The Shakespeare Writing Tag

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t much like Shakespeare. I’m not really sure what it is, but none of his stories have completely grabbed my attention and held me. Maybe it’s just the old English.

But anyway, I really liked the questions for the Shakespeare tag. I have no idea who actually invented this tag, but Celeste did it on her blog a few days ago and switched it from a book tag to a writing tag. Which is what I’m doing today!

1. Much Ado About Nothing: Your favourite bickering couple whom everyone knows really care about each other (can be romantic relationships or friendship)

Probably Chessy and Justice. They bicker about everything, all the time. 😛

2. Measure for Measure: A WIP whose plot or genre is really hard to explain to other people

I have a really hard time explaining both the plot and genre of Wattle Fires. It’s a fantasy, because it takes place in a made up world, but it hasn’t got magic, a fantasy staple. It relies very heavily on cultural and historical facts, but its not historical fiction. And what’s the plot? Is it a classic fantasy quest? Not really. A political thriller? No. Murder mystery? Literary fiction? Who knows.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A WIP featuring fairies or elves

None of my current, serious WIPs have fairies or elves in them, but I do have two ideas, which feature elves quite prominently. One is a classic high fantasy idea where elves are classed in orders of Day Elves (similar to Tolkien’s elves in appearance, but more like Shakespeare’s elves in personality), the Night Elves (tall, pale, gem-loving, underground living scholars) and Twilight Elves (fading elves, all but forgotten).

The other WIP is a proper Australian fantasy, with quests and magic and stuff. The elves are jungle/rainforest elves who live in the tangled forests based off Cape York and Tasmania.

4. Hamlet: A female character you wish you could have featured more

Probably Rain in TSFI. She’s really cool and I just wish she’d had more time to shine.

5. The Sonnets: Have you written poetry for a WIP? Or a favourite poem you’ve written?

I don’t think I’ve written poetry for a WIP before, but I do have a favourite poem that I’ve written. I based it on Dorethea Mackellar’s poem “A Sunburnt Country”, but I won’t share it here because it mentions my hometown and all that.

6. Richard III: A Protagonist willing to do anything to get what they want

A lot of my protagonists are willing to do almost anything. But maybe I would say Justice. He’d go a step further than any of the others.

7. Antony and Cleopatra: A historical event you’d like to write about

Just one? Top 3 instead:

One–Colonial/Convict period of Australian settlement

Two–Pre-colonial Australian (so much awesome)

Three–Exploration of Antarctia

8. Titus Andronicus: A WIP you don’t talk about too often but have a soft spot for

Otter Storm, my first completed novel. Its the only early work of mine that I actually feel real affection for. Its definitely cliché and naïve, but I put a lot of effort into it, so I’m proud of that.

9. King Lear: A complex female villain or antihero

I love female villains/antagonists/antiheroes, because I feel they’re so underused in fiction. Because of this, in both of my retellings I have female villains. In TSFI, the Javert character is genderbent into a woman,  Maria Caderousse. And in, If the Stars are Fire, the Madame Defarge character stays female, and another prominent male character is made female as well.

Out of all my female villains though, Myrina Caelan (a character that none of my ITSAF alpha readers have actually met), might be my favourite.

10. The Taming of the Shrew: Choose two polarising WIPs, one you loved writing, and one you didn’t.

Actually, I’m going to choose one WIP for this. I wrote the first part of Wattle Fires during NaNoWriMo last year, at a time in my life where everything was falling apart. To add to that, I really couldn’t get a grasp on what the story was about or who the characters were, and I kept running into problematic colonialism elements with my German based culture.

After I got my 50k and finished NaNoWriMo (technically at 00:15 1 December), I took a break and left it for about four months.

Then, when I came back to it, I was really inspired. I changed the German culture to be Polynesian inspired, and I improved the plot and characters and voila! I had an absolute blast. So it was a very polarising experience.

What about you guys? Do you enjoy Shakespeare? What would be your answers to these questions? Have you ever had a WIP you changed your mind dramatically on?