wanted less of it, and was trying to phrase the request as a positive rather than a negative?

I'm guessing that might be the case, but I'm still sitting here wondering how on Earth I could do that. I mean, it's like asking me to write a John Crichton POV without making any pop culture references.

Not only would it be dead boring, it would in no way resemble the canon characterization. If that makes any sense.

I shall remain baffled, and diminish into the west.

Well, first I'd have to remember the expression, and as I no longer speak the language...

Now you're making excuses.

Very reasonable ones. It would still make a good challenge, though, to dig up the strangest bit of slang you know and find a way in which a character might use it.

It would probably have to be multi-fandom, and allow/encourage original characters.

I shall remain baffled, and diminish into the west.

sudden visions of writing a slash-the-slashers entry for the Inappropriate Elf Challenge

My attempt at a drabble.

Nice, Lyra. I like the baby day camp, having irritated memories of going to Girl Scout day camp and doing macrame myself.

Thanks, Katie.

It's funny -- I sat down last night thinking, "Eh, 100 words, how hard can it be?" And went through about 4 premises before I found something that seemed natural.

Good drabble! Mine was my first one, too. I want to do more because I think they can be really useful writing exercises in miniature.

Nicely done, Lyra.

I like writing drabbles-- it's long enough that you feel you've written a story, and yet it's over quickly enough that you don't get stuck on a scene in the middle.

Theo, I loved yours -- the whole Bogart vibe is very Lilah/Wes.

I want to do drabbles because I feel like I *should* write fic, but it's rare that the plot bunnies bite me. And once you have 100 words, 900 or so more should be easy, she said delusionally.

When I first started looking for fanfic, I was in UTTAD's position: I loved the show, and I wanted more just like that. I gave up on Buffyfic in 1999, when after a quick search all I could find was smut--either about pairings I had never contemplated, or about pairings on the show, but described in completely out-of-character ways. I still do love big plotty episode-like stories, but I've also come to appreciate the some of the other kinds of stories. Finding *in-character* unconventional ships certainly helped.

And then (*shrug*) I write neither big plotty stories nor smut. (The latest story has my first unconventional ship, and my first attempt at explicit sex; the emotional connection works, but I'm not sure the sex scene does. I find it much easier to write erotically about attraction than about consumation.)

I find *both* plot and sex really hard to write, personally. Moody depressive interior monologues and descriptions of landscape, those I could write endlessly. Me and 75% of the fic writers on the Internet, alas.