I look for fiction about -- generally -- people who are fucked-up and yet manage to find...not redemption, that's not the situation I mean, but a sense of peace, or being settled in the world with their fucked-upped-ness.

I like fiction about people who are fucked up, and sometimes find train tracks. But, yeah, I like that, too. A sort of resolution that, while not always happy, at least allows for the possibilty of contentment.

Steph L: I look for fiction about -- generally -- people who are fucked-up and yet manage to find...not redemption, that's not the situation I mean, but a sense of peace, or being settled in the world with their fucked-upped-ness

Have you read The Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, because if the above is your criteria, then that series pretty well has your bases covered.

The only Terry Pratchett I've read is Good Omens.

Also, I did forget to say that another thing I like about slash is the sex.

I'm pretty diverse in what I read. I haven't read a lot...many..okay most...of the classics, I managed to get through high school without doing that (go to 3 high schools in 4 years and you too can get a spotty education). Plus I was a slacker and only did stuff I was interested in, so in my English Lit section I did my paper on Frankenstein.

Edited because I lost my point...

I'll read almost anything if it looks in anyway interesting, not just the plot but---oh! neat cover!.

Have you read The Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, because if the above is your criteria, then that series pretty well has your bases covered.

No, but I have now made a note of it -- thanks!

Oh, lots of Hardy when I was fourteen, too.

I think that as writers, we (duh) output a lot of what we ingest and digest from the shows. So, if the plots all blur together for you (which they often do for me, at least with the MotW type episodes), you're not likely to want to write plot, at least not that sort of plot.

I still take issue with the X is harder to write than Y with any of it. For some writers, plot may be the easiest thing for them to write. I've seen as much bad emotional/character driven writing as I've seen plot-driven writing, so I don't think that you can really say one is easier, on the whole, than the other.

Plot may require more note-taking (this would be why my plotty stuff remains unfinished--lot of research, some spreadsheets, dependency charts, etc., that I need to finish up), but sex takes longer to write, at least for me. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

I have to admit, I'll choose a well-written and constructed plotty story over the best-written relationship story. But that's just me.

Nope, it's not just you.

It's a matter of taste, as are most things. I love plotty gen. I live for plotty gen. I'm frequently bored by relationship stories where the primary end point is to get two characters together, unless the romance is happening within the context of a larger story. Not that I dislike romance per se--it's just that a writer has to work harder for me to get into a shippy story, with lyrical prose, superlative characterizations, etc. than another writer who already has a rollicking plot to offer. And it takes even *more* work on the writer's part to sell me on a UC pairing, het or slash (with a few exceptions for my particular soft spots, e.g. cough Faith/Wes cough.)

On 'hey, this is just me and my issues' category, I don't like too much explicit sex in my stories. I like the UST and the undercurrents and things left unsaid, and often skim over the smut. This is in contrast to a lot of readers and excellent writers who write fanfic to explore emotional/sexual subtexts suggested on the show. Which is one of the main reasons cited when people are asked why they read/write fic. It just doesn't rank as high on my list of reasons for reading fic.

I can't say, not being a writer, whether it's harder to write plot or sex scenes. What I *can* say is, it's deuced harder for me to find a satisfying plotty gen than a well-written relationship story, at least in the particular fandom I'm reading in right now (Stargate SG-1.)

S'weird for me. When I write a fic, I have an idea of how it ends, then wonder how it starts. When I get that, I start to write. The dialogue just happens, and where that dialogue takes me, I write scenes, until I get to where the story is meant to end. And badaboom, the story ends. Every so often I'll have a couple of scenes I want to be in the story. Other than that, I let my nose lead me.

I write different ways.

Right now I have a story, I know what I want to happen, I know how I want it to end, but I'm not sure how I want it exactly to start. I even have the last line. This isn't how I've written before.

I just get an idea and work with it, sometimes the idea changes into something else...I start out writing one thing and the character leads me somewhere else.

I say this as if I've written a great many stories.

I normally have some idea of where it ends, in the longer pieces. Heck, I write patchwork style, with the ending sometimes coming long before the middle. I hear and see the scenes (or smell them), and then I write them.

Of course, I'm 2600 words into something right now and the path in front of me is clear as mud, which is... odd.

There have been a couple stories, three, actually, where I thought they were dead in the water, and suddenly--POW, they picked up and finished themselves. (For those playing at home, Acceptable Losses, Upside Down, and Dark They Were were all in the compost heap, yet all turned out fairly well, which is why I never throw anything away.)

What about the rest of you? Zombie bunnies come back to bite you?

Yeah me too. I always know how it will end. But the characters have a way of dictating how you get there. Even when you think they're under your control. :-)

PMM: I'm 4,500 words into something, with an absolutely crystal clear knowledge of how I want it to end. Unfortunately I fear it will take about another 100,000 words to get there. Which is vaguely off putting. :-)