Frolijah Fic Challenge – my guesses

[sophinisba]

I've now read most, though not all, of the fics at the Frolijah Challenge and I thought I'd post some of my guesses as to the authors before tomorrow's reveal. I'm leaving out those where I was told who the author was or that I wrote or betaed, those I haven't read, and those I just have no clue about.

Starting out with The Manciple (Dom/Elijah), the lovely, sweet Dom/Elijah written for me, I've been dithering between a couple different rps writers and I'm still not sure, but I suspect it was ismenin. I'm not too familiar with her style but I have a feeling it's someone British and I know she's a fine writer with a good sense of humor and good appreciation for Dom's ass. :)

other Elijah fics

Not All Who Wander Are Lost (Dom/Elijah) - aprilkat - It's not something I can put my finger on. Aprilkat writes so many different kinds of fics in different styles, but as I was reading I tried out imagining it in her voice, and it worked.

Comforting Endearments (Elijah/Dom/Billy) – blackbird_song - The banter sounds like her, and there's Monaboyd love as part of the threesome.

Watching the Ball Drop (Elijah/Orlando) - honeyandvinegar, definitely H&V.

An Actor's Craft (Ian McKellen and Elijah gen) - shirebound - This didn't even occur to me at first, but she has written rpf gen before and this one's similar in how seriously Elijah takes his responsibility and also how much the other characters like and respect him.

Frodo fics

Water (Merry, Pippin, and Frodo) - gentlehobbit - It has characters discussing events from canon, something GH and I both enjoy writing. This one also has lovely lyrical passages about water, something I don't like to write but that she's very good at.

The Long Walk (Frodo/Merry) - mews1945 - This took me a while to figure out! I was reading it and really loving it but it didn't sound like most of the people I could think of who do this pairing. I think part of it is that lately I've read more gen than slash from Mews so I didn't recognize her when I was reading about Frodo and Merry making love on the forest floor. o_0 But later when it became more of a h/c story I realized it might be her, and also remembered that she has written some great F/M before. I could be wrong though!

Tempest (Frodo/Merry) - ladysunrope - At first when I saw that someone had written Dom/Elijah for me I thought it might be LSR, but no, I'm almost sure this one's hers. ETA: Wrong! it is by b_briarwood.

The Book (Frodo/Aragorn) - angiet? ETA: No, i_o_r_h_a_e_l

The Visitor (Frodo and Elanor gen) - lbilover? ETA: No, sue_denimme

A Change of Direction (Frodo and Gildor) - baranduin - Okay, I may have had some clues about this in e-mail but then I forgot them, and I recognized her sentence construction as soon as I started reading the story, so it counts as a guess.

Trusty and Willing (hobbits gen) - danae_b - I recognized her style on the author's notes, before I even started the story. It's very much hers, the way the hobbits interact with each other, the way their private thoughts flow and the way they stop and interrupt each other, just like thoughts do in real life.


The ones I'm not guessing on, since it never hurts to have extra links:
The Enchanted Cottage (Sean Astin/Elijah)
Pretty (Elijah/Karl)
Cold Challenges (Frodo and Aragorn)
Crown of Healing (Frodo, Aragorn, and Éowyn)
The Gift (Frodo/Sam)
Lost (Fellowship gen)
Men (Frodo/Éomer)
Of First Impressions and Old Friends (Frodo and Faramir)
The Powers of Persuasion (Frodo/Boromir)
Promises Broken and Kept (Frodo and Merry)
Put Aside Your Doubt (Frodo and Faramir)
Quest for the Ring (Frodo/Aragorn)


Are your guesses different from mine? Anyone want to guess what I wrote?

Comments

[gentlehobbit.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have more time to read fic and make guesses myself! I've read three or four fic, and two of them you've guessed at.

A Change of Direction -- I really liked this one and enjoyed seeing that friendship grow. I won't hazard a guess at the writer. You said baranduin but I'm not sure. It doesn't seem quite her style, but then she's not one to let herself be limited by a style, I think.

An Actor's Craft -- I have to agree with you on this. The characters are very caring and respectful of each other and I feel cozy and safe with this fic. All hallmarks of a shirebound fic.

Put Aside Your Doubt -- ("My" fic!) My first guess for this is claudia603, followed by you! But it seems more like a Claudia-fic somehow...

As for your guess on Water, I say "Intriguing!" ;)

[sophinisba]

Yay! Thank you for guessing! This makes me feel good!

I thought I was so clever at having spotted Lora's writing style but both her comment and yours make me think I'm probably wrong. The thing is, both she and I write a lot of sentences with though in the middle, but I tend to put a comma before it and she tends not to. So I was reading these sentences without a comma before the though and thinking that could be her, and then the style of humor and sadness reminded me of her. Also the bit Gildor says about needing to look west instead of to the past reminded me of that post she made a while back about the meaning of Henneth Annun.

I'm glad you agree with me about shirebound. That's the one where I most felt like I was going out on a limb.

And I saw your comment about the fic written for you a few days ago and told Claudia how pleased I was that you saw us as that similar. We shall have to discuss that and Water after the reveal. :)

[gentlehobbit.livejournal.com]

*grins*

baranduin enjoys being rather devious, I think! You were bang on with your guess, and I was wrong! You have a keen eye for people's styles! Are there other details to other people's styles that you've noticed? This would make an utterly fascinating post and discussion, I think. How does our writing appear to others? What distinctive hallmarks "represent" us to others.? I don't mean kinks or favourite situations or whatnot, but things like "however" with or without commas, or certain turns of phrases, or the "style of humour or sadness" (and what is that style? Etc.)...

*takes my hat off to you*

And... and... You! You were "my" fic-writer! Heee... I thought that there was a certain element of you in there, but there was also something that strongly reminded me of Claudia as well!

*hugs my fic-writer happily*

[sophinisba]

I hadn't thought about it before but I can understand it being difficult to tell Claudia and me apart, especially for a fic like this that's about Frodo and a big man. I think her stuff has a huge influence on me whenever I try to think about interspecies (slash or gen), more so than when I'm just writing about hobbits. We also beta for each other a lot and tend to do the same kinds of things with commas and such. I'm interested in this kind of thing so I was really glad that you put a couple of guesses out there too.

I think it gets a little tricky, for me at least, to talk about this style stuff because I'm afraid it'll sound like criticism and I don't mean it that way. Like I think there are certain things most people do in fanfic and some people think are the best things but that don't work for everybody. For example a lot of people will tell you to stick with the same POV, but today I've read two really great fics that switch POV a lot. They're not authors I know well but if I did that would be something to look for in an anon exchange. Blackbird Song does something that Claudia and I don't, which is to use lots of different words as dialogue tags (Claudia and I stick mostly with "he said" or just leave them out. I also think that if Carole had been in this exchange I would have been able to recognize her from the way she uses commas. :)

For your fic though it was just the things I said, the combination of lyrical passages and parts where the characters deal with their feelings by discussing events from (book) canon. I am so pleased that I got that one right. I think yours was the first one that I read after the one written for me and I really, really enjoyed it.