a year in review: the story you're most proud of

[grumpy cat]

i had this idea that it would be fun to have a year in review thread for our stories! so tell me which story that you've written (or started) in 2019 you're most proud of and why (i was actually inspired to start this because abbi/crimson quill asked me a similar question in my wj)

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i'll start us off

napalm skies+ is the one i'm most proud of writing this past year. i think it shows a lot of growth of me as a writer and the way i've developed the character of dominique weasley. she's pretty much a hot mess/bisexual chaotic disaster™ but i like to think it adds to the...uhh...real-ness (?? this isn't a word) of her character. in dominique's world nothing is black and white, everything is morally grey and things are always complicated.

i also liked the way i've managed to use description and metaphors throughout the story, maintaining the same theme of space and stars to convey losing yourself in another person, especially when that person (or, in the case of dominique, two people - teddy lupin and quinn jones) has this strong, addictive personality that attracts you and you're helpless to fight it.

and of course, the fact that dominique is bisexual is something i've really enjoyed writing about in a way that's not someone struggling with their sexuality or coming out and transferring my own experiences into fic. i always love seeing fics where queer people are just being themselves and enjoying it and i'm happy that i've contributed to that in some small way.

[Oregonian]

I looked through my author page and noticed that everything on it was posted in 2019.  How can that be?  It feels as though I've been here at HPFT for a long time.  So I suppose that I could pick anything off that page.  The story that I'm  the most proud of (although it's not the most perfectly polished) is The Baby in the Closet.  In my mind it was a story that had to be told, and nobody else was writing it.  I managed to stuff into it everything I wanted to say on the topic, though the final length was only about 44K words, and it all seemed important to me.  A big chunk of Missing Stuff.  Each chapter had a specific focus that drove the plot forward, various items connected in perhaps unexpected ways, and the extensive research gave the story a verisimilitude that some readers commented on.

I'm also excited about the piece I'm working on now, The Crofter and the Snake.  It's a large expansion of a short story (10K words) that evolved from a germ of a head canon Missing Moment that I came up with several years ago.  It will hopefully showcase what I have earned about woodcrafting since then.

[down-in-flames]

hmm, i've had to think on this one for a while, but i think at the end of the day the title has to go to +9.9 out of 10, highly recommend. it is, first and foremost, a story that was supposed to be about 25k words in its entirety, and now will probably be closer to 70k when it's finished - i kind of fell in love with these versions of this characters and this world, and this story demanded to be told in a longer format than i'd originally intended. it's the first time i've ever really attempted to make multiple pieces of media fit within one another - the marauders-era characters from harry potter, the setting and random details/running gags from brooklyn 99, and the plotline from how to lose a guy in 10 days - and i'm really proud of how all of those elements have come together. it's also the first time i've written a split pov within the same fic, and the first time i've written a full-length smut scene (which is something i've been wanting to try for a while, haha). finally, i just really love how james came together in this fic. he's just such a sweet, awkward goofball who's also quite self-aware in the ways that it counts and tbh if i could make him a real person i'd marry him on the spot. 

[Guest Noelle Zingarella]

Moonlight (M)+ is the story I am most proud of from the last year. When I started writing it, back last January, I seriously thought that there was no way it was going to be more than 25K--I could not even conceive of writing a story that long. Once the final chapter is validated, it will top out at around 145K. I learned so much in the course of writing this---how to rewrite and refine a rough draft; how to write-sprint; how to get to know a character; how to make an outline that works for me; and also how amazingly rewarding it is to finish a story and put it out into the world to share with other people. I love this story and these characters so very much and it means a lot to me that there are other people out there who have enjoyed reading it. Also, the pleasure of getting sucked into writing something, and the momentum that builds when you're close to finishing it is very exciting. I only hope I have as much fun writing book two

 

[Oregonian]

Grr to Auto-Correct for screwing up my post that is located 3 posts above.  The word in the final sentence is supposed to be "wordcrafting", not "woodcrafting".  There is nothing about woodcrafting in my story.  Sorry about getting your hopes up.

[dreamshadow]

This is a great question! I didn't really write a lot in 2019 -- well, I did, but nothing really postable. This is easy to answer though, and not just because it's one of the very few stories on the archives that qualifies.

For me, I'm most proud of +Something Like Gravity (m), aka my entry for the 5+1 challenge. Not only because it's one of the longest fics I've written as a one-shot, but also it's one of the few stories I've finished. I'm pretty proud of the writing, too; both the first section and the last mirror each other but have different outcomes. It's one of the darkest pieces I've written but after several re-writes I'm really happy with how the end came out. It was something I struggled with because I wanted to get the right message across. I also love Emma, the OC in this fic, and it was fun to explore this part of her journey with Spacekru and to set crumbs for her eventual relationship with Murphy. In her original creation, she was set to end up with Bellamy (but I ship Bellarke too hard), but Emma is just the perfect scrappy little nothing with a happy personality in a dark soul that makes her perfect for Murphy, imo.

[Felpata_Lupin]

I'm not sure if this counts, since it was in January, but 2019 was the year when I finally marked completed All the truth about Jimmy Portman!

I'm extremely proud of this story for many reasons... first of all because it's the longest piece I've finished so far (105k!!!), and it's been the result of five years of hard work, self doubt, agonizing writer block, love and hate and love again... When I first started I had no idea where I was going and now I'm actually planning a 7 novel series and I'm just so in love with the characters and all the complicated relationships and I can't wait to see my children grow (and the adults gain some more wiseness as well... maybe?  )

I feel like my writing has also grown a lot since I first started. My descriptions have become more steady and detailed (even if I still have a lot to learn when it comes to descriptive languge) and my English has improved a little bit as well, both in grammar and in lexicon.  

And... well... the support I've received from so many people here is priceless! I know I wouldn't have gone this far without it!  

[Ineke]

It's hard for me to decide this because I generally don't really feel proud of anything I've done (especially what i wrote etc.) but I think I can be proud of the fact that I wrote more than I expected to write (including writing a very personal original piece), and that I went out of my comfortzone multiple times by writing original stuff or chars I never wrote before. One of these stories is Gone and I'm actually happy with how it turned out, to the point I actually did a little editting (and fuck if that isn't rare for me) and just... I worked so hard to get it just right, not just the chars (though I'm still terrified I screwed Draco up somehow) but also the emotions and the setting and just... I've gotten really good feedback on it and I never once expected to even have it gotten nominated for SOTM and just  Yeah. I think I can be (even a little bit) proud of this one.

[abhorsen.]

i was so preoccupied with the tutorial revisions and the review event that i totally missed this when you posted it, but:

probably +english lessons - it was kind of a continuation of my foray into smut, but kind of ramping it up a lot and with characters who have a lot more appearances in canon than the characters i normally write. that definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone a little, but i feel really good about came out of it and how stuff i've had to think about for that fic develops my broader universe. also, i feel more comfortable writing smut now than i was when it was just a couple of drastorias.

[magemadi]

I didn't realize this thread was a thing until it got pointed out to me in the discord a bit ago (thanks @grumpy cat!) but I'd say that the work I am most proud of from 2019 is probably Culture Shock+ from April 2019. 

Going back and reading it now, I can see how much I've grown as a writer in the eight *gasp* years I've been writing fan fiction, and how much my interpretation of such central characters of Harry and Hermione has changed too. I really explored different styles of writing in this fic as well -- narrative, newspaper vs memo epistolary styles, and lots of dialogue. I got to explore Harry and Hermione's careers as adults in the Ministry of Magic, and what that might look like to these kids who survived a war and just want to make their world a better place. This was really when I got my writing mojo back into full swing (see my Writer's Journal for the chaos that was my April Camp NaNo lolol) and pushed me as well to start really thinking about doing more OF pieces and also just writing longer HP/fic pieces in general too. It's brought me back to realizing writing fic is fun and as long as you love what you're writing, it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks of it because you're writing it for you.  

[poppunkpadfoot]

this is technically two stories, not one, but i'm most proud of +a body from the balcony, for a couple of reasons: a) OCs are really far outside my comfort zone and i got good feedback about the OC in this series, b) i also went outside my comfort zone with my favourite character and wrote him in a new, darker way - I even changed up his relationships and added some drama and tension that's beyond what i usually write, and c) i just genuinely feel like these two fics (particularly crushed little stars) feature some of the best prose i've ever written 

[lebensmude]

just saw this thread and thought i would chime in. the story that i'm probably proudest of is one of my most recent ones. a family man, i really like the writing style i chose to adopt in it and the way that the story flows and the tone of the story that it sets. i think its quite different from the usual tone and style that i adopt in stories, it seems more mature than my past style and i'm just really proud of myself for being able to write something like that. it's only a bit of fluff but i think that i managed to convey that softness that i was feeling internally into the story as i was writing it and that it came across to the reader as they were reading it. i think my style of writing is the best that it's been in the years that i've been writing fic (which is always the goal). i'm super satisfied with it and i hope that i can grow as a writer and become even better in the future. thank you for listening to my ted talk.