2024 fic roundup

[paranoidangel]

Here is the 2023 post for comparison.

Stats:

List of Completed Fics:
Sarah Jane Adventures: Alien Tales
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds/Doctor Who: The Master's Plan
Our Flag Means Death: Trust Issues
Doctor Who: Blood On Her Hands
Doctor Who: Hot Chocolate and an Understanding Ear
Doctor Who: A Spot of Naughtiness
Star Trek: Dreams of You
The Tour: A Reality Show: You Can't Win Them All
Doctor Who/Sarah Jane Adventures: Vanishing Act Chapter 2

Total number: 9
Total word count: 16,229
Ship/fandom/character breakdown:

Type:
Gen: 6
Het: 2
Slash: 1
Femslash: 0

Fandoms:
Doctor Who: 5
Sarah Jane Adventures: 2
Star Trek: 2
Our Flag Means Death: 1
The Tour: A Reality Show: 1

Characters who appear in more than one fic:
Christopher Pike: 2

Specifics:

Best title?
I think they're all pretty equal. I definitely had a certain way of titling this year.

Best summary
The only one that's more than a sentence (apart from the Unconventional Courtship fic): The First Doctor is worrying over leaving Susan behind. The Sixth Doctor is worrying about ducks. They both have hot chocolate in common. From Hot Chocolate and an Understanding Ear

Best first line?
"I may have done something a a little bit naughty." From A Spot of Naughtiness. I had the first line in my head for this and no idea where it was going to go at first. (No guesses for working out how I thought up the title for this one)

Best last line?
Although he'd never kissed her in his dreams, it was the kiss of his dreams. From Dreams of You. When I started on this I had the general idea of how the fic would go and some variation of this line to end it.

General questions:

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Both more and less than I thought. I didn't think I'd have such big gaps, so that I ended up doing most of my writing in the last few months of the year. But somehow I ended up with a very similar word count to last year.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I didn't think I'd write Doctor/River. Most ficathons I'll write something I'm confident about, but with tardis_festivities I do try out new things. My route into the pairing was Steven Moffatt and the banter between them that reminded me of Spike and Lynda.

What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Dreams of You because it felt like a happy place I could get lost in.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.
None of them in particular. Partly because so many of them are recent so they haven't had as much time to gather up hits/comments/kudos. And when I sort by hits, comments and kudos it gives me a different set of fics each time.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?
I don't feel like any of them were that underappreciated. I could say that I wrote the popular pairing in a big fandom, but I also killed everyone off, which tends to put people off reading it (it's not the first time I've done that either).

Story that could have been better?
Other than the obligatory all of them... I'm not sure I could have done better on any of them.

Sexiest story?
A Spot of Naughtiness is really the only nominee here.

Saddest story?
Trust Issues is pretty angsty.

Most fun?
The Master's Plan is pretty silly.

Story with single sweetest moment?
Dreams of You has some sweet moments in it.

Hardest story to write?
The Master's Plan. This was for intoabar. I had an idea of what sort of thing I'd write when I picked the characters and fandoms and then got one I didn't expect. I couldn't think of anything, then got made redundant. Tried to think of a plot when going out on walks and failed. And then somehow had an idea and wrote the whole thing in a week, not long before the deadline.

Easiest/most fun story to write?
For some reason Hot Chocolate and an Understanding Ear just flowed. No idea why.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
Probably Blood On Her Hands. My recipient wanted Manipulative!Doctor, so I went pretty dark and manipulative. And enjoyed myself. Manipulative!Doctor isn't something I've read that much of.

Most overdue story?
Vanishing Act Chapter 2. I posted the first part in May 2022, someone mentioned they wanted more, I had an idea of what happened next. I started writing it in spring this year and finally posted it in December.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Just signing up for two ficathons in the autumn was quite a risk when I hadn't written for a while and wasn't sure I could any more.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
Boom or bust?

What are your fic writing goals for next year?
To work on some of the things I have started. Whether I sign up for any ficathons at all, I don't know. But I would like to do unconventionalcourtship because it's just so much fun.

Mirrored from my blog.