Happiness day 9: Remixing

[sophinisba]

I made my last post private because I don't want to talk about Torchwood even in a vague way until after I get caught up. Thanks for the quick, helpful, and non-spoilery information, f-list! ♥

Today I'm happy that I finished a draft of my remixredux09 fic and sent it to beta! She will probably have time to read it on Saturday and I will have time to revise and post before the deadline Sunday night. Hurrah!

I can't say I'm really happy with this story at the moment, but then challenges are like that. I'm uncertain about my writing and really worried about disappointing my remixee. :(

OTOH, remixing in general (or at least remixing in theory) makes me very happy. I love getting remixed because I get to know that someone really engaged with my story, more than they would do to read and leave a comment. It usually means that I get to read a story about characters and a subject that I care about because that's what I chose to write about. When the remixer takes things in a really different direction it might not be a story that's as close to my heart but then it is more exciting and impressive. And since I'm pretty flexible about liking different genres and characters and pairings I can really enjoy something that's really different.

I love writing remixes too. I love looking for that different angle I can take that will make the new story different enough that it's my own but still keeping a recognizable connection to the original. I like the challenge of making it an interesting read for someone who knows the original or who's just read it for the first time (some people read originals along with remixes) but also make a story that makes sense on its own so that people who don't know the original can still enjoy it. I think sometimes I misjudge that and what I write doesn't stand on its own, but it's something I'm still working on. I like putting in little details that I think my remixee will appreciate even if most readers won't catch them. (I think about how danae_b did this when she remixed my Pippin/Diamond story.)

I love remixes and their funky remix subtitles. I mean, obviously I like short remixes or I wouldn't do remixthedrabble, and remix titles can be like tiny little one-line remixes of your remixee's title. Or sometimes it is not anything to do with the original title but it is just funky. At the last round of remixthedrabble benebu wrote a Master and Commander drabble called Of Vanishing Weeks And Never-Ending Seconds (The William Mowett vs. The Passing Of Time Remix). Isn't that lovely? lady_ganesh wrote a Saiyuki drabble called The Best Cockroach Is A Drunk Cockroach (The Get On With It Already remix). I don't even know anything about Saiyuki and I don't know what that title means, but I love it. :D

Remixes can be a great way of trying out new things, sometimes because you're forced to (like say you got matched to someone who officially has a fandom in common with you but it turns out you don't know any of the characters in their stories) and sometimes just because you can. This is my third year participating in Remix Redux and I've written in a different fandom (none of them LotR or Faculty) each time. At remixthedrabble I've written 20 short remixes in 13 different fandoms. That has been so much fun! Some of them are fandoms I don't know too well like Brokeback Mountain and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where it would be difficult for me to come up with even a drabble on my own, but since I'm starting out with their fic I have an idea I can work with.

I like modding remix challenges too, though I wouldn't say I love that so much as it's something I'm glad to do because it causes more remixing to occur, and then also I get satisfaction out of it when things go well and people have fun with it. I was especially happy that danae_b and I got to run a_conspiracy because, although big multifandom challenges are fun, it's also really nice to interact with other hobbit fans and do a remix where you know you'll get matched with someone who writes characters you can also work with. remixthedrabble was scarier for me because it's gotten so huge the last few rounds, but I was really happy with how it went in the end.

One thing I don't like about remixes is that they tend not to get a lot of comments. I try not to get hung up on this but it makes me sad, as a writer, as a reader and someone who wants recognition for the remix based on my fic, and especially as a mod. :(

Okay, back to the happy: I love that remixes are a way of meeting new people, more so than another kind of fic exchange where you're writing for someone based on their tastes and what they asked for. When you remix someone you read a lot of their fic and sometimes you really get to appreciate their writing even if you didn't know them before. Recent rounds of remixthedrabble have been especially nice for this because we have the option of remixing fics by several different people. (Round 5 was up to five assignments but that was too much for me as a mod to handle so I cut it back to three for round 6.) Remix challenges are a nice place to meet other people who like remixes and have similar ideas about putting their stories out in the world and then wanting to see them transformed. *waves at friends met through remixes*

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

La la la my remix is done!

I agree that remixes are fun. For me, it's important that the story not only stand on its own, but that it is not redundant if you've read the original - that it doesn't feel like you're reading the same thing all over again.

Some of my best stories have been remixes, I think.

[sophinisba]

Yeah, it's that balance between standing alone but not being redundant that's the challenge for me. I think I've cheated a little on this year's and last year's by taking the POV of a character who's only there for a portion of the original story and then writing out stuff that's only obliquely referred to in the original. I really like it if the remix is compatible but still puts some surprising twist on the original and makes you interpret that differently, but that's mostly something I'm happy to run into as a reader, not something I've managed to do much myself.

I think I've written some good miniremixes but I'm not really satisfied with any of my longer ones. Also I have trouble judging my own work and remixes tend not to get comments, so it's hard for me to know. I was really disappointed the first time I wrote one and barely anybody read it (not even the remixee) but that was before I knew that that's kind of how remixing goes, so I'm more laid back about that kind of thing now. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Hah, that is so not cheating! In fact, that is exactly how I wrote a story for the sga_remix a few years back. I like to think of it like a big X, in which one diagonal is the original story and the other is mine, and they meet only at the one point right in the middle.

Oh, and I was going to say that this year my remix is REALLY cheating. You'll see when you read it, can't say more, la la la.