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pensnestRemix. I know it's self-indulgent, and probably more than ten years overdue, but I noticed a post about Remix meta very recently, and it set me thinking about my own Remix experiences. And Remix in general. And stuff. I don't know whether anyone is interested in talking about the way Remix worked—I don't know if the challenge still happens, I haven't participated for several years—but I'd be interested to hear of outstanding examples of different kinds of story, and of ways of remixing which aren't covered here. I certainly don't claim that I've done every possible type of remix story. In fact, looking at them now, I never managed a really cool re-imagining of any of my remix stories—I see, from this list, that in most cases I've said that I basically rewrote the story with X changed. No grand inspirations, alas!
So. My First Remix: 2006 I was, intimidatingly, given Jae as my remixee, and worked on Reindeer Games, which has that blackly humorous edge that so many Jae stories have. My own version was privately subtitled The Very Secret Diary of JC Chasez, and what it chiefly changed was mood, with a very frivolous diva JC who was a lot of fun to write.
I was taking very seriously the idea of 'write it your own way', and I've never been good at black-edged stories, so light comedy was my best bet. I do remember being surprised by how much of a challenge it was to write—I think I'd assumed that with plot already sorted, rewriting the story would be easy, but ahaha. Not so much.
Aside the first: I think a lot of remixers do something that is very much rewrite-the-story, and I suspect that is by far the easiest way to start with this challenge. We get more adventurous after a lot more experience! Also, I think we're mindful of the fact that we must be true to the original, and the simplest way to do that is to follow it fairly closely. I don't think I've ever written a remix that didn't recap the original story to a great extent, but sometimes the remixes I've found most memorable are the ones that deliberately don't do that.
My Second Remix: 2007, and I got to remix Topaz's story World Tour, in which JC and Justin travel round Epcot getting drunk. JuC! I voluntarily did a JuC story! It was a POV switch again, but this time to a point of view that never got enough of an airing—why, why were there not more stories involving the bodyguards? (They were there! All the time! What a waste.)
It turned out to be a lot of fun to do Tiny POV, because I could make him up. I did a bit of research to figure out what kind of thing the bodyguards would do, and a lot of makeitup to throw in how he felt about the job, his charges, etc. Also, it meant I didn't have to remix the sex scene! \o/
Aside the second: so many canons have characters who are just outright ignored, and yes, I know, we're in it for slashing the pretty boys, but people, we're writers! At least, it is my assumption that writers who do Remix are, you know, writers, because it seems to me a very writerly challenge. It's not something that everyone wants to do, and plenty of writers don't fancy it, but I suspect that the ones who Remix year after year are the ones who enjoy the *craft* of writing. And the challenge. So where are the unseen characters?
It can be a lot of fun, writing the viewpoint of a character nobody else has written.
My Third Remix: 2008, ahaha. I got to remix Phaballa, and I wanted to turn her story Now that's what I call a motherfucking oedipus complex into the dark, sexy, serious version of her somewhat comic Lynncest story, but I couldn't. It just would not come. I don't actually think I have it in me to write a dark, sexy, serious Lynncest story, but I knew my remixee would love it if I could. How I came to settle on a twisted version of Justin, justifying himself to the prison psychiatrist, I really cannot remember, but oh, I loved the result. One of my lovely feedbackers compared it to Jokerfic, a compliment I cherish to this day.
So it was a stylistic change—a one-sided conversation instead of, well, a story. It was also a tonal change, though I think it incorporated something else as well. It shifted the time span of the story along a bit, leaving certain questions unanswered but darkly hinted at! I quite approve of the idea of changing the time span—expanding, or, perfectly reasonably, contracting the original.
Aside the third: one of my remixers took a story of mine (A Hogwarts Christmas, done in 2007 by beth) and wrote, I would say, the prequel. Took the premise of my story and wrote something which got to the starting point. It's very clever, and I'm charmed that it exists, but… is it a remix? I have to say, I don't think it is. It's inspired by my story, but it doesn't cover any of the action of my story—it ends with the setup. I think it's totally fair to write stories inspired by other fic writers. I've done it myself, most recently with a sequel to a story that is several years old. And anyway, that's what the remix challenge *does*, it's like fanfic squared, another step further from canon. But I think this one was too far from my original to count as a remix—I think it's an "inspired by" instead.
I guess that's another talking point: how far from the original story can you go while remaining a remix?
My Fourth Remix, in 2009, took a story by Vera and moved it several years on. I stuck really closely to the format of the original, and the mood, I think, although I changed poet from Frost to Keats and stole a few sleep-related phrases! And I added the fan hands. It feels, eventually, like a story written by someone else, because it was such a different process from the way I usually write, and I don't think that anyone would identify it as something I'd written, perhaps because it is a very internal piece and that's not what I usually do. It worked really well, though! I like the time-shift thing, particularly since I was writing the story long after the original was produced, and after our boys had all gone their separate ways.
I think the best ever time-shift remix story was the one written for Ephemera, the in space mix, which is a report to the Intergalactic Journal on findings involving "JC" and "Lance Bass" who are characters in 'what appears to be a literary/religious text of sorts'. This may be my favourite remix ever—such an awesome concept! And it is *so* much fun when read in conjunction with the original story, Puppies.
My fifth, 2010, was a straightforward POV change to an original by Puszysty, and is therefore told by the frog. I'd forgotten how fun it was writing that one, but it turned out quite well. There isn't much to say about it, though.
Aside the fifth: I remember that when I began devouring popslash, from March 2005 onwards, I would occasionally come across a story and think, wait, have I read this one before? The one where JC and Lance are trapped in an elevator springs most immediately to mind, as the remix version straightforwardly swaps POV, but the feel of the story is very similar to the original. To my mind, it works better—it's also more interesting—when the different POV says something different about what is happening. Maybe the new point of view character has opinions that hadn't occurred to the original's POV character!
Another example of this is the remix of one of my stories done in 2012. My remixer picked up a ST:TNG story (By Invitation Only), which I'd written with very much the intention that it should feel like an episode of the show, and told the story solely from Kate Pulaski's point of view, which turns it into more of a character study. (In fact, I wish it had been longer, as there are things in my original it would have been interesting to get Pulaski's POV on!)
Switching point of view is a really popular way to remix a story, and it definitely has merit, but I think a lot of the time it can be a somewhat missed opportunity. A story with POV switched from Omniscient to 3rd Person, or even 1st person, might make a more interesting variation. Hmm, thinking about it, there was a sky_pie challenge where we wrote a different POV (in both senses) on one of our own stories, and I worked on Broken. The change was character switch plus third person to first, and it made a lot of difference. So a simple POV switch can say something quite big about a story—on the other hand, if the author has picked the 'right' POV in the first place, it's quite easy for a switch to actually take something *out* of the story instead of adding to it. When I'd written the Broken POV switch, I recognised that Lance's POV didn't have anywhere near so much to say, because Lance's feelings didn't change, whereas Nick's POV demonstrated how he changed and was therefore a much better choice for the original story. So there's a Terrible Warning for remixers: make sure your new POV has something different to say.
Aside the next: A long time ago, I picked up a useful hint from Dorothy Dunnett—probably via a reader's analysis—that a good POV to use is that of the person who knows least of what is going on. I have often found this to be true.
2011was a remix of a popslash story by zvi, who probably wouldn't have been expecting popslash by that stage. For this one, I played with form. The story is basically the same, but it is in blank verse. I did a little extra for this challenge, by producing a sonnet on a Leverage musing.
Not sure what more there is to say about a blank verse version of a popslash story, but I do enjoy remixes (and originals) that play with form. One of the coolest examples of this that I remember is the internet stalkamix bychalcopyrite, which sets out the story as though it were on still_gay, the unnervingly stalkerish Lance LJ fan comm. It is spot-on.
In 2012 I remixed a story by Aeiouna. I'd actually had a Thought (not a very profound one, it was How about I do it In Space?) and when I got my remixee, deliberately hunted out a story that I could do In Space. It turned out she'd written one that translated perfectly, so again, I simply rewrote the story but set it on a space station, with holoprograms instead of dreams. I like it. Back in 2008, my remixer (Topaz) changed the setting and period in a similar way, transforming my present-day warm oil and an innocent smile into a lush story set in a New Orleans of the past. It works really well, and translates certain aspects of the original in a way that says something interesting and different.
Aside the last: It seems reasonable to mention some alternate options which were done by writers who've remixed my stories.
In 2009, Withdiamonds picked up my If you want to fly and (along with a POV switch) moved the story more explicitly into a kind of inevitability that I'd just hinted at in the original. Which I think is very cool.
Somewhat in a similar vein was the remix of Qualicative Assessment (ST:TNG) in 2010, which my own feedback at the time described as 'the adult version of the story I wrote'. My story was a little throwaway bit of fluff, and PencilGuardian made something much more substantial, serious and tightly-connected with the Trek universe. So that's… adding depth? as a category. The remix of my Some Day He'll Be Taller does the same kind of expansion. And in—I guess—the same way, Silveryscrape expanded on A Little Bit Extra in my first year as a participant, and wrote a fuller, juicier and sexier story than I had. Are remixers allowed to write better versions than the original? There should be a rule about that!
I have a lowering feeling that other people are much more thoughtful about what they write and why, and set out with the intention of saying something interesting about the source material. However, I've never managed an approach like that—I mostly find that anything I might Say in one of my stories has arrived there without my conscious input. A few exceptions. Likewise, insights into the original story that may have occurred in one of my remix stories were achieved by luck. I suspect that's true of a lot of participants—we look for a story we can work with, and throw ideas at it until something sticks! But there are thoughtful people out there who aim higher....
A lot of writers don't like Remix and don't participate, and that's fair enough. It's always seemed to me more of a shame that people choose not to read Remix stories, and that, I don't really understand. After all, a fresh story is a fresh story, and unless you remember strongly disliking the original, to me it seems like an opportunity to read two stories. And, ideally, compare and contrast them and see what works and what doesn't, though I admit I might be expecting a lot from people who do this for fun, not for the sake of studying the writing. But in my remixing years, it was always rather sad how little acknowledgment the effort of producing a remix story would get. Even in the days when popslash garnered plenty of feedback. I mean, why is that?
PS I haven't generally included links to the stories, though if anyone is interested enough to investigate all or any, I will happily provide them.
So. My First Remix: 2006 I was, intimidatingly, given Jae as my remixee, and worked on Reindeer Games, which has that blackly humorous edge that so many Jae stories have. My own version was privately subtitled The Very Secret Diary of JC Chasez, and what it chiefly changed was mood, with a very frivolous diva JC who was a lot of fun to write.
I was taking very seriously the idea of 'write it your own way', and I've never been good at black-edged stories, so light comedy was my best bet. I do remember being surprised by how much of a challenge it was to write—I think I'd assumed that with plot already sorted, rewriting the story would be easy, but ahaha. Not so much.
Aside the first: I think a lot of remixers do something that is very much rewrite-the-story, and I suspect that is by far the easiest way to start with this challenge. We get more adventurous after a lot more experience! Also, I think we're mindful of the fact that we must be true to the original, and the simplest way to do that is to follow it fairly closely. I don't think I've ever written a remix that didn't recap the original story to a great extent, but sometimes the remixes I've found most memorable are the ones that deliberately don't do that.
My Second Remix: 2007, and I got to remix Topaz's story World Tour, in which JC and Justin travel round Epcot getting drunk. JuC! I voluntarily did a JuC story! It was a POV switch again, but this time to a point of view that never got enough of an airing—why, why were there not more stories involving the bodyguards? (They were there! All the time! What a waste.)
It turned out to be a lot of fun to do Tiny POV, because I could make him up. I did a bit of research to figure out what kind of thing the bodyguards would do, and a lot of makeitup to throw in how he felt about the job, his charges, etc. Also, it meant I didn't have to remix the sex scene! \o/
Aside the second: so many canons have characters who are just outright ignored, and yes, I know, we're in it for slashing the pretty boys, but people, we're writers! At least, it is my assumption that writers who do Remix are, you know, writers, because it seems to me a very writerly challenge. It's not something that everyone wants to do, and plenty of writers don't fancy it, but I suspect that the ones who Remix year after year are the ones who enjoy the *craft* of writing. And the challenge. So where are the unseen characters?
It can be a lot of fun, writing the viewpoint of a character nobody else has written.
My Third Remix: 2008, ahaha. I got to remix Phaballa, and I wanted to turn her story Now that's what I call a motherfucking oedipus complex into the dark, sexy, serious version of her somewhat comic Lynncest story, but I couldn't. It just would not come. I don't actually think I have it in me to write a dark, sexy, serious Lynncest story, but I knew my remixee would love it if I could. How I came to settle on a twisted version of Justin, justifying himself to the prison psychiatrist, I really cannot remember, but oh, I loved the result. One of my lovely feedbackers compared it to Jokerfic, a compliment I cherish to this day.
So it was a stylistic change—a one-sided conversation instead of, well, a story. It was also a tonal change, though I think it incorporated something else as well. It shifted the time span of the story along a bit, leaving certain questions unanswered but darkly hinted at! I quite approve of the idea of changing the time span—expanding, or, perfectly reasonably, contracting the original.
Aside the third: one of my remixers took a story of mine (A Hogwarts Christmas, done in 2007 by beth) and wrote, I would say, the prequel. Took the premise of my story and wrote something which got to the starting point. It's very clever, and I'm charmed that it exists, but… is it a remix? I have to say, I don't think it is. It's inspired by my story, but it doesn't cover any of the action of my story—it ends with the setup. I think it's totally fair to write stories inspired by other fic writers. I've done it myself, most recently with a sequel to a story that is several years old. And anyway, that's what the remix challenge *does*, it's like fanfic squared, another step further from canon. But I think this one was too far from my original to count as a remix—I think it's an "inspired by" instead.
I guess that's another talking point: how far from the original story can you go while remaining a remix?
My Fourth Remix, in 2009, took a story by Vera and moved it several years on. I stuck really closely to the format of the original, and the mood, I think, although I changed poet from Frost to Keats and stole a few sleep-related phrases! And I added the fan hands. It feels, eventually, like a story written by someone else, because it was such a different process from the way I usually write, and I don't think that anyone would identify it as something I'd written, perhaps because it is a very internal piece and that's not what I usually do. It worked really well, though! I like the time-shift thing, particularly since I was writing the story long after the original was produced, and after our boys had all gone their separate ways.
I think the best ever time-shift remix story was the one written for Ephemera, the in space mix, which is a report to the Intergalactic Journal on findings involving "JC" and "Lance Bass" who are characters in 'what appears to be a literary/religious text of sorts'. This may be my favourite remix ever—such an awesome concept! And it is *so* much fun when read in conjunction with the original story, Puppies.
My fifth, 2010, was a straightforward POV change to an original by Puszysty, and is therefore told by the frog. I'd forgotten how fun it was writing that one, but it turned out quite well. There isn't much to say about it, though.
Aside the fifth: I remember that when I began devouring popslash, from March 2005 onwards, I would occasionally come across a story and think, wait, have I read this one before? The one where JC and Lance are trapped in an elevator springs most immediately to mind, as the remix version straightforwardly swaps POV, but the feel of the story is very similar to the original. To my mind, it works better—it's also more interesting—when the different POV says something different about what is happening. Maybe the new point of view character has opinions that hadn't occurred to the original's POV character!
Another example of this is the remix of one of my stories done in 2012. My remixer picked up a ST:TNG story (By Invitation Only), which I'd written with very much the intention that it should feel like an episode of the show, and told the story solely from Kate Pulaski's point of view, which turns it into more of a character study. (In fact, I wish it had been longer, as there are things in my original it would have been interesting to get Pulaski's POV on!)
Switching point of view is a really popular way to remix a story, and it definitely has merit, but I think a lot of the time it can be a somewhat missed opportunity. A story with POV switched from Omniscient to 3rd Person, or even 1st person, might make a more interesting variation. Hmm, thinking about it, there was a sky_pie challenge where we wrote a different POV (in both senses) on one of our own stories, and I worked on Broken. The change was character switch plus third person to first, and it made a lot of difference. So a simple POV switch can say something quite big about a story—on the other hand, if the author has picked the 'right' POV in the first place, it's quite easy for a switch to actually take something *out* of the story instead of adding to it. When I'd written the Broken POV switch, I recognised that Lance's POV didn't have anywhere near so much to say, because Lance's feelings didn't change, whereas Nick's POV demonstrated how he changed and was therefore a much better choice for the original story. So there's a Terrible Warning for remixers: make sure your new POV has something different to say.
Aside the next: A long time ago, I picked up a useful hint from Dorothy Dunnett—probably via a reader's analysis—that a good POV to use is that of the person who knows least of what is going on. I have often found this to be true.
2011was a remix of a popslash story by zvi, who probably wouldn't have been expecting popslash by that stage. For this one, I played with form. The story is basically the same, but it is in blank verse. I did a little extra for this challenge, by producing a sonnet on a Leverage musing.
Not sure what more there is to say about a blank verse version of a popslash story, but I do enjoy remixes (and originals) that play with form. One of the coolest examples of this that I remember is the internet stalkamix by
chalcopyrite, which sets out the story as though it were on still_gay, the unnervingly stalkerish Lance LJ fan comm. It is spot-on.In 2012 I remixed a story by Aeiouna. I'd actually had a Thought (not a very profound one, it was How about I do it In Space?) and when I got my remixee, deliberately hunted out a story that I could do In Space. It turned out she'd written one that translated perfectly, so again, I simply rewrote the story but set it on a space station, with holoprograms instead of dreams. I like it. Back in 2008, my remixer (Topaz) changed the setting and period in a similar way, transforming my present-day warm oil and an innocent smile into a lush story set in a New Orleans of the past. It works really well, and translates certain aspects of the original in a way that says something interesting and different.
Aside the last: It seems reasonable to mention some alternate options which were done by writers who've remixed my stories.
In 2009, Withdiamonds picked up my If you want to fly and (along with a POV switch) moved the story more explicitly into a kind of inevitability that I'd just hinted at in the original. Which I think is very cool.
Somewhat in a similar vein was the remix of Qualicative Assessment (ST:TNG) in 2010, which my own feedback at the time described as 'the adult version of the story I wrote'. My story was a little throwaway bit of fluff, and PencilGuardian made something much more substantial, serious and tightly-connected with the Trek universe. So that's… adding depth? as a category. The remix of my Some Day He'll Be Taller does the same kind of expansion. And in—I guess—the same way, Silveryscrape expanded on A Little Bit Extra in my first year as a participant, and wrote a fuller, juicier and sexier story than I had. Are remixers allowed to write better versions than the original? There should be a rule about that!
I have a lowering feeling that other people are much more thoughtful about what they write and why, and set out with the intention of saying something interesting about the source material. However, I've never managed an approach like that—I mostly find that anything I might Say in one of my stories has arrived there without my conscious input. A few exceptions. Likewise, insights into the original story that may have occurred in one of my remix stories were achieved by luck. I suspect that's true of a lot of participants—we look for a story we can work with, and throw ideas at it until something sticks! But there are thoughtful people out there who aim higher....
A lot of writers don't like Remix and don't participate, and that's fair enough. It's always seemed to me more of a shame that people choose not to read Remix stories, and that, I don't really understand. After all, a fresh story is a fresh story, and unless you remember strongly disliking the original, to me it seems like an opportunity to read two stories. And, ideally, compare and contrast them and see what works and what doesn't, though I admit I might be expecting a lot from people who do this for fun, not for the sake of studying the writing. But in my remixing years, it was always rather sad how little acknowledgment the effort of producing a remix story would get. Even in the days when popslash garnered plenty of feedback. I mean, why is that?
PS I haven't generally included links to the stories, though if anyone is interested enough to investigate all or any, I will happily provide them.