And now a message from Julie. One of your biggest fans!!
I have been reading Jenna’s stories for as long as I’ve been writing my own. She’s been one of my favorite fanfic authors since 2000, and of my own personal list of favorites, she’s the only one left from that era who’s still (on occasion) writing. So when I found out she was the forum’s #9 favorite author, I was thrilled for her and more than happy to pay homage to her impressive body of work. As a tribute to the author who has inspired more than any other in this fandom, I give you… the top ten ways I wanna be like Jenna!
TOP TEN WAYS I WANNA BE LIKE JENNA!
10. Every genre, every Boy – she’s written it all!
Just take a look at Jenna’s full catalogue of stories on her site, Backstreet Stories (
http://www.angelfire.com/boybands/mystories/stories.html), and you will find fanfics about each of the five Backstreet Boys in just about every genre there is! Comedy, drama, suspense, sci-fi/fantasy… Jenna writes it all! Even romance, albeit rarely. Although she’s best known on this board for her medical dramas, she is actually one of the most diverse writers I know.
9. Her stories are a seamless blend of suspense and medical drama.
Jenna infuses many of her medical dramas with a whopping dose of suspense! Or maybe she starts with suspense, which inevitably becomes medical drama when bad things happen to the Backstreet Boys. Either way, she manages to mix the two genres in a way that makes you desperate to read more!
8. She knows her stuff.
As a nurse, Jenna’s been there and seen it all, so her stories are always medically accurate. Even when the plots become unbelievable, I still buy into them because the medical stuff makes them seem possible.
7. She also knows laughter is the best medicine.
Although Jenna has made me cry many times in the fourteen years since I first started reading her stories, she’s also good at incorporating comic relief to make the heavy stuff in her stories seem a little lighter. She’s even written quite a few comedies! The best known of these is probably her Magical Beanie series (
http://absolutechaos.net/viewseries.php?seriesid=44). Who else could get six stories out of Backstreet Boys and Beanie Babies?! (See her website for the fifth and sixth installments.)
6. She invented the cancer epic.
I can’t say enough about the Swollen Issues series (
http://absolutechaos.net/viewseries.php?seriesid=117), which Jenna co-wrote with Swenglish. These three stories have inspired me so much and made me the writer I am today. Had I not read the first two back in 2002, there would be no Broken or By My Side. Swollen Issues was the neverending Nick cancer story that started them all! Three novels, 228 chapters, and 524,866 words spent watching Nick slowly die of cancer. Curtain Call can’t beat that!
5. She dares to write about diarrhea.
Speaking of Swollen Issues… throughout most of these stories, Jenna and Swenglish made me want to just throw my arms around poor Nick and hold him tight. But then there would be parts like this one, from Chapter 91 of Swollen Issues III:
To say that Nick was miserable would be an understatement . Just when he was about to doze off again his stomach made itself known and a cramp shot through him like a flash.
"What's the matter? You gonna puke again?" AJ grabbed the basin when Nick stopped him.
"No...I...need. ..bathroom," he panted and hoped that his friend wouldn't be too slow or there would be another accident. The diarrhea worked fast and before AJ had a chance to help him out of the bed there was another mess. This time Nick couldn't take it and started to cry.
Oops, we got a code brown! (LOL) In that case, I decided it was probably better to keep my distance. But that’s one of the things I love about Jenna’s stories: she’s not afraid to go places other people might avoid, and it’s those gross, gory details that set her stories apart from the ones where the Backstreet Boy battles his disease with bravery and dignity, never falling victim to embarrassing side effects like diarrhea. By the way, in searching for this line, I found thirteen occurrences of the word “diarrhea” across the three Swollen Issues stories, compared to the two in both By My Side and Curtain Call. Once again, Jenna’s got me beat!
4. Two words (one being a hyphenate): Brain-Damaged Brian
Remember how I said Jenna wasn’t afraid to go places other writers might want to avoid? Yeah… let’s talk about Brain-Damaged Brian! If you think Nick’s had it bad in Jenna’s stories, that’s nothing compared to what she’s done to poor Brian… and his brain! A common thread I have noticed across quite a few of Jenna’s stories is that, at some point, Brian always seems to become a drooling vegetable who either can’t remember who he is or can’t communicate, usually because of a head injury, brain tumor, or medication that leaves him trapped inside a body that just won’t do what he wants it to do. And, just as we’re supposed to do with vegetables, I eat it up every time.
3. Two more words (well, actually, names): Nick and Lizz.
Now let’s talk about Nick and Lizz. These two characters are the stars of a little (actually, really long) series Jenna co-wrote with Auctor back in the day (
http://absolutechaos.net/viewseries.php?seriesid=34). Over the course of seven stories (yes, I said seven!), Nick and Lizz endured everything from failed suicide attempts to multiple organ transplants to being enslaved by savage natives, and they did it all together! They suffered panic attacks at the same time, survived a plane crash… twice, and got kidnapped by the same people… thrice. Brain-Damaged Brian was there, and so was his bestie, Stroke Vic Nick. Yes, there were strokes and seizures, several bouts of amnesia, gunshot wounds, jail sentences, faked deaths and disguises, deserted islands filled with the sexually-frustrated savages who enslaved them, and hey, even a little romance! Over the top? Yeah, definitely, but it was OH-so-EPIC!!! Nothing I’ve read has been more addicting than this series. Nothing. I’ll admit, they lost me for a little while with the desert island/savage natives storyline in the fifth story, but I came back to it eventually and finished reading the series… because did I mention that this seven-part soap opera of a series actually has an ending? Which brings me to my next point…
2. She actually finishes her collaborations, no matter how long.
I like to collaborate, but actually finishing stories with co-writers can be a struggle. Not for Jenna! She has written not one, not two, but THREE epic collaborations, and all of them are complete! There’s the Nick and Lizz series… there’s Swollen Issues… and there’s Perfection, also co-written with Swenglish, which, even as a stand-alone story, weighs in at 104 chapters! Take it from me: finishing something that long, with or without a co-author, is no small feat!
1. She may come and go, but she always keeps coming back.
There was a time when I would check Jenna’s site several times a day to see if she’d updated Swollen, Nick and Lizz, or whichever story I was addicted to at the time. (And I mean addicted!) Nowadays Jenna no longer updates consistently, but she does still write, and every once in awhile, we’re rewarded with a new chapter or one-shot. Hopefully her month in the spotlight will inspire her to write something soon!
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Topic: FS for September and story #92 is - Trapped by Jenna (Read 9033 times)