Very interesting discussion! Personally, other than one Valentine's story and one challenge fic, I've never tried writing a story aimed at a particular readership or category. Taking MLT's song and changing the words slightly, I'm just not a good enough writer to be able to do that. I write what I like and if other people like it too, then I'm lucky.
Inspiration for stories, however, is a slightly different thing, IMO. It comes from a wide range of sources - not, in my case, Kerth categories, but I can see how that would work for other people. BRing as I do for Wendy, for example, I'm well aware of the popularity of TOGOM stories <g> and once tried to write my own - on the basis that if other writers were having fun with this scenario, then perhaps I could, too. I stress writers rather than readers - my motivation to give it a try was to join in the fun other writers were having, not to write a story which would be popular. Anyway, I failed dismally. <g>
Mere, it seems to me that if we want a category which rewards strong A plots, then we should call the category "Best 'A' Plot" <bg>.
MLT, it's not that we don't like A plots. It's just that a lot of us feel very ill-equipped to write them, and we're actually very jealous of people like you and Jenni Debbage who can craft a complex and convincing 'villain' plot. Also, often the story we choose to tell just doesn't need a particularly strong A plot. Lynn's Butterfly Legacy is a good case in point - great drama, IMHO, but zero A plot. Anyway, don't you dare stop writing your kind of L&C story, because I for one enjoy them tremendously.
Yvonne
