Dear House FicWriters and House Staff A REUBEN DOES NOT COME WITH PICKLES ON IT!! I feel better now

It's a hospital cafeteria, TrooperCam. Heh. They do some bizarre stuff, I'm sure. On the topic of various fanfic cliches, I'd like to note that I am way more forgiving of them in writers who're new to the fandom. I tend to assume that they're not any more aware of these things than I was upon my arrival. They may well be oblivious to the fact that they're the 2,457th person to have Wilson make macadamia nut pancakes.

Excellent point, Hibernia! And in one ep Wilson ate cereal with milk, while standing on his balcony, and a little bit of the milk dripped and he caught it with his wrist. Mmmmmm. There should be more Wilson eating cereal in fic.

Namaste, that's hilarious. You should totally write that. Perhaps as part of a wonderful short piece of cliche!spoof!crack. C'mon. You know you want to.

It's nagging at me, I'll admit blackmare, though I've got one item in beta process, another I'm finishing for the anonymous writing challenge -- and I leave in a week for Eastern Europe and will be gone for nearly three weeks. (Never mind the fact that I seem to have written myself into a mini-series on Michigan's losing football team and House and Wilson's standing bet). *Sigh.* We'll see.

Regarding what the characters are eating, I think the food has to fit the situation. If someone unexpectedly spends the night, you're probably not going to be serving lobster omelets with sourdough toast and a side of woodsmoked bacon the next morning. You might have some eggs and bread on hand, though. (That was a far more realistic fic I read recently. I wish I could recall title/author. If anyone knows, do tell. I like to give credit where due.) I think inexperienced writers might go for something they saw on the show because they think it's a short-cut to being in character. The exception would be if there is a precedent set on the show: House drinks coffee. A lot. Every day, evidently. (Go, red mug!) And doesn't like tea. It's not out of the question that he'd be drinking coffee in a fic... and if you've got him sitting down to a cup of tea, there had better be a good reason. I put a post up in my LJ, asking my flist to respond back to me with what specific props and wardrobe they'd have around them daily if they were on a TV show. I used House as an example, since many of them watch. I also asked them what they thought mine should be. As a writer (and particularly a fanfic writer), I found their answers amusing. It told me a lot about what people find important, or pay attention to, when it comes to the little, everyday things that make up identity.

The funny thing about Reubens is that I have never seen one served the way House eats his - apparently cold, and wrapped in paper. I have only seen them served on a plate with melted cheese and sauerkraut and, being rather messy, it's eaten with a knife and fork. Unless he's talking about a fake Reuben made with cole slaw, but that's a very loose interpration of the sandwich and not a true Reuben IMO. Then again, as mentioned upthread, we are talking about a hospital cafeteria and maybe their Reuben does not contain any cabbage, which seems like sacrilege to me. I always figured the 'reuben sandwich, dry, no fries, hold the pickles' was in reference to pickles on the side, not on the sandwich itself. But if it's a dry Reuben, no sauerkraut nor cole slaw, then it's simply a corned beef sandwich. I have already spent far too much time analyzing this! I ought to break for lunch (Tofurkey and cheese on wheat, dry, no chance of fries :( )

You are making me hungry Miss V

Speaking of food, there's an LJ challenge comm called 25_foods. I'm about halfway through my prompt table, and the pancake batter and pepper(s) prompts are scaring me. :wink: I had to pick that table, though, because the idea of trying to fit grits into a Housefic was too tempting to pass up.

Here's a question: how's your perception of how well what you write is going to go over? For instance, I never expected "Player Piano" to interest many people, but it got a lot of comments, while the "House and Cuddy get married" fic got very few. Anything ever gone over like a lead balloon? Gotten more attention than your wildest hopes? How well does your perception of a story correspond to its popularity? Edit: I realize this sounds kind of braggy, but it's an honest question. :roll:

It doesn't sound braggy to me. I never have any idea of how well things will go over. Ever. I wrote this nifty little thing after Top Secret, for example. A rather lightweight scene, really, wherein Wilson finally explains to House why it was that he knew so much about the Village People. I loved it, and thought I'd get a lot of response to it, but I didn't. At the Pit, where I had expected it'd go over great, I think it only got something like five brief remarks. Oh well. Meanwhile, one of my little chapters of Aftershocks got a response I was completely not expecting. Totally took me by surprise how many people reacted so strongly to it. I had no clue! So no, you're not alone. I have gathered this happens to most of us.