coaltide | C.R.E.A.M

Entry tags:

2021

C.R.E.A.M

Coal ruins exchanges around me - spitey spitey fic y'all.

Sign-ups: Fri 15 Oct to Sat 23 Oct (~~Countdown~~)
Assignments out by: Mon 25 Oct
Default deadline: Sat 11 Dec
Assignment deadline: Sat 18 Dec
Reveals: Sat 25 Dec

Mini-Challenges:
Yuleporn | Make the Yuletide Gay | Jewltide | Three Turtle Doves
YuleBuilding | Two for One | Crueltide | Yuletunes | Yule Be First
YuleSwaps | IF | Wrapping Paper | Yumadrin | MultiLingYule
....and a Partridge in a Pear Tree!

Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark Discords for Namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion. Google Group for PHs.

yuletide |

yuletide_admin | Writing Post
2021 Collection | 2021 App (bonus) | Letter Post

Flat / Recent | Top-Level (Last) | FAQ | Search

Page 43 of 173

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I LOVE this idea

Oh yeah I hear. Letters pre assignments does feel more like actual constructive criticism, vs just opening up opportunities to be mean...

(I got ranked lowest on a ranking game for a prompt the ranker hated and thought was obnoxious to even request, and what I have to comfort myself with for that one is clearly someone else didn't agree because they wrote that exact prompt for me as a treat and it was AMAZING)

DC

For what it's worth, I actually am very often looking for "more of the same." Like, sometimes I want "more of the same but A and B kiss." But sometimes there just wasn't enough canon for me, and I want more of it. And that's often what I think I'm signing up to write when I offer a fandom.

OK, so here is my problem with the word "pastiche." If you look it up on Wikipedia, the first paragraph under "literature" (the top section) is this (emphasis mine):

"In literature usage, the term denotes a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful. The word implies a lack of originality or coherence, an imitative jumble, but with the advent of postmodernism pastiche has become positively constructed as deliberate, witty homage or playful imitation."

That is what I have always taken the word "pastiche" to mean. I realize that it can refer to any imitation, but when I hear the word, I think of a deliberate, joking, possibly somewhat bad imitation of an author's style. I don't interpret the word to mean simply "writing in a style that resembles another writer."

When I type "pastiche" into Google, the third question that pops up in the "People also ask" section is "Is pastiche an insult?" (The answer Google gives: The term itself is not pejorative; however, Alain de Botton describes pastiche as "an unconvincing reproduction of the styles of the past".) So it appears that a good number of people feel that the word is pejorative, even if they're technically wrong.

Seeing "DNW pastiche" in a letter would confuse me for several reasons, but I think this is the main one. Which meaning of "pastiche" do you have in mind? Are you saying you don't want a flippant, tongue-in-cheek, unconvincing imitation of the literary canons you're requesting? Or are you saying that any story written in a style resembling the original would count as a "pastiche" and thus violate your DNW?

Ayrt

My letter was in the ranking game two years ago and there were two commenters. One's criticism amounted to "their prompts are too vague" and the other's was "those prompts are too specific; they have a clear idea what they want and it's not what I want to write". Both of them were equally critical about the single other requester and concluded that they wouldn't want to treat any of the requests in the fandom.

Like... thanks guys, good to know that! Don't know what I would have done without that information.

Are you saying you don't want a flippant, tongue-in-cheek, unconvincing imitation of the literary canons you're requesting? Or are you saying that any story written in a style resembling the original would count as a "pastiche" and thus violate your DNW?

They might also be saying that any attempt at imitation is bound to come off as flippant and unconvincing.

I genuinely never felt that way. Fanfiction for me is about fixing the canon, not about adding more of the same. Maybe that's the basic disconnect here?

I selfishly hate this. The previous time was perfect for me, now I'll be busy and won't be able to obsessively stalk the summary for horrible last minute sign ups to avoid. :(

This is kinda dubious to me. It smacks of those people a few years ago who would put an extra request in their letter and hope to trick treaters in the letters post into writing for them in a canon they couldn't fit, or that hadn't made it into the tagset. Your intentions seem good, but I can't help but feel skeeved.

I really like that!

Hoping wrapping paper comes back this year.

1- The name is delightful
2- If I thought this was kosher I'd sign up gladly
3- This feels... a little weird to me? I don't want to get extra gifts for myself if that means someone's browsing the requests for treats and makes one for me instead of treating that person with 3 requests of the heart that they could write for with a little more time in canon review.

My impression is that the purpose of this challenge is to please the treater, not the treatee. That's how it's phrased - the treater was disappointed that no one requested this canon they wanted to write, here are people who didn't want this canon enough to give up a slot for it, or didn't have a good enough prompt to request for it, who are volunteering to receive a fic in it if you'd like.

didn't we always have that, though? you could gift treats to a yule goat or father christmas or some dumb name if no one requested it or you deviated too far from a prompt

I don't want to get extra gifts for myself if that means someone's browsing the requests for treats and makes one for me instead of treating that person with 3 requests of the heart that they could write for with a little more time in canon review.

That's a big assumption. If I can't treat someone with the thing I want to write, I won't say "oh, I'll do canon review for something else and write something else", I'll just... don't write any treats.

The question would be how much like the style of the original is too much? Like if it's in third person would the fic have to be in first or second? This sounds flippant but that's not my intention. I'd definitely be scared off. I'd go for specifics if you can, or make it a preference rather than a DNW.

SA: "DNW footnotes" by way of an example mentioned up thread would be fine, for example.

Someone sure likes Monty Python.

*looks suspiciously at Rabbit anon*

Or, possibly worse, you *do* have a voice, and your voice is... not extremely different from the author you're now being told not to pastiche.

What, behind the rabbit?

DC

Same. I'm usually looking for fic that feels just like a missing episode of canon where they just happened to pick all my personal favourite characters, relationships and tropes to focus on this time. If I want canon divergence it's often just because canon couldn't do every possible version at once, not because I necessarily think there's anything bad about or missing from the canon one. I'm not looking for fic to fix or change things I didn't like, just give me more endless variations of the good stuff than the canon could fit in.

Ha, yeah. Not sure how to react to a "no mimicking the canon style" DNW when a number of the book canons I offer in Yuletide are actually beloved childhood faves that massively influenced the development of my own writing style. "Just write it in your own natural voice, don't try to sound anything like the canon," you say? Um...

Yeah it's like, actuslly the reason I love this canons and always offer it is because the original author writes very much the way I wish I could! (And occasionally people tell me I achieved it.) Like it's not that I'm slavishly imitating them, it's that I love the canon because it's like something I'd write.

(Also I think the people arguing about the question of more of canon/different from canon are missing the point that even if what I want in cql fic is something wildly creative and form defying, this is yuletide, yuletide has always been the exchange for 'i want more like canon in this tiny fandom with no fic".)

Wait, now I'm confused. Why is it in this year, if it was already ineligible?

DC

I think there were slightly less than 1000 fics posted when nominations first opened but already over 1000 by the time nominations closed, so it just squeaked in.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 43 of 173

C.R.E.A.M

Re: Mini-Challenges

no subject

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: DNW Workshop

no subject

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: Signups extended!!

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: DNW Workshop

no subject

Re: DNW Workshop

no subject

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: DNW Workshop

Re: Which fandom will get the most fics this year?

Re: Which fandom will get the most fics this year?