Random Blithering and a Poll on Prompts

[thefourthvine]

Obviously, I am obsessing about Yuletide just a bit - it's nearly time! Yay! And since I can't get my act together and actually post recommendations, I thought I'd post a summary of Things I've Learned About Prompts.

See, I suck at giving prompts. Most of the year, this is a minor thing, barely noticeable except to the people who issue "come one, come all" prompt requests when I am tired and weak of will. And even then, those people can ignore those prompts. (Or sometimes they step up to the plate nobly. My hat is off to you few, you proud, you band of - well, crazed writing women.)

At Yuletide, though, my little issue becomes more of a problem. Because - okay, let's consider one of the prompts I gave for my first year of Yuletide. (This is the one my writer, m_butterfly, actually wrote, but they were all the same. That's yet another sign of my Prompt Dysfunction, I now realize - if you can say the same thing for four extremely disparate fandoms and characters, it probably isn't a really good prompt):

Nero Wolfe (Archie Goodwin/Saul Panzer)
Details: Would prefer slash.

Yup. And I thought I was doing well. I thought to myself, "I am giving carte blanche! My writer will not be constrained! She will be unfettered and free!"

And then I got my own assignment and I realized that carte blanche (which my recipient did not give me, thank god) would kind of suck. I would really, really prefer to have some fetters. Having a prompt and not having a prompt was, for me, the difference between staring at a blank screen and having a few sentences already written; sure, I might not keep those sentences, but still. They were a start. They gave me something to build on.

So I realized - constraints (note: I did not say restraints, though I totally support those, too) can be nice. (They also help you diagnose cases of Terminal Bad Fit; for Yuletide, TBF doesn't necessarily spell disaster or require defaulting, by the way, but it is good to know about it as early as possible, because that gives you time to line up the right Yuletide Support Team to correct your deficiencies. Like, when my recipient requested hot het porn during my second year of Yuletide? I knew that I needed expert porn betas, because I suck at porn. And not the good kind of suck, either. Fortunately, I found some highly talented ones who, among many other services, kept me from losing John Smith's cock and pointed out that at some point in the proceedings Jane Smith would probably be more comfortable with her pants off. And I also got a whole team of people who united to reassure me ("Really not that bad! STEP AWAY FROM THE LIGHT! You can do this!") when I decided that the porn I had written was the antithesis of hot, the absolute zero type of porn that turns everyone who touches it frigid.)

My second year, I think I hit the right note with my details, although you'd have to ask 3pipeproblem about that. I provided her with a useful place to start (after the end of the canon, as it happens) and some suggestions about what I might like to see. I think, of all my Yuletides, that was my best year in terms of prompt-giving.

This year, I veered waaaaaay over into the other side, where the crazies live. (I knew I was doing it at the time, but I just could not shut up, even though I was embarrassing myself. We've all been there, sure, but usually it involves intoxicants, not challenge sign-up forms.) Next year, I am seriously considering enlisting a Request Beta to determine if I am writing the kinds of prompts that make writers cry or not. I have come to realize that there is no shame in having a Prompt Dysfunction and that it's okay to ask for extra help.

Better than terrifying whoever gets assigned to me.

But this year, in addition to learning I have the crazy ever lurking inside me, ready to punch up into the light at the first sign of a prompt entry, I also learned something new about how prompts are used. See, my request went to pinch hit this year - lucky #13! - and I picked up a pinch hit this year, and I learned that prompts serve a different purpose on the pinch hit list. (I also learn that if you write a prompt that SHAMES YOU because you are crazed, you should be aware that you will be shamed before the whole Yuletide community, not just one person, what with potential pinch-hitting and NYR.) When your request goes to the pinch hit list, several hundred people are scanning your details and thinking, "Could I write that?" A prompt is key in that situation, because - okay, maybe you spelled it out more in your Santa letter, maybe it would be obvious from reading your journal what you wanted, but if your request looks like this (based on one of my own requests from this year, although with my crazy prompt redacted):

RPF - Charles Baudelaire
Details: None

That is all the pinch hitters will see. That's all they have to base their decision on. They have no idea who you are or what else you might want. So the only person who is going to respond to that prompt is one who is dying to write a Baudelaire story. (Or, you know, a crazy person, which fortunately 65% of pinch-hitters are. The good kind of crazy, though, I assure you. Salt-of-the-earth crazy. At least, I hope so, since I am one.)

So, these are my new notes-to-me, ones I hope will help me address my Prompt Dysfunction next year in a way that does not Ruin Yuletide. I want to remember:

• A prompt is good. And it should go in the details section; the Santa letter is for expanding on things I generally like and for thanking the Santa. It is not for attempting to explain my details. (If the details need a whole letter of explanation, the details are broken. Yes, this does apply to me, and I'm so, so sorry to the two writers who got saddled with those prompts this year. And my Yule hat is totally off to the person who saw those prompts and picked my pinch hit up anyway; you are MADE OF AWESOME, pinch-hitting Santa!)
  
  
• An out is also good. In future, I will try to remember to steal m_butterfly's strategy, which is to provide a prompt and a secondary prompt. So I will write, for example: "A crazy space adventure with lots of sex would be wonderful! Or anything with really screwed-up robots!" (I'm still undecided about exclamation points in prompts. Do they add a fun, devil-may-care tone? Or is it more of a crazed, stressed, likely-to-snap tone? Something to ponder in the year ahead.)
  
  
• Characters can go in the details section. This isn't precisely optimal, but sometimes it's unavoidable. (See here for lots of examples of how character selection can get complicated.) So I can pick characters A and B in the selection part, then say, "Gen is always great - any characters you choose from the whole canon, not just limited to the two listed here. Or, if you go the pairing route, some A/B sexin' will be most welcome."

So. What are your prompt lessons? Oh, and hey, while you're here - feel like helping me with my Prompt Dysfunction? Take this poll!

[Poll #893455]

Comments

[sage]

Okay, first, YAY YOU for posting this! I learned a lot about the ways that people do give prompts that I'd never really thought about.

I also realized I'm incredibly inconsistent. :P

As a writer, I'm totally open to a fandom and a pairing (which is all I got on the Yuletide prompt I ended up doing). But I'm also totally open to really specific prompts that force me to write to spec.

Actually, my Due South Seekrit Santa prompt was very much in the second category, where the recipient had some very specific desires for what she wanted to receive. She may yet hate what I wrote, but I did technically follow the guidelines I was given.

In this situation, I'm actually less worried about my Yuletide recipient's reaction, because writing anything with a requested pairing is much, much easier than figuring out a scenario where the requested story reads as feasible.

Meanwhile, when I'm giving prompts...I like giving dialogue prompts because it's very easy to direct the sort of story I'd like to see. But sometimes I just don't care -- any fic in that fandom would be awesome. And that's when I post in my journal about the sorts of fic I particularly enjoy. But I'd much rather the writer go with an idea she feels very invested in and would enjoy writing than shoehorn her into writing a story she isn't completely happy with. I mean, honestly I'm thrilled to get a story at all -- and I want it to have been a good experience for my writer, not something that drove her bugfuck in the bad way. :P

(I've no idea who wrote for me, and now I'm wondering if she found my prompts and Dear Santa post too specific or too general. /neurotic)

That said, I really like the idea of offering different prompts with varying levels of craziness/specificity. Some people just can't write to spec while other people thrive on it, and that offers a nice solution.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I also realized I'm incredibly inconsistent.

*bonds*

I've never given prompts the same way twice. I choose to consider it a sign that I am still learning and adapting.

I like giving dialogue prompts because it's very easy to direct the sort of story I'd like to see.

Oooo, interesting. Do you have an example of what your prompts look like? (There was one really cool prompt on the pinch-hit list that quoted some lines of the book in question and asked that they be expanded upon. I thought that was a fascinating and creative way to prompt, and dialog prompting sounds like it could be just as interesting.)

(I've no idea who wrote for me, and now I'm wondering if she found my prompts and Dear Santa post too specific or too general.

Well, 'tis the season. I mean, it's why I'm obsessing about this topic now - because I'm done obsessing about the stories I wrote, basically, and am moving into the "Someone wrote for MEEEEEEEEEE" phase of story-anticipation. Which is fun, but since I am a worrier at heart, it also comes with a bunch of attendant neuroses, including of course "OMG did I Ruin Yuletide with my Prompt Dysfunction?" (I could! Very easily! I am just that bad at prompts!)

That said, I really like the idea of offering different prompts with varying levels of craziness/specificity.

Yup. In the future, I will definitely do a "choose one of" kind of deal. To me, it sounds like the best of both worlds.

[sage]

Oooo, interesting. Do you have an example of what your prompts look like?

Actually, I do! china_shop and I are currently in the process of running a Holiday Party mini-exchange on ds_flashfiction and the prompt I gave was: Kowalski (any slash pairing). "When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a firefighter. Never cared about cops, but firemen -- firemen were nearly as cool as Steve McQueen." The person who drew my number wrote a snippet on why Ray chose to be a cop instead of a firefighter, which was totally in the range of what I wanted to read about. A fic about Ray lusting for Steve McQueen or Fraser wanting to know what attracted Ray to firemen would've been good, too. :D

It's the same format that we used for out_of_con_txt, and it works really well for pushing your brain in different directions. But it can also be HARD when you get something like what I pasted into the poll.

Well, 'tis the season. I mean, it's why I'm obsessing about this topic now - because I'm done obsessing about the stories I wrote,

I get that. My coping mechanism was beta-ing nine fics in a row over the past week. It's awesome displacement -- and far better to helpfully nitpick other people's fic than drive myself crazy over not being able to do anything else for my own.

Of course, now I'm all beta'd out and I STILL can't wait for xmas morning so I can check the archives! But at least now it's "omg, I hope she doesn't hate it!" instead of "omg, I have to fix this, ack!!"

*sigh* Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself... :P

[m-butterfly.livejournal.com]

Ooh! I did that on drunk_fic and discovered it's surprisingly joyous to do. The Discworld one even got claimed, although the Eureka and the Boostle ones are still sitting there looking sad-puppyish. And the House one, which surprises me. Why does no one love Cuddy?

(Actually, possibly the Boostle one shouldn't count. "It's from the future!" isn't so much a bit of dialogue as one of the very best fandom tropes.)