2009 Fiction Review

[mer_duff]

Number of stories=19
Number of words=85,761 words

Not as many stories as in past years, but the word count is about par, which isn’t bad considering work has been all-consuming for the last six months and I was away most of September. Apparently, I'm getting less prolific, but more verbose.

Prompts remaining on the 100_situations table – 4 (so close, so close!). I have stories in progress for three of them, but I’m open to any suggestions for the last one, Scream.


January

The Star o' Rabbie Burns - 1910 words
Number four in the series. I feel like Lawrence Durrell. This came from a request from topaz_eyes who wanted to see House and Wilson in kilts. This was my first Taub POV and he proved surprisingly fun to write. But then I really shouldn't be surprised, since he's a mini-Wilson of sorts...

February

Elemental Forces - 7265 words
My first cross-over and my first slash story. I suppose if you're going to jump into the deep end, it might as well be from the 10-metre tower! I watched Torchwood in August, because I kept seeing it pop up on my flist and was immediately enthralled. And immediately imagined Jack seducing Wilson, which spawned not only this story, but my Big Bang fic as well. This was originally going to be my Come As You're Not story, but it just kept getting longer and longer.

In the House of Plenty - 2044 words
I know Wilson can be a self-righteous hypocrite, but I still love him. And so does House, despite himself. At least enough to try and set him straight and then buy him a coffee (without additives, this time). It was fun slipping in a Princess Bride reference (second time, I think), but more fun working in Tiger Williams, who I remember seeing play when he was still with the Maple Leafs.

Counter-Attack - 1289 words
Written for Gen Battle, which is about the only battle I'm equipped to fight... I love letting Wilson play, even if it's only reluctantly and out of professional pride. Because cane sawing aside (which was pretty bush league), he is the Prank Master! And this was written before his glorious mind-fuck over the diet.

March

World of Weeping - 25,750 words
Second time around for Big Bang. This was a sequel of sorts of Elemental Forces. I'd thought about just making it one long story, and the first scene I wrote for EF actually took place somewhere in the middle of the story, but that ended up not working, so I split them apart. And it was more fun to make House's head explode from the very beginning!

April

Milestones - 2685 words
I hadn't written a young Wilson story for awhile and I couldn't let RSL's 40th birthday go by without some acknowledgement. I'd originally plotted out four milestone birthdays, one for each decade, but the middle two just felt superfluous. It was the first time working Danny in as well, though I still haven't figured out how I'm going to deal with brother #3.

House Warming - 3400 words
This one took a while to process - I wrote the first few lines of it shortly after "The Greater Good", because it fit the prompt word so well. Originally, I'd had House throw an actual housewarming party for Wilson, which I'm glad I changed, because as it turned out, I couldn't have done justice to a real House party!

May

North-North-West and Southerly - 3630 words
Written for heledren's quote challenge at sick_wilson. I probably could have used another couple of days of rewriting and editing for this story, but I pushed it to the deadline as it was. I wrote it from Cuddy's POV, because I wanted to create some emotional distance for Wilson's breakdown. And because they're share the loss, even if they're doing it in their own ways.

June

Winged Foot - 4160 words
I think I actually started writing this story around Father’s Day 2006, but it took me until this year to actually finish it. Needless to say, things changed over those three years, most notably, at least one of my Wilson brothers was made AU. For this story I kept Peter as the youngest Wilson brother, and edited out Michael, though until we find out something definitive about the third brother, I may alternate between Peter and Michael stories. Especially if I need a less functional Wilson brother :)

Looking the Other Way - 7329 words
Written for Kutner Fest. I loved Kutner, but I'm not sure I ever completely understood him, and his death only reinforced that. So this will probably be the only story I write from his POV; ultimately, it's more about Wilson anyway. I liked the Five Times format as a way to chart their relationship. Each vignette was supposed to play on the idea of seeing the situation from a different angle, but somehow they all ended up incorporating food and drink. I wish I could say I knew what that was about :)

July

The Seeds of Betrayal (the Harold Pinter Remix) - 6684 words
My first attempt at a remix. It wasn't as successful a remix as I would have liked -- I'm not sure I remixed as much as imposed my own story on top of the original -- and I think my ambitions for the story outstripped my capabilities, but I'm glad I tried. If nothing else, it's an homage to one of my favourite plays, or at least a play that's haunted me for a long time.

A Question of Convenience - 1189 words
This was one of those stories that came directly from the prompt. I wanted to play around with the idea of how hard it might be to be friends with a genius, especially one trapped in an adolescent mindframe much of the time, but ultimately how rewarding it could be as well. There's usually method in House's madness, and I think Wilson puts up with as much as he does because he knows that.

August

Diving In - 1756 words
This was for a prompt from hannahrorlove, though it strayed from the original intent - I couldn't make the superpowers work, though it still may come together in my mind. I think I started writing this after spending the weekend at a friend's cabin down at Point Roberts. We went swimming (well, mostly wading - at certain tides, you could probably walk across Boundary Bay), and I remembered how much I used to love swimming in the ocean. And it was nice to write them enjoying each other's company, even if they whined about it a bit.

October

My Funny Valentine - 2275 words
Normally, I like to be date appropriate, but the request from taiga for more Amber was next on my list, so I threw caution to the wind and posted a Valentine's story in October. Though, it really wasn't a Valentine's Day story, that just happened to provide a convenient framework. I really do believe that even if the relationship only lasted a few months, Wilson and Amber really did have something wonderful together and I wanted to write something that would show just a glimmer of that, if only to show that I understood why he grieved so long and so deeply for her.

November

The Cure for Boredom - 2777 words
This one was for deelaundry, who tried to boot my lazy ass out of my comfort zone and venture into AU territory. I decided to make things even harder on myself by writing the story in second person (because I get a lot of exercise jumping on bandwagons), but I'm not sure, in the end, if it really was that much of a stretch. I'd like to think House was believably feminine, but enough people were confused that I'm not sure I succeeded in being very alternate at all. Regardless, I think I'd like to explore this universe a little more - just to see how the dynamic changes with the gender.

Cracked - 2670 words
topaz_eyes wanted more Taub, so this was my attempt to provide. I do love Taub. He's smart and sassy and I think he could actually be a decent companion for Wilson. Certainly Wilson was in need of a friend while House was in Mayfield, and I think Taub's streak of pragmatism would help him accept Taub's overture of friendship. And I think Taub was in need of atonement after Kutner's suicide, or at least he needed to make sure someone else didn't fall through the cracks.

Tribulation 7068 words
A birthda fic for elynittria, who does her best to make sure my stories aren't too embarrassing. This is another story that evolved out of something I'd been playing with for ages. I thought it would be my Big Bang story this year, but the more I wrote, the more I realized I was trying to write the wrong story. It was getting to be too much about House's guilt and not enough about the mutually screwed-up friendship. Almost nothing of the original story fragment remains, which was from House's POV and took place after they were brought to the ER. There were good things in it, I think, but nothing that couldn't be conveyed through snatches of dialogue.

December

Shedding Tears - 250 words
namasteyoga posted an interesting writing challenge at housefic_meta based on a competition done by The Times to write a story in 140 characters - a Twitter Fic. I found a fragment of a story about Wilson's second marriage that had been sitting in my files for ages, and reworked it for the challenge, but it still felt unfinished, so I thought about telling a "longer" story by framing it as 10 Twit fics. Although this was my shortest story of the year, in many ways it felt like my most complete.

Fault Lines - 1830 words
Just a little bit of domestic bliss to end off the year. I think living with House would be entertaining, but it doesn't surprise me in the least that after a couple of months, Wilson was ready to give up some of his internal organs. We used to have signs in our laundry room reminding us not to run machines simultaneously, but they seem to have disappeared once we had the building repiped. Still, it was always the first thing I thought of when I read the prompt Flood.