Neil wrote:
One thing that leaps out at me from the scripts, now I've had a chance to look at them, is how short most of the lines of dialogue are. I haven't done any statistical research on this, but I wouldn't mind betting that if you calculated an average number of words per speech for a script and did the same for a story, the story would come out higher. Perhaps much higher (depending on the author, probably). Characters in fanfic say a lot more, use longer sentences, are generally more 'wordy', or at least that's the impression I get.
I agree completely - the original world of B7 series is much more stoical, much less is spoken directly and much more is just intimated or remains hidden inside, than in fanfic. When direct speech carries so much weight of explicit emotional content, the story may become very pathetic as a result. An example:
"I think you feel so guilty about what happened to your brother that you can't face it and you have to find someone else to blame. I think you settled for Avon because he's the handiest target, and because, after the way he greeted you, you could tell how much your rejection would hurt. He has nothing left. I don't know how it happened, but he needs you more than he needs life. Right now he's planning to go out and get caught--because he knows they'll kill him and because that's easier than living with what you did to him just now. I believe in your Cause, Blake. I only just realized it. But I won't fight at your side it you don't make peace with Avon. I couldn't."
Can you imagine: a) Vila saying this to Blake? b) Vila saying this at all?
If someone maintains that Vila is a sage behind his clownish mask, that's fine with me. If the above paragraph were his stream of consciousness, I don't think I would complain. But he mustn't say this aloud. This is out of his character, and out of the milieu of the series as a whole. IMHO.
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, this is perhaps where many writers fall down. There is, of course, the problem that the inner voice they give a character might be true for the writer and for some readers, whilst sounding utterly false for other readers.
Still, if you faithfully imitate the spoken voice of the characters, the inner voice cannot be completely incongruous with it. I think the best thing a writer can hope to achieve would be some convincing tension between the inner and the outer voice. Easier said than done.
What I find generally irritating is that the regular characters (especially, but oc's often too) are often nowhere near 'tough' enough. I'm wary of saying this because I don't want to sound like I'm advocating some kind of macho manifesto, but they are revolutionary fanatics and/or criminals, habitually doing dangerous things, seeing unpleasant sights, forced into making snap decisions that might very well lead to someone else's death at the expense of their own. And in a lot of fanfic this doesn't come across - their 'inner voices' sound too 'soft' (another word I'm very uneasy about using), too preoccupied with 'trivial' things (also a dangerous label), too concerned with the fragility of their relationships with one another. This, to me, is the hidden hand of Mary Sue, acting within the characters themselves.
If I understand this correctly, you dislike fanfic where (male) characters behave like stereotypical women: they babble, express interest in food and clothes, display their emotions overtly and gossip about each other. Still, I have also come across fanfic, written both by male and female authors, where the balance between emotions and action is well managed. I haven't read enough all together to say which style prevails.
Admittedly, it's very hard to please me when it comes to fanfic. My ideal fanfic would be a mixture of adventure and angst focusing on Blake. If I keep looking hard enough, I might even discover three such stories written in the last twenty years.
N.
I'm replying to Natasa, replying to Neil:
I agree completely - the original world of B7 series is much more stoical, much less is spoken directly and much more is just intimated or remains hidden inside, than in fanfic.
My analysis: "The fewer lines we have to write, the faster we can finish this script and get down the pub."
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,
Awww, Natasa, we're all doing the best we can. Some days are better than others, Section Leader. I don't think anybody deliberately sets out to write a lousy story.
If I understand this correctly, you dislike fanfic where (male) characters behave like stereotypical women: they babble, express interest in food and clothes, display their emotions overtly and gossip about each other.
OK, Neil, you don't get a review copy of The Complete Works of Executrix. But if you ask me, food, clothes, and gossip are a lot more interesting than neutron blasters.
I think there are two facets to every fanfic story: what we wanted to read, and had to write because it wasn't there, and what we wanted to write. I don't think I'm the only fanwriter who deliberately tries to improve technique, or work on a broader canvas, or try technical innovations (flashbacks and flash forwards, for instance)--or who tries to write her/his way into the head of a character found puzzling or even unattractive.
-(Y)
--- Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net wrote:
OK, Neil, you don't get a review copy of The Complete Works of Executrix. But if you ask me, food, clothes, and gossip are a lot more interesting than neutron blasters.
Take's all sorts to make a world doesn't it ! Personally I think that B7 wouldn't be the same without the neutron blasters. I don't find that Blake and Avon talking about their feelings has the same kind of appeal as them blowing up Star One. When I watched B7 at the age of nine it was because it was about our heroes thwarting the wiles of the evil Federation. Whilst I can appreciate it on a more sophisticated level now, I still watch it primarily because it has danger and space ships.
All of which is entirely a matter of taste and if you enjoy B7 primarily because of the interaction of the characters then good for you !
Stephen. (Who's inner nine year old is still going strong !)
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From: Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net
OK, Neil, you don't get a review copy of The Complete Works of Executrix. But if you ask me, food, clothes, and gossip are a lot more interesting
than
neutron blasters.
And I would say that differentiating the various species of woodlice is a damn sight more interesting than all of the above. Different strokes for different folks. Not that I would ever put the distinctions between Armadillidium vulgare and Philoscia muscorum into a bit of fanfic because it's hard to see how they might be relevant. Relevance is what matters. Neutron blasters are rather likely to be relevant to certain bits of fic; though not all, of course. Food, clothes and gossip may likewise be more relevant to some stories than others.
What we might have is a disparity between (a) what a story needs, (b) what the author wants to write about, and (c) what the reader wants to read about. Where a, b and c converge, no problem. Where they go their own separate ways, potentially big problem.
A lot depends on the disparity between b and c. If an element of a story is in there (out of authorial desire) but feels out of place (through reader preference), then it will assume a significance out of all proportion to its actual role in the story. Reading Marian's 'Small Revenge' in Star Four, I got irritated by what *seemed* to be an interminable discussion on who was going to cook dinner, but in fact it only ran to a few paragraphs of a 20-page story. And as it turned out, it was plot relevant, with significant (and amusing) consequences. I've had complaints about Hunter dwelling at far too great a length on weapon specs, but in terms of word count they make up barely 1 per cent of the story and all of it plot relevant. But if you're not into weapons, then I guess that 1 per cent is still 1 per cent too much. It may as well be woodlice.
I think there are two facets to every fanfic story: what we wanted to
read,
and had to write because it wasn't there, and what we wanted to write.
I freely admit that the stories I've written were the kind of fanfic I wanted to read, and only I could write it exactly the way I wanted.
I suspect this is true of many fan writers, perhaps most, maybe even all.
Neil
From: Natasa Tucev tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu To: blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 12:38 PM Subject: Re: [B7L] liking 'character'
Neil wrote:
One thing that leaps out at me from the scripts, now I've had a chance to look at them, is how short most of the lines of dialogue are.
I agree completely - the original world of B7 series is much more stoical, much less is spoken directly and much more is just intimated or remains hidden inside, than in fanfic.
And then I said:
What I find generally irritating is that the regular characters
(especially,
but oc's often too) are often nowhere near 'tough' enough.
If I understand this correctly, you dislike fanfic where (male) characters behave like stereotypical women: they babble, express interest in food and clothes, display their emotions overtly and gossip about each other.
Okay, so suppose I change it to 'nowhere near *stoical* enough'?
To be honest, I'm really not sure if you've understood me on this one or not. As I hope I made clear when I wrote that paragraph, I'm well aware of how 'tough' can equate to male, and 'trivial' and/or 'soft' to female. But I'm not sure that's the whole of the story and it might not even be the real story at all. Rather than male characters behaving like stereotypical women, might it be rebs and crims behaving like respectable law-abiding citizens? Might it be people who regularly face violent death behaving like people whose closest brush with danger is making a right-hand turn on a busy road?
Doing the things they do, having experienced the things they've experienced, the regular characters should be emotionally brutalised beyond the experience of most fan writers, and in ways that I would expect very few fan writers to have experienced first hand. (I can't know for certain, of course. Maybe some fan writers really are ex-SAS or former terrorists or bank robbers etc. Probably not many, though.) What's more, they are brutalised in ways that the mythical average fan writer might not want to contemplate. They are characters he or she might not want to write about. Solution: turn them into people that s/he does want to write about. This amounts to wholesale character assassination in my book, though it depends a lot, of course, on just how brutalised you perceive the regulars to be. I would say 'very', other writers might say 'not very' or even 'not at all'.
I'm not entirely convinced this is a male/female thing, or at least not entirely so. I've read stories by male writers that also fail to capture this sense of brutalisation, though not in the same way. (Attention to things like food and clothes is not a 'fault' in itself, rather it's a symptom. The 'problem' lies in the way such things are included. Take, say, a thriller writer like Patricia Cornwall, who invariably devotes a page to cookery somewhere in her novels - it's pretty clear that cooking is a stress-management device for the central character, and in the average Cornwall thriller she certainly needs one. I can't recall a comparable passage in a fan story where a focus on food is integrated into the thematic structure of the story.)
Likewise, I don't think it's a male/female thing in terms of how the characters are affected by their experiences. All that I've read suggests that men and women both respond to dangerous lifestyles in a pretty similar way. And a way, incidentally, that is generally not reflected in fanfic - crude humour, cruder practical jokes, behaviour that in more comfortable surroundings would be taken as outright nastiness, sarcastic putdowns, emotional silence, and apparently inappropriate or tasteless responses to shocking situations (laughing at corpses, for example). These are all coping strategies developed by people who desperately need coping strategies.
Instead we get characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves, say what they mean and say it at length, mean what they say (some fan writers seem to have an abhorrence of lying), and lengthy heart-to-hearts on the importance of trust. When all the evidence seems to suggest that when your ass is on the line, you know who you can trust, you know who trusts you, and no one needs to agonise over anything.
Admittedly, it's very hard to please me when it comes to fanfic.
You and me both. Actually, you might be even pickier than me. Damn, a rival.
Neil
On 13 Feb 2001 as I do recall, Natasa Tucev wrote:
I agree completely - the original world of B7 series is much more stoical, much less is spoken directly and much more is just intimated or remains hidden inside, than in fanfic. When direct speech carries so much weight of explicit emotional content, the story may become very pathetic as a result. An example:
"I think you feel so guilty about what happened to your brother that you can't face it and you have to find someone else to blame. I think you settled for Avon because he's the handiest target, and because, after the way he greeted you, you could tell how much your rejection would hurt. He has nothing left. I don't know how it happened, but he needs you more than he needs life. Right now he's planning to go out and get caught--because he knows they'll kill him and because that's easier than living with what you did to him just now. I believe in your Cause, Blake. I only just realized it. But I won't fight at your side it you don't make peace with Avon. I couldn't."
<sick noises> <sick noises>
Can you imagine: a) Vila saying this to Blake? b) Vila saying this at all?
Without knowing the context, this is incredibly difficult, and I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions about the surrounding plot... but here's my attempt at a more plausible re-rendering, from Vila's point of view. I'm guessing that we're post-Star One here, probably on Gauda Prime.
~~~~~~ He let Blake's voice run on, as the words slid over him in all their persuasive familiarity; neither of them really listening any more. They'd been through this so many times before, so long ago - and now, suddenly, it was no longer the same.
As if for the first time, he heard the edge of defensive bluster in Blake's voice -- or maybe it had always been there. Maybe he had just never cared enough to notice before. When had he somehow started believing in Blake's 'better world'? When had Blake stopped?
He looked up, into Blake's face. "Avon's gone, you know."
Blake broke off in mid-flow, staring at him. "What do you mean?"
"What did you think was going to happen, after that?" The queer, blind look on Avon's face as Blake had turned on him. Nothing left, behind the brittle facade. They'd all pinned too many hopes on finding Blake. Too much weight on Avon's shoulders. And Blake had flung it all back in his face.
Blake's eyes locked with Vila's for a moment as he drew breath -- whether for justification or denial, Vila no longer cared. He held the other man's gaze, glimpsing the same hard-edged strain he'd come to know so well in Avon over the past year, recognising the cause and refusing pity.
"It wasn't about Avon at all, was it?" Vila couldn't believe he was doing this. Couldn't believe he was defending Avon, of all people. Didn't want to face what he'd read in Blake's flickering glance. They needed Blake, needed him to play the part of hero and leader, needed him to be the image and not the man -- now of all times -- and Avon, most of all. "Even I know it wasn't Avon who got your brother --"
The words dried abruptly in his throat as he caught the brief blaze of fire in Blake's eyes, and he shrank back. "Look, we won't talk about it, all right? But someone's got to go after Avon. He's not thinking straight. He's not like he used to be. And he won't get half a mile out there before they catch him --"
"Avon has a remarkable talent for self-preservation." Blake's face was as stubbornly shuttered now as Avon's own.
"Yes -- when he wants."
There was a moment's blank silence before Vila's meaning finally sank in. Blake's lips parted on the verge of an unspoken question; but they both knew the answer. His mouth tightened, and he turned abruptly for the door, Vila at his heels. "Come on!"
~~~~~~
Admittedly, it's very hard to please me when it comes to fanfic. My ideal fanfic would be a mixture of adventure and angst focusing on Blake.
Oh yes!
Harriet Bazley wrote:
Without knowing the context, this is incredibly difficult, and I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions about the surrounding plot... but here's my attempt at a more plausible re-rendering, from Vila's point of view.
Now, *this* is good writing! Or at least, much, much more to my tastes. (Btw, Harriet, I loved "Not to Know." First really understandable and satisfying excuse I've seen for why Blake never contacted Avon after Star One!) The characters don't blither on, they don't get what Avon would call "sentimental," they don't make long-winded speeches. And what they *don't* say is as important -- more important -- than what they *do* say. *That's* B7, the way I see it.
There are lots of ways, actually, to write the characters talking about emotional issues without going into long passages of amateur psychoanalysis or discussions of the "let me tell you what I'm feeling" type. As a good canonical example, there's the scene between Avon and Cally at the beginning of "Sarcophagus." They only exchange a few sentences, but there's a vast wealth of characterization behind them. The simple fact that they're talking about emotional issues at *all* is significant all by itself, in fact. We *know* they're both suffering from recent events; it doesn't *need* to be made any more overt.
From: Betty Ragan ragan@sdc.org
There are lots of ways, actually, to write the characters talking about emotional issues without going into long passages of amateur psychoanalysis or discussions of the "let me tell you what I'm feeling" type. As a good canonical example, there's the scene between Avon and Cally at the beginning of "Sarcophagus." They only exchange a few sentences, but there's a vast wealth of characterization behind them. The simple fact that they're talking about emotional issues at *all* is significant all by itself, in fact. We *know* they're both suffering from recent events; it doesn't *need* to be made any more overt.
Oi! You're a self-confessed Character Junkie, remember? You're not allowed to say such things.
Because I agree with just about everything you say in that character, so either you're not really a CJ after all, or <shudder> maybe I am...
I feel all wretched now <sniff>
Neil
Neil Faulkner wrote:
From: Betty Ragan ragan@sdc.org
There are lots of ways, actually, to write the characters talking about emotional issues without going into long passages of amateur psychoanalysis or discussions of the "let me tell you what I'm feeling" type. As a good canonical example, there's the scene between Avon and Cally at the beginning of "Sarcophagus." They only exchange a few sentences, but there's a vast wealth of characterization behind them. The simple fact that they're talking about emotional issues at *all* is significant all by itself, in fact. We *know* they're both suffering from recent events; it doesn't *need* to be made any more overt.
Oi! You're a self-confessed Character Junkie, remember? You're not allowed to say such things.
There are, Neil, many ways of being a Character Junkie. :) Seriously, the fact that you have to unravel these people like emotional onions, as opposed to having it all handed to you on a silver platter, is a large part of the appeal to me. (Hmm, "unravelling onions" is rather a mixed metaphor. But never mind.)
Because I agree with just about everything you say in that character, so either you're not really a CJ after all, or <shudder> maybe I am...
Heh heh heh. Be One of Us! Be One of Us!
Actually, I've always thought the characterizations in your fanfic were quite good, even if they're not the main focus of the story. Perhaps there's a closeted CJ inside you struggling to get out?
I feel all wretched now <sniff>
There, there. Tell us all about it, in exlicit, emotionally detailed dialog.
;)
From: Betty Ragan ragan@sdc.org
Actually, I've always thought the characterizations in your fanfic were quite good, even if they're not the main focus of the story. Perhaps there's a closeted CJ inside you struggling to get out?
More a case of practising what I preach. Characters are important, yes, but not necessarily of primary importance all the time and certainly not the only matter of importance. I try to put characters into what I feel are their proper context.
Neil
From: Harriet Bazley harriet@bazley.freeuk.com
He let Blake's voice run on, as the words slid over him in all their persuasive familiarity; neither of them really listening any more. They'd been through this so many times before, so long ago - and now, suddenly, it was no longer the same.
A classic example of how fiction differs from a script. We don't get to hear exactly what Blake is saying, whereas a script would have to have it down word for word. But the significance - to Vila - of what he's saying comes across very clearly, more clearly perhaps than it would in a script.
Nice bit of writing, anyway
Neil
--- Harriet Bazley harriet@bazley.freeuk.com wrote:
On 13 Feb 2001 as I do recall, Natasa Tucev wrote:
Can you imagine: a) Vila saying this to Blake? b) Vila saying this at all?
Without knowing the context, this is incredibly difficult, and I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions about the surrounding plot... but here's my attempt at a more plausible re-rendering, from Vila's point of view. I'm guessing that we're post-Star One here, probably on Gauda Prime.
He let Blake's voice run on, as the words slid over him in all their persuasive familiarity; neither of them really listening any more. They'd been through this so many times before, so long ago - and now, suddenly, it was no longer the same......
Absolutely wonderful!
I must confess that I didn't feel ill by the shown example. I can't remember the story title or who wrote it - but I do remember the passage. At the time I remember thinking, how very unlike the characters but because Vila was defending Avon - I put on a smile and enjoyed it :-)
However; I must say, I very much preferred the re-rendering as done by Harriet Bazley, it was more in keeping with the characters - I loved this! I would love to read any more stories that you may have on the net.
I am currently attempting to write a B7 story for the net myself and I see by some of these posts that I have a long way to go before it may be ready :-)
Cheryl.
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