see the sun again

[quigonejinn]

- 5 Things: HH is a chick
- 5 Things: Richard Arthur
- Not-5-Things-AU, post-LH happy ending RA visiting story
- Not-5-Things-AU, Marie story
- Crackville Bush and HH eat Chinese food. Involve awful offal.
- Bush/Hammond
- Bush/Pellew
- Signal the Fleet.
- Barbarafic, no seriously
- Biscuit crate!
- Mariafic.
- possible either HH/WB or HH/EP collab with K

...

1. Ellipses are sinful. So are exclamation marks. No Irishmen or dogs allowed.
   
2. Dialogue is the cousin of the devil.
   
3. Appositive phrases, quite frequently, ahoy!
   
4. Adverb abuse! Vaguely, obscurely, quickly, avastly me mateys.
   
5. Who the fuck needs descriptions? Or setting? This is fanfic. You know what the fuck these people look like, as well as what Naboo/Corsucant/Tatooine/Portsmouth/Gracay/HMS Buttfuck look like.
   
6. _________, however, is a big dude with big hands and scars, who dies sudden end on the verge of what seems like it ought to be a golden age. He was orthodox in his bones, but still never fits in with the powers that be because of social/political factors. OMG plebz0r <3 <3 <3.
   
7. The names place of place are invoked cheap angst-o-meter points. Naboo! Caudebec! Corsucant! Sheerness! Kingston!
   
8. Behaviors that you will find: dramatic closings of the eyes, careful lip-biting, nine months pregnant silences, listening to the heartbeat or breathing of a cared-for other party, undressing your lovers, breaking down the facial components of the other party into physical elemets because you can't figure out what they're feeling, filthy sex with no verbal leadup.
   
9. Either third person limited or aggressive second person. At least I'm starting to use past tense with some degree of naturaless.
   
10. The story follows this general outline:

    "This is how it is" intro line/section on theme A that is heavy on the punchy structure but short on scene-setting.
    
    Introduction of theme B
    
    Introduction of theme C to distract you from the fact that I have no idea what is going on
    
    Expansion of theme B to keep you ditracted some more
    
    Tie theme B to theme C
    
    Tie theme B/C to theme A, introduce super-sad variant of theme A in relation to the new connection, throw in a name-drop reference Caudebec, Sheerness, the Loire, Corsucant, or Naboo, and BLAMMO! We're done except for smirking excessively when the too-kind readers are like OMG THAT IS SUCH A GREAT LAST LINE and pretending that you haven't done the exact same thing twelve times before.
    

Comments

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

There is nothing pompous about writing with a sense of purpose and direction!

Unfortunately, it's more like ZOMG I HAVE THOUGHT OF A TOTALLY KEWLIEZ AND CLEVER IDEA THAT EVERYONE WILL LOVE AND PRAISE ME FOR ^_______________^

A writing teacher of mine (the only one I've ever had, actually) beat it into us, actually. Authoritative voice and strong closings. Authoritative voice and strong closings.

[nautacarus.livejournal.com]

That's OK, because it IS cool :)
(If it sucked, it might be pompous!)

Authoritative voice and strong closings.

Ah! If only I'd had a writing teacher... all I ever did was "creative writing" assignments at high school where you write some page of descriptive waffle and the teacher gives it 19/20, thus aiding and abetting a lifetime of the aforementioned method (or lack thereof!)

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I lie. My father attempted to teach me how to write, too, and it was just the most AGONIZING EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE EVER except for, uh, all the times that he tried to teach me math. XD So that's two writing teachers.

Anyways.

I think that fandom can be a pretty goddamn fine writing teacher, not only becaue it makes you PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE, but also because other people are treating the same themes. It's like those exercises where the teacher make everybody describe the same object, but done over and over and actually made enjoyable. XD

[nautacarus.livejournal.com]

think that fandom can be a pretty goddamn fine writing teacher

Oh yes. Especially since I've never wanted to write anything that wasn't at least partly fanfiction. I mean, say, "The Further Adventures of Pownoll" would only be very tenuously related to Hornblower, but still I wouldn't write it if it weren't for Hornblower... (Not that I'm going to write it!)

The other thing it teaches me is a whole lot of stuff about ships, history, Pellew &c. that I would never have known otherwise... and I'm so glad.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Last night, on the way to dinner, tw of my friends knew to turn to me with a quetion about women on British Navy ships. I was able to refrain from going ZOMG PELLEWWWWWW HAD WOMENNN ON HIS SHIPPPPPP <3 <3 <3 AND THOUGHT THEY WERE BRAAAAAVE <3 <3 <3 only by the greatest exertion of self-control.

Pellew &c. that I would never have known otherwise... and I'm so glad.

O_o Holy cow. I'd assumed that you were semi-pro with history and stuff because you know so freaking much and so good at weaving it in.

[nautacarus.livejournal.com]

Ohhh my poor friends. They cop so much Pellew ramble I'm surprised they let me out in public! But he's SO COOL...

I'd assumed that you were semi-pro with history and stuff because you know so freaking much and so good at weaving it in.

That is extremely flattering! Thank you! But I am completely amateur when it comes to writing. I am an ancient history student, but that doesn't seem to help much :) I put it down to an obsessive "OMG I must research everything!!!" tendency ;)