November Creator of the Month: Lizzybeth1986
Each month CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers, and this month’s writer of the month is @lizzybeth1986 We hope you will enjoy learning more about them and their work below! The writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.
Quick Links:
Tumblr Blog: Blog Masterlist
How do you want to be known on Tumblr?
Lizzy, absolutely 😁
*Center art by @sazanes
More below...
When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played?
I started playing mid 2017, I think. I played the flagship books (TF, TCaTF, MW), and def preferred TF at the time.
When and why did you join Choices fandom?
I joined the Tumblr fandom in 2017, around the time of the TRR finale. Mostly because the Liam hate at the time was intense and I wanted to write metas about why Liam was, in fact, not “a dick who betrayed the MC” 😂
I did have a Tumblr account before that (made it in 2015 to follow Bollywood film posts), but never actually used it.
How did you pick your blog name?
I was lazy af so it was my middle name plus my birth year haha
Pull up the first post in your archive, and tell us about it!
I started out with a couple reblogs, but my first actual post was about the romance points mechanism in TRR1. There was a point in the middle of the book where one nice word to Drake would give you an automatic romance point, and I was like, “Huh??? Either treat him like shit or risk him catching feels for me? Is that how it is???”. Thankfully, that stopped after two chapters. After that, I did an essay series analyzing Liam’s actions in the finale called “The Crown, The King and The Flame.” Romance Points Post The Crown and the Flame
How long have you been writing fanfiction?
Almost 6 years now! I started doing Liam fics around the beginning of TRR2.
What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to write about?
I’m the most invested in TRR and PM, but between the two I’d probably say PM is my fave book overall. But yeah, my favourite book to write about would be TRR, because Liam, Hana and Kiara are such fantastic characters to write about! (Hayden and Sloane, too, but I’m still in the process of getting comfortable writing them).
Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were writing it today?
It was Keychains, my two part fic series featuring my MC and Liam. It was set around the time the MC was waiting in the airport in TRR2, just before Maxwell and Bertrand intervene. It had a follow up with Liam’s PoV too.
I really like it. It included some really good hc’s I made at the time, like Esther buying an apple keychain to represent Cordonia at the same time, and Liam calling her his wife in Greek and Esther not realizing what the phrase meant. I thought the pathos and slight humour was quite well-done. I can’t think of much I would want to change in the story.
Keychains 1 Keychains 2
What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?
As a series – Eleanor’s Kitchen! It’s ongoing, and it’s a joy to write. I love exploring food from a cultural lens, and since Cordonia was a fictional country, I could explore a variety of ethnicities and food cultures. Liam had a literal diamond scene that explored gastrodiplomacy, and I wanted to explore his childhood and Eleanor’s friendships too.
Individually – I would say my Kiara fic “An Ear to the Ground”. Kiara is a delightful character and exploring the social season through her eyes was a real journey! I also love “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” which explores the early days of the Sloane & Hayden friendship. I used asterisms and constellations to symbolize moments in their friendship.
Eleanor's Kitchen An Ear to the Ground The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be but found could use a little more love?
Cordonian Waltz was definitely a surprise in terms of reception!! It was written in the style of headcanons I was seeing at the time, and I wrote it in second person. It became my most widely-read fanfic very fast, and every once in a while it would experience a major surge in readership. I enjoyed writing it and thought it was a lovely, romantic piece, but I really wasn’t expecting it to finally have 250+ reblogs out of it, and people coming and telling me this was the fic that got them into Liam x MC in the first place. I find that deeply gratifying 😍
There’s a lot of fics that I feel need more engagement and appreciation, but I can understand that those characters also don’t exactly get much of an audience. My entire PM set comes under this category; they typically get low readership. I think my Hana and Kiara fics too could do with more of an audience.
@twinkleallnight once told me that when she reads my stuff, she usually takes a long time just to ruminate on the story, and I like to believe that often, that’s why the engagement isn’t always immediate. Which I like too!! I like that some of my stuff can make people stop and think, and I like to believe that over time, the work will have its own impact.
Cordonian Waltz PM Set
If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
Probably fluff but with a lot of observation and sometimes somber reflections. I’m not that great with angst…and I’ve never actually tried smut? But maybe one day 😄
Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?
Yes! Some of my MCs are v different from me but I always incorporate something from my life experiences in them. Like Esther taking photos of the sunset or Basil not being science oriented but still having an interest in space.
Character wise I find I put a lot of myself into a lot of the characters I write. Notably, Liam, Hana, Kiara, certain Haydens and Sloane. Liam’s love for learning, different aspects of Hana and Kiara’s experiences as queer women, Sloane’s experiences as a neurodivergent woman, and especially my Scholar!Hayden’s (Iris) observations. I tend to incorporate a lot of my feelings and experiences more into certain canonical characters than in MCs.
What element of writing do you struggle with most?
Dialogue, I think. Especially when it’s a character I don’t relate to that much. But also sometimes when it’s a character I love but am only starting to write because then I really overthink it!
Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?
Hmm…probably neglected wouldn’t be the word I’d use…I just take a very long time to kickstart them 😂
But yeah, definitely my Petals and Thornes series? That’s the fic series I’m doing for Hana x Kiara, that is supposed to explore TRR2 and 3 from their PoV (with significant changes). So far I’ve only been able to do some one-shots and hcs in that universe, but I do want to start the actual series soon!
I have some essay series’ I’d love to work on too! My Hana essay series which has two essays left, The Hayden Young Project, and a possible series on the alternative Lis of TRR!
Petals and Thornes Hana Lee: A Study in Erasure
If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?
Hmm. A few people have asked me, actually, and while I’m not fully opposed to showing them I’ll probably take some time before I do show my work. I’ll probably overthink how much will be understandable to a reader who doesn’t have the context of the source, and what they may not understand.
What to show them first? I’m not sure! Maybe the smaller ones first, like Cordonian Waltz. Or my RCD fic Snowstorms, because it doesn’t have more than 2-3 canon characters featuring and I do talk a little about being a closeted queer teen figuring out their sexuality through cinema, which is an overall relatable experience to some! Snowstorms
Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing?
In my early years I used to emulate Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s style. Much of her work that I read as a teen was pretty flowery, sometimes bordering on purple prose, and I really loved that style and tried to go that way. But now I think a variety of writers from different genres inform my writing. In terms of published authors, Jhumpa Lahiri, Helen Hoang, and non-fiction ones like Rukmini Pande, Ruby Hammad and Mikki Kendall.
In Choices fic, @callmetippytumbles for sure – a lot of the questions she was tackling with her MC in her Home series served as inspiration for some of the ideas I’ve been having in mind for Petals and Thornes. @thefirstcourtesan is a great writing buddy to have, too, and she has a knack for saying a lot in very few words! There’s also my amazing group of friends (shoutout to @cassiopeiacorvus, @thecapturedafrique, @mand-delemonde, and @beyonceswigs, as well as @twinkleallnight , @dcbbw @mariemarieohcontrary , @choicesfrog, @grapecaseschoices and @ohsnapitzlovehacker…the discussions are so good and leave some much to think about afterward 💖💖). All these discussions ALWAYS fuel my ideas and make me think out of the box.
I’ve also recently started writing polyamorous characters and relationships, and @angelasscribbles stories and resources have been such a great help in navigating that!
Home
@angelasscribbles Poly Resources
Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series?
Haha! I’ve not even started the proper series yet but I think Petals and Thornes? But besides that maybe Eleanor’s Kitchen may work as a series idk 😄
Do you write original fiction?
I do try! I’ve done a few short stories but before I started fanfic, I did a lot of spoken word poetry and that was fun.
What other hobbies do you have?
Reading, watching video essays, spending months on hyperfixations 😂 and a little cooking. My kid’s gotten into craft recently and has succeeded in taking me down that rabbit hole too haha.
I used to be into making fruit wines but have gotten inconsistent with that over the years.
What’s your favorite emoji?
Because I have a huuuge thing for nerds – this one: 🤓
BONUS – tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).
A story my mum often tells about how I got into writing, began with some good old-fashioned sibling rivalry. Apparently as a child I was notorious for writing things on the walls of our house. One day my older brother got a hardbound royal-blue covered notebook to write in, with gold lettering on the cover…and I got instantly jealous that I didn’t get one (I was 6 or 7 and already fond of telling stories). When I complained my mum made me a deal – she would get me the same notebook…IF I stopped writing on the walls and began writing in that instead 😂 It worked. My mother is a smart woman.
I love spoilers!! I will read the end of a novel I’m reading and then go back and read the rest. Sometimes I even read books all the way backwards lol.
I love romance, and my favorite tropes include second-chance romance and mutual pining while believing the other person will never love you back! Because, at heart, I’m a dramatic bitch.
