Author Meme

[miri_uchiha]

When did you first realized that you wanted to be a writer?
- In Freshman year of high school, where we had to do an assignment on what we wanted to be when we grew up and I chose to do a project on Journalism. However, I started writing when I was in Middle school because I wanted to write and it was a fun way to pass the time. But even before that, I was part of my 6th grade newspaper team and my story was chosen to be put into the newspaper. I was happy at the time, but re-reading my piece years later, I cringed at how simple the story was.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
- I think this particular answer from avajae.blogspot.com, pretty much summed up what I've wanted to say:
"This is one quirk that I think probably surprises non-writers the most: even when we plan things out, our writing will often take a turn we didn’t expect. A character will reveal a secret we didn’t plan for, or make a decision that wasn’t in the outline, or do something that we thought was out of character until we realize we know less about his character than we originally anticipated. And personally, it’s something I’ll never tire of." - avajae.blogspot.com (10 Quirks Only Writers Understand)

Where do you get your information or ideas for your stories?
- Nowadays, I tend to get my ideas by pondering life's questions.

What was one of the most surprising things you've learned while creating your stories?
- Sometimes, whenever I plan for certain moments to happen in my story, they end up unexpectedly scrapped or shifted earlier or later in the timeline before I get to that particular scene. And although it may sound like this sudden change would screw up everything that I've initially planned, but surprisingly, the storyline eventually comes back together some way or another and it baffles me every single time it happens.

Do you have any suggestions to help someone become a better writer? If so, what are they?
- Just read and write. It's exactly what Stephen King says. If you have the basics of reading down, then you can get a gist of what writing should sound and look like. As you read, you gain more vocabulary and when you start practicing writing, you practice until you feel confident enough to publish it to the public. Even when you're able to put your writing out to the public, you're still practicing because readers will tear your work to pieces and then you'll learn that your work is still not good enough. The whole writing process is basically learning and practicing your craft. Even when you feel like you're a good enough writer, there will be some people out there who will think otherwise. So, while I've been writing for almost thirteen years now, I still feel that I have so much to learn to be even better than what I am now.

What do you think makes a good story?
- Good transitions, grammar, and spelling. A story that flows good, is so much better than a story that's choppy. And you really don't want a reader to stop reading your story because you can't transition from one scene to another or have them get frustrated when they see a misspelled word despite knowing what you were trying to write.

What's more important? Characters or Plot?
- For me, characters and their background stories. I tend to go into a story thinking that I could stick with the plot and focus on that, but eventually I find myself delving into the character's stories and the plot automatically takes a backseat. I really need to learn how to stop myself when that happens because readers only care about the plot and not the character's backstory.

What fanfiction works have you been reading lately in your free time?
- As of right now, I've been reading some Harry/Draco fanfictions. Surprisingly, no DBSK fanfiction. Mostly because I think I've read all the good ones and no one's really writing any interesting ones lately, so I've been out of the DBSK fanfiction realm for a while now. I would like to read some new ones in the future though.

Do you have a specific writing style?
- I don't know? I write whatever I hear in my head. Whatever voice or tone it may be, I try to copy it word for word and hope it sounds okay to my readers.

You write more Dark themes than any other genre. Why is that genre so special?
- While I write fluff from time to time as well, that is not my default concern. I like over-analyzing things and pondering life's mysteries and questions and to be able to do that in a story while also figuring out the character's motives, makes writing so much more exciting.

Who do you like to write more, Jaejoong or Changmin? Why?
- Oh wow ... Um ... they're both so different. Like I've stated before, I use Jaejoong in my stories because I tend to see him as a more vulnerable person, so I like to write stories where the other characters take care of him or I write a story surrounding his vulnerability. As for Changmin, I see him as a person that I can personally relate to, same as Yoochun, but that's different. I tend to write Changmin as more of a sane person in the group, the one that always has his head on straight and isn't affected by outside interference ... sometimes. But to be honest, I like writing Jaejoong more because I like exploring people's vulnerabilities rather than sounding smart all the time.

Smut is something that a lot of people struggle with writing. Does it come easily to you or is it something that takes a while to write?
- It doesn't come easily to me I'm afraid. I love reading smut as many other readers do and I feel frustrated that I can't write such scenes in my stories. I tend to write everything that I see and hear when I play out my story in my head. So, while I can visually see the characters having sex, however when I type it into words, I freeze. My whole body stops and I start feeling uncomfortable. I don't know why my body does that, but it always happens and if I need to write the smut scene because it's important to the plot, then I would have to literally push myself to do it. This ends up with me writing a few sentences each day until the whole scene is done. For the smut scene shown in, The Color Of Confusion, Ch. 11, it took me about three to four days just to write it. While it may look simple to write, it was torture for me.

What trope is your favorite to read?
- Alpha/Beta/Omega, Regret trope, Mpreg ... That's all I can think of at the moment.

You stated that you wanted to finish your Chaptered WIPs before starting any new story. What led you to that decision?
- I didn't want my DBSK fanfics to end up like my Anime fanfics back at Fanfiction.Net. I've learned just how hard it was to get back into writing for a Chaptered fic after you've abandoned it for a new story idea and I love the DBSK fandom way too much to have my old stories die off like that without a proper ending. So, I decided at the beginning of the year to not give into temptation and continue with my WIPs first and hopefully whenever I'm finished with all three of them, that the new ideas that I've saved up, will still be as fresh and interesting as I first came upon them.

After your three WIPs, what will be your next writing project(s)?
- Finishing one of my emotion-heavy oneshots, Angel Wings and a new chaptered fic, Just To See You Smile Once More that I've been dying to start for the past three years. I hope I still remember what it's supposed to be about.