Dear Night on Fic Mountain Creator
Apr. 13th, 2019 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daisyninjagirlHello! Thank you for writing for me. I hope you have a good time in this exchange.
Sorceror's Legacy - Janny Wurts
I am much struck in this novel by the sheer grandeur of the world building. What is, in some respects, a domestic story about a woman who is pregnant and trying to make a safe space for herself and her baby is buffeted about by the great magics surrounding the Eye of Eternity and Ma'Diere's Laws and the Demon of Hells Gap where awful people really are out to get her. I first read this as a teenager and liked it. Rereading it as an adult with children, it felt like the vast forces at play in the novel were a tangible expression of the intense emotions and fears and loves I felt around my own pregnancies.
Prompts:
- More on the delicate relationship between Elienne and Darion. There is such a lot of consideration in the book to how they dance around the deep bond they feel for each other, versus Elienne's recent griefs and her considerable prickliness. And it's very specific that she was selected by Ielond because he thought that she would be perfect for the prince. How do things work out?
- Ielond is such an august shadow on the novel. Perhaps a prequel story about his early years in training or mentoring the Prince?
- The world in this story is so complex and barbaric underneath the poisonous court politics. Halgarid's line has ruled for 14 generations, and Elienne's ancestry is 'out of legend'. Maybe write a story with original characters that just focuses on world building and exploring the setting?
Cinderella (2015)
There's a lot to like about this movie, starting with the bonkers costume design with its hypersaturated crushed colours smooshing up 1950s haute couture with 18th century frock coats, medieval particoloured hose on the guards, Victorian tartan trousers on Cinderella's Dad, and those tight tight Regency era pantaloons (clearly, the film makers decided that there should be a little something for the Mums.) The Prince's very husky gravelly voice is so lovely to hear, as is the relationship they show with his Dad. I like that they make a point of showing the Prince and Ella taking the time to talk each other - their attraction isn't just based on one evening of dancing, nor does Kit expect that the Mystery Princess will of course marry him after the ball, he just wants to see her again. I like that the banter they have in the little secret garden picks up the same rhythm of an earlier conversation with the king "You should/I shouldn't/You should/I will." The delight the movie has in having a comedy beat for the sake of it, and enjoying not taking itself too seriously before it does get serious again. I feel, rewatching this movie, that they get through the exposition and the comedy beats quite briskly, but it's noticeable that when the movie stops to take a breath it keeps going back to the parent-child relationship - what the good relationships look like with Ella and Kit's parents and the grief when their parents pass away tempered by their happy memories; the twisted love that Lady Tremaine has for her "beautiful stupid daughters" and how much resentment she allows herself to feel over her husband's love for Ella - this is also something for the Mums.
For all I love the current crop of action heroine Disney princesses, I honestly found it quite restful to have a straight through the middle retelling. Ella is the old fashioned kind of princess who has good things happen to her because she is kind to the people in her life, and empathy is such an important skill. She also has to learn what the limits of empathy are, when you aren't going to make your relationship with someone better by being kind to them; but also, when you walk away, you're allowed to let forgiveness happen as well.
Some prompts:
- The noble characters say several times that they're in a small kingdom that's just been at war, and they need some material advantages out of the prince's marriage. Perhaps show some episode in which Ella's superpowered empathy helps the kingdom out where an army wouldn't.
- If you're interested in some tourism writing, they keep showing that sunny coast road - maybe a story that talks up the scenery of where they are.
- Do either of the stepsisters have a moment of clarity and decide to change their ways? How does that work out for them?
- Lady Tremaine has such bitterness and rage in her cry of "because you are young, and innocent, and good" when she justifies her actions. When she was a girl did she herself have an opportunity to be courageous and kind? What were the events that made her what she is?
- A story focusing on the very jovial Captain of the Guard, maybe during the events of the movie, or something that happened to him afterwards?
- In the setting they don't talk about magic at all, until the Fairy Godmother turns up, does her magic wand bit, then disappears again. How do the Fairy Godmothers fit into the metaphysics of this world?
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
(Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney)
The older I get, the more I enjoy Austen's novels. She is so sarcastically apt about the foibles of how people behave, and yet I still feel that she likes them anyway. Northanger Abbey I find interesting because of its publication history, it was written early in Austen's adult life about a 17 year old going to Bath for the first time; and because of Reasons ended up being published after her death paired with her final masterwork about a 27 year old being sent to Bath against her own choice, a town in which she has an accretion of (mostly difficult) memories, all of which gives Northanger Abbey a poignancy which Austen probably hadn't intended but is there anyway.
But on to the prompts!
I'm all about the Tilney siblings in my request (either/and), they're just so nice and good humoured, but also Henry in particular is so very self aware about the things he likes, whether it's Gothic novels or paying attention to the fabric in girls' dresses. And he gets some great author directed moments - as the object of the melodramatic rant about how 'woman is fine for herself alone' (when actually, I think he has the eye for detail to both notice and care); the evening after he caught Catherine trying to find evidence of a Dastardly Plot where he makes a point of being extra kind to her in her embarrassment (definitely a keeper); and of course, the final remark about him from Austen that he chiefly fell in love with Catherine from a sense of gratitude. Austen has this real sense of rooting for marriages in which love is a factor, while at the same time being very pragmatic about the things that might happen to ease it on its way: sufficient means to live on, and a general sense that the other person likes you. Henry is so very self aware, that perhaps he has some thoughts on these things he wishes to share. Does Eleanor, knowing him so well, ever get to puncture his self assurance?
I'd also like to know more about this mysterious Viscount who appears as a deus ex machina on the last page, he of the mysterious washing list. He sounds absolutely charming, if convenient to an authoress, and it would be nice to see something of his courtship of Eleanor. Or Eleanor's view of the events in Bath and Northanger Abbey. What is it in Catherine beyond general good spiritedness does she really appreciate? What was her secret weapon in surviving growing up in the Abbey with so odious and officious a parent?
The Hunting of the Snark (Lewis Carrol & Mike Batt, Live Concert)
This concert was a really big event in my childhood back in those far off days where you watched what they were broadcasting and that was it, and we listened to the soundtrack over and over. Now I get to revisit it, and I'm back watching the concert/listening to the soundtrack over and over because my son really likes it. (It handles repeat listens super well.) If you're reading this prompt because we matched on something else, check out the concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKitp2gmRas&t=2707s (I'll wait.)
I love the incredible solemnity of the concert, in the old fashioned sense of everyone gets dressed up to have a wonderful time. Everyone in the Albert Hall is decked out in their best, fanciful clothes and giving the audience curtseys, and bowing to each other after their solos. All the cast and musicians have got big grins on their faces because why wouldn't you, and the bit where The Banker|Midge Ure finishes his solo and then walks down to stand with the other Snark Hunters for the opening song is another "well, why wouldn't you" moment. And The Butcher|Justin Hayward's performance of "As Long As The Moon Can Shine" is one of my favourite love songs of all time.
Some Prompts:
- "The danger was past, they had landed at last" - maybe a prequel story about the journey to the Snark's land.
- Rare for me - maybe some RPF about the making of the concert. Reading Mike Batt's various accounts of what he had to do to get the concert staged it was such a battle, maybe some vignettes about how people got involved.
- What happened to The Butcher and The Beaver after the end of the story? How does their friendship/love story pan out when the voice of the Jub Jub is a more distant memory?
- A number of the Snark Hunters from the original poem get their spotlight time in the concert, but others don't. What might the Mike Batt treatment of other characters in the original text been?
- If you want to be more serious and post-colonial (or silly and post-colonial, what do I know?), I don't think it's a coincidence that this story about a great quest into the unknown was written in the middle of Britain's great age of colonialism. Everyone has their idea of what the snark is going to be like, with their great lists of things it does or attributes it has, but in the end it's a great unknowable. There are all these images of consumption (even more so in some of the poem text that didn't make it into the lyrics), but in the end it is The Baker who is consumed. Any idea of what happened to him after he vanished away? What are the events from the snark's perspective?
- Or something bonkers that just happens to strike you about the performance. Have fun with it!
General Stuff About Me
Some things I've noticed about myself is that I tend to enjoy more stories that are reasonably consistent with the original canon - so sequels and prequels and inbetween scenes, and I love it when a minor character gets their story expanded or someone does a nifty bit of world building on some little detail and makes it all make sense. Original characters are also fine, and I've seen some AUs and crossovers that have really blown me away, so please take this paragraph as an 'optional details are optional' section and write the story that will make you happy. The prompts I've given are also optional, please have fun with what you choose to write. Also, stories that pass the Bechdel Test Are Love!
Squicks and Do Not Wants
I'm seriously not into non-consensual or underage sex. I also don't like graphic torture scenes, incest, or stories that are mostly sexy times with very little character building. Consensual BDSM isn't a squick for me, but it's also not something I'm particularly interested in reading about; likewise I'd rather not have a story where pregnancy or infertility is the main focus, although as a minor detail is fine. I don't have a problem with where you want to write characters on the Kinsey Kaleidoscope with respect to pairings, but I guess I'm more interested in how characters' relationships work out with each other than erotica. (I generally read in the Gen and Teen brackets.)
Sorceror's Legacy - Janny Wurts
I am much struck in this novel by the sheer grandeur of the world building. What is, in some respects, a domestic story about a woman who is pregnant and trying to make a safe space for herself and her baby is buffeted about by the great magics surrounding the Eye of Eternity and Ma'Diere's Laws and the Demon of Hells Gap where awful people really are out to get her. I first read this as a teenager and liked it. Rereading it as an adult with children, it felt like the vast forces at play in the novel were a tangible expression of the intense emotions and fears and loves I felt around my own pregnancies.
Prompts:
- More on the delicate relationship between Elienne and Darion. There is such a lot of consideration in the book to how they dance around the deep bond they feel for each other, versus Elienne's recent griefs and her considerable prickliness. And it's very specific that she was selected by Ielond because he thought that she would be perfect for the prince. How do things work out?
- Ielond is such an august shadow on the novel. Perhaps a prequel story about his early years in training or mentoring the Prince?
- The world in this story is so complex and barbaric underneath the poisonous court politics. Halgarid's line has ruled for 14 generations, and Elienne's ancestry is 'out of legend'. Maybe write a story with original characters that just focuses on world building and exploring the setting?
Cinderella (2015)
There's a lot to like about this movie, starting with the bonkers costume design with its hypersaturated crushed colours smooshing up 1950s haute couture with 18th century frock coats, medieval particoloured hose on the guards, Victorian tartan trousers on Cinderella's Dad, and those tight tight Regency era pantaloons (clearly, the film makers decided that there should be a little something for the Mums.) The Prince's very husky gravelly voice is so lovely to hear, as is the relationship they show with his Dad. I like that they make a point of showing the Prince and Ella taking the time to talk each other - their attraction isn't just based on one evening of dancing, nor does Kit expect that the Mystery Princess will of course marry him after the ball, he just wants to see her again. I like that the banter they have in the little secret garden picks up the same rhythm of an earlier conversation with the king "You should/I shouldn't/You should/I will." The delight the movie has in having a comedy beat for the sake of it, and enjoying not taking itself too seriously before it does get serious again. I feel, rewatching this movie, that they get through the exposition and the comedy beats quite briskly, but it's noticeable that when the movie stops to take a breath it keeps going back to the parent-child relationship - what the good relationships look like with Ella and Kit's parents and the grief when their parents pass away tempered by their happy memories; the twisted love that Lady Tremaine has for her "beautiful stupid daughters" and how much resentment she allows herself to feel over her husband's love for Ella - this is also something for the Mums.
For all I love the current crop of action heroine Disney princesses, I honestly found it quite restful to have a straight through the middle retelling. Ella is the old fashioned kind of princess who has good things happen to her because she is kind to the people in her life, and empathy is such an important skill. She also has to learn what the limits of empathy are, when you aren't going to make your relationship with someone better by being kind to them; but also, when you walk away, you're allowed to let forgiveness happen as well.
Some prompts:
- The noble characters say several times that they're in a small kingdom that's just been at war, and they need some material advantages out of the prince's marriage. Perhaps show some episode in which Ella's superpowered empathy helps the kingdom out where an army wouldn't.
- If you're interested in some tourism writing, they keep showing that sunny coast road - maybe a story that talks up the scenery of where they are.
- Do either of the stepsisters have a moment of clarity and decide to change their ways? How does that work out for them?
- Lady Tremaine has such bitterness and rage in her cry of "because you are young, and innocent, and good" when she justifies her actions. When she was a girl did she herself have an opportunity to be courageous and kind? What were the events that made her what she is?
- A story focusing on the very jovial Captain of the Guard, maybe during the events of the movie, or something that happened to him afterwards?
- In the setting they don't talk about magic at all, until the Fairy Godmother turns up, does her magic wand bit, then disappears again. How do the Fairy Godmothers fit into the metaphysics of this world?
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
(Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney)
The older I get, the more I enjoy Austen's novels. She is so sarcastically apt about the foibles of how people behave, and yet I still feel that she likes them anyway. Northanger Abbey I find interesting because of its publication history, it was written early in Austen's adult life about a 17 year old going to Bath for the first time; and because of Reasons ended up being published after her death paired with her final masterwork about a 27 year old being sent to Bath against her own choice, a town in which she has an accretion of (mostly difficult) memories, all of which gives Northanger Abbey a poignancy which Austen probably hadn't intended but is there anyway.
But on to the prompts!
I'm all about the Tilney siblings in my request (either/and), they're just so nice and good humoured, but also Henry in particular is so very self aware about the things he likes, whether it's Gothic novels or paying attention to the fabric in girls' dresses. And he gets some great author directed moments - as the object of the melodramatic rant about how 'woman is fine for herself alone' (when actually, I think he has the eye for detail to both notice and care); the evening after he caught Catherine trying to find evidence of a Dastardly Plot where he makes a point of being extra kind to her in her embarrassment (definitely a keeper); and of course, the final remark about him from Austen that he chiefly fell in love with Catherine from a sense of gratitude. Austen has this real sense of rooting for marriages in which love is a factor, while at the same time being very pragmatic about the things that might happen to ease it on its way: sufficient means to live on, and a general sense that the other person likes you. Henry is so very self aware, that perhaps he has some thoughts on these things he wishes to share. Does Eleanor, knowing him so well, ever get to puncture his self assurance?
I'd also like to know more about this mysterious Viscount who appears as a deus ex machina on the last page, he of the mysterious washing list. He sounds absolutely charming, if convenient to an authoress, and it would be nice to see something of his courtship of Eleanor. Or Eleanor's view of the events in Bath and Northanger Abbey. What is it in Catherine beyond general good spiritedness does she really appreciate? What was her secret weapon in surviving growing up in the Abbey with so odious and officious a parent?
The Hunting of the Snark (Lewis Carrol & Mike Batt, Live Concert)
This concert was a really big event in my childhood back in those far off days where you watched what they were broadcasting and that was it, and we listened to the soundtrack over and over. Now I get to revisit it, and I'm back watching the concert/listening to the soundtrack over and over because my son really likes it. (It handles repeat listens super well.) If you're reading this prompt because we matched on something else, check out the concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKitp2gmRas&t=2707s (I'll wait.)
I love the incredible solemnity of the concert, in the old fashioned sense of everyone gets dressed up to have a wonderful time. Everyone in the Albert Hall is decked out in their best, fanciful clothes and giving the audience curtseys, and bowing to each other after their solos. All the cast and musicians have got big grins on their faces because why wouldn't you, and the bit where The Banker|Midge Ure finishes his solo and then walks down to stand with the other Snark Hunters for the opening song is another "well, why wouldn't you" moment. And The Butcher|Justin Hayward's performance of "As Long As The Moon Can Shine" is one of my favourite love songs of all time.
Some Prompts:
- "The danger was past, they had landed at last" - maybe a prequel story about the journey to the Snark's land.
- Rare for me - maybe some RPF about the making of the concert. Reading Mike Batt's various accounts of what he had to do to get the concert staged it was such a battle, maybe some vignettes about how people got involved.
- What happened to The Butcher and The Beaver after the end of the story? How does their friendship/love story pan out when the voice of the Jub Jub is a more distant memory?
- A number of the Snark Hunters from the original poem get their spotlight time in the concert, but others don't. What might the Mike Batt treatment of other characters in the original text been?
- If you want to be more serious and post-colonial (or silly and post-colonial, what do I know?), I don't think it's a coincidence that this story about a great quest into the unknown was written in the middle of Britain's great age of colonialism. Everyone has their idea of what the snark is going to be like, with their great lists of things it does or attributes it has, but in the end it's a great unknowable. There are all these images of consumption (even more so in some of the poem text that didn't make it into the lyrics), but in the end it is The Baker who is consumed. Any idea of what happened to him after he vanished away? What are the events from the snark's perspective?
- Or something bonkers that just happens to strike you about the performance. Have fun with it!
