Check-In Post #6

[slashmarks]

Week five is now complete! Each week, I'll make a new check-in post with a few optional discussion questions. You can use this post to update us on our progress, complain, celebrate, or talk to other participants! Also feel free to discuss each week's questions in our discord server.

Comment to share how your week went!

Optional Discussion Questions

0. How's your project coming? How did this week go?

1. Is there a particular place you usually work? At home, or do you prefer to work in public places? Do you have a desk or dedicated work place?

2. If you've worked with concrit or beta readers in the past, what do you think is the most useful skill for a beta reader/feedback person to have? What do you think writers/artists should do, or know in order to get the most out of feedback?

3. Do you think of your work in terms of tropes? If you do, what are your favorites, and what are you planning to use in this story? Do you like to read the same things you like to write and draw?

Answer here, and/or join the discussion in the discord!

Comments

[sansigma]

1. Is there a particular place you usually work? At home, or do you prefer to work in public places? Do you have a desk or dedicated work place?

I prefer to write at home (or wherever I'm currently staying), but I'll jot down notes on my phone wherever I am and whatever I'm doing when I get a new idea (for example, in church halfway through a worship service).

I write on my laptop wherever it happens to be set up, but that's usually on my desk in my bedroom.

2. If you've worked with concrit or beta readers in the past, what do you think is the most useful skill for a beta reader/feedback person to have? What do you think writers/artists should do, or know in order to get the most out of feedback?

I think a good beta is flexible enough to focus on whatever the creator asks them to focus on, but also firm enough to also point out other things they feel aren't working optimally as well (unless explicitly asked not to, for example due to time constraints).

I pride myself on being good at receiving constructive criticism – I had a lot of practise at it during my formative years, which was very helpful – and I find that graciously accepting feedback, even feedback you don't agree with, sets you up for people being willing to engage with your work more in depth rather than just helping polish up the surface, so to speak.

3. Do you think of your work in terms of tropes? If you do, what are your favorites, and what are you planning to use in this story? Do you like to read the same things you like to write and draw?

I'm writing a story that I first conceptualised as an exchange gift, for a rather tropey OW pairing (isn't that almost all of them – the ones that get nominated for exchanges, I mean). And at least one scene is pretty tropey in itself, now that I think about it – but that's just it, I usually don't think about my writing in terms of tropes. And if I'm writing a story where I have to decide how to move the story along, and my choices are scenario A, which would take the story in a more tropey direction, and scenario B, which is more narratively coherent, I would generally go for B.

Tropes, or tags at least, can be more useful when finding things to read, but I'm more likely to enjoy a well-written fic for a trope I'm lukewarm about than a decent fic for a trope I love.

[chacusha]

1. Is there a particular place you usually work? At home, or do you prefer to work in public places? Do you have a desk or dedicated work place?

I like cafes, on the train, and at home. I guess I work everywhere. XD


2. If you've worked with concrit or beta readers in the past, what do you think is the most useful skill for a beta reader/feedback person to have? What do you think writers/artists should do, or know in order to get the most out of feedback?

I find betaing very difficult both on the reader and writer side. I think the most frustrating experience for me on either side is when I think changes made in response to beta feedback make the piece weaker rather than stronger. On the reader side, it's frustrating because I think there has been a misunderstanding about what the underlying issue with the writing was that I was trying to point out, and so the attempt to fix it didn't address the issue and instead just made the writing more messy/confused in the attempt to incorporate the feedback. On the writer side, it's sometimes difficult for me to tell if I should act on a suggestion or not. In the past, I have made changes in response to beta feedback that I ended up regretting and reverting back to the original. So yeah, I think the hardest part is the writer being able to have all the information and confidence they need to know whether feedback can be safely ignored or not -- that is the hardest part for me.

So maybe the most important skill is good communication skills? Being able to clearly convey the underlying reason for a suggestion being made, for example.


3. Do you think of your work in terms of tropes? If you do, what are your favorites, and what are you planning to use in this story? Do you like to read the same things you like to write and draw?

Oh absolutely, I do. Part of this is because a lot of my art/writing is done for exchanges, and a lot of exchanges are themed around a trope and/or feature tropes in their tagsets, and that's where I get a lot of my ideas! I like a lot of different tropes. To name a common one, I love forced proximity/intimacy tropes, which encompasses many tropey subtropes like There Was Only One Bed, sex pollen, Soulmate AU, arranged marriage, fake dating/marriage, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Canadian Shack, and so on.

That said, the project I'm working on right now doesn't really fit neatly into a trope. The closest I can think of is maybe sex comedy / raunchy comedy, or yonkoma.