Fic Questions Meme

[jedibuttercup]

As my last meme has run out, and I'm trying to keep the journaling habit going this year, I've snagged another one that's been going 'round. (Though I've struck out one question; I'm leaving it in for posterity's sake, but I very seldom actually use a beta.)

Drop the title of one of my fics and a number (see questions below) in my comment box, and I will tell you:

1. What was my inspiration for this fic? How did it come to me?
2. What’s my favorite part of the fic?
3. What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?
4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?
5. What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?
6. Who’s my favorite character in the fic?
7. Were there any major decisions I made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?
8. Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
9. Did anyone in the fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?
10. If I had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?
11. If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
12. Did any thing about this fic’s reception surprise me?
13. What were my beta’s major comments about the first draft of this fic?
14. If I were to write a sequel to this fic, what would it be about?
15. Any other question about the fic!

Comments

[jedibuttercup]

I'll tell you something I haven't really admitted to myself the reason for yet: I've finally started assembling a more complete library of Tolkienesque research materials.

Not this summer. I'm probably not going to be able to get anything else out in Tolkienverse until the really insistent plotbunny in the back of my head about Thorin actually being an incarnation of Durin (who by the way isn't the only dwarf to ever come back according to the Silmarillion, the other six Fathers apparently just don't feel the need to announce themselves by name, so what if Durin doesn't always either, or if there's specific circumstances required for him to remember that for ~reasons~ didn't happen to Thorin .....?) and through one of those one-thing-changes AU divergences, he does realize this just before the Quest.

....It has occured to me that this may be the perfect vehicle to finally connect all those bits of headcanon where Elrond stops looking backward; where the first Quest goes differently; where Moria *does* get retaken because Bilbo; and so on ....

But I can't even think about starting on that until the expanded version of BOFA hits Blu-Ray and I can spend a couple of solid months with my research. So I'm going to clear as much of my other pending stuff as I can out of the way first. And if it does happen; then after that's done. Well. Yes; I suspect this is on the agenda. *crossing all the fingers*

[sulien.livejournal.com]

The idea of you taking Tolkien's characters AU just does not hold the horror for me that Peter Jackson doing so does. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to reading your AU! I'm pretty sure it's because I know in my gut that you actually respect the source material and the spirit of Tolkien's writings, whereas I truly do consider PJ & Co to be nothing but Hollywood hacks, whether they're in New Zealand or not. No, I'm just not forgiving them for what they did to Faramir and Gandalf, as well as Aragorn (yes, he was doubtful of himself and fully aware of everything riding on his shoulders, but he was not the Whinagorn of the films). /rant

*pumps fist in the air* YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll wait as long as I have to for the sequel to "The Blue Vault of Varda"!

Lastly, I am envious of your Tolkien research materials collection! I've still not collected all of the volumes of the History of Middle Earth. *sigh*

[jedibuttercup]

:) There's some things I admit I'm going to have to take from the movies; they're so visually epic in many ways that unless the text directly contradicts, that's always what I picture. And PJ managed to make the dwarves feel like they all had individual personalities and cultural backgrounds and all of that where the Hobbit (owing to its more children-story origins) made them mostly caricatures, so I do owe this whole notion to the fact of the movies' existence; I have to admit that! And one more thing I will give PJ full credit for that a lot of people won't: he did try to give the 'verse more female presence. Even if it was ridiculous at times (love triangles, le sigh; and did he have to erase Glorfindel entirely?) but in general, I totally approve of e.g. Tauriel's existence, and will probably assume her presence in my 'verse.

But Faramir: yeah, that's a major sticking point. I liked movie Boromir a bit more than book Boromir; but that may be down to Sean Bean. And I definitely had an instinctive revulsion to movie Faramir. He wasn't like the one I'd envisioned at all. And Aragorn; argh, I got why PJ did what he did for screen drama, but it did grate. And Haldir dying in Helm's Deep! And, yeah, I'll just stop there before I start going off about all the things that startled and disturbed rather than enthralling me in the films. Which did in fact include the strength of the Ring's influence ... I understood that too, but it makes me a bit nauseous to see some of the themes it's spawned in fanfic.

Anyway. The movieverse and the bookverse are very distinct universes, and where I don't feel strongly about what ended up on screen - in most cases (even in details so small as distances and time passing, PJ got particularly ridiculous about that in the Hobbit trilogy) I'll probably be taking my cue from bookverse, not movieverse. Except where canon leaves room for me to invent something of my own to fill in the gaps, or where Tolkien himself was ridiculous ... I doubt I'll feel the need to stick to that infamous LACE essay, for example!

I haven't acquired all of HoME yet either ... but the ones I don't are on my purchase list for this spring. :)