Dear NFE Writer!
Jul. 11th, 2026 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingNote: I am repurposing my stock Yuletide letter here, which is why some of the sections may seem slightly off-topic for a single fandom exchange.
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write context-free porn, I'll be thrilled just to get a response to one of my prompts. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read anything when it comes to pairings -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever, so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. So while you can do whatever you like with background pairings, they are not what I am most interested in.
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more, so any world-building you can sneak in around the edges of a story will be received with great joy. I am also totally open to OCs and/or the development of canon characters who might as well be OCs, as you may note from the structure of several prompts.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that there's more to life than sex. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; good spelling and grammar; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If you want to know more about my general approach to Narnia, all my fanfic is available on this masterlist. Some of my meta posts are also listed there, down at the bottom of the page.
The three most important things to note are as follows:
A) The books are my canon, not any of their various adaptations to film.
B) My personal stance on the Pevensies after their initial return from Narnia is that they really did become children again, in mind as well as in body. So they are children who remember being adults, but those memories are filtered through children's brains and general perspective on the world. The only prompt for which this might be relevant is the Arthuriana fusion AU, but I figure that since this seems to be a minority viewpoint in the fandom and I'm asking for a tailored gift, I might as well mention it. :)
C) I am not Christian. However, Lewis's use of Christian mythology is central to the series, which I find creates an interesting tension for many writers that doesn't occur in stories built on mythologies that aren't in widespread current use. So while I prefer stories that stick to the general canon assertions that Aslan is a god and a Christ-analogue, that he created the Narnian world, and that he is good (but not safe), I would also prefer stories that acknowledge the existence of other gods in the Narnian world, in the world of England, in Charn, and any other worlds that become relevant. I would like a recognition that good does not always equal right, ethics are complicated and often situational, and there isn't always one right answer. And I do not want to be preached at.
Thank you for your consideration!
Okay. On to specific prompts.
---------------
Arthuriana & Morgan Le Fay:
Prompt: A Thought: if Mrs. Lefay is drawing on legends of Morgan Le Fay, why not have her actually BE Morgan/Morgana/Morgaine Le Fay and shift the England side of the chronicles back to the days of King Arthur? Dealer's choice what time period that actually was, not to mention how historically accurate you want to go with it, but wouldn't that be a grand adventure?
Also I kind of want to echo the medieval romance vibes Narnia exudes in HHB and SC. If we have to cope with the "battles are ugly when women fight" line, fine, let's show noble ladies managing castles and vast estates and politicking while their menfolk are out dying in stupid fights -- and, of course, picking up stray bits of sorcery from Morgan Le Fay. :)
Thoughts: I think the prompt is fairly self-explanatory? TBH if you just want to pick a random episode from Le Morte d'Arthur or any other strand of Arthuriana and retell it with a Narnian twist, that would be fine, as would retelling any episode from the Chronicles with an Arthurian twist. Or you can make up your own plot -- go nuts! My one stipulation is that Morgan Le Fay/Mrs. Lefay should feature at some point.
---------------
Journey to an Alternate Charn:
Prompt: Suppose Digory and Polly stumble into a version of Charn where Jadis's sister won. What's that like?
Did the sister die a thousand years ago? Did she somehow absorb the Deplorable Word and wind up using it herself? Did Charn destroy itself a different way? Do the kids get arrested on suspicion of being spies or escaped slaves or something? There are so many directions this could go and I would like to see someone explore one of them!
Thoughts: Again, I feel that this is fairly self-explanatory? Your AU departure point is that Jadis's sister won their confrontation -- how she did that, what happened after, and how long it's been between that victory and Digory and Polly's arrival are up to you. If you want to use Cynara, my version of Jadis's sister, that's cool, but is of course not a requirement.
I do ask that you not make the sister a paragon of virtue or secretly a convert to Christianity who was trying to "save" Charn. (Yes, I have seen those plots. They are not my delicious cup of tea.) She is still the product of the same culture that produced Jadis, and even if she didn't want to outright destroy the universe, she was still willing to fight a world war to be the sole ruler of an entire planet. (Or DID Charn encompass the entire planet? If you want to undercut Jadis's triumphalist narrative, please feel free.)
---------------
Telmarine Aeneid:
Prompt: Hear me out: What if you told Caspian I's journey from Telmar to Narnia, and subsequent conquest of Narnia, as if it were the Aeneid? Aslan is Jupiter/Fate, because Guy In Charge who we're told is good but who acts pretty damn ambiguous is totally Aslan's bag. Maybe the Lady of the Green Kirtle is Juno (wants to keep Narnia as her own playground? received a prophecy that a Telmarine Narnian would be her doom?). Is Dido a Talking Beast the Telmarines encounter in the Western Wild en route to Narnia and the sea? Who is the equivalent of Lavinia? Is the trip to the underworld a sidequest to Bism or an actual visit to Aslan's Country? Does the war start because a Telmarine kills an actual Talking Deer?
The possibilities are FASCINATING, and I want you to explore them because I do not have the time or spoons to do this justice myself!
Thoughts: Listen, sometimes you just get An Idea that will not leave you alone until you release it into the world. Hopefully I have now infected you and one day this will be born in all its unhinged glory. :D
Also I know some of you people are into Greek mythology -- have you considered moving a bit west and a few centuries later? *makes puppydog eyes at you*
---------------
Sedoretu AU:
Prompt: I got a wonderful response for this prompt several years ago, but two cakes are better than one, so. Let's do a sedoretu AU! Again. :)
A sedoretu, for those who aren't familiar with the term, is a very specific kind of polyamorous relationship created by Ursula Le Guin in some of her science fiction. I want to see that applied to Narnia. Is it a custom only in Narnia? Sure, why not. A custom only among certain subsets of Narnians? Sure, why not. A custom spread through the entire Narnian world? Sure, why not. (But please not only in Calormen; that has unfortunate implications.) A custom from Earth that somehow got lost in the Narnian world? Sure, why not.
The main point is to explore interpersonal relationships and social structures through the lens of this specific and somewhat complicated pattern. Pick any characters you want to focus on, though I have listed some potential starter ideas below. :)
Thoughts: Actually, you know what? Rather than copypaste the whole thing, I'm just going to direct you to this post and its comment threads. That should give you an idea of some of the flavors I'm looking for in this prompt. :D
But please don't feel constrained by the options in that post! If you have another idea, go for it! In this case, I am all in favor of weird random side-corners, minor characters, and OCs. I am also totally cool with stories set in other worlds such as Earth or Charn or even somewhere else people might have gone via the Rings whether during a canon interstice (oh hey, what if Letty had an adventure that involved a world where sedoretu were the norm?) or post-canon with Susan (and/or some AU survivors of TLB) going on an inter-dimensional adventure.
---------------
A Mystery!:
Prompt: I would like to read a classic mystery/detective story set in Narnia, please and thank you! This can be a very gentle and low-stakes mystery (who stole the jam from the pantry or some-such) or a proper murder mystery with collateral damage. If you want to veer toward noir or spy thriller, that is also acceptable, so long as the case DOES get resolved in the end.
A homegrown Narnian detective, whether canon character or OC, would be delightful but I would also welcome any of the following crossover detectives: Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Matthew Shardlake, and Sherlock Holmes. (Preferably book canon in all cases, and absolutely DO NOT use the BBC Sherlock version of Holmes.) Or hey, for an extra weird challenge, perhaps Murderbot! It has canonically solved a few mysteries, after all. :)
Thoughts: So a couple years back I asked for a Brother Cadfael (book version) crossover with Narnia. I did not remember to nominate any tags this year, but it occurred to me that there are other detectives who would also have fascinating reactions to Narnia, and that Narnia could well produce some proper detectives of its own. And I really think we could use more plot-centric stories, so why not a genre that is entirely built of plot??? :)
---------------------------------------------
And that is that.
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write context-free porn, I'll be thrilled just to get a response to one of my prompts. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read anything when it comes to pairings -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever, so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. So while you can do whatever you like with background pairings, they are not what I am most interested in.
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more, so any world-building you can sneak in around the edges of a story will be received with great joy. I am also totally open to OCs and/or the development of canon characters who might as well be OCs, as you may note from the structure of several prompts.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that there's more to life than sex. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; good spelling and grammar; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If you want to know more about my general approach to Narnia, all my fanfic is available on this masterlist. Some of my meta posts are also listed there, down at the bottom of the page.
The three most important things to note are as follows:
A) The books are my canon, not any of their various adaptations to film.
B) My personal stance on the Pevensies after their initial return from Narnia is that they really did become children again, in mind as well as in body. So they are children who remember being adults, but those memories are filtered through children's brains and general perspective on the world. The only prompt for which this might be relevant is the Arthuriana fusion AU, but I figure that since this seems to be a minority viewpoint in the fandom and I'm asking for a tailored gift, I might as well mention it. :)
C) I am not Christian. However, Lewis's use of Christian mythology is central to the series, which I find creates an interesting tension for many writers that doesn't occur in stories built on mythologies that aren't in widespread current use. So while I prefer stories that stick to the general canon assertions that Aslan is a god and a Christ-analogue, that he created the Narnian world, and that he is good (but not safe), I would also prefer stories that acknowledge the existence of other gods in the Narnian world, in the world of England, in Charn, and any other worlds that become relevant. I would like a recognition that good does not always equal right, ethics are complicated and often situational, and there isn't always one right answer. And I do not want to be preached at.
Thank you for your consideration!
Okay. On to specific prompts.
---------------
Arthuriana & Morgan Le Fay:
Prompt: A Thought: if Mrs. Lefay is drawing on legends of Morgan Le Fay, why not have her actually BE Morgan/Morgana/Morgaine Le Fay and shift the England side of the chronicles back to the days of King Arthur? Dealer's choice what time period that actually was, not to mention how historically accurate you want to go with it, but wouldn't that be a grand adventure?
Also I kind of want to echo the medieval romance vibes Narnia exudes in HHB and SC. If we have to cope with the "battles are ugly when women fight" line, fine, let's show noble ladies managing castles and vast estates and politicking while their menfolk are out dying in stupid fights -- and, of course, picking up stray bits of sorcery from Morgan Le Fay. :)
Thoughts: I think the prompt is fairly self-explanatory? TBH if you just want to pick a random episode from Le Morte d'Arthur or any other strand of Arthuriana and retell it with a Narnian twist, that would be fine, as would retelling any episode from the Chronicles with an Arthurian twist. Or you can make up your own plot -- go nuts! My one stipulation is that Morgan Le Fay/Mrs. Lefay should feature at some point.
---------------
Journey to an Alternate Charn:
Prompt: Suppose Digory and Polly stumble into a version of Charn where Jadis's sister won. What's that like?
Did the sister die a thousand years ago? Did she somehow absorb the Deplorable Word and wind up using it herself? Did Charn destroy itself a different way? Do the kids get arrested on suspicion of being spies or escaped slaves or something? There are so many directions this could go and I would like to see someone explore one of them!
Thoughts: Again, I feel that this is fairly self-explanatory? Your AU departure point is that Jadis's sister won their confrontation -- how she did that, what happened after, and how long it's been between that victory and Digory and Polly's arrival are up to you. If you want to use Cynara, my version of Jadis's sister, that's cool, but is of course not a requirement.
I do ask that you not make the sister a paragon of virtue or secretly a convert to Christianity who was trying to "save" Charn. (Yes, I have seen those plots. They are not my delicious cup of tea.) She is still the product of the same culture that produced Jadis, and even if she didn't want to outright destroy the universe, she was still willing to fight a world war to be the sole ruler of an entire planet. (Or DID Charn encompass the entire planet? If you want to undercut Jadis's triumphalist narrative, please feel free.)
---------------
Telmarine Aeneid:
Prompt: Hear me out: What if you told Caspian I's journey from Telmar to Narnia, and subsequent conquest of Narnia, as if it were the Aeneid? Aslan is Jupiter/Fate, because Guy In Charge who we're told is good but who acts pretty damn ambiguous is totally Aslan's bag. Maybe the Lady of the Green Kirtle is Juno (wants to keep Narnia as her own playground? received a prophecy that a Telmarine Narnian would be her doom?). Is Dido a Talking Beast the Telmarines encounter in the Western Wild en route to Narnia and the sea? Who is the equivalent of Lavinia? Is the trip to the underworld a sidequest to Bism or an actual visit to Aslan's Country? Does the war start because a Telmarine kills an actual Talking Deer?
The possibilities are FASCINATING, and I want you to explore them because I do not have the time or spoons to do this justice myself!
Thoughts: Listen, sometimes you just get An Idea that will not leave you alone until you release it into the world. Hopefully I have now infected you and one day this will be born in all its unhinged glory. :D
Also I know some of you people are into Greek mythology -- have you considered moving a bit west and a few centuries later? *makes puppydog eyes at you*
---------------
Sedoretu AU:
Prompt: I got a wonderful response for this prompt several years ago, but two cakes are better than one, so. Let's do a sedoretu AU! Again. :)
A sedoretu, for those who aren't familiar with the term, is a very specific kind of polyamorous relationship created by Ursula Le Guin in some of her science fiction. I want to see that applied to Narnia. Is it a custom only in Narnia? Sure, why not. A custom only among certain subsets of Narnians? Sure, why not. A custom spread through the entire Narnian world? Sure, why not. (But please not only in Calormen; that has unfortunate implications.) A custom from Earth that somehow got lost in the Narnian world? Sure, why not.
The main point is to explore interpersonal relationships and social structures through the lens of this specific and somewhat complicated pattern. Pick any characters you want to focus on, though I have listed some potential starter ideas below. :)
Thoughts: Actually, you know what? Rather than copypaste the whole thing, I'm just going to direct you to this post and its comment threads. That should give you an idea of some of the flavors I'm looking for in this prompt. :D
But please don't feel constrained by the options in that post! If you have another idea, go for it! In this case, I am all in favor of weird random side-corners, minor characters, and OCs. I am also totally cool with stories set in other worlds such as Earth or Charn or even somewhere else people might have gone via the Rings whether during a canon interstice (oh hey, what if Letty had an adventure that involved a world where sedoretu were the norm?) or post-canon with Susan (and/or some AU survivors of TLB) going on an inter-dimensional adventure.
---------------
A Mystery!:
Prompt: I would like to read a classic mystery/detective story set in Narnia, please and thank you! This can be a very gentle and low-stakes mystery (who stole the jam from the pantry or some-such) or a proper murder mystery with collateral damage. If you want to veer toward noir or spy thriller, that is also acceptable, so long as the case DOES get resolved in the end.
A homegrown Narnian detective, whether canon character or OC, would be delightful but I would also welcome any of the following crossover detectives: Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Matthew Shardlake, and Sherlock Holmes. (Preferably book canon in all cases, and absolutely DO NOT use the BBC Sherlock version of Holmes.) Or hey, for an extra weird challenge, perhaps Murderbot! It has canonically solved a few mysteries, after all. :)
Thoughts: So a couple years back I asked for a Brother Cadfael (book version) crossover with Narnia. I did not remember to nominate any tags this year, but it occurred to me that there are other detectives who would also have fascinating reactions to Narnia, and that Narnia could well produce some proper detectives of its own. And I really think we could use more plot-centric stories, so why not a genre that is entirely built of plot??? :)
---------------------------------------------
And that is that.
