HP Femslash Minifest Fic and Other Fests

[paulamcg]

I’ve posted my Amelia/Tonks fic to the HP Femslash Minifest March/April collection at AO3. I checked at Tumblr and got the advice to do so, but since there’s no other fic in the collection yet, I’m still a bit unsure if I’ve done the correct thing – and if it’s all right to post the fic here, too. If anyone among you knows, tell me!

Sharing Breaths (Amelia Bones/Nymphadora Tonks, PG-13)

And tell me if you think there should be a warning in case a romance has an unhappy end. I thought this fic wouldn’t suit this cycle’s prompts – Marriage Law, Remembrall and Domestic Bliss – but as the rules emphasise that you’re free to interpret the prompts in any way you like, and there are some moments of domestic bliss and hope for more, I thought it would be all right to offer my fic.

But while writing that femslash fic I had both hp-unhappily-ever-after and hp_shoreofangst in mind – so there, that’s a warning for you. The fic I’ve now barely started is partly inspired by these two fests. I’ve just realised that since I emerged from my isolation for HP Halloween, I’ve hardly written anything that’s not for a fest. And here’s another one:



Prompting for the drizzle fest closes on 15th of April!

+ Prompt List | + Submit a prompt

For questions, email: hpdrizzlemods@gmail.com
Claiming begins: April 20 | Submissions: August 15
HP DRIZZLE: LJ / DW / TUMBLR

Comments

[lee_bella]

Personally, I prefer not to warn the readers ahead of time about the ending and let the readers find out for themselves by reading the story. But I know some writers prefer putting up an "unhappy ending" tag or a "HEA" (happily-ever-after) tag and so on for their stories. It all comes down to personal preference, I guess.

As long as a fest doesn't explicitly spell out what kind of ending your story has to be (unlike, say, hp-unhappily-ever-after which you have mentioned above; or fixitfest, which states plainly that the stories must have a happy ending), any ending should be fine.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for commenting and replying to my question with such care!

Tagging my fic is still new to me, and I feel it’s hard to find a balance between revealing too much or too little. Back when I started writing fic and most of it was very subtle Remus/Sirius, I’d have preferred not to label it all all – with the pairing and not even either slash or gen – but of course that was not the way to find my sub-community on the Livejournal HP fandom! I wished that readers could have been surprised by the pairing, or interpreted the relationship in the way they wanted.

Now since a fest last Christmas I’ve got used to listing as tags all things that appear or take place in the story, and sometimes I feel it’s spoilers. And I guess I should learn to use common tropes as tags, so people could find my fic when searching those.

When submitting my Golden Age fic, I didn’t reveal a couple of pairings but wrote only (references to) Remus/Canon Male Character and Remus/Canon Female Character, but when the mod suggested to add the names, I agreed – even though I’d have preferred the surprises – thinking that this would help more readers choose or find the fic.

In any case, the issue of warnings is not only a matter of having or losing benefit in fic searches. I do share the personal preference with you. Whether the ending is happy or not should not be revealed beforehand. But because this is a story about an asexual character and at least my experience is that it can be harder to find happy endings for aces (in non-fic life) and I’m guessing fanfic can be a remedy, I’m afraid the story might disappoint or even hurt too much.

Now at least I feel reassured that the fic is suitable for the fest where I posted it. And I understand that when someone wants to be sure about a happy or an unhappy end, they can search with such a tag, or go to a fest like those you mention. And thank you for pointing out Fixit Fest. Perhaps I could join, in case it’s enough to write a happy end to a story with a limited scope – like about Remus and Sirius moving together – not necessarily diverging from canon before the end of OotP.