Don't assume your recipient wants a Christmas-themed story unless she says so.
That's definitely good advice. I don't think it would occur to me to write a Christmas story in most fandoms, but then, I write a lot of anime/manga fandoms, and a Christmas story would be out of place in a lot of them. (Also, up until last year, it had been a long time since Christmas was a big deal in my household. Now that my daughter's old enough to notice it, it matters, but it didn't matter until she started paying attention.)
It occurs to me-- I had thought a little bit about this issue before. My recipient for, I think, Yuletide 2005 was (and presumably still is) Jewish and religious. I asked a Jewish friend I trust to beta the story particularly looking for anything utterly moronic I might put in the story. The fandom was Zenna Henderson's People stories, and there're a lot of biblical allusions in the stories (and their titles) along with a strong sense of spirituality and faith that's relatively generic but includes references to church going and, to me, implies at least the forms of Christianity (Though there's no Watsonian reason for the People to be Christians. There are Doylist reasons, though, and Watsonian reasons why they might choose the forms of Christianity in order to fit in better with the humans around them). I was afraid that I'd make an assumption without even noticing it and end up with something that would leave a nasty taste in my recipient's mouth.
I'm still very grateful to my friend for the beta, the moreso because she disliked the style in which I was writing.
no subject
That's definitely good advice. I don't think it would occur to me to write a Christmas story in most fandoms, but then, I write a lot of anime/manga fandoms, and a Christmas story would be out of place in a lot of them. (Also, up until last year, it had been a long time since Christmas was a big deal in my household. Now that my daughter's old enough to notice it, it matters, but it didn't matter until she started paying attention.)
It occurs to me-- I had thought a little bit about this issue before. My recipient for, I think, Yuletide 2005 was (and presumably still is) Jewish and religious. I asked a Jewish friend I trust to beta the story particularly looking for anything utterly moronic I might put in the story. The fandom was Zenna Henderson's People stories, and there're a lot of biblical allusions in the stories (and their titles) along with a strong sense of spirituality and faith that's relatively generic but includes references to church going and, to me, implies at least the forms of Christianity (Though there's no Watsonian reason for the People to be Christians. There are Doylist reasons, though, and Watsonian reasons why they might choose the forms of Christianity in order to fit in better with the humans around them). I was afraid that I'd make an assumption without even noticing it and end up with something that would leave a nasty taste in my recipient's mouth.
I'm still very grateful to my friend for the beta, the moreso because she disliked the style in which I was writing.