August Fic Review

[galadriel1010]

At the start of August I challenged myself to write 31 fanfictions for 31 pairings, based on a meme I found on Twitter. I posted my 31st story today (the full list is in the link above), having finished it last night, a day ahead of schedule. So with a day spare, I guess it's time for a review.

Statistics
Total wordcount: 25301
Longest fic: 4233
Shortest fic: 100
Number of fandoms: 11
Most represented fandom: Dragon Age (16 stories)

Pairing split: 9 f/f, 2 f/f/f, 10 m/f, 9 m/m, 1 ?/?

Responses to date:
Hits: 2129
Kudos: 232
Comments: 23

Brief review
My favourite story: This Is A Terrible Idea, post-breakup fake dating, Mycroft/Lestrade. It ran away with me a bit because I was enjoying it so much and ended up being the longest of the lot, with a much longer story coalescing around it. I introduced the character of Emma Lestrade in this one, and tried to imagine what our favourite DI's divorce would look like in London in 2010. All around that was the awkwardness of him and Mycroft picking up the pieces of their own aborted relationship and dancing around each other. Oh, and a poisoning. It's kind of squidgy.

Honourable mention: A Diversion" Victorian era Holmes/Watson, established relationship that's basically just Watson looking forwards to an excuse to get Holmes into bed.

Least favourite story: It Wasn't Meant To Be This Way. The prompt was 'unhappy ending', which I never like writing, so I allowed myself a drabble format to get it out.

Did I cheat? Yes. I couldn't see a way to get Omegaverse in with the base prompt of 'Canon compliant' so I challenged myself by replacing it with Coffee Shop. Ended up being was enough once I gave it to Herren and Wade from Dragon Age.

Will I follow up? Absolutely. The Mystrade one is definitely going to have a longer story around it, and I ended up doing a teaser for a long casefic for Vastra and Jenny. I also want to revisit River's other wife who I became quite fond of, Raffles and Bunny were a delight to write and I have a long Torchwood crossover planned for them, and I also enjoyed writing for Luc and Rhy from Victoria Schwab's Shades of Magic series.
A lot of the Dragon Age pairings are ones I've pulled into my big This Shit Is Weird plan, although Aeducan and Gorim" will get a happier ending when I return to them.
And finally, Liana and Charel are the protagonists of my NaNoWriMo project for this year, and I'm really looking forwards to getting to know them.

In general: I've really enjoyed this little project of getting the chance to mess around with different pairings. Some were new to me, some were old friends I've missed. I've not really written consistently since I started work full time and the commute got ridiculous. There's no sign of me going back into the office any time soon, so I'm really hopeful that I can keep up this momentum. This project has brought me so much genuine joy, I described it earlier today as feeling my heart swell several sizes and fill spaces I'd forgotten weren't always hollow. As much as I've enjoyed it myself, one of the best bits of fanfiction is always being able to share it with people within my community, and hear from them that they've enjoyed it too.

So here's to more stories, more shipping, and more sunshine.