Fic Year in Review, 2025
Jan. 4th, 2026 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverI was poking around in my journal and found this fic meme from 2017. I like the format and discussion questions, so I thought I would resurrect it for this year.
The Year in Fic:
All stories are Doctor Who except where noted.
"Triumph": Lindy Pepper-Bean gets what's coming to her. (200 words)
"Polydactyly": The Actor, AU #2. A reaction to the news that David Tennant has eleven toes (really). (45 words)
"How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons": No, Sutekh, you really don't have control of the TARDIS. (1585 words)
"A Summary": The Actor, AU #2. A bit of David and Jenny fluff. (100 words)
"Real Science": A bit of Ace and Hex fluff. (985 words)
"Perfect Landing": The Doctor tries to get Belinda home. (603 words)
"Mothers and Daughters": Sylvia and Donna, post-"The Giggle". (3349 words)
"Style over Substance": Mel rides a scooter, then rides a lift. (914 words)
"Pizza, Booze, Telly": The Actor, AU #2. David and Will eat pizza, drink beer, and watch telly. Most literal title ever. (2053 words)
"Shoetopia": Blue Rain AU. Man, I really wish I'd made all Blue Rain story titles plays on episode names. Oh yeah, the story. Er, Donna and Nerys chat. (2415 words)
"Surprise!": The TARDIS is on the fritz again. Fifth Doctor. (734 words)
"Circular Logic": The Doctor and Donna discuss circles. (1536 words)
"The Bookshop": Good Omens crossover. The Doctor and Donna visit Aziraphale's bookshop. (1217 words)
"The Experiment": Blue Rain AU. Jon and Donna work on his powers. (200 words)
Total: 14 stories
Total Word Count For The Year: 17,719 words
And discussion...
Overall Thoughts:
So, first, I am stoked that I've kept up my story-a-month streak. I've been keeping that up since September 2024 and that feels really awesome! This is output is nowhere near what I was doing ten years ago (comparing to the 2017 version of this meme, I had 21 stories and 46k words, and that was down from the previous years), but much more than what I've been doing the past few years.
That said, I feel that trying to keep the streak has been limiting me in a couple of ways. I haven't done a multi-chapter in a while, partly because I get to the latter half of the month and panic about getting something done in time. I have at least four different multi-chapters that I can think of floundering in Google Docs, so my lack of productivity is not for want of ideas.
I also don't feel that the quality here is good. I'm happy and proud of a couple of stories this year, but the rest are just blather that I got down because there was a deadline. I mean, there's even a drabble that I counted as my fic for the month. (The 45-word one, "Polydactyly", was not the fic for the month. It was just a stupid idea I threw out there in the heat of the moment -- that moment being laughing at the big deal people were making about David Tennant's toe.)
But, hopefully I will take these thoughts and invest them into targeting better quality rather than consistent output.
What's your own favourite story of the year?
Oh, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons" by far, no question. It was a complete departure from my normal style of writing and required a lot of research to get all the details right. I loved designing and developing the TARDIS' language, and also breaking the fourth wall! I never get to do that.
Now your most popular:
This question stumps me, and did last time as well. What does "popular" mean? Most views? I could easily get more views by altering the tags so they show up in more searches. Most kudos, either straight or by percentage? But kudos aren't an indication of popularity.
So, I thought about how I might answer this vague question. Since I tend to get less than 100 views on a story, I figure that kudo percentage is really meaningless -- the data set is just too small to be meaningful. And, otherwise, there are no other data that can tell me about popularity. So, I'm chickening out on this question and will remove it for future years' memes.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Again, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons". People liked it, but from the comments, they thought it was just a retelling of 2023 specials in a quirky style. No one actually got the real story.
Easiest story to write: Probably "Perfect Landing". The idea was simple, and Fifteen pretty much writes himself. I did have to do quite a bit of research to get all of the Tegan background and airport/airline info correct, including poring over photos of Heathrow in the 80s for what the airport looked like, what people would be wearing, etc.
Oh, and luggage carts, omg luggage carts! Remember luggage carts? I remember as a kid, running around the airport looking for abandoned carts which I could take back to the rental machine to get the $1 deposit back.
Most fun story to write:
And again, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons". Not only was developing the TARDIS' language a blast, but I also got to revisit "The Power of the Doctor" and all of the 60th anniversary media. And then I got to weave a story all the way through all of it that stitched the canon together so that it made sense. Because boy, "The Liberation of the Daleks" and "Destination: Skaro" really don't fit between TPotD and "The Star Beast", if you just take what we saw in the comic book and on screen.
Hardest story to write:
That's a toss-up. My first thought was my most recent fic, "The Experiment", because plot-wise it's a nothingburger and pretty pointless except for the very last hundred words. I'd actually written this in October but the first version was so bad, I abandoned it and luckily got a great idea that turned into "Circular Logic". I tried to clean it up for posting in December but it really wasn't salvageable and just ended up posting the crap that I had.
In a very different way, "Mothers and Daughters" was a difficult story to write, because it required taking material from disparate sources ("Journey's End", the 60th episodes, Beautiful Chaos, and the novelization of "The Star Beast", plus bits of other episodes) and drawing them together to make sense of Sylvia's experiences and journey. And then I had to weave that as naturally as possible into a conversation between two people who don't always get along well and often try very hard to not say what they're actually thinking. This was both challenging and a lot of fun.
Fic writing goals for 2026?
All right! That's 2025 and I am outta here.
The Year in Fic:
All stories are Doctor Who except where noted.
"Triumph": Lindy Pepper-Bean gets what's coming to her. (200 words)
"Polydactyly": The Actor, AU #2. A reaction to the news that David Tennant has eleven toes (really). (45 words)
"How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons": No, Sutekh, you really don't have control of the TARDIS. (1585 words)
"A Summary": The Actor, AU #2. A bit of David and Jenny fluff. (100 words)
"Real Science": A bit of Ace and Hex fluff. (985 words)
"Perfect Landing": The Doctor tries to get Belinda home. (603 words)
"Mothers and Daughters": Sylvia and Donna, post-"The Giggle". (3349 words)
"Style over Substance": Mel rides a scooter, then rides a lift. (914 words)
"Pizza, Booze, Telly": The Actor, AU #2. David and Will eat pizza, drink beer, and watch telly. Most literal title ever. (2053 words)
"Shoetopia": Blue Rain AU. Man, I really wish I'd made all Blue Rain story titles plays on episode names. Oh yeah, the story. Er, Donna and Nerys chat. (2415 words)
"Surprise!": The TARDIS is on the fritz again. Fifth Doctor. (734 words)
"Circular Logic": The Doctor and Donna discuss circles. (1536 words)
"The Bookshop": Good Omens crossover. The Doctor and Donna visit Aziraphale's bookshop. (1217 words)
"The Experiment": Blue Rain AU. Jon and Donna work on his powers. (200 words)
Total: 14 stories
Total Word Count For The Year: 17,719 words
And discussion...
Overall Thoughts:
So, first, I am stoked that I've kept up my story-a-month streak. I've been keeping that up since September 2024 and that feels really awesome! This is output is nowhere near what I was doing ten years ago (comparing to the 2017 version of this meme, I had 21 stories and 46k words, and that was down from the previous years), but much more than what I've been doing the past few years.
That said, I feel that trying to keep the streak has been limiting me in a couple of ways. I haven't done a multi-chapter in a while, partly because I get to the latter half of the month and panic about getting something done in time. I have at least four different multi-chapters that I can think of floundering in Google Docs, so my lack of productivity is not for want of ideas.
I also don't feel that the quality here is good. I'm happy and proud of a couple of stories this year, but the rest are just blather that I got down because there was a deadline. I mean, there's even a drabble that I counted as my fic for the month. (The 45-word one, "Polydactyly", was not the fic for the month. It was just a stupid idea I threw out there in the heat of the moment -- that moment being laughing at the big deal people were making about David Tennant's toe.)
But, hopefully I will take these thoughts and invest them into targeting better quality rather than consistent output.
What's your own favourite story of the year?
Oh, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons" by far, no question. It was a complete departure from my normal style of writing and required a lot of research to get all the details right. I loved designing and developing the TARDIS' language, and also breaking the fourth wall! I never get to do that.
Now your most popular:
This question stumps me, and did last time as well. What does "popular" mean? Most views? I could easily get more views by altering the tags so they show up in more searches. Most kudos, either straight or by percentage? But kudos aren't an indication of popularity.
So, I thought about how I might answer this vague question. Since I tend to get less than 100 views on a story, I figure that kudo percentage is really meaningless -- the data set is just too small to be meaningful. And, otherwise, there are no other data that can tell me about popularity. So, I'm chickening out on this question and will remove it for future years' memes.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Again, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons". People liked it, but from the comments, they thought it was just a retelling of 2023 specials in a quirky style. No one actually got the real story.
Easiest story to write: Probably "Perfect Landing". The idea was simple, and Fifteen pretty much writes himself. I did have to do quite a bit of research to get all of the Tegan background and airport/airline info correct, including poring over photos of Heathrow in the 80s for what the airport looked like, what people would be wearing, etc.
Oh, and luggage carts, omg luggage carts! Remember luggage carts? I remember as a kid, running around the airport looking for abandoned carts which I could take back to the rental machine to get the $1 deposit back.
Most fun story to write:
And again, "How to Fight a God in Three Easy Lessons". Not only was developing the TARDIS' language a blast, but I also got to revisit "The Power of the Doctor" and all of the 60th anniversary media. And then I got to weave a story all the way through all of it that stitched the canon together so that it made sense. Because boy, "The Liberation of the Daleks" and "Destination: Skaro" really don't fit between TPotD and "The Star Beast", if you just take what we saw in the comic book and on screen.
Hardest story to write:
That's a toss-up. My first thought was my most recent fic, "The Experiment", because plot-wise it's a nothingburger and pretty pointless except for the very last hundred words. I'd actually written this in October but the first version was so bad, I abandoned it and luckily got a great idea that turned into "Circular Logic". I tried to clean it up for posting in December but it really wasn't salvageable and just ended up posting the crap that I had.
In a very different way, "Mothers and Daughters" was a difficult story to write, because it required taking material from disparate sources ("Journey's End", the 60th episodes, Beautiful Chaos, and the novelization of "The Star Beast", plus bits of other episodes) and drawing them together to make sense of Sylvia's experiences and journey. And then I had to weave that as naturally as possible into a conversation between two people who don't always get along well and often try very hard to not say what they're actually thinking. This was both challenging and a lot of fun.
Fic writing goals for 2026?
- Continue posting a story a month, but with an eye toward quality, not quantity. (Unless a multi-chapter or other long story takes over my brain, then all bets are off.)
- Write any one of the multi-chapters that have been brewing for years now. (Currently thinking about Blue Rain 2. It's only been ten years since the first one.)
- Write at least two minor/guest character fics. (I'm thinking about one right now [with a very obscure character though not quite as obscure as the Man] so I put "two" here so that it's this one plus one more.)
All right! That's 2025 and I am outta here.
