Oh my god. I know I also stay up all night making angst-y stories about Irene in my head and I have yet to really write any of them down or bring any of them full circle because my god their unique tone and diction are so so so high level difficult to emulate accurately and I really find it important that the tone of the fan fic not be ridiculous and fluffy and it's almost like nails grating on chalk board to read a fan fic and have that misalignment and it's really intimidating to think about! and I have SO much admiration for those that can duplicate the tonal subtleties of MWT.
I feel like there are RARE exceptions to this personal rule of mine... like this fanfic, Dance Me To Your Beauty (https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883880) is one of my all time favorites (although I have many favorites)... even though it differs tonally. (It's distinctively light and joyful between the Gen, Irene and Costis and yet for most of the narrative, the lightness really, really works until I feel it starts to unravel a bit toward the very end and I don't like reading the end part as much as I like reading the beginning and middle parts as a result.
Anyway just some thoughts. I love being able to see your work. I'm available any time to just talk about the characters in the most indepth way possible, discuss the plot whatever. I can't believe how different my life has been in the past 4-5 months because of the Queen's Thief.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I've been a fanwriter for much, much longer than I've been a fanartist, but for QT especially, it's so difficult for me to write for exactly the same reasons you mentioned. It's tough to even get the characterization right in the first place (though everyone would think of the characters in their own way, of course), let alone write a story with the same kind of aplomb that MWT pulls off.
I think I prefer to read fluffier stories, because I can easily distance myself from the actual canon work so I can just enjoy it without thinking how it could fit within the framework of the book. I think my issue with fanfic is when it's serious and the characters aren't quite how I envisioned them, because then it's just jarring. I was just talking with another fic writer about this, and I told her that Irene's caustic humour is one of those things that really disorients me in fics; in canon, when she "threatens" Gen, there's usually double entendre involved, but I think the subtlety doesn't come through in most fics, and it just looks like Irene is bullying Gen. I mean, I don't want to complain *too* much, because these fanfic authors are really brave, and writing takes *so* much effort and energy; and not everyone is going to have the same interpretation of the characters as I do. But yeah, when it comes to QT, I read much less fics than I do for other fandoms.
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Re: I saw them on tumblr and I LOVE LOVE LOVE
Date: 6/27/17 06:04 am (UTC)I feel like there are RARE exceptions to this personal rule of mine... like this fanfic, Dance Me To Your Beauty (https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883880) is one of my all time favorites (although I have many favorites)... even though it differs tonally. (It's distinctively light and joyful between the Gen, Irene and Costis and yet for most of the narrative, the lightness really, really works until I feel it starts to unravel a bit toward the very end and I don't like reading the end part as much as I like reading the beginning and middle parts as a result.
Anyway just some thoughts. I love being able to see your work. I'm available any time to just talk about the characters in the most indepth way possible, discuss the plot whatever. I can't believe how different my life has been in the past 4-5 months because of the Queen's Thief.
Re: I saw them on tumblr and I LOVE LOVE LOVE
Date: 6/27/17 04:05 pm (UTC)I think I prefer to read fluffier stories, because I can easily distance myself from the actual canon work so I can just enjoy it without thinking how it could fit within the framework of the book. I think my issue with fanfic is when it's serious and the characters aren't quite how I envisioned them, because then it's just jarring. I was just talking with another fic writer about this, and I told her that Irene's caustic humour is one of those things that really disorients me in fics; in canon, when she "threatens" Gen, there's usually double entendre involved, but I think the subtlety doesn't come through in most fics, and it just looks like Irene is bullying Gen. I mean, I don't want to complain *too* much, because these fanfic authors are really brave, and writing takes *so* much effort and energy; and not everyone is going to have the same interpretation of the characters as I do. But yeah, when it comes to QT, I read much less fics than I do for other fandoms.
Thanks for the fic rec, I'll check it out.