Catching up...
Aug. 7th, 2004 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatPlaying catch-up with my friends list this morning, since I was unable to respond or even read most of the entries this week. Work only permits minimial personal internet access. Basically I can go online to get plane tickets, check train schedules, check to see if a friend and I are still meeting for lunch or dinner - which is actually very hard, because I do not have access to personal email. Livejournal yes. Email no. As a result, the only time I have to play on the internet now is when I get home, which I suppose is as it should be.
The difficulty is I'm spending all day long reading complex agreements on the computer screen, and checking the information in them on a database. So my eyes are killing me by 5pm. I can read a book, but a computer screen...sigh.
Not complaining so much as explaining.
Work...well it is better. Tired though. And hoping I get paid today. Please. Getting paychecks in the mail.
Had some lovely dinners this week with aresthusa (Wed), pumpkinpuss (Thurs), and cjlasky (Friday) - nice long chats about everything from ATS to personal stuff. cjlasky and aresthusa elicited my opinion on their Season 6 fanfic writing project.
I've come to a conclusion about fanfic, which actually applies to all fictional writing: that you have to be very careful that you don't fall into convention or cliche, get too plotty, and lose characters. So many fanfics lose their characters halfway through the stories. They stop being about that character's journey or exploring a character and the themes that character represents and about the author's fantasies regarding the characters, which can be anything from a rip-roaring action adventure yarn to erotica. Not that there is anything wrong with that, if that is your intent. I've read quite a few fanfics that are basically rehashings of different
gothic romance novels, sci-fi action adventure serials, or mystery novels - all of which remind me a bit of Star Trek The Next Generation, DS9 and Voyager's use of the holodeck to do what amounted to virtual holo-novels. They don't tell you anything new about these characters, they just basically are fantasies about these characters playing other roles - to give Star Trek Next Generation and DS9 a little credit, it actually did use some of it's holonovel stories to tell us more about the people on board the show. I see many fanfic's coming close to doing the same thing, exploring a new angle with the characters, then wham, they fall into the trap, the writer just can't let go of the fantasy.
I honestly think the worst thing you could do in a Season 6 fanfic is turn Angel into a hero - untainted or a champion.
Don't redeem him. This is something ME carefully avoided doing fully. His flaws always pull him downwards, they always lead to ambiguous actions. If he becomes unambiguous - you lose the character. The second worse thing is to turn any of the supporting characters: Wes, Illyria/Fred, Spike, Gunn, Lorne into fall guys for Angel - ie. make them weaker to show off Angel's strong suits, stronger to make Angel look weak, or
damsels or heros against Angel's stance of the moment. You want them to reflect on Angel's behavior but not obviously and not so directly that they cease being characters in their own right. Their behavior and characterizations should be drawn well enough that you can literally remove Angel from your story and they'd still be clear and have a purpose and a history. In fact you should be able to write a story with just that character. If you can't do that, then you've failed and the character is one-dimensional and will not hold anyone's interest. If you despise a character? You better frigging not let your reader sense it. Because they will hate you for subjecting them to your biases. I've read more than one story where Buffy was portrayed as an out-out bitch who deserved to be bitch slapped, Angel was a jerk, and Spike was a whiny putz.
I stopped reading, rolled my eyes, and crossed the writer off the list. Love all your characters that's what Whedon and ME did. Even the nasty ones. I remember writing my evil fanfic, which only made it to five chapters before I had to let it go, but what I discovered in writing it was that I could not do some of the things I'd set out to do - such as make Buffy a bitch and kill her horribly, didn't work. I'd analyzed the character so well, knew the character so well, that I knew there was no way on earth I could write her that way and still be in character. It didn't work. I knew she'd find a way out of a fight with vampires. That she wouldn't hurt those she loved deliberately. As much as I disliked the character at the time I wrote her, I found in the act of writing that the I lost that dislike and refound my fondness for her. If you concentrate on character, feel the character in your bones, you won't screw up, if you concentrate on your fantasies about the characters, wishes, desires, or biases then you will fall into all those horrible traps and become self-indulgent. And if you have a bunch of fans who share your biases and fantasies, which isn't hard to find on the internet, then it may be tough to figure out what you've done but it does hurt you as a writer. Listen to those who don't share your biases and fantasies, if they comment, and that I think will steer you clear of the pitfalls in the future. I say this after having committed many of these sins myself in my own novel with original characters, it was in reading fanfic where I discovered my mistakes - so I know whereof I speak. I've since learned not to write romance, unless absolutely necessary, and
to steer clear of complicated action-adventure/mystery sci-fi
plots. While they sound great in my head. They tend to lead me into disaster, because I lose sight of the characters and become more interested in the plot.
Regarding the S6 project? What I've heard so far sounds actually really interesting. They've come up with a clever
idea for a big bad. They seem to handling all the characters
fairly evenly and seem to care equally about all of them - now that is a challenge, if you can pull that off sucessfully, I applaud you, because that's tough. Be careful bringing back Wes - if you are sticking to what the show did, Wes to some of us, actually came to a sense of acceptance of his fate, and died heroically and tragically. I actually found Wes more heroic at the end of S6 than just about anyone else. So eviscerating him is a really bad idea. Keep him dead if you can't deal with him. Also be wary of convention - especially if you are doing any military stuff - there are far too many sci-fi books/movies and fanfic out there about the military, and so much of it has become cheesy and trite. Careful with anything dealing with the military - people have the oddest tendency to make them out to be villains, and that's a cliche
and a bad one. Watch The 4400, which actually is one show that has been avoiding this. (I didn't see last week's episode, so can only comment on two or three have seen, but part of the reason I like it is it avoids that cliche.) Also read ginmar's posts - she does a wonderful job of showing what it is like to be in the armed forces. Last bit of advice: don't get too complicated or convoluted in your plotting - that was the pratfall of the Fanged Four writing project I think, Buffy S7, and my own writing. Especially if you are writing it in screenplay/teleplay format - people get confused and you end up
spending far too much time on exposition. Simple plots that propell characters forward. Now the only question is can I follow my own advice in my current writing adventures? Heh.
Finally - condolences to all those on my friends list, and off
who have suffered violence sexual or otherwise. There are too many of you. I feel like I am in the minority and that fact saddens me more than anything else. I know far too many people who have been raped, physically beaten, sexually molested or violated or assaulted. The world does not have to be hellish, it is our choice to make it that way and I think our choice to make it something else. And I admire those who have spoken out. I also admire those who continue to suffer in silence.
Surving acts of violence is hard. I'm not sure how you do it.
I admire you deeply for doing so. There is no shame in what happened to you, because it is not your fault, nor was it about you. I keep thinking about this new agey book I read years ago, most of which I've forgotten, by a Native American Shaman, called the Four Temperments? Can't even recall the title. Was all the rage around 2000, I think. At any rate the one thing I do remember was something he said about how people project their issues on to others. The violence verbal and physical that people throw out isn't about the object or the person they dish it out on, but themselves. The person they assault might as well not even be there. Something that person has done, said, (or maybe all the person is doing is being in the wrong place at the wrong time - which more often than not is the case), in the abusers head reflects something they despise about themselves, that something has *nothing* to do with their selected victim or the person in front of them, they don't even see that person in front of them (They don't see you), all they see is the reflection of their own pain, own desire, own suffering. This does not mean you should pity them, but it helps I think sometimes to understand that the violence we suffer at others hands, verbally, physically or emotionally is not our fault and is out of our control, that it is their choice and their responsibility and burden to carry it. Not ours. What makes life hellish, I think, is the infliction and the fact that we often find ourselves carrying others pains as well as our own. It's hard not to inflict suffering on others, not to lash out at some unsuspecting bystander because you had a bad day or you can't get what you want. My main goal, I think, sometimes, in life is to make it through it doing as little harm to those surrounding me as possible. Some days I succeed, some not so lucky. And to avoid being the victim of others inflictions of pain as well. Makes the road of life a bit of an obstacle course, filled with hidden landmines, thorns, ditchs, and wolves. But there are also grandmothers (condolences to the lovely Rah), and friendly
fellow travelers. Sorry for the ramble.
Must go look at email now. And then get off line and wait for cable repair man to call me or come - from 2-6pm. Sigh.
The difficulty is I'm spending all day long reading complex agreements on the computer screen, and checking the information in them on a database. So my eyes are killing me by 5pm. I can read a book, but a computer screen...sigh.
Not complaining so much as explaining.
Work...well it is better. Tired though. And hoping I get paid today. Please. Getting paychecks in the mail.
Had some lovely dinners this week with aresthusa (Wed), pumpkinpuss (Thurs), and cjlasky (Friday) - nice long chats about everything from ATS to personal stuff. cjlasky and aresthusa elicited my opinion on their Season 6 fanfic writing project.
I've come to a conclusion about fanfic, which actually applies to all fictional writing: that you have to be very careful that you don't fall into convention or cliche, get too plotty, and lose characters. So many fanfics lose their characters halfway through the stories. They stop being about that character's journey or exploring a character and the themes that character represents and about the author's fantasies regarding the characters, which can be anything from a rip-roaring action adventure yarn to erotica. Not that there is anything wrong with that, if that is your intent. I've read quite a few fanfics that are basically rehashings of different
gothic romance novels, sci-fi action adventure serials, or mystery novels - all of which remind me a bit of Star Trek The Next Generation, DS9 and Voyager's use of the holodeck to do what amounted to virtual holo-novels. They don't tell you anything new about these characters, they just basically are fantasies about these characters playing other roles - to give Star Trek Next Generation and DS9 a little credit, it actually did use some of it's holonovel stories to tell us more about the people on board the show. I see many fanfic's coming close to doing the same thing, exploring a new angle with the characters, then wham, they fall into the trap, the writer just can't let go of the fantasy.
I honestly think the worst thing you could do in a Season 6 fanfic is turn Angel into a hero - untainted or a champion.
Don't redeem him. This is something ME carefully avoided doing fully. His flaws always pull him downwards, they always lead to ambiguous actions. If he becomes unambiguous - you lose the character. The second worse thing is to turn any of the supporting characters: Wes, Illyria/Fred, Spike, Gunn, Lorne into fall guys for Angel - ie. make them weaker to show off Angel's strong suits, stronger to make Angel look weak, or
damsels or heros against Angel's stance of the moment. You want them to reflect on Angel's behavior but not obviously and not so directly that they cease being characters in their own right. Their behavior and characterizations should be drawn well enough that you can literally remove Angel from your story and they'd still be clear and have a purpose and a history. In fact you should be able to write a story with just that character. If you can't do that, then you've failed and the character is one-dimensional and will not hold anyone's interest. If you despise a character? You better frigging not let your reader sense it. Because they will hate you for subjecting them to your biases. I've read more than one story where Buffy was portrayed as an out-out bitch who deserved to be bitch slapped, Angel was a jerk, and Spike was a whiny putz.
I stopped reading, rolled my eyes, and crossed the writer off the list. Love all your characters that's what Whedon and ME did. Even the nasty ones. I remember writing my evil fanfic, which only made it to five chapters before I had to let it go, but what I discovered in writing it was that I could not do some of the things I'd set out to do - such as make Buffy a bitch and kill her horribly, didn't work. I'd analyzed the character so well, knew the character so well, that I knew there was no way on earth I could write her that way and still be in character. It didn't work. I knew she'd find a way out of a fight with vampires. That she wouldn't hurt those she loved deliberately. As much as I disliked the character at the time I wrote her, I found in the act of writing that the I lost that dislike and refound my fondness for her. If you concentrate on character, feel the character in your bones, you won't screw up, if you concentrate on your fantasies about the characters, wishes, desires, or biases then you will fall into all those horrible traps and become self-indulgent. And if you have a bunch of fans who share your biases and fantasies, which isn't hard to find on the internet, then it may be tough to figure out what you've done but it does hurt you as a writer. Listen to those who don't share your biases and fantasies, if they comment, and that I think will steer you clear of the pitfalls in the future. I say this after having committed many of these sins myself in my own novel with original characters, it was in reading fanfic where I discovered my mistakes - so I know whereof I speak. I've since learned not to write romance, unless absolutely necessary, and
to steer clear of complicated action-adventure/mystery sci-fi
plots. While they sound great in my head. They tend to lead me into disaster, because I lose sight of the characters and become more interested in the plot.
Regarding the S6 project? What I've heard so far sounds actually really interesting. They've come up with a clever
idea for a big bad. They seem to handling all the characters
fairly evenly and seem to care equally about all of them - now that is a challenge, if you can pull that off sucessfully, I applaud you, because that's tough. Be careful bringing back Wes - if you are sticking to what the show did, Wes to some of us, actually came to a sense of acceptance of his fate, and died heroically and tragically. I actually found Wes more heroic at the end of S6 than just about anyone else. So eviscerating him is a really bad idea. Keep him dead if you can't deal with him. Also be wary of convention - especially if you are doing any military stuff - there are far too many sci-fi books/movies and fanfic out there about the military, and so much of it has become cheesy and trite. Careful with anything dealing with the military - people have the oddest tendency to make them out to be villains, and that's a cliche
and a bad one. Watch The 4400, which actually is one show that has been avoiding this. (I didn't see last week's episode, so can only comment on two or three have seen, but part of the reason I like it is it avoids that cliche.) Also read ginmar's posts - she does a wonderful job of showing what it is like to be in the armed forces. Last bit of advice: don't get too complicated or convoluted in your plotting - that was the pratfall of the Fanged Four writing project I think, Buffy S7, and my own writing. Especially if you are writing it in screenplay/teleplay format - people get confused and you end up
spending far too much time on exposition. Simple plots that propell characters forward. Now the only question is can I follow my own advice in my current writing adventures? Heh.
Finally - condolences to all those on my friends list, and off
who have suffered violence sexual or otherwise. There are too many of you. I feel like I am in the minority and that fact saddens me more than anything else. I know far too many people who have been raped, physically beaten, sexually molested or violated or assaulted. The world does not have to be hellish, it is our choice to make it that way and I think our choice to make it something else. And I admire those who have spoken out. I also admire those who continue to suffer in silence.
Surving acts of violence is hard. I'm not sure how you do it.
I admire you deeply for doing so. There is no shame in what happened to you, because it is not your fault, nor was it about you. I keep thinking about this new agey book I read years ago, most of which I've forgotten, by a Native American Shaman, called the Four Temperments? Can't even recall the title. Was all the rage around 2000, I think. At any rate the one thing I do remember was something he said about how people project their issues on to others. The violence verbal and physical that people throw out isn't about the object or the person they dish it out on, but themselves. The person they assault might as well not even be there. Something that person has done, said, (or maybe all the person is doing is being in the wrong place at the wrong time - which more often than not is the case), in the abusers head reflects something they despise about themselves, that something has *nothing* to do with their selected victim or the person in front of them, they don't even see that person in front of them (They don't see you), all they see is the reflection of their own pain, own desire, own suffering. This does not mean you should pity them, but it helps I think sometimes to understand that the violence we suffer at others hands, verbally, physically or emotionally is not our fault and is out of our control, that it is their choice and their responsibility and burden to carry it. Not ours. What makes life hellish, I think, is the infliction and the fact that we often find ourselves carrying others pains as well as our own. It's hard not to inflict suffering on others, not to lash out at some unsuspecting bystander because you had a bad day or you can't get what you want. My main goal, I think, sometimes, in life is to make it through it doing as little harm to those surrounding me as possible. Some days I succeed, some not so lucky. And to avoid being the victim of others inflictions of pain as well. Makes the road of life a bit of an obstacle course, filled with hidden landmines, thorns, ditchs, and wolves. But there are also grandmothers (condolences to the lovely Rah), and friendly
fellow travelers. Sorry for the ramble.
Must go look at email now. And then get off line and wait for cable repair man to call me or come - from 2-6pm. Sigh.
