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genfreeformexchange revealed!
May. 24th, 2022 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelpIt was my first time signing up for this exchange, and my second time pinch-hitting. I love freeform exchanges and I love gen, but the timing never worked out in the past. For some reason, I found myself feeling very uncharacteristically chill over the entire process. Not sure if because 1) I've finally done enough exchanges to be over the anxiety, 2) real-life busy-ness prevented me from having enough mental energy to stress over it, or 3) having a short fic in the collection in a popular fandom meant I got some early feedback and could rest assured that I was an ok writer after all. If the latter, I'll have to remember this strategy for the future!
The fic I wrote for my assignment was The Supreme Art of War, an original work for the pairing "Disabled Male Veteran of Magical War & Traumatized Child He Accidentally Acquires". I still remember being so delighted to discover how very specific original works pairings can get in the exchange scene, but it's also become my downfall. When I look at a tag like this, I feel like there is so much to unpack, and I can't resist writing a ton. How is the first character disabled? Was it from birth or from circumstance? If he's a veteran, what's the war? Is it ongoing? Is it done? And so on. I ended up writing almost 6k words for a 1.5k minimum, but at least I think I managed to pack in several of my recipient's freeform requests: Person Used to Being Treated Like a Weapon Gets Treated Like a Human Instead, Awkward Conversations, Hurt/Comfort - Hurt character initially mistrustful of comforter, Emotional discussions over firelight. Maybe even Found Family and Cross-Generational Trauma? I also saw one of their other pairing requests had something to do with witches and familiars, which mildly inspired some of the worldbuilding here.
I also snagged an exciting pinch hit and wrote Girl Out of Time. The recipient has great taste in fandoms, but Arcane: League of Legends was the only one I've seen recently enough to write about, and even then I still had to do some light canon review. I'd never considered writing in this fandom before, and have hardly ever read in it, but the prompts were great. (So great that someone else wrote basically the same premise as me in the same exchange, haha.) The entire story came out in one sitting, and was much closer to the wordcount minimum, but I feel like I was able to honor the various time travel freeforms in my recipient's request (Time Travel - Character changes the past to prevent traumatic events and succeeds, Time Travel - Character saves their younger self from trauma, Time Travel - Character meets their child self, Time Travel - Peggy Sue (which I had to look up!), Time Travel Fix-It), as well as working in some dreams/nightmares + mentally unstable narrator that I hope landed right. Their likes also mentioned "elaborate descriptions of sights and smells", which inspired me to put in more detailed descriptions than I normally would, and I'm happy with how that turned out.
The fic I wrote for my assignment was The Supreme Art of War, an original work for the pairing "Disabled Male Veteran of Magical War & Traumatized Child He Accidentally Acquires". I still remember being so delighted to discover how very specific original works pairings can get in the exchange scene, but it's also become my downfall. When I look at a tag like this, I feel like there is so much to unpack, and I can't resist writing a ton. How is the first character disabled? Was it from birth or from circumstance? If he's a veteran, what's the war? Is it ongoing? Is it done? And so on. I ended up writing almost 6k words for a 1.5k minimum, but at least I think I managed to pack in several of my recipient's freeform requests: Person Used to Being Treated Like a Weapon Gets Treated Like a Human Instead, Awkward Conversations, Hurt/Comfort - Hurt character initially mistrustful of comforter, Emotional discussions over firelight. Maybe even Found Family and Cross-Generational Trauma? I also saw one of their other pairing requests had something to do with witches and familiars, which mildly inspired some of the worldbuilding here.
I also snagged an exciting pinch hit and wrote Girl Out of Time. The recipient has great taste in fandoms, but Arcane: League of Legends was the only one I've seen recently enough to write about, and even then I still had to do some light canon review. I'd never considered writing in this fandom before, and have hardly ever read in it, but the prompts were great. (So great that someone else wrote basically the same premise as me in the same exchange, haha.) The entire story came out in one sitting, and was much closer to the wordcount minimum, but I feel like I was able to honor the various time travel freeforms in my recipient's request (Time Travel - Character changes the past to prevent traumatic events and succeeds, Time Travel - Character saves their younger self from trauma, Time Travel - Character meets their child self, Time Travel - Peggy Sue (which I had to look up!), Time Travel Fix-It), as well as working in some dreams/nightmares + mentally unstable narrator that I hope landed right. Their likes also mentioned "elaborate descriptions of sights and smells", which inspired me to put in more detailed descriptions than I normally would, and I'm happy with how that turned out.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-25 06:24 am (UTC)I just meant to have a quick look at the relationships in the Arcane story and the awesome premise combined with your beautiful writing was so compelling omg 😂 I need to go get ready for work. Good job on these stories and glad you were able to finally join the gen exchange as you hoped :D
no subject
Date: 2022-05-27 03:43 am (UTC)Thanks so much for having a look and for the kind words!
(That icon is so cute!)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-28 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-26 07:21 am (UTC)3) having a short fic in the collection in a popular fandom meant I got some early feedback and could rest assured that I was an ok writer after all.
This one has helped me before! It doesn't help if there's a specific fic I'm worried about, but I definitely feel better getting at least one assurance of something.
I absolutely adored The Supreme Art of War (it was a wonderful fic to settle down on an evening with :D) and the peek at your thought here, and Girl Out of Time was lovely as well!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-27 03:45 am (UTC)Thanks for taking a look at the stories, and for spending an evening with them! (And for encouraging me to share writing meta on DW :D)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-27 05:09 am (UTC)it was helpful to know another human has read the story and didn't spontaneously combust, hahah.
Always a good thing to guarantee. :D
Thanks for taking a look at the stories, and for spending an evening with them!
<3 And yay for the writing meta!