reading about other people's experiences regarding this topic! :-)

As for my own stories, I haven't been able to spot any sort of pattern or correlation between feedback (and/or recs) and my own assessment yet. The only thing that's for sure is that high profile recs apparently tend to tripple the altogether amount of feedback I receive.

The MAD Doctrine hasn't been recced yet, but it hasn't been out very long yet. It may very well never get recced, though, as that's a small fandom and it also doesn't hit the major preferred reading kinks of the fandom.

Heh, that's exactly how I feel about one of my own stories, Prometheus' Wake, Farscape, future fic ... and now come the deal breakers ... it's gen and its main character happens to be John's nephew Bobby Coleman *g*.

Oh, and MAD doctrine is already in one of front positions of my Kindle reading queue :-)

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Duuuuuude. Farscape future fic from an outside perspective related to John Crichton? COUNT ME IN. (Yes, my reading kinks are kind of weird in that fandom, as well. How John's experiences impact his family and/or Earth, directly or indirectly, is a major one. Also, future fic is almost always interesting. Same goes for fics told from a perspective outside the main crew. :D)

Where do I find this?

Re: My own judgment.

[bimo]

Here :-)

How John's experiences impact his family and/or Earth, directly or indirectly, is a major one. Also, future fic is almost always interesting.

Auw, you've just described the bloody little thing in a nutshell...

Re: My own judgment.

[hmpf]

Yeah well, that's why I was all "gimme!" about it. :D

Can't read now, though - about to leave, to be back online only tonight, probably.

Re: My own judgment.

[diotimah]

Glad to have come across this discussion - and the link. I thoroughly enjoyed this - and in fact, am curious to find out what happens next.;)

Hey!

[hmpf]

Prometheus' Wake is *great*! I've gushed already at AO3, but let me gush some more... because there is no such thing as gushing too much about fic - especially when it comes to encouraging a writer to continue something you enjoy. ;-)

You're doing a lot of fascinating worldbuilding in very little space. The story is completely lovely as it is, but it really feels like it could be, and probably is meant to be, the beginning for something much larger. More precisely, it feels like the beginning of a scenario that's basically exactly what I've been wanting to read for *years*. :D So I'm really, *really* keen on seeing where you'll take that universe in the future.

Re: Hey!

[hmpf]

BTW, I really hope all my talking about The MAD Doctrine hereabouts hasn't built up your expectations too much. I'm kinda terrible when I've finished something (and also before I finish something, come to think of it :D) - I just can't stop talking about it.

It's perfectly okay to be underwhelmed by the fic. Just saying. :-) I mean, reactions so far have been really good, and even without feedback I would be pretty sure I have a good story there, on some level. But ultimately fic is at least as much about hitting the right kink buttons as it is about the technicalities of writing, so even a good story may fall flat for some readers. And also, of course, opinions on what's a good story, even just on technical terms, vary... and even I may come to think, eventually, that The MAD Doctrine wasn't that good after all. It's just pretty damn good for me at my current level of skill, but that's a rather relative kind of "good". :D

Re: Hey!

[bimo]

So happy to read that Prometheus' Wake did not disappoint! Especially since it's one of the stories I care deeply about; writing it was one of the most joyful and easiest writing experiences I've had in a while. No idea if readers of the finished product will even notice this, but the whole thing started out as one little innocent drabble and then simply grew, bit by bit, organically and painless as if I had accidentally tapped into some lucky streak. I think the only aspect I really pondered on instead of going along with the flow was the story's timeline (John's return to Earth, Jack's point of death, Robert's and Carla's age.)

And yes, you are right, there's definitely more to this universe. The one reason I haven't started writing it is that I need to find a way how to narrate it, because I'm such a "short distance" writer and not really comfortable with marathon 30.000 word novellas... ;-)

But anyway, thank you so much for the wonderful feedback! :-)