prillalar | The brand called Hal.

The brand called Hal.

(This is more than usually self-absorbed. I'm sorry.)

Since I began working with marketers, I've come to find branding very interesting. Here in fandom, we writers and vidders and artists each have our own brand. We don't usually have a logo, but we have our pennames. When people read that name, they react to it. Seeing that name attached to a creative work will cause people to make assumptions about that work. And reactions to that work will become part of the overall brand.

As well, many other factors will influence your brand -- your friends, your fans, what kind of work you admire, among other things. Your own fannish activities have an impact as well.

I've been thinking about redesigning my site and LJ and I thought I'd like to have a wordmark for myself. And a tagline. Which made me wonder about my own brand.

So, I'd like to do a little market research here. I'm curious. What kind of work is my name -- Halrloprillalar or Hal or prillalar -- associated with? What kind of assumptions do you make about a piece of writing, fiction or non, if you see my name on it?

Nota bene: This is emphatically NOT an attempt to fish for compliments. I'm not trying to get judgements on the quality of my work, but rather about its other characteristics.

For example, if you were given the name of an actor, that might make you think of a certain genre of film he or she is often in or a type of character.

What is Halrloprillalar-brand writing?

(I know you're supposed to have sandwiches at focus groups, but I ran out of tuna. Have some of the candy I swiped from kormantic instead.)

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Okay, I'll play. My brain has been reduced to pudding thanks to two hours of string theory. But.

I'm going to say, for me, Halrloprillalar is quirky, sophisticated, competent, esoteric.

Did I mention that our universe may actually have six to twenty more dimensions than we originally thought? I'm never going to be able to sleep tonight.

This is why I dig people who have this one icon and stick with that icon forever. It's branding, and it means people will remember you forever. I like fansites which have a certain colour scheme, and keep the scheme, even if they change the layout. I hate it when I go back to the fansite and it looks completely different and I don't know whether I'm in the right place or not.

You're quirky. You don't pile on the angst or the melodrama. Quirky and minimalistic. You're also to the point.

Hal is clever, wry, funny, crisp. No navel gazing for Hal. Short, sharp, shocked, also frequently sexy. You know, like...like a salad. Like a chinese chicken salad. Fresh, complicated, unpretentious, intelligent. With ginger dressing.

Right?

Also, while I have you both here in Hal's drawing room,

prillalar,

runpunkrun, I've run into a rather peculiar snag with Harry and Draco and wonder if either of you could be troubled to assist me?

Mostly he was supposed to have sex but now it looks like he might be, um, expelled on a drug charge? Trust me, it was as much of a surprise to me as anyone.

And by the way, Hal, this is a perfectly fair question you're asking here. I've often wondered what I look like to the View.

See below. Replacing "badusernameinLJtag" with "Runpunkrun" as you see fit?

Hmmm.

When I think of you I think hobbits, hobbitses, their curly hair and their hijinks and... okay, not really. I mean, yes, I associate you with quality LOTR stuff, and dreamy slices od HP, but really I think of you as the patron saint of the odd man out. Is he nebbishy, generally despised, priggish, fishy, overlooked, beady-eyed, possibly 74% sweet, black eeeeevil?

Then he is *so* Hal's sekrit crush.

Your sick, sad love of Spender! Wedge. Your endless adoration of Pendrell! You've got a little thing for that Draco fellow, too, I see. And I didn't even know who Wood *was* until you started slashing him with Slytherins.

But more than that, there's is a very distinct brand of humor, and a light touch that makes a comedy from Hal the very best kind.

Not that you can't crush our heart's under your piratey bootheel when you've a mind to. I still flinch about Blue Screen. Hal, baby, you make it hurt so good! And so plausibly!

So there. To recap, in ranking order: 1) underused and/or generally disliked characters 2) humor 3) XF ("his bowl of scotch and cornflakes in the morning") 4) HP 5) LOTR 6) SW and please write more SG1, man.

I just think about the Niven character. From what I remember, she was sexy and bald. It seems an odd choice, since Niven's view of women isn't exactly enlightened, but I'm pretty sure my gut-level feelings about sexuality are pretty heavily influenced by the fact that I decided to read all of Niven's work in 4th grade, so I'm more amused than otherwise.

Hmm. Not applicable to everything I've read of yours, but in general I think of your fics as being fairly short, not heavy on plot, smut, or simile and metaphor, often humorous, and (especially) as having hard-hitting endings with a twist.

I don't think any of these are bad things, in case something comes off sounding funny. I'm not running on too much sleep. :/

I always assume that you will operate from a complete different point of view than 90% of the folks in any fandom you frequent. Your stories are often twisty, quirky, surprising, sometimes darkly humorous, and generally unique.

And also? Two things I forgot. One, that my impression of your work will always be delightfully tainted by that damned X-Files cannibalism story that both horrified me and made me laugh out loud...I've managed to wipe the title from my mind after lo, these many years...and two, that your stories are almost always short.

Hm. Short, spare, funny, and numerous is how I think of your fiction. I admit I haven't read close to all of it, mostly because your fandoms are so wide-ranging they often leave my narrow circle of experience and, occasionally, interest (TPM will never be beloved of me, whether on screen or page *g*). I also think I've read a disproportionate amount of your humor stories.

Hal herself? (Since I'm assuming you separate your online personality and offline personality in the same way that I do for myself, though this assumption may be unwarranted...) Still with the spare and the funny, as your LJ suggests, but also: less verbiage, less bullshit than other people, an admirable detachment from the insanity of fandom/being a fan while still displaying a thorough knowledge of and love for your fandoms. In short, someone whose opinion I respect and who I trust not to go apeshit over the stupid little things other fans go apeshit over on a regular basis.

And this is honesty, not flattery. :)

.m

I should add

a) Because I can't remember if I told you or not, I loved your Hermione/twins story. Now one of my favorite HP stories.

b) I admire your ability to keep a consistent image. I think we've been in the periphery of each other's fannish spheres for several years now, and while I think I've kind of swung from CrazyTeenieFan! to WithdrawnWriter to OverlyPersonalBlogger to WithdrawnBlogger to CrazyYoungAdultFan! over the years, my concept of you has remained pretty damn stable, even once I started encountering you on LJ, which is more personal than a mailing list. I only wish I were able to brand myself so well (or at least with such a *good* brand -- the only thing I can lay claim to is, perhaps "that one chick who is excessively verbose" *g*).

.m

What is Halrloprillalar-brand writing?

This keeps making me think of those competitions where you have to complete the sentence on why you think Bloggs Septic Tanks are so wonderful in order to win one.

SO, in 10 words or less, Hal's writing is distilled essence of fun (funny ha-ha and funny peculiar)

clean rich lines, like a black velvet dress with silver accents, plunging neckline, spare but gorgeous, and depending on the light, depending on the angle, will catch you with its quirkyness.

So, I'd like to do a little market research here. I'm curious. What kind of work is my name -- Halrloprillalar or Hal or prillalar -- associated with? What kind of assumptions do you make about a piece of writing, fiction or non, if you see my name on it?

I think things like "short, insightful, character-oriented, offbeat"; if I had to pick just one word, I might think something like "quirky." (Because I like quirky.)

It was called "Grokking in Fullness." I *haven't* been able to forget the title. *g*

Ah, stop protesting, you know you're getting compliments.

You're one of the authors that I think of as "edgy," in a way that is mind-blowing if it is also polished, which yours is. I don't come to you for fluff or plot so much as I come to you to get my boundaries of storytelling challenged, turned sideways, bitch-slapped a bit in a way that says, "My god, teach ME to do that."

Multi-fandom stories, displaying a remarkable flair for character voice, tone, and style, archived on a clean, well-designed, easy-to-use site.

*Ï

quirky. diverse. able to tackle both humor and serious stuff in a variety of fandoms.

seemag and

rosenho have both discussed the 'marketing' aspects of fandom in some depth (though possibly not recently), how it can be seen by some as distasteful to admit that you do any marketing etc., how we are all branding, how we break into a new fandom and hope that people's brand loyalty will lead them to read the new fic etc.

Hmm... I may have to ask this question myself...

Hmmm. For me, it's the sort of sharp, sly humor that usually manages to slip in moments of sweetness/insight/genuine emotion. Instead of sweetness with a hidden sting, you're sting with a hidden sweetness.

Odd. Dark comedy.

Hot femmeslash or offbeat and very funny humour. Sometimes a bit of both. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" would be my choice for your leading product.

Quirky is a very good word, for a one-word summary, as a lot of people have already pointed out. You frequently come at things at a forty-five degree angle from the rest of fandom, which is very refreshing a lot of the time. :)

Short, funny, off-beat. Except when it isn't funny. Spontaneous Human Combustion was hot, hot, hot, angsty and hot; In His Anger and His Shame is one of my favorites.

Very simple, blunt sentences. In simple 'twist' stories, the simplicity both makes the twist more surprising and makes the squicky squickier, the funny funnier, and the heart-breaking harder by contrast. In more complex stories, these sentences, while seeming staccatto and self-contained, together create an impression (about character or relationship or . . . ) without it ever having been explicated.

Quirky, witty, and...hmm. Some word that's not 'rich' and not 'spare,' but somewhere in between the two. Lucid prose, maybe?

This is difficult, because I think you have branded yourself so successfully already that for me Hal is a feeling and not a set of labels. That sounds a little weird but I can't think how else to explain it just now.

But I'll give this a try: the right words, and not one more. Sympathy and affection for the characters even when you torture them. Short, funny, (haha and/or peculiar as someone else said), clever. Clearly presented and well-distributed. Surprises that also make sense.

I think of you as the patron saint of the odd man out

Oh, that's *so* cool. Thank you.

Hee! Also she was a prostitute. Which I'm not, incidently.

When I was starting out in XF fandom, I wanted a pseud that was unusual and had a sci-fi flavour, but wasn't XF-specific. So I turned to Niven since he's a master at creating unusual names.

If I had to do it all over again, I might pick something easier to spell. But maybe not. I love my pseud.

a. Aw, thanks! I'm fond of it too.

b. I think your own image is less inconsistant that you think it is -- sometimes it's hard to get perspective on things like that. But I'm glad to hear you've found me pretty stable. :)

Yay to my metaphorical plunging neckline! I flash my literary cleavage in gratitude.

::admires your literary cleavage:: how's them apples?? ::grin::

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The brand called Hal.

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Hal: now with 32% more Prillalar!

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Re: Hal: now with 32% more Prillalar!

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