*puts on beret and stares thoughtfully into the distance*
I have this theory that for every fanfic someone wants to write, there is someone out there who desperately wants it (even if they don’t know they do until they read it). Success, for me, is if I make that person happy.
Now, that’s fairly straightforward in a fic exchange or if you fill a prompt on a kink meme because then the person had helpfully stuck their hand up and said ‘me! I want that story! here’s what you have to do to delight me!’. It gets trickier if you’re writing something that blossomed in your own mind. Sometimes you can think ‘hey, this kink + that pairing is right up X’s street, I hope they like it’, but if you’re writing, say, an omegaverse Dexter/Sherlock crossover then that doesn’t work.
My cunning plan is to imagine that person and give them a cool and original name like Y. Then, if someone leaves a nice comment later, I think ‘oh, you must be Y! we meet at last! I’m so glad you like this, I wrote it for you’.
Which is probably very silly and not at all original, but I can report that it makes for a happy and relaxed fic-writing experience.
*takes off beret, goes to eat a baguette*
Yes! Someone out there is going to stumble upon it and think, FINALLY
Persiflager writes for the same reason I do!
I shall have to start naming my hypothetical breathless audience.
I see you there, Letitia. Don’t you worry. It’s coming along.