Blakes7

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5511 discussions

Re: [B7L] Re: Subtext vs Character
by J MacQueen 14 Feb '01

14 Feb '01

>From: "Una McCormack" <una(a)q-research.connectfree.co.uk> >Neil wrote: > > Britney Spears comes from St Helens? >She's not classy enough to come from St Helens. Should've suggested Mount St Helens, Una. Then you could've made reference to Volcano and been completely on topic. Regards Joanne (<grin> of course, you might have to reconfigure Ms Spears' DNA so that she becomes a penguin, if you want to be really on topic...) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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redemption panel
by Alison Page 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Hasty typing. When I said 'my' panel, it was very ambiguous. I'm in a really good mood today and that makes me careless, but I meant 'the panel I am involved in', not 'the panel I have ownership of'. It didn't occur to me but in retrospect it is obvious, so apologies to those whose toes I have inadvertently crushed. It was just well-intentioned enthusiasm. Alison

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Tavia Chalcraft 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Neil again: >Not only 12 words shorter, reducing the speech by >67% without reducing information content, but also - >IMO - much more in character for Avon. One of the things I was told when I started to write (nonfiction) a long while back was to remove 20% of one's first draft words... Tavia

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Re: [B7L] Re: Subtext vs Character
by J MacQueen 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

>From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net> >Go and read 'At The Mountains of Madness' again. Some penguins *are* >Cthulhu cultists. Be afraid, everyone. We aren't dealing with normal penguins anymore. Yes, Neil, Una, I know, what are normal penguins... Regards Joanne (who spent part of last night trying to match B7 characters with songs from the soundtrack to the '80s ABC series "Sweet and Sour". As long as I don't try the same for "Footloose" or whatever...) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Tavia Chalcraft 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Neil wrote: >Oh, Tavia, you really have been missing out! Well, I'm hoping to waylay the zine library at Redemption and find out just what I've been missing. >Mary-Sue comes in strange guises sometimes. Sometimes she takes over Cally or Vila. >Occasionally she's an ocf from the series itself (like a Vega story where she goes by the name >of Levett). I've seen multiple Cally, Vila and Blake Mary-Sues -- I think Blake ones are more common than people would believe. I propagate a decent Avon one myself (and have been doing since long before I wrote B7 stuff), but no-one seems to notice (or perhaps everyone's too polite to tell me off?). And I *liked* the Vega story, despite the overt M-S characteristics. How come regurgitating the author is called 'realism' in original fiction and 'Mary-Sueing' in fanfiction? Tavia

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Natasa Tucev 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Annie asked: > >How can you write in a purely "verbal," communicating medium by being >"non-verbal." It just doesn't work. Try this: "O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" If you say this aloud, you'll get a wonderful hissing sound, because of all the fricatives involved. I think that even someone who doesn't speak English would realize, upon hearing this, that Hamlet is angry. N.

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Re: [B7L] Re: Fanfic
by Ellynne G. 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 08:07:41 -0000 "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net> writes: > On the other hand, one of the problems with regular fanfic is the > way it is > instantly overcrowded by default. Of the few stories I've done and completed, I just realized I managed to keep an awful lot of regular characters off stage. OTOH, about Mary Sues. Hmm. I do stick in original characters. Are they me? Hard to say. When I finish a story, I can look back and see things in all of them that I relate to, even the villains. Are they me? For some reason, the idea of identifying to closely with a character in fiction makes me break out in a rash, so I'll say no. But why introduce a new character? Sometimes, they're necessary. They're the character of the week. However, I've also noticed, for me, they change the parameters of the show. For me, S4 stories will always end bleakly - unless a new element is added that changes things. A young woman with a personal motivation to keep Avon and his friends alive? Well, why not? Granted, the job description requires a high degree of compotency. And yes, I suppose I'm in the midst of writing one (Avon's sort of dead and none of his friends know what's going on, an outsider was necessary). She's even (shudder) hyperactively perky. I also wrote one with Avon's extremely compotent aunt (well, she would be, wouldn't she?). There wasn't anyone else who would get this ball rolling (and I suspect Avon wouldn't entirely mind shooting her if he thought the rest of the family wouldn't hunt him down). The one thing they have in common is that the story wouldn't go anywhere I was interested in otherwise. Long day's journeys into night don't always appeal to me, I'm afraid. Somehow, I can't see avoiding that without sticking a nonB7 character in. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Tavia Chalcraft 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

Alison wrote: >Wow. I honestly believe that there is some vast gulf of what >writers and readers want, and that if you are on the other >side of it, you just don't understand the other. I'm not convinced of a gulf, there's a happy medium between telling (Blake was tense) and showing tension *only* in body language, surely? Tavia

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Ashton7＠aol.com 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

n a message dated 2/13/01 7:40:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, tucev(a)tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu writes: << This is actually the author trying to explain to us the psychological motivation of characters in her story, and she is doing it in a very clumsy way. She also shows great disrespect for us as the readers, because she thinks that we wouldn't be able to figure out by some more subtle signs how Blake feels about Avon or how Vila feels about Blake or whatever. >> Yes, but this is the way written fiction has to work. In a play or a tv show or a movie, so much more can be said with an *expression* or body language that *cannot* be conveyed in any other way than with words in written fiction. Ask any professional writer who has written both forms. A writer on the Highlander tv series wrote a novel about the show and she mentioned in her afterword that she couldn't *believe* how unbelievably different and difficult it was to write the novel as opposed to a script. She pointed out the fact that she had to be so much more wordy and that she couldn't rely on the actor's being able to get the feeling and the meaning of the words across. She had to *explain* everything. If an author, be they pro or fannish, doesn't include enough description, explanation, dialogue, etc., you end up with a very sterile story that might as well be a script with little to no stage direction. I've seen many fan stories like that and, believe me, once read they are usually quickly forgotten. There's nothing there to involve the reader in what's happening. As a professor of literature once told me in college: "Character is everything." A movie/tv show can focus on action/adventure to the exclusive of character (I, personally, might not enjoy that all that much, but it can work), but if a book does that, it's just boring. Annie

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Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
by Ashton7＠aol.com 13 Feb '01

13 Feb '01

In a message dated 2/13/01 12:55:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, tucev(a)tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu writes: << This is perhaps the mainstream linguistic philosophy, but it's not the only one existing. Try reading 'Myth, Truth and Literature' by Colin Falck and you will find a lot of interesting ideas about how language originates in bodily gestures and still has its bodily dimension which is essential to its relation to the objective world (quite opposite to what Derrida et al. say). And since you once mentioned you liked me quoting poetry, here is a poem about non-verbal communication, written by my favourite Irishman: >> I can only say again that non-verbal communication does not a good story make... in fact, under most circumstances, it makes for a stultifyingly boring story with characters that are next to impossible for the reader to relate to. How can you write in a purely "verbal," communicating medium by being "non-verbal." It just doesn't work. Annie

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