tristen84

A few days ago I was so jetlagged that I woke up at 5 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I decided to try my hand at writing a FP fic for a fandom_stocking. Now, it so happens the person whose stocking I wanted to stuff prefers crossovers, slash and stories with (graphic) sex in them...all things I personally don't generally like to read or write. Not that there's anything wrong with that stuff, but as a gen girl I tend to like stories about friendship and family rather than romance, etc. So I wasn't expecting to get inspired to write a story that would suit her preferences at all.

That morning, in about two hours, I whipped up an SGA/FP crossover story with Sam/Sheppard slash and sex! Huh? how the hell did that happen? And I even kind of enjoyed writing it, too! ...I'm still scratching my head at myself. ;o)

Title: A Burden Shared
Characters: Spike, Jules
Summary: missing scene for A Day In The Life. I always felt that they just kinda threw the Jules’-best-friend-committed-suicide bit at us and totally skipped over the emotional effect having to relive the memory might have had on her. So this is my take on what happened afterwards.
Rating: G
Word count: approx. 643. Just a ficlet.
Disclaimer: Don’t own Spike, Jules or any of the other characters in this story. Wish I did!
 
Special thanks to loisarah for the beta :o) Any and all remaining mistakes are mine.
 
 
( A Burden Shared ) 

For me, the hardest thing about writing fanfiction is dialogue. Dialogue is such an important part of writing in that it's basically a window to your characters. It tells your reader how well you know the characters you're writing about. Being an avid reader of fanfiction myself, the dialogue is what makes or breaks a story for me. Of course, plot is also important. A story needs to be well-constructed, well thought-out, and grammar and spelling have to be up to par.

But good dialogue is vital, because it reflects a character's personality and attitude. Especially when writing about characters from a TV-show or a movie, it's important to get the characters to 'sound' right. You have to really get into the character's head to be able to anticipate what he/she might do or say in a certain situation.

Some writers are very, very good at it; it seems to come to them naturally. Other people, like me, have a really tough time getting the characters down just right. I have been successful once or twice (in other fandoms), and some characters are easier to write for than others, but I find SGA especially difficult to write for.

The character I have the most trouble writing for is McKay. In this case, it's not so much getting his character down right that I find difficult, it's the scientific mumbo-jumbo and the technobabble that gets me. I am not good at writing technobabble, nor am I good at thinking up (scientific) ways to get the team out of a harrowing situation. Since that's basically what Rodney does, being able to write about it is rather important. :) Which is why I usually end up writing tags, because it often means that the brilliant escape plan has already been thought up, explained and carried out, leaving me to write about the aftermath. Yes, I guess you could say I'm lazy :)

Another thing I have trouble with is the banter between Sheppard and McKay. I absolutely adore their easy banter on the show, but I have a hard time thinking of snappy comebacks for both characters. I'm not sure if that's to do with the fact that I'm not good at snappy comebacks myself in RL or if it means that I just don't know the characters well enough yet.

Either way, my problems with writing dialogue and with thinking up decent plots is what has kept me from writing a Shep-whump story of my own. So I'm taking the easy way out by just writing short scenes/drabbles and tags. But I take comfort in the fact that it's good practise and that it helps me to get to know the characters better. :)