Yuletide Reveal
Jan. 6th, 2014 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34As always, writing for Yuletide was a lot of fun for me this year.
Yuletide has always been good to me; I've generally written in fandoms with devoted followings and received a surprising and gratifying number of comments on my fics for the fest. This year, I decided to go a different route and only offer to write in truly obscure fandoms(The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen, Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore, Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Star Trek: Dwellers in the Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonnano, and Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (the last being the least obscure; there's always at least one Haunting of Hill House fic each Yuletide, and the quality is always very high; man, I love that book)), so this is the first year in which I genuinely expected only my recipient to comment on the fic I wrote.
Once again, I got the best recipient (I swear, I've got the Yuletide magic because I always match with the most awesome people who have the coolest ideas in their letters; I get my fic practically handed to me each year), and once again was presented with a choice of fandoms to write in. I don't always officially match on more than one fandom (although that has happened to me more than once), but every year I've written for Yuletide, I've had the luxury of choosing between at least two fandoms my recipient has requested. My recipient also requested The Shining by Stephen King, and I thought long and hard about writing in that fandom before remembering that I did not really want to revisit how much that book scared the shit out of me. LOL
So I chose The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen. The premise of this book is pretty messed up: a girl gets kidnapped and by convenient plot contrivance is carrying a typewriter and a ream of paper in her backpack. She's locked in a completely dark somewhere (cellar, basement, *something*) with a big ole jar of water and a stack of gas station snacks and left to stew. So she types out her feelings about her predicament and her interpersonal relationships. It ends without her being rescued; she's starving to death and dehydrating, and it's a very disturbing book. I have a copy of the book here at the house from when I was a kid which is why I offered to write in the fandom. I didn't remember until the re-read just how disturbing the whole premise is. I might not have given it to Emma two years ago to read if I had! She seems unscathed, however. LOL
My recipient mentioned several possibilities to "fix" the story, including the idea that Jackie isn't locked in a literal box at all but is mentally ill instead. So, I wrote brief snippets of all her ideas and headed them with lines from canon. She seemed to like it, and I thought it turned out well myself.
I even got a comment from someone other than my recipient! Whoooooo! :)
Outside the Box
Yuletide has always been good to me; I've generally written in fandoms with devoted followings and received a surprising and gratifying number of comments on my fics for the fest. This year, I decided to go a different route and only offer to write in truly obscure fandoms(The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen, Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore, Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Star Trek: Dwellers in the Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonnano, and Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (the last being the least obscure; there's always at least one Haunting of Hill House fic each Yuletide, and the quality is always very high; man, I love that book)), so this is the first year in which I genuinely expected only my recipient to comment on the fic I wrote.
Once again, I got the best recipient (I swear, I've got the Yuletide magic because I always match with the most awesome people who have the coolest ideas in their letters; I get my fic practically handed to me each year), and once again was presented with a choice of fandoms to write in. I don't always officially match on more than one fandom (although that has happened to me more than once), but every year I've written for Yuletide, I've had the luxury of choosing between at least two fandoms my recipient has requested. My recipient also requested The Shining by Stephen King, and I thought long and hard about writing in that fandom before remembering that I did not really want to revisit how much that book scared the shit out of me. LOL
So I chose The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen. The premise of this book is pretty messed up: a girl gets kidnapped and by convenient plot contrivance is carrying a typewriter and a ream of paper in her backpack. She's locked in a completely dark somewhere (cellar, basement, *something*) with a big ole jar of water and a stack of gas station snacks and left to stew. So she types out her feelings about her predicament and her interpersonal relationships. It ends without her being rescued; she's starving to death and dehydrating, and it's a very disturbing book. I have a copy of the book here at the house from when I was a kid which is why I offered to write in the fandom. I didn't remember until the re-read just how disturbing the whole premise is. I might not have given it to Emma two years ago to read if I had! She seems unscathed, however. LOL
My recipient mentioned several possibilities to "fix" the story, including the idea that Jackie isn't locked in a literal box at all but is mentally ill instead. So, I wrote brief snippets of all her ideas and headed them with lines from canon. She seemed to like it, and I thought it turned out well myself.
I even got a comment from someone other than my recipient! Whoooooo! :)
Outside the Box
