Neil again:
Neglect of original characters is something I've moaned about more than once in the past, since in many (though not all) cases they are severely underwritten, underdescribed, badly named, and little more than one-dimensional cyphers to give 'our heroes' something to play off
against. ...
Likewise settings,which can be nothing more than an abstract locale in which the action takes place, and consequently left all but
undescribed.
I agree, poor settings and the seeming antipathy to original characters (aka Mary-Sues) are two of my pet peeves of fanfic. The whole anti-Mary-Sue feeling has (IMO) done more to stultify B7 fanfic than anything else. I'd rather put up with a whole host of blatant Mary-Sues in the hope that people felt freer to invent new characters and new situations.
After all, very few (if any?) episodes stuck rigidly to the cast members only, nearly all acquired some new (and often interesting) characters for Our Heroes to play off/with. Moreover I assume the predilection for quarry-of-the-weekism stemmed from budget constraints and they would cheerfully have gone somewhere with interesting scenery had costs allowed.
Tavia
At 01:05 AM 2/11/01 +0000, Tavia Chalcraft wrote:
...poor settings and the seeming antipathy to original characters (aka Mary-Sues) are two of my pet peeves of fanfic. The whole anti-Mary-Sue feeling has (IMO) done more to stultify B7 fanfic than anything else. I'd rather put up with a whole host of blatant Mary-Sues in the hope that people felt freer to invent new characters and new situations.
This is reminiscent of the "Alternate Universe" discussion--and again I don't think either way of looking at things is intrinsically better than the other. Myself, I like the convenience of a pre-established (yet conveniently vague) universe and timeline, *and* prefab characters (with conveniently vague back-stories). It's like having a sous-chef to peel my plot potatoes and grease my characterizational cookie-sheets, thus freeing me up to create exotic and luxurious (to the sufficiently refined palate ;-p) literary meals without having to do all that bloody tedious *work*...and ain't nobody forcing nobody to eat it...
--Penny "Iron Chef Botulism" Dreadful -- "These must be T.V. potatoes." --The Inn Chef
From: Penny Dreadful pennydreadful@powersurfr.com
Myself, I like the convenience of a pre-established (yet conveniently vague) universe and timeline, *and* prefab characters (with conveniently vague back-stories).
That, to me, is one of the appeals of fanfic, both writing and reading. You don't have to start from scratch every time, and the convenient vagueness of the universe and the character backstories allows them to be tweaked whichever way the writer wants.
However, I prefer to see this convenient vagueness used 'as a springboard rather than an ironing board' (to quote from a review of an album by the Subhumans, not that many people on the Lyst will even have heard of them) and one-dimensionalising original character (m or f) and background is IMO a near guaranteed way of ironing a story out flat. I'd like to think that if writers really cared about their fiction *as fiction* then they would pay attention to such matters. Clearly many fan writers do. Some don't. And I've just been struck by a vision of a hypothetical piece of fan art, depicting the Liberator crew, which features a brilliantly rendered Avon in the company of four or five stick figures with smileys on their faces. Unfortunately I can't draw, otherwise I'd have a go. (I could probably - *probably* - manage the stick figures but the Avon would be a bit of a poser.)
Neil (who keeps typing 'the Lust' instead of 'the Lyst')
PS Preface quotes from Crass, eh? Attagirl! Though good job you stuck to those two lines because I can't really see Travis 'trapped in a haze and flow of bridal gown'.
At 04:31 PM 2/11/01 +0000, Neil Faulkner wrote:
Subhumans, not that many people on the Lyst will even have heard of them)
Heard of, heard, own albums by, &c. Blake the rebel's dead, got kicked in the head... ;-p
...Though good job you stuck to those two lines because I can't really see Travis 'trapped in a haze and flow of bridal gown'.
But he *is* (cf. "Zenith" p. 42) Poison In A Pretty Pill...;-p
--"Dave" -- "This is the kind of conversation that can only end in a gunshot."
-
Neil Faulkner -
Penny Dreadful -
Tavia Chalcraft