Keep Hoping Machine Running (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thefourthvine) wrote2006-12-21 05:13 pm
thefourthvine) wrote2006-12-21 05:13 pm
Random Blithering and a Poll on Prompts
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,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 ask3pipeproblem 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:
[Poll #893455]
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."
[Poll #893455]
no subject
If people are just saying 'dude, write something, anything, go wild' - then it is helpful to have a *starting place* - like, say, "lee-ward, frost, shards" - which could kick off an idea or an image, but still gives me loads of room to stretch. Those are the most fun for me. I also like handing those out, because I know what I think of, and it's delightful to see how other people's brains work.
I have...serious issues with story summary requests. I've seen several that have prompted a reaction akin to "write the damn thing yourself, if you're *that* sure exactly what you want." I'm more pleased, but still disquieted, by things like "A & B meet, joyful happiness follows." (Or, even, "angst and tortue follows".) "A meets B" is cool, "A lighter fic, please" or "Darkfic would be cool" are all right, but not so much with the restrictions.
If I was running the universe, prompts would be Fandom, Character of choice, Anti-kinks, Preferred pairing (optional), Two-three word prompt for plot/theme/mood (optional). Alas, my most recent application to be Supreme Lord of All was returned due to out of date examination scores.
- hossgal
no subject
*nods*
I live in fear of doing that, of accidentally writing the one thing my recipient can't bear to read. I know people who have had squicks written for them because the writer didn't know - it's totally no one's fault, but it sucks.
So I'd *really* like to know, while I'm still in the planning stage, that my recipient finds gen extremely boring, and honestly couldn't care about any character other than X, and hates the *concept* of original characters.
*nods some more*
And the thing is - it isn't always obvious just from inspecting someone's LJ (or even reading her FF, if she has stuff for you to read) what she doesn't like. I mean, just because it isn't there doesn't mean she doesn't like it, and even if it is there - well, I've rec'd incest, but I'm squicked by it. About a third of my reading is gen, but I bet a lot less of my recommending is. I've got a tag for death stories and usually can't stand to see characters killed. And so on, and so on.
And I think, after having read these comments and checked out the results of this poll, that we're really dealing with two separate categories, here - preferences and prompts. The former is, "I can't take animal harm or embarrassment, and I really prefer happy endings." The latter is, "A, B, and a magical tiger. Magical tigers are made of awesome!"
And then there's the different types of prompts - like, the above is a story prompt. But there's also the kind you mentioned - trigger-type prompts, which I didn't even put in the poll (for reasons of excessive focus on Yuletide) but lots of people seem to prefer (three words, a picture, two lines of poetry), where you throw something at the writer, let it work around in her brain, and see what comes out. (Slot machine prompts!)
As usual, I am learning a ton about the topic of my poll. This is why the damn things are so addictive: people come and teach me stuff, and it is excellent beyond the telling of it.
If I was running the universe, prompts would be Fandom, Character of choice, Anti-kinks, Preferred pairing (optional), Two-three word prompt for plot/theme/mood (optional).
*ponders*
If I was running the universe, I think prompts would be fandom, character(s) of choice, bulletproof kinks and anti-kinks, genre (gen/het/slash), story suggestions (optional), and what you love most about the fandom, character(s), or pairing you requested. In other words, not so much prompts as a data sheet; the actual prompt is important to me, but if I know the rest, I can live without it.
Alas, my most recent application to be Supreme Lord of All was returned due to out of date examination scores.
They keep saying my application is missing form 27-B. And yet there doesn't seem to be a 27-B. Curse the Great Bureaucracy!
no subject
Yes. And part of the fannish experience is the "omg, so many people love different things at the same time" which is, in some cases *great*, and others, not. Because each of us is *not* an average of Fandom likes and dislikes, but a random data point. And I strongly support each of us getting the chance to keep to our own prefs and squicks. (Esp in my newest fandom - there are some in SPN who seem to think that just because flamewars aren't happening on an hourly basis that everyone "embraces" the RPS and incest parts of the fandom. Which would be an example of why DO NOT WRITE ME MY SQUICK warnings (repeated and in asscaps) are required - 'cause some of us just don't *get* why we can't kill off major characters in the first paragraph, y'know? *g*)
it isn't always obvious just from inspecting someone's LJ (or even reading her FF, if she has stuff for you to read) what she doesn't like.
Heh. I've written rape fic, and incest fic, and I can see myself doing it again. Doesn't mean that 95% of the noncon and incest fic out there doesn't make my skin crawl.
And what I write is what I get when *trying* to reach what I want. *shrugs*.
Plainly spelling things out is the better of the options, I think.
I am totally stealing "slot machine prompts" as a term. *g*
I had not considered bulletproof kinks. Now that I have, I think my attitude as a writer would approximate "don't tell me what you really love - let me write you a story, and tell *you* what you really love." Which might be a hair egotistical, but hey.
They keep saying my application is missing form 27-B. And yet there doesn't seem to be a 27-B. Curse the Great Bureaucracy!
*pets* there, there. The cube slaves have their place. Without them, I would have to do all the work when I become grand poo-pah, instead of lounging about all day eating peeled grapes.
no subject
*nods*
Being a non-RPS, non-incest fan in SPN must be particularly challenging. I confess honestly that I am not up to the challenge, even though it makes me sad to be missing out.
Plainly spelling things out is the better of the options, I think.
Definitely.
I am totally stealing "slot machine prompts" as a term.
Excellent. If two of us use it, it may catch on, and I like the distinction between story prompts and slot machine prompts - they are a different kind of interaction with the writer, I think.
Now that I have, I think my attitude as a writer would approximate "don't tell me what you really love - let me write you a story, and tell *you* what you really love."
See, and as a reader, I'm good with that; the story I most want to read is the one the writer feels really passionate about and can sell to me. Good writers have made me love almost everything I hate, including almost all my squicks.
But as a writer, I think bulletproof kinks would be cool to know about my recipient. So I think next year I will offer a list of bulletproof kinks to my writer, not as a you-must-include, or even a suggested-to-include, but rather, "if you're stuck, playing with point of view - particularly multiple points of view of the same event - will always grab my attention." It's a sort of third style of prompt: neither story nor slot machine.
Without them, I would have to do all the work when I become grand poo-pah, instead of lounging about all day eating peeled grapes.
*thoughtful*
Will there be preferential treatment for those who Knew You When? Or will we fannish types end up in the Photocopier Dungeons, slaving away in triplicate and exchanging fan fiction (predicted popular pairing: color copier/black and white copier) in our 5-minute breaks?
no subject
*pshaw* It's not like I'm a femslash writer - now, that would be *work*. *g*
(Yes, it's annoying, but my love for the pretty, broken, breaking boys (and their shiny car!) is pure and strong, so my burdens are light. *g* And there is *killer* gen in this fandom. If you're looking for a place to start, try Ignipes (who also writes Wincest) and Big Pink. Big Pink brings the epics.)
It's a sort of third style of prompt: neither story nor slot machine.
*nods* - Pairing (underwhich one could stick 'character, pairing, het/gen/slash), Kink (including buttons and anti-kinks) Story (plotline or setting), Slot Machine, Story Style. What did I miss?
(I'm trying to come up with a word to mean "thing I will read crappy stories for with a glad heart" when the thing in question is not a sexual kink. (Like, say, horses. Or exotic locations. Or Latin. You know, 'this story mashes all my buttons'.) And there could be anti-buttons (which would be like squicks, now that I think on it.)
Will there be preferential treatment for those who Knew You When? Or will we fannish types end up in the Photocopier Dungeons, slaving away in triplicate and exchanging fan fiction (predicted popular pairing: color copier/black and white copier) in our 5-minute breaks?
*busts up laughing* I've held off responding to this comment because I was racking my brain trying to come up with a suitabley witty come-back to that, but, you know, I got nothin'. (Except those gen faxmachine writers sure do think a lot of themselves, don't they? All three of them? *g*)
- hg