From: Tavia Chalcraft tavia@btinternet.com
If you don't know about it, don't write about it. That's why there's never any sex in my stories:)
And I only ever write bad sex...
Still one up on writing sex badly.
A degree of imagination appears to be called for? Or even perhaps
research?
Huh. Chance'd be a fine thing...
Oh, you mean in a wider context? Yes, imagination definitely necessary, and I think a good dose of research doesn't come amiss either. Harking back to what I was saying earlier about the characters living dangerous lives, it's obviously not a good idea to research your story by camping out on the West Bank or making a solo tour of Sierra Leone. You might get killed and hence deprive fandom of a wonderfully researched bit of fiction. But a trip to the library can easily turn up a few books by people who have lived on the front line and survived. Autobiographies by soldiers, cops and journalists can be pretty useful in that regard, and they can also be an interesting read in their own right. My own particular favourite would be 'The Good Guys Wear Black' (echoes of the Federation in the title alone!), but unfortunately I forget who wrote it. It offers a useful insight into the minds of people who opt to work dangerously (lots of macho nonsense, predictably, but also the camaraderie, the emotional support, stress management strategies etc), as well as the depth of planning and training needed to conduct the kind of operations that Blake et al seem to implement spontaneously. It's worth noting, I think, that the stress toll of working for the elite of the Metropolitan Police cost the author his marriage and ultimately his job (in that order, I believe), so it's a good distance away from James Bond fantasy land.
Since it's often the action scenes in fanfic that lack either plausibility or a sense of authorial certainty, a bit of background reading might well pay off. It can be quite eye-opening in other ways too. Who would have thought that Leonid Breshnev enjoyed playing infantile practical jokes at international summit meetings? Or that the task force commander for CIA operations in Angola had to sit on the floor and block a doorway doing his paperwork to persuade his superiors to give him his own desk? Or that a suspect being tortured by BOSS (South Africa's Bureau of State Security) was left bleeding in his cell while his interrogators left for their tea break? Or how about the newspaper clipping supplied by Reuters' office in Bangkok: "Police battled a gang of bandits in southern Thailand on Saturday. One bandit was killed. A police spokesman said the battle began when the bandit gang, disguised as policemen, challenged a group of policemen disguised as bandits."
Rich pickings indeed for almost any fanfic writer.
(The very best story of all was the one about the Iranian secret police and the booby-trapped police chief's car, but it's far too long to recount here. Suffice to say that if you put that in a story, nobody would believe it could ever happen in real life. But it did.)
Neil
None of us live in the B7 universe (thankfully), none of us actually are Blake, Avon and crew, so there's got to be some imagination somewhere in all B7 fic.
Tavia