due to very foreseen circumstances I absolutely anticipated (bad depressive episode) I've been just reading books in my free time instead of doing anything else. it's been great and I've been reading some books I absolutely adored, but also now I have a headache and need to bide time for dipyrone to act and my kindle to charge before I start on the next one. I'm thinking I'll start another reread! I'm itching to get my hands on a physical copy of "fingersmith" and highlight the shit out of it but the kindle highlights will have to suffice.
my recent reads made me think that if I were asked by a genie
what do you want your writing to be like? I'd say I want the prose of "the secret history", the intricate fantasy and commentary of "his dark materials", and the political scheming/plot twists of "captive prince". the third book in that last one made me lose my fucking mind, and it took me years to finish "the secret history" but god, I love the actual writing, the words, the sentences and dialogues, so much. I get why people are into dark academia, although I doubt there's anything as good as that book. I realized I really like reading monarchy/royalty in fiction too, which I kinda already knew, but now I'm much more certain.
that being said! scrolling through
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
paradisediner's member posts, I saw
this post by
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
poppyseedheart with questions for writers and thought they were so good, I wanted to answer too.
1. of all the tropes you've written, which would be least appealing or applicable to you irl? e.g. you wrote a fic with a pivotal bedsharing scene but can never fall asleep yourself if you have to share a bedpossibly fake dating? because I hate lying and I'm a lousy liar anyway, I don't think I could go through with it... what sanghak do in
better half is unthinkable to me, I could never lol
and cooking together, sorry, I hate cooking. it's very cute in fic and I love the concept of cooking together in theory but cooking only stresses me out (all the things you need to wash and put away later!!!)
lastly, I made flowers a thing in
mise-en-scène but idc about flowers, never did, I don't think I ever will.
2. what is a classic "you"-ism that often slips into your writing? e.g. you often experience road rage, so all of your characters hate stop and go traffic with a vengeancesomeone always hates driving or is bad at it LOL that's meee. actually, making everyone drive all the time is very me because I often forget other countries have functional public transportation.
being a shitty sleeper too, that's me projecting - although that sometimes is very canon, we're always hearing from idols how much of a luxury sleep is for them.
aside from that, I can't think of anything else...? sometimes I'll add something from my life into stories just because, but those are sporadic: kevin was a translator for
my milkev fic, hakcob were interns for the ministry of foreign affairs in
my first hakcob, the road trip hakric were on in
maps mirrored my usual road trips to and fro when I was in college, I've stayed overnight at airports and that's why I wrote
that junyu fic, etc etc.
3. what is the most interesting or memorable thing you've learned while doing research for a story?aside from all the canon bits (sometimes I'll look up something and discover new #tbzlore I wasn't aware of lol), I think I mentioned this before, but learning about pirates and pirate ships was fun! the stuff I research is usually basic stuff I have no reason to know beforehand, nothing that interesting...
4. share a little about your "white whale" story, aka the idea you have had for a long time but haven't been able to bring yourself to write for whatever reason.many such cases... I think the most interesting - and challenging - to write would be the dollhouse/txf crossover junyu. and now after watching "severance" I like the idea even more, it would be fun to mix it all in one thing. changmin as mulder, chanhee as scully, juyeon as echo/caroline, eric as topher. hyunjun was a side character too in the original idea, a former active "retired" after an injury, but I still needed to figure out who the other actives would be (definitely hyunjae, though, maybe bbangsunhak too?). this feels like it could be such a fun fic, so many parallels to idol life, industry practices, company abuse etc, but that asks for a smarter brain than mine. someone write it for me pls if I can't write it I'd love to read it
If this was strange before, now Chanhee can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Juyeon shouldn’t know about that case—they haven’t talked about it. Have they? No, Chanhee is positive he never mentioned it to Juyeon. He never mentioned it to anyone because it was such an absurd rumor that the moment Changmin dropped his wild goose chase, Chanhee was ready to forget all about it.
The rumors have been circulating for as long as the internet has been around, though Chanhee first heard about them from Changmin. The Dollhouse, the legend goes, is a place where the wealthy can find just the right person they’ve been looking for. A ghost house full of soulless people, perfect dolls ready to do anything and everything that is asked of them. Chanhee insisted it was a tasteless, creepy urban legend, one of many they’ve investigated in their time working together; Changmin, on the other hand, was certain it was real but no one was willing to talk for fear of retribution.
“Just think about it,” Changmin had argued, eyes wide and hair a mess from running his hands through it over and over in frustration, “if this place exists, how many powerful people would they need to keep this a secret? No, they have the means, and the power, and all the leverage in the world to keep anyone quiet.”
That was months ago. Staring into Juyeon’s eyes now, Chanhee can’t understand what’s happening—is this a prank? Is Juyeon somehow unstable, dangerous, a stalker? How else would he know about the Dollhouse? How did he get into Chanhee’s place? Has he done that before?
5. tell us your secret! what's your favorite sneaky (or not so sneaky!) trick that you implement in your writing to draw out an emotional response from your reader? e.g. inverting a trope, highlighting parallels, quoting canon, etc. bonus points for examplesI don't think I have any tricks or secrets but I do like to draw from canon! I love sprinkling little canon-compliant details onto fic :') and the tried and true method of using the five senses in descriptions, I like to pay attention to that too.
![[sticky entry]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png){kind=small}
