#but its far past time for an actual placeholder title that keeps the mood and themes

[each-uisge]

i've been using marketside as a placeholder name for my stories but even though it makes absolute sense in context its sort...dumb out of it. i was thinking of changing it. might make a poll later with some title ideas to see what people might think?

[kitkatt0430]

1, 12, 22, and 35 for the fic asks?

1.) Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

I'm much more likely to daydream a lot before I start writing. Let my brain percolate on the idea for a while so it can take the form I like best. But sometimes I am possessed by the idea and must write it immediately. Which is how I ended up with many of my crack fics. Those are more likely to be 'struck with inspiration, must write them now' types fics. The more serious ones I probably daydreamed a bout a lot.

12.) Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

I think I answered this one the last time I did this game, but it's been long enough I'm gonna answer again.

So sometimes I'll outline fics. Vaguer outlines tend to help more than stricter ones as I tend to get the idea written down in a detailed outline form and then it's like I've restricted myself too much and can't write at all past that. Sometimes it does help keep me on track... but mostly I just wing it without the outline.

That said, outlines are very useful for when i have an amazing plot idea but don't want to admit I'm not gonna use it in its current form. Once I have the outline down, I can return to it later and reshape it into something that's actually usable. I've gotten fics like The City on the Hill and Just Your Average (Medical) Emergency that way.

The former of those two strayed a looot from the original idea. But at the same time still had a lot of the original concept still in there too. Where as the latter of those was actually pretty close with what I'd wanted from the start, but I was trying to force it to fit with something else - when I broke that original idea in two, I wound up with two fics that worked really well on their own. (The other being Wave Goodbye (To Plausible Deniability) ) Sometimes I just kind of have to recognize that what I thought was one fic idea is actually several.

22.) Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

I'll usually start with giving the WiP some kind of name. Not necessarily a title, but just something that represents the main idea to me.

The City on the Hill was originally a WiP called Past Imperfect, which may have worked well when it was still a part of a larger arc about the Master, but when I cut out the Master entirely and reframed it to be about Ianto, the title becoming a reference to Ianto's strange dreams fit much better.

Sometimes I'll name a fic something as a placeholder and just stick with it when it's time to post the fic. Date Night was one of those. It was a generic name, but very too the point and I certainly couldn't think of anything that fit better.

Other times I'll think the title is one thing until the last minute, when I realize something else fits so much better. I don't remember what the working title for One Last Call for Alcohol was, but I do remember I didn't much like it. I ended up taking the final title from the lyrics of "Closing Time" by Semisonic. A bit over played on the radio at one point, but a song I've always liked nonetheless. So much so I used it's lyrics to title another fic as well, Every New Beginning (Comes from Some other Beginning's End). That one I chose the name early on, since it fit the mood of the fic as well as the theme.

35.) What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

I don't know that I can pick just one. Maybe I can at least pick a favorite type of fic to write?

I certainly do like writing fics of the fix fic variety. Canon wants to hand me lemons? Then I'm gonna burn it's house down. With the lemons. (Let's get some Portal 2 love, shall we?)

But then again, I love just What If type AUs in general. What if Iris or Eddie or Cisco was the Flash? What if Yuri Lowell never saved the world? What if squirrels invaded STAR Labs? What if Finn inspired a Stormtrooper rebellion?

Sometimes saying 'what if' is a fix fic. Sometimes it's just weird. Sometimes it's turning canon upside down and ransacking it's pockets for lint. So, yeah, I think my favorite type of fic that I write is definitely the AUs.