swim through the fires to stay in this world

I have really been craving jealousy-fic recently. Does anyone have any recommendations? (Fanfic or fiction, either works.)

I blush to admit it, but I seriously love fics with an element of jealousy, especially when combined with a side of pining. I love it when Character A doesn't realize he/she is in love with Character B until they start dating someone else, I love it when Character A knows that there isn't any reason to be jealous or they're being irrational but can't stop, I love it when Character A gets handsy and possessive in a situation where they don't totally have the right to*.

*If this is combined with fake!dating or fake!married it's EVEN BETTER. 'How dare character Y touch my pretend!spouse! Even though I am not actually married, I am feeling exactly as possessive and territorial as if I were. I'm not going to reflect to hard on that; instead I'll just glare and/or pointedly touch my fake!spouse.'

There was this great post on tumblr that prompted me to have Tony/Pepper feelings, which are:

Pepper pushing the button at the climax of Iron Man is one of the least significant roles she plays in the story. Iron Man falls apart if Pepper isn't there because Tony's reaction to Pepper lets us know pretty immediately that while Tony is living this playboy life style he also has people that he cares about and ALSO, Pepper's reaction to Tony, the rooftop, the martini, show that just because you're a superhero, doesn't mean you get a pass on treating people well.

There was a conversation (on a locked post, so) about fanfic authors having Felicity Smoak (of Arrow) be a fan of various Big Fandoms (Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, etc) and while I think it works better with Felicity* than a lot of other characters, I think it's a ballsier move than most fanficcers realize.

The thing is, name-dropping fandoms (especially a fandom that author loves or that is super-popular currently) is one of the easiest ways to throw a reader out of the story, because you have to deal with the reader's opinion about what that character would like** AND their feelings about the property in question.

I mean, when it works***, it really works, but I think that most writers don't realize what they're risking on what is often not a very important detail.

*I bet Felicity is watching Game of Thrones. But I also suspect she liked the books better.

**Sidebar, playing 'what other media would fictional character X love' is super-fun, imho.

***that time Tony Stark thought about his mother singing Simon & Garfunkle's "America" as a lullaby  and how he thought it was referencing Captain America ALL THE FEELINGS MY GOD.

[+] Finally, based on the conversation that inspired this post, now I’m imagining that Felicity is a total arthouse film and History Channel geek, instead of the more common sci-fi/fantasy nerd.

[+] There is a whole other post regarding writing canonically well-read characters like Rory Gilmore, Blair Waldorf, and Dan Humphrey.

Writing scenes (especially sex scenes) with two characters of the same gender.

Writing advice.

Talking about terms for people's naughty bits. Personally, I'm a fan of slit, but YMMV.

Speaking personally, my nano is actually, shockingly, still on track. But come Dec 1st, good goddamn I going to write so much self-indulgent, smutty fanfiction. And finish my current crop of wips.

So all my talk about cheating on Nano? And getting a head-start on my novel? I ended up needing to scrap everything I had written prior to November 1st. It's a damn good thing I love irony, isn't it?

I had started my story in the wrong place - which I knew even while writing - I knew that I was starting to story too far back from when it actually began but I wasn't sure where exactly to start... until someone on my flist (I can't remember who) reminded me of Jennifer Crusie's conflict box and I realized that:

1. I did not have an antagonist (still don't, actually)
2. There was lots of external peril but no actual conflict in the stuff I was writing

So, yeah, I moved the story up (what would be) eight scenes and thus the previous words I've written are now irrelevant.




Also, does anyone have any good advice on how to discover who your antagonist is/should be?

"Lit" being a genre just like "fantasy" and "science fiction" are genres is a subject near and dear to my heart. Which is to say, I LOVED this article.