Before reading my fiction, you may want to check my opinion on ratings.
I should also warn that I don't tend to use warnings. Those stories which need warnings for "adult content" have been warned for in Big Red Letters. Other than that, you're on your own.
|
|
Fanfiction: Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings could be said to be one of my "primary" fandoms. Certainly it's the first I published fanfiction in. I should explain that one of the main ways I write fanfiction is to play in the world that an author has established. The majority of my stories tend not to contain the canon characters as main players, instead focussing on original characters. I prefer it that way, because it allows me to play around with the world a lot more effectively. Tolkien created a world which worked, and it leaves fanwriters a lot of space around the edges to play in.
If I remember correctly, this one grew out of a challenge on the Henneth Annun website. I got caught by the notion of how Legolas might feel, having to go inside a cave.
After "Campfire Story", this one came easy. The hardest part was figuring out how to alter the jokes to fit the world Tolkien had created. A number of these bad jokes come from Lenny Henry, and others come from my own memory of high-school competitions between friends.
I suppose this story could be called songfic. However, I tend to define the term somewhat differently to other people - I use a song as a starting off point, and go with the images and notions that the song provides me with. The song in question is a favourite of mine.
This one came out of a challenge on Henneth Annun - write a story about someone in the Fellowship telling a joke. After all, it can't have all been deadly serious around the campfire each evening. I decided to have a go at writing something for Aragorn - after all, I thought I had a pretty good idea what kind of sense of humour he'd have. Very dry, very deadpan. It took the better part of a month to get this one done, and by the end, I felt I wanted to strangle the character.
It was nominated for the inagural Mithril Awards in 2003.
Written in response to a challenge on the Henneth Annun site. The challenge, if I'm remembering correctly, was to write something about the aftermath of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. I decided to write something which covered the process of cleaning up.
Something which came out of a daily writing exercise. I had a couple of seed words, and wound up writing about a thousand words from a slightly different perspective. I suppose the key thing to remember is that nobody is a villain to themselves. What they do is always logical to themselves.
I tend to find myself enjoying challenges. Certainly this story came out of a challenge from the Mathoms LiveJournal community. The challenge was to write an interaction between an elf and a dwarf, with the limitation that it couldn't be about Legolas and Gimli.
The quote from the song of the same name by Tracy Chapman was what started me on this story. In a way, it encompasses my own feelings as a writer about the nature of the work I do.
Troika (written for Guede Mazaka)
A drabble written as part of a swap between myself and Guede Mazaka, and also as something of a songfic. I enjoy the rather discordant beginning and ending to the Prokofiev piece of this name, and it did inspire me with a certain amount of "what to write" for this story.
Arwen's story isn't told in the Lord of the Rings. This is my attempt at catching at least a little of it. I find myself fascinated by Arwen Undomiel, simply because of the majesty of her choice - to leave behind her life, her family, her very identity, and marry someone she knew would only be with her for such a short fraction of her life.
The Stories of Bree
I started writing about the town of Bree with Breelindir, the herbwife, but the most successful character I've written there is Magda Breeton. At first, she was just the barmaid at the Prancing Pony, but over the course of writing her stories and that of Breelindir, I started to learn more and more about this town at a crossroads in the North. I had a sense of Bree as a working town from the start - it was always going to be a place where family relationships and kin-bonds would be important, as well as being a necessary place in an economic sense. I'd like to think I'm writing something which would fit into the world Tolkien created - certainly I'm extrapolating a lot from the two brief appearances of Bree in the main story of the Lord of the Rings. Any inaccuracies are mine, not Tolkien's.
Magda's Tale got short-listed for the inagural Mithril Awards. I still feel chuffed when I think about it.
This was the first piece of fanfiction I wrote and published. It signalled my return to writing in a serious way, and it could be said to be the direct consequence of me starting to take anti-depressants. I still have a fondness for this story every time I think about it.
I decided to see whether I could write up Breelindir's encounter with Gandalf. I'm not sure whether it worked or not - I have problems writing Tolkien's elves and the wizards, possibly because their viewpoint is necessarily so different to my own. Gandalf, in particular, is very difficult to write. The old fox keeps slipping out of any conversation I try to have with him.
This one is something of a prequel to the Magda stories. It covers the first Yuletide (Winter Solstice) celebration for Magda's mother in the town of Bree. I was trying to give a sense of culture shock, as well as of continuity. The child Bronwen is pregnant with isn't Magda. It's Magda's elder brother, Jarge. The carol which is interspersed between sections of the story is called the Gloucestershire Wassail - I've just tweaked it to fit Bree. I chose that particular carol because it's possibly the least religious song of the various midwinter festival songs I know.
The Magda Breeton Stories 
3000 Third Age, May
3000 Third Age, early September
3002 Third Age, April
3018 Third Age, September
Mary Mordor Sue
Oh gods. Mary Mordor Sue. She started as a challenge on the Henneth Annun archive - write a story where a modern girl comes to Middle Earth, and winds up on the "wrong" side. I puzzled over it for a while, then she tumbled out all at once. People keep telling me this story scares them, which I find both worrying and pleasing. Worrying, because MMS is very much a reflection of who I feel I could be if I just let myself. Pleasing, because I believe horror is one of the harder genres to write - after all, the mechanics of fear are just as individual as the mechanics of laughter.
Mary Mordor Sue
Mary Mordor Sue Author's Notes
Mary Mordor Sue Writes
Poems and Songs
Yet another challenge on Henneth Annun. This time, it was to write some deliberately bad (or at least, not-perfect) poetry from the perspective of the Steward of Gondor.
Filk - "Gondor's Depraved" (Scotland the Brave)
The drinking song of the Minas Tirith "Warriors" - the premier rugby team on Middle Earth.
Filk - "Heroes Theme" (Take a Little Good Advice) - by Steve Davidson
She's part of me, so I let her write some poetry. This may have been a bad move.
Fanfiction: Pirates of the Caribbean
I've been a Depp fan for ages, and the notion of playing around in a historical era amused me about this particular fandom. So I did some research (including reading historical novels) and started scribbling.
Difficult Loves (written for Arwen Lune)
This is another bit of what I'd term "songfic", by which I mean a story inspired by a particular song, and the notions the lyrics spark off. The song is on the album "Difficult Loves", by Weddings Parties Anything. If you get a chance, have a listen. There's some wonderful lyrics there.
Do Not Go Gently (written for Ingvar Matsson)
Songfic again. This is inspired by a song which I suspect was inspired by Dylan Thomas. I prefer the song to the poem.
A piece of advice for POTC fandom writers: don't let Captain Jack Sparrow try to take over your stories. He doesn't know when to stop, and tries to take over your life as well. This set of drabbles came about because Jack was keeping me awake by niggling at my brain. In desperation, I summoned the rest of them in to squelch him. It worked, more or less.
The Black Maggie Stories
Black Maggie is an OFC who appeared out of nowhere when I tried to decide what might have happened prior to the events of "The Curse of the Black Pearl". I started trying to work out what the scene might have been, and all of a sudden there was this Irish pirate lass telling me about an event ten years before, when she'd been disguising herself as a lad to get some work, and found Jack Sparrow dead drunk on the shore of the cay her current employers were using as a cache...
Since then, she's stayed around, and she's acquired herself a ship and a reputation.
Be warned, this is an Adult Story. If you are under the age at which you should be reading such things, and/or you have a sufficiently active conscience to worry you about this, please don't click on the link above. By clicking on the link, you are agreeing that you are over the legally mandated age for your place of residence for reading stories with adult content.
Jack Sparrow can remember spending a night with Black Maggie... but was it real?
Paying the Price - Prologue 1 (From Maggie's point of view)
Paying the Price - Prologue 2 (Jack's take on the story)
"Paying the Price" is a long-delayed sequel to an even longer delayed story in which I was planning to introduce Maggie. These two stories are effectively background, from each character's perspective, of where that story would start. One day, I may just locate that round tuit, and write the story itself. Both of these stories are rated M15+ in the Australian system, which means if they were converted to film, persons under the age of 15 would only be allowed in with a parent or guardian. You have been warned.
Inside the Workroom
Some background for this one: One of the necessary mental constructs I have to be able to write without going completely crackers is the idea of a mental "workroom", where I can sit and work and speak with the characters as needed. Of course, in order to be able to discuss things with the characters, they've had to be moved into my head as well, and have a sort of dormitory/rec-room area next to the workroom. Sadly, the locks on the doors between these two locations don't cope well with having any number of people capable of picking them, hacking at them with swords, taking to them with a crowbar, blowing them off with dynamite, or just undoing them, so there's a certain amount of "bleed" into other areas of my head... This is what happened when the POTC cast in my head decided to have a look at Gilbert & Sullivan.
(I suppose I should explain: Lucy is Lucifer - she's a reworking of the classic themes, from an original piece. Sarah Dragonchilde is an original character too. They came in to boost the numbers, because there are three named female characters in the chorus for Pirates of Penzance.)
Pirates of Penzance^WWherever Part 1
Pirates of Penzance^WWherever Part 2
Pirates of Penzance^WWherever Part 3
Fanfiction: El Mariachi/ Desperado/ Once Upon A Time In Mexico
The El Mariachi sequence of movies by Robert Rodriguez is an interesting cycle, if only because they're a brilliant example of how to do one hell of a lot with very little (not just by way of cinematographic tricks, but also by way of plot). I believe it's the range of subtext available which keeps people interested in these - there's so much to play with. I'll be watching to see what Mr Rodriguez does with this storyline next, as he's created two mythic characters in the story-space.
An experiment in dialogue, and free-form formatting. I like the notion of having the lines "talking" from opposite sides of the page.
Do Not Go Gently (written for Ingvar Matsson)
The challenge Ingvar handed me was to combine the El Mariachi sequence with the Pirates of the Caribbean storyline - just after the end of the first movie.
This one came out of me listening to Tom Lehrer as I was writing an essay. The line which triggered it all was the one about the mariachis. Which fandom could I put this in, other than "Mexico"?
Writing Sands in this one was ... interesting. What fascinates me is that dreams are a mental process, wholly unconnected with the input the optic nerves are receiving. So, having undergone the trauma Sands did in Once Upon a Time In Mexico, would he look forward to dreams, or would they be a terrible reminder of what he'd lost?
I have plans to do something more with Robbie Cincotti. The problem is knowing how to get him into the story. Sands tends to want to grandstand.
Mexico Drabbles - Set 1
Mexico Drabbles - Set 2
"Monday's Experts" Drabble Set
I tended to find the characters for "Mexico" hard to get a handle on. So I write drabbles, capturing moments. I tend to write drabbles in sets of five, purely because five hundred words seems like a nice round figure.
"Monday's Experts" is another song by Weddings Parties Anything, dealling with the inevitability of twenty-twenty hindsight. There are a number of moments in the film which fitted.
This one came out of a couple of challenges. One of them was to do a Sands/El story which was G-rated (or at least vaguely kidsafe). The other was to play some more with Lehrer's work and the character of Sheldon Sands - particularly the song "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".
Again, an attempt at getting a handle on the character. Five hundred words, five senses. It was logical enough.
Fanfiction: Blake's 7
A set of drabbles inspired by a challenge on the Livejournal community B7Friday. The challenge was to take a book (strictly speaking, the book you were currently reading - I read about six or seven at a time, so I just limited it to books within arms reach), open it to page 23, and take the fifth sentence as the inspiration for your story (or ideally, as the first sentence of your story). In each case, the first sentence of the story is the one I picked up. The books are listed below. Each drabble is exactly one hundred words in length.
This came about after I gulped down the contents of a "Good Omens" fanfiction archive on a quiet day. The scary thing, as far as I can tell, is that if you take it as canon, the whole thing makes a perverted type of sense.
Consequences of Totalitarianism
A series of responses to the "100 best opening lines" challenge on B7Friday. I decided to go for a series of linked stories, so this is another set of five drabbles.
Family Drabbles
Another challenge from B7Friday (they come up with some good ones) - this was writing something about the families of the characters. I threw in the Tirren Phale drabble for good measure.
Avon realises where and when the road to the Federation began, and decides to get in at the start of things.
A Christmas effort - a set of six drabbles and one double-drabble set in the universe of Blake's 7. Written for Christmas 2005, and based around themes from the carol.
The title of the story is the nature of the B7Friday challenge. Using that line as an inspiration, write a fic. I decided to use it to explore Orac, because I found it interesting the range of assumptions made about non-humanoid lifeforms in the series. They created three brilliant computers, and used them all as a combination of oracle and servant. I tend to assume anything with enough sentience (or semblance thereof) to manifest a definite personality is self-aware, which led to me considering what the options might have been.
I'd also refer to the wonderful quote from Horace (I think) where the Sybyl is asked what she wants by a group of small boys, and she replies that she wants to die.
It's a double-drabble - exactly 200 words.
Yet another B7Friday challenge - this time it was "put your music player on random, and write a story which fits either the title, lyrics or theme of the first song which comes up." Guess which song I wound up with.
This was a continuation of the previous exercise - but this time I stuck with one book: "Splashdance Silver", by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Each of these is exactly two hundred words in length.
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Another one for the b7friday community. This time the theme was, as the title says, things that go bump in the night (the week before Halloween, 2005).
Wish You Were Here - Avon
Wish You Were Here - Vila
Written for the B7Friday "Pink Floyd" challenge. The original thought was that I'd get seven short pieces from the one song. Inspiration decided to wander off and leave me with two.
The Bondgroup
This came out of the Tirren Phale stories, and an option I discarded fairly early on in the piece. I was originally going to have Tirren being an empath, as well as everything else, but I decided that was going to be too much like inviting Mary Sue to join the crew of the Liberator, so I dropped the notion. But it kicked around in the back of my head, and I realised I wanted to try the whole business out anyway. So I decided to give her some company, and this is what happened.
Chapter 1 - Forming the Bond
Roja Blake
This set of stories was inspired by some comments about the new Blake's 7 audio plays. Apparently they got something of a boy rewrite, all more guns, more bang, more boom, and less actual characterisation. Someone raised some other alternatives that could have been explored, and one of these was switching the gender of the title character. Then the wretched plotbunny sank its fangs into my arm, and I'm still dripping blood into the keyboard. So here is the story of Roja Blake, and how she managed the crew of the Liberator.
Chapter 1 - The Way Back
I find sonnets are the most challenging form of poetry to write - focussing an idea down to fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, and complying with a specific rhyme scheme. Blake is Shakespearian, Stannis is Miltonian.
Tirren Phale showed up when I asked myself the "what-if" - "What if there was another woman in the consignment to Cygnus Alpha?". There she was, large as life. However, she didn't really fit on board the London, so I moved her to the planet in the previous batch. I started writing her in an effort to see how the ensemble playing of the Blake's 7 stories worked - trying to fit in another character really helps when you're trying to learn how the existing ones work together - and also in an effort to see how adding another character would change the dynamics, and possibly the storylines.
Chapter 1 - Cygnus Alpha
Chapter 2 - Time Squad
Chapter 3 - The Web
Chapter 4 - Seek, Locate, Destroy
Chapter 5 - Supplies
Chapter 6 - Mission to Destiny (Part 1)
Chapter 7 - Mission to Destiny (Part 2)
Side Story
I wrote this one as an exercise in exorcism. The whole notion of pairing the characters up was bugging me, so I decided to make it extremely clear to my subconscious exactly why I wasn't having a bar of it.
Another "what if...?" This time the question was "What if Avon went missing at the beginning of 'Aftermath'?" This turned out to be the answer.
The other question was "What if Avon had to deal with a computer which was nowhere near as good as either Zen or Orac?" I think Della fits the bill there.
This is going to be another multi-parter. I just have to get around to writing the rest of the parts. I completed chapter one for the Finish-a-thon for 2006.
Fanfiction: King Arthur
I've been a fan of the Arthurian myths for years now. I started reading them when I was about seven, with Roger Lancelyn Green's re-tellings of Malory's work, but I think I got my start when I was even younger, seeing a cartoon which was, to the best of my recall, called "King Arthur and the Nutty Knights of the Round Table". The recent film was an interesting one, and woke up some old memories.
This set of drabbles came out of my usual sense of catching a moment. I tend to use drabbles as a way of getting myself started on writing, or as a way of jotting down impressions about characters.
I decided to look at one of the great love stories of the Arthurian cycle from the perspective of how it would probably have been in the movie. Elayne always struck me as an interesting character, if only because she spent a lot of time loving Lancelot, even though Lancelot was more obsessed by Guinevere. I suppose I identified with her in a lot of ways. This Elayne is a lot more angry about the situation than the mediaeval version.
Another bit of a look at the historical story through the lens of the movie.
Fanfiction: Assorted
Crossover between "Good Omens" and "Blake's 7". What scares me is that if you consider B7 in light of this story, it actually makes sense.
Written for Guede Mazaka. A look at the brothers from "Dusk 'til Dawn", and the way the relationship between the two of them worked.
A collection of characters, with the common theme that they were all played by Johnny Depp. This came to me as a result of a very bad night, when it took me forever to get to sleep, mainly because I was being pestered by one of these characters. I got the rest in to shut him the heck up.
For about five or six years, I collected X-Men comics. I liked the stories, and I found the characters interesting. This is one of the first bits of fan-fiction I ever wrote, set in the world of the Marvel Universe, and addressing the reality of mutation as it is in this world.
From Minerva McGonagall's Mailbox
Yes, I've actually written Harry Potter fanfiction. As usual, this one is more a story set in the world of Harry Potter than an actual story about the characters. I got interested with the situation regarding the wizard and witch population - my best guess from the way Rowling has written things is that approximately one person in one thousand in Britain is able to perform magic. I started wondering how that would translate in a country like Australia, which has a far smaller population.
A Dr Who fanfic, set in the era of the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston). This is set pre-"Rose". Some healing is necessary before even the most resilient hero can handle heroism again.
Another for the 9th Doctor. This contains spoilers for "Parting of the Ways", and is based on a mishearing on my part.
Dr Who fanfic. I wondered how the situation with Rose and Mickey would look to someone who didn't know what was happening. This is what came out. Spoilers for "Boom Town".
Fanfiction Works in Progress: Lord of the Rings
The Bloody Self Insert
Oh gods. This thing. I started this one about a month or so after I got interested in the LOTR, and started reading all the various Mary Sues which had cropped up. My original was a Mary Sue, plain and simple. What you're seeing is actually about the fourth or fifth draft, and from about the third draft on, I'd started in on an effort to write a Mary Sue with a certain amount of common sense and reality. My character, I decided, would actually get things like blisters, saddle-sores, cramp, and all the other little afflictions which would affect someone of my physique who went off on a four-month hiking journey with no prior preparation.
As you'll probably notice, the best laid plans of Meg gang aft aley.
I doubt this one will ever be finished. I've run out of steam on it. So it's up as an example of what I can do in the field of Mary-Sues.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
(Teaser: Into Temptation (R))
Be warned, this is an Adult Story. If you are under the age at which you should be reading such things, and/or you have a sufficiently active conscience to worry you about this, please don't click on the link above. By clicking on the link, you are agreeing that you are over the legally mandated age for your place of residence for reading stories with adult content.
Fanfiction Works in Progress: Pirates of the Caribbean
The Turner Brood
There's a lot of fanfiction out there which attempts to pick up from shortly after the end of the first movie. I decided if I was going to write a sequel, I'd give the original writers plenty of space to play in (thus making it more likely for my stuff to be either thoroughly canonical, or so far AU that it wouldn't matter). So this is set twenty years later, and deals largely with the children of William and Elizabeth Turner. Captain Jack Sparrow shows up, purely because it's damn near impossible to keep the man out. I'm trying to keep a sense of historical perspective, as well as using a lot of detail I picked up from years of reading Georgette Heyer. Hey, everything's useful.
Will I ever finish this? I really don't know. It depends on whether I can pin the characters down for a conversation.
[Later note: And then along came "Dead Man's Chest" and played merry hob with the whole thing. I could almost get annoyed with the writers for bollixing up a perfectly good story of mine. So, if you're reading this, remember, it was started before the second movie came out.]
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Collected Drabbles:
I use "drabble" in its strictest sense here - a short piece of fiction, exactly 100 words in length. I tend to write them in sets of five, possibly because five hundred words doesn't seem like much, and edit them fairly heavily before they reach the publication stage. Drabble writing is interesting for me - it acts as a way of catching a particular moment or feeling, or fandom.
Arthurian Drabble Set
B7 Friday Drabbles
Christmas 2004 Drabble Set
Consequences of Totalitarianism
B7 Family Drabbles
Insomnia Drabble Set
Joys Seven
Mexico Drabbles Set 1
Mexico Drabbles Set 2
Monday's Experts Drabble Set
My Computer Hates Me (double-drabble)
Sands Sense Drabble Set
Smoke on the Water
Splashdance Double-Drabble Set
Troika
Christmas Specials:
These are the stories I've written around Christmas time, as a sort of Christmas present for my various fandoms. In most cases they have a Christmassy theme, as well, although there's at least one set where I've just stuck with being inspired by a Christmas carol.
Breetown Yule
Christmas 2004 Drabble Set
Joys Seven (Christmas 2005)