Dear Yuletide Writer 2019
It's the most wonderful time of the year: Yuletide!
First off, I'm a fan of fandom and grateful to receive something that you've created in a fandom we both enjoy.
Likes:I particularly like gen-fic, het and femslash. Anything that involves women. Boyslash in stories that give women equal time is also great. Smart characters and/or smart-asses are a real weakness. Wordplay and wit are my kryptonite and I enjoy all the crazy allusions or meta references you may want to employ. I'm a sucker for competence porn which includes domestic skills as well as professional work - if you want to write a story about baking cookies, repairing a transmission, or curing a plague, I'll be right there with the characters, soaking it all in.
You don't have to bring on sexy times but feel free to go there. I love plotty and PWP stories equally. If you like to launch AUs or delve into meta, I think they are fabulous options. Humour, angst, action: those are also fantastic.
Dislikes: I'm not keen on gore, horror and dark hurt/comfort, definitely not so much with death, torture or sadism. Please, no zombies or a lot of bodily fluids. There can be dark themes, there can loss as life goes on, but not endless bloodbaths, please? I also don't like character slams and I'm definitely not here for dissing women.
Overall, I'm delighted that you're in love with fandoms and fanworks the way that I am too. Make yourself at home and all that, k?
A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Characters: Any
Based on a
series of books by Deborah Harkness that I've fan-girled from the get-go, A Discovery of Witches (starring Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer) in a series involving historians, rare books, vampires, witches, and more. This is my catnip, people!
The show, the story: Supernatural creatures are among humans, right in plain sight, and have been for centuries - witches, vampires, and daemons (creative & genius types) - and Diana Bishop is doing her best to deny her nature as a witch, until she touches a mysterious manuscript in the Bodleian library. That book and herself draw the interest of all sorts of creatures, intensified by her romantic relationship with the dangerous vampire, Matthew Clairmont. Other nominated characters this year include Sarah Bishop - Diana's aunt, and her partner, Emily Mather, who are wonderful mentors and supporters to Diana, but fascinating witches in their own right. Any character or characters (heck, even the Bishop house!) and how it started all the magical hauntings of the family would be a joy.
Prompts & ideas: The vampire characters all have long lives so if you're intrigued by Matthew himself, the Clairmont family in general, the Convocation, or other long-lasting elements of the vampire lines. If you like plot-worthy bad boys, Domenico in the show interacts with so many in intriguing ways. Miriam is both a modern scientist and an ancient soul with hidden secrets. There's Matthew's vampire mother/maker, Ysabeau, whose show persona is far different from her appearance in the book. And we've been teased by a whole bunch of fabulous casting announcement for season two, including James Purefoy as Matthew's ancient father, Philippe de Clermont, and Tom Hughes as Kit Marlowe. Excited for the Elizabethan prospects? Fire away with any or all!
Maybe you're here for the uber-creative daemons like Kit and company? Sophie and Nathaniel were nominated and I love them in the TV show. Her visions and art move the story forward and his computer skills are married to a relentless activism to connect creatures even as the Congregation works against that. And with his mother on the Congregation, what a fraught situation! Maybe you want to explore how they came together as a couple or catch the reader up on some of what they're doing between our first sightings of them and the coming together in New York state? How do they both connect, individually and as a couple, with Hamish, another daemon who's part of the Clairmont inner circle? Or maybe write up some bonding time with Marcus who, while a centuries-old vampire, retains a youthful vibe that meshes well with Sophie's whimsy and Nathaniel's drive.
Remember that Diana Bishop isn't just a witch, she's
a scholar - you could write about her connections to the academic world, going to conferences, publishing, teaching. Or just having the joy of working with old books! Diana and her aunts have different strengths in their witchcraft: Sarah knows herbs and component-based spells, Emily can do divinations, and while Diana has the ability to do every kind of magic, she's mostly an instinctual magician so far. That will change with her time-walking into the past (and that ability could lead to fun cross-over or alternate time possibilities). Whatever you'd like to do in the show universe, I'm here for!
Bath Tangle - Georgette Heyer
Characters: Serena Carlow, Ivo Barrasford
Things to know: Heyer helped to jump-start the whole Regency romance phenomenon and even if her stories have aged a little bit unevenly, I still adore many of them. Bath Tangle features Serena Carlow, a rule-breaker supreme "who dismissed her chaperon at the age of twenty-one, refused two flattering offers of marriage, and cried off from an engagement to the most brilliant prize in the Marriage Mart". Now she is a twenty-five year old taking care of her younger, adorable stepmother, Fanny, after Serena's father's passing or so she thinks. Instead, she is put under the thumb of her former flame, Barrasford, the Marquis of Rotherham, to both of their surprise. He is to administer her property in trust until she marries with his consent. Serena, of course, will have none of this, and begins to scheme for a manageable marriage partner which creates a bit of a Midsummer Night's Dream mess of tangled betrothals and misdirected affections, until the happily ever-after is achieved for all. Bath Tangle has a real enemies-to-lovers trope if that's your jam.
Prompts galore: I would love the story of Serena's and Ivo's first meetings or the breakup early on. Clearly it affected Ivo deeply, for all that he works to hide how much he's still in love with Serena. Or maybe you would like to offer up an epilogue, say, stories of their honeymoon on the continent, where two fiery personalities strike sparks off of each other as they tour Europe and snark about other clueless tourists with whom they're supposed to socialize? Are there four times that Serena almost admitted her love for Ivo before she finally did? I'd love to see some sort of slice-of-life story where Serena find her skills and passions beyond managing people and Ivo is the one to, sarcastic commentary aside, support her spreading her wings.
I think that Serena and Ivo would work well in a modern AU: maybe have Serena's family business be put under the control of Ivo, the older, sarcastic business mogul with whom she had indulged in a trade-show fling only to realize they're stuck with each other as they work out the business's woes. Or a sci-fi retelling, where planets and passions are at stake in a story of their personal pique and re-pique? How about a cross-over where Serena and Ivo make the acquaintance of two equally acute souls of the era: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy?
Bull Durham (1988)
Characters: Annie Savoy, Crash Davis
Thirty-one years ago, (OMG) this minor-league baseball movie
charmed the world and it still holds a place in my heart. Susan Sarandon's Annie Savoy is a flawed, whimsical dreamer who mentors prospects for her North Carolina baseball team through a program of sexual liasion and sports psychology. She's amazingly insightful even as she pitches every bit of New Age weirdness while having blind spots through which you could run a freeway. Put her up against the wise, well-read but aging catcher, Crash Davis, who's brought on the team to actually mentor this year's young ace. Played by Kevin Costner, the wily old sportsman runs circles around everyone except for Annie and his own heart. The screenplay is stellar, the acting is wonderful, and the setting is so real (I have spent time in the area of Durham where the Bulls' ballpark is located) that I adore revisiting the movie.
Some story ideas: I would love to see how Annie and Crash move along with their lives after that one amazing season. Does Crash make it to the big league in a more enduring way as a coach, as Annie predicted, or does he settle into that life in the minors with joy and a few, sarcastic regrets? Does Annie change appreciably as she settles in with Crash or does their relationship crash and burn (pun intended)? What is her life like as a part-time English instructor, anyway: the life of the sessional adjunct is never an easy one and I wonder if Annie hits a hard wall with regards to academia. Or does her blossoming relationship with Crash allow her to dig deep and do something really amazing herself, say becoming a published novelist?
What about an AU where Annie and Crash meet while he was in the majors? Or where she's a roller derby queen and he's the local writer who often hooks-up with some of the visiting stars only to discover that this one's kind of hooked him in an unexpected way. You could go with a fast-forward that's bittersweet. Annie's dying of cancer and Crash is barely holding himself together but trying to keep their old wordplay going. Or maybe you have Crash and Annie split up a little while after the movie, and now awkwardly, painfully, gravitate to each other when they meet up at a baseball game or bar. Maybe someone's doing a retrospective on Nuke and goes hunting around for the wisdom that widowed Anne Savoy-Davis can provide about his minor-league months, which turns out to be all about her husband?
Here's to a happy and creative Yuletide writing season with so much joy in reading ahead!
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
comments there.)
First off, I'm a fan of fandom and grateful to receive something that you've created in a fandom we both enjoy.
Likes:I particularly like gen-fic, het and femslash. Anything that involves women. Boyslash in stories that give women equal time is also great. Smart characters and/or smart-asses are a real weakness. Wordplay and wit are my kryptonite and I enjoy all the crazy allusions or meta references you may want to employ. I'm a sucker for competence porn which includes domestic skills as well as professional work - if you want to write a story about baking cookies, repairing a transmission, or curing a plague, I'll be right there with the characters, soaking it all in.
You don't have to bring on sexy times but feel free to go there. I love plotty and PWP stories equally. If you like to launch AUs or delve into meta, I think they are fabulous options. Humour, angst, action: those are also fantastic.
Dislikes: I'm not keen on gore, horror and dark hurt/comfort, definitely not so much with death, torture or sadism. Please, no zombies or a lot of bodily fluids. There can be dark themes, there can loss as life goes on, but not endless bloodbaths, please? I also don't like character slams and I'm definitely not here for dissing women.
Overall, I'm delighted that you're in love with fandoms and fanworks the way that I am too. Make yourself at home and all that, k?
A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Characters: Any
Based on a
series of books by Deborah Harkness that I've fan-girled from the get-go, A Discovery of Witches (starring Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer) in a series involving historians, rare books, vampires, witches, and more. This is my catnip, people!
The show, the story: Supernatural creatures are among humans, right in plain sight, and have been for centuries - witches, vampires, and daemons (creative & genius types) - and Diana Bishop is doing her best to deny her nature as a witch, until she touches a mysterious manuscript in the Bodleian library. That book and herself draw the interest of all sorts of creatures, intensified by her romantic relationship with the dangerous vampire, Matthew Clairmont. Other nominated characters this year include Sarah Bishop - Diana's aunt, and her partner, Emily Mather, who are wonderful mentors and supporters to Diana, but fascinating witches in their own right. Any character or characters (heck, even the Bishop house!) and how it started all the magical hauntings of the family would be a joy.
Prompts & ideas: The vampire characters all have long lives so if you're intrigued by Matthew himself, the Clairmont family in general, the Convocation, or other long-lasting elements of the vampire lines. If you like plot-worthy bad boys, Domenico in the show interacts with so many in intriguing ways. Miriam is both a modern scientist and an ancient soul with hidden secrets. There's Matthew's vampire mother/maker, Ysabeau, whose show persona is far different from her appearance in the book. And we've been teased by a whole bunch of fabulous casting announcement for season two, including James Purefoy as Matthew's ancient father, Philippe de Clermont, and Tom Hughes as Kit Marlowe. Excited for the Elizabethan prospects? Fire away with any or all!
Maybe you're here for the uber-creative daemons like Kit and company? Sophie and Nathaniel were nominated and I love them in the TV show. Her visions and art move the story forward and his computer skills are married to a relentless activism to connect creatures even as the Congregation works against that. And with his mother on the Congregation, what a fraught situation! Maybe you want to explore how they came together as a couple or catch the reader up on some of what they're doing between our first sightings of them and the coming together in New York state? How do they both connect, individually and as a couple, with Hamish, another daemon who's part of the Clairmont inner circle? Or maybe write up some bonding time with Marcus who, while a centuries-old vampire, retains a youthful vibe that meshes well with Sophie's whimsy and Nathaniel's drive.
Remember that Diana Bishop isn't just a witch, she's
a scholar - you could write about her connections to the academic world, going to conferences, publishing, teaching. Or just having the joy of working with old books! Diana and her aunts have different strengths in their witchcraft: Sarah knows herbs and component-based spells, Emily can do divinations, and while Diana has the ability to do every kind of magic, she's mostly an instinctual magician so far. That will change with her time-walking into the past (and that ability could lead to fun cross-over or alternate time possibilities). Whatever you'd like to do in the show universe, I'm here for!
Bath Tangle - Georgette Heyer
Characters: Serena Carlow, Ivo Barrasford
Things to know: Heyer helped to jump-start the whole Regency romance phenomenon and even if her stories have aged a little bit unevenly, I still adore many of them. Bath Tangle features Serena Carlow, a rule-breaker supreme "who dismissed her chaperon at the age of twenty-one, refused two flattering offers of marriage, and cried off from an engagement to the most brilliant prize in the Marriage Mart". Now she is a twenty-five year old taking care of her younger, adorable stepmother, Fanny, after Serena's father's passing or so she thinks. Instead, she is put under the thumb of her former flame, Barrasford, the Marquis of Rotherham, to both of their surprise. He is to administer her property in trust until she marries with his consent. Serena, of course, will have none of this, and begins to scheme for a manageable marriage partner which creates a bit of a Midsummer Night's Dream mess of tangled betrothals and misdirected affections, until the happily ever-after is achieved for all. Bath Tangle has a real enemies-to-lovers trope if that's your jam.
Prompts galore: I would love the story of Serena's and Ivo's first meetings or the breakup early on. Clearly it affected Ivo deeply, for all that he works to hide how much he's still in love with Serena. Or maybe you would like to offer up an epilogue, say, stories of their honeymoon on the continent, where two fiery personalities strike sparks off of each other as they tour Europe and snark about other clueless tourists with whom they're supposed to socialize? Are there four times that Serena almost admitted her love for Ivo before she finally did? I'd love to see some sort of slice-of-life story where Serena find her skills and passions beyond managing people and Ivo is the one to, sarcastic commentary aside, support her spreading her wings.
I think that Serena and Ivo would work well in a modern AU: maybe have Serena's family business be put under the control of Ivo, the older, sarcastic business mogul with whom she had indulged in a trade-show fling only to realize they're stuck with each other as they work out the business's woes. Or a sci-fi retelling, where planets and passions are at stake in a story of their personal pique and re-pique? How about a cross-over where Serena and Ivo make the acquaintance of two equally acute souls of the era: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy?
Bull Durham (1988)
Characters: Annie Savoy, Crash Davis
Thirty-one years ago, (OMG) this minor-league baseball movie
charmed the world and it still holds a place in my heart. Susan Sarandon's Annie Savoy is a flawed, whimsical dreamer who mentors prospects for her North Carolina baseball team through a program of sexual liasion and sports psychology. She's amazingly insightful even as she pitches every bit of New Age weirdness while having blind spots through which you could run a freeway. Put her up against the wise, well-read but aging catcher, Crash Davis, who's brought on the team to actually mentor this year's young ace. Played by Kevin Costner, the wily old sportsman runs circles around everyone except for Annie and his own heart. The screenplay is stellar, the acting is wonderful, and the setting is so real (I have spent time in the area of Durham where the Bulls' ballpark is located) that I adore revisiting the movie.
Some story ideas: I would love to see how Annie and Crash move along with their lives after that one amazing season. Does Crash make it to the big league in a more enduring way as a coach, as Annie predicted, or does he settle into that life in the minors with joy and a few, sarcastic regrets? Does Annie change appreciably as she settles in with Crash or does their relationship crash and burn (pun intended)? What is her life like as a part-time English instructor, anyway: the life of the sessional adjunct is never an easy one and I wonder if Annie hits a hard wall with regards to academia. Or does her blossoming relationship with Crash allow her to dig deep and do something really amazing herself, say becoming a published novelist?
What about an AU where Annie and Crash meet while he was in the majors? Or where she's a roller derby queen and he's the local writer who often hooks-up with some of the visiting stars only to discover that this one's kind of hooked him in an unexpected way. You could go with a fast-forward that's bittersweet. Annie's dying of cancer and Crash is barely holding himself together but trying to keep their old wordplay going. Or maybe you have Crash and Annie split up a little while after the movie, and now awkwardly, painfully, gravitate to each other when they meet up at a baseball game or bar. Maybe someone's doing a retrospective on Nuke and goes hunting around for the wisdom that widowed Anne Savoy-Davis can provide about his minor-league months, which turns out to be all about her husband?
Here's to a happy and creative Yuletide writing season with so much joy in reading ahead!
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
comments there.)