Pen's Nest

Remix. 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!
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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, Remix!

There seem to have been half a dozen popslash stories produced this time round, which is a distinct improvement on last year so, well done, signups!

Not so difficult, after all (The Difficulty Level remix) about Brian and AJ and why things are so awkward between them.

Straight Through my Heart (The Can't Stop The Bleeding Mix) is Kevin and Lance meeting in a vampire bar.

Someday He'll Be Taller (the Grownups Have More Fun Mix) is the remix of one of my Dragon Challenge stories from last year, giving rather more depth and detail to Nick's feelings about being the youngest in the group.

As You Like I Love You (being the First Part of The History of Justin Timberlake) is an untraditionally titled remix in blank verse.

Heineken and Daisies (the Baby, We Need To Talk remix), a nice POV-switch version of SnarkyLlama's story in which Lance comes home to discover gifts of alcohol and flowers. This is, I think, my favourite, but then, I think the original is my favourite of the remixed stories, too.

Firebird Suite (Celebrity Mix) is a smart, dark-edged reworking of a smart, dark-edged and sorta mystical original.

It's just possible you may be able to guess which one I wrote.

I confess I failed dismally to write any Remix Madness stories, even though I had one almost in my grasp. Partly it's through feeling *incredibly* tired, and partly through the glasses failure (see below). Sadly, it doesn't look as though anyone produced any popslash for that challenge, although there was potential for such.

And other stories...

My glasses broke a couple of days before the long weekend - one of the little nose-pads fell off. I went to the optician's and discovered it had closed early for staff training, so I went back the next morning and they replaced both pads with own-brand ones, very efficiently. Sadly, these proved to be not at all comfortably aligned, and then it was a long weekend, through which I wore my *three* other pairs of glasses - distance, reading and computer-range. So I have been enduring that tiresome "old-people" problem of never having the right pair of glasses in the right place. I got the nose pieces readjusted again this morning, but they're still not right so this afternoon I asked them to order in a set of Police fittings. I suspect they will turn out to be shockingly expensive little bits of plastic.

Managing tonight's rehearsal without my varifocals will be… interesting.

On another tangent altogether, I'm amazed how *rude* the Etiquette Hell maven can be. A mean-spirited diatribe on how the recent royal nuptials transgressed against many rules of American etiquette. Hah. Written by someone whose understanding of my country's culture is, shall we say, out of date?

The only point I think is really reasonable is that it would have been right and proper to offer each and every one of the invited guests a couple of sausage rolls and a glass of fizz after the ceremony. I think the Queen has enough room at Buck House to fit them all in, and it really wouldn't have broken the bank.

Otherwise, bah!

What I haven't done, in the last couple of days, is post about the Remix story written for me—very remiss! It is, in fact, a remix of a Star Trek: TNG story I must have written about, hmm, eleven or twelve years ago, and it's really the grown-up version of the story I told, very elegantly done. If you have any interest in Trek stories—it's here.

"Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort, and the dullard's first choice."

Well, that's what Stephen King says. I've been reading his 'On Writing', and it's very interesting indeed. He has the idea that a story isn't so much made up as discovered, and that strikes me as very true. Sometimes you need plot, but it's a lot harder to write something 'true' when you have to keep to the plot. I don't know how people who do terribly complex stuff with immense amounts of foreshadowing and cleverness manage to do it. It's much easier to have a reasonable idea where things are going, and let the characters take you along. What do you guys feel about writing this way?

Anyway, I've been discovering a story for a couple of weeks now, having put my poor boys into a nasty situation I'm now finding out what they make of it. It's very interesting. I'm creeping towards completion, but I kinda don't want to finish because it's fun. Yesterday, I thought they ought to do something, but as I was writing, I felt it was awfully contrived... anyway, they didn't want to, and today, they've done something much better. You'll see soon, as I'm down for the August challenge on Monday. I hope I will have figured out a title by then.

I never did get round to talking about this year's Remix challenge, for which I was assigned phaballa as my mixee. Naturally I thought at once that it would be ideal to do the dark, sexy, serious version of now that's what I call a motherfucking oedipus complex. I knew exactly what I wanted to write... and I couldn't. Couldn't do it at all. In the end, rather than being sane and going to check out her other stories, I ended up doing the "so tell me about your mother" remix with batshit insane Justin telling his shrink how it was all everybody else's fault. I enjoyed writing it, but. hmm. I feel a bit guilty, as it means (presumably) that whoever gets phaballa next year won't be able to have a go at it then.

Getting her revenge for last year, topaz119, and what a gorgeous job she made of it, putting my "AJ as Lance's sex slave" story into a New Orleans period setting, and YUM! It's wonderful.

I still haven't read all the remix stories, sigh, but I hope to get some feedback sent to the very worthy authors really soon. The first few I did manage to read were excellent, yet again showing how this challenge attracts authors who enjoy the craft of writing.

I shall have to go through and see who did what, and if there's any possibility that I ought to have been able to identify them...

My Remix story was Reindeer Games (the Like a Lightbulb remix), based on jae_w's original. Thanks to chrismm for the beta work.

I was surprised, with this challenge, to find how much harder it was than I'd expected it to be. I've read plenty of remixes, after all... It was difficult to figure out where to put the story, on the spectrum of "oh, yes, I read this story... didn't I?" to "I wonder what the original story is like". I stuck pretty close to the original, really, but it is very interesting to read the wide range of choices the other authors have made.

When you're reading, or writing, a remix, what do you prefer? How different from the original do you like it to be?