curious I said, among other things, We have a toolbox for writing this sort of thing really, really well, for making these 3 A.M. fantasies work as story and work as literature without having to draw back from the Id Vortex to do it. And
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trobadora commented, among other things, I'd be interested in how you'd describe that 'toolbox'.Well, yes. That is the question, isn't it.
This is what I said in the comment thread: I think a large part of it is simply the beta process-- that we can write these stories with someone looking over our shoulders and pointing out "Yes, it's very hot, but there's no reason for him to do that."
I think another part of it is-- maybe not simply the fact that we're using other people's characters, but the sort of characterization work that using existing characters requires of us.
That is, in original fiction using some of these storylines, the story gimmick can really overwhelm characterization-- if the main character has been created solely to experience the big Id Vortex-y gimmick, soul bond or slavery or whatever, she all too often becomes just a vehicle for the reader's identification-- and that's if the writer's fairly decent; she can become a complete authorial stand-in all too easily. The other characters, meanwhile, often exist not to further their own agendas but to inflict the gimmick on the main character.
Fanfic doesn't let you get away with that-- the kind of questions that we're trained, through the beta-process, to ask are all designed to keep that from happening, to keep your characters from becoming Canon Sues. If you have to keep asking, at every step, what one specific character, whom you've seen in a lot of settings, would do in your story's situation-- What would Kirk do as a slave on Vulcan, or Percy do in a Muggle sex club, or what have you-- it forces the story far enough back from the edge of the vortex that it can retain some structural integrity, even if it's still in a very tight orbit around that vortex-- even if the Gimmick From the Id is the whole reason it exists.
I'd really like to know what some other people think, though-- what are the tools that you've noticed, as a writer, a beta, or a reader, that work to keep cracktastic, emotionally-charged stories from collapsing?
December 3 2004, 13:19:40 UTC 7 years ago
I mean... sometimes I *do* wind up writing these cracktastic Id Vortex (such a GOOD term) stories and getting damned near all the way through before I realize I'm doing it, but most of the time? I figure out my internal landscape within enough time to go back and be *careful*. To do all the things I always do in order to make a story work (or at least work for ME enough that I don't facepalm when people mention it), but to do them, perhaps, even more *assiduously* than I normally would.
I think my best stories overall are often the ones which hit emotional kinks so obscure and tangled that they're far more likely to make my readers scream and wail at me than make the happy sex noises, but I also think my massive collection of cliche-fic is right up there. Because the most important tool in my -- heh -- box is the fact that I go into these things with my eyes open, and so wind up only revealing as much about myself, my specific kinks, and my issues as I, well, *normally* would.
Authorial stand-ins can work brilliantly, but they rarely do in Id Vortex stories, in my experience. Because, well, it becomes blindingly obvious to the reader that a) it *is* a stand-in, and b) the author him/herself has no *idea*.
December 3 2004, 13:44:25 UTC 7 years ago
Oh, yeah.
Which I think we can cultivate more easily within fandom, just because it *is* so saturated with the cracktastic fantasy porn-- if you can read 6 variants on every cliche out there before breakfast without really having to seek them out, it's pretty easy to find where your personal buttons and kinks are-- and to identify them *as* kinks, even the emotional kinks which aren't necessarily sexual.
b) the author him/herself has no *idea*.
Oh, yes. There is a *world* of difference between reading someone's personal kink-fantasies when they know that's what they were writing, and reading someone's personal kink-fantasies when they think they're just writing fiction.
December 4 2004, 00:06:38 UTC 7 years ago
*Right*, and we're not just reading, we're having long serious talks about them with out fannish wives/partners/families/whatever, and what it all means, and how it reminds us of that scene in The Lost Boys, and also of that particular summer at camp.
Or, well, I know *I* am. :D
It's a nightly reality check, and I surely do need it.
Oh, yes. There is a *world* of difference between reading someone's personal kink-fantasies when they know that's what they were writing, and reading someone's personal kink-fantasies when they think they're just writing fiction.
Right, because is there *anything* hotter than a sticky dirty kinkfest written by someone who knows *precisely* what they're doing?
December 3 2004, 13:42:42 UTC 7 years ago
(Actually, it may be that I just managed to figure out what was sticky about the real story I'm properly working on, so my brain no longer needs to take a break and play with Mulcahy in the Mirror universe.)
But how I wrote the MirrorM*A*S*Hslash was absolutely:
I got Hawkeye and Trapper and Winchester and Ferretface and Radar to sound exactly like themselves, while doing things that in the canon M*A*S*H universe they'd never do. The voices are right: the actions are wrong. In this way, you can read the story and know what Mulcahy is thinking/feeling even though the whole story is from M-Hawkeye's POV and he doesn't have any idea what Mulcahy is thinking/feeling, because as a reader/M*A*S*H fan, you are suffering the same dislocating shock as Mulcahy is: these are the people you know, but look what they're doing.
I figured I could get away with one person who was just completely Mirror, and that's BJ: as a counterweight, there's Radar, who is effectively identical to the Radar we know.
This all sounds terribly conscious, but in fact it works on a very non-conscious level: one thing I always need to do when I write a fanstory is get the characters voices clear in my head so that I can invent dialogue for them that sounds like they would say it. Once their voices are solidly in my head, and while they are, inventing dialogue that sounds like them is the easy part.
December 3 2004, 18:29:33 UTC 7 years ago
Or, like me, you just write it as broad comedy, which I did with the Legolas/Eowyn I wrote. Why did I write it? Because they're pretty and I wanted them to have sex with each other, even though I don't believe it would/could/should happen. Toss in a few groaners about the Stewardess of Gondor and Aragorn's... fondness for hobbits, and people will go for the ride, whereas if I'd tried to play it straight (as I did in the Legolas/Aragorn/Eowyn, which is not as successful a story, though I still like it), it never would have worked.
December 3 2004, 19:29:26 UTC 7 years ago
And, yeah, the whole suspension of disbelief thing. I have to believe in the little sub-universe the writer creates long enough to finish the story, and there's a lot of times where it just...doesn't work.
Anonymous
December 7 2004, 16:23:50 UTC 7 years ago
Yeah! There's a point at which "Leave them wanting more." becomes "Let them eat cake."
It's CROOL!
xxx,
Mog
December 3 2004, 21:10:39 UTC 7 years ago
December 3 2004, 22:41:40 UTC 7 years ago
December 4 2004, 08:38:47 UTC 7 years ago
Simply put, not being afraid to speak your mind, and then having the guts to tell your author (the one who knows what is supposedly going on, even if it's not on paper yet) how they can fix it.
It can be a tad harsh to do, but sometimes, it's just got to be done.
December 4 2004, 08:57:20 UTC 7 years ago
I think you mean good fanfic - there's so much really, really cracktastic, straight-from-the-Id, utterly OOC fanfic around! But I agree that the community plays a large part in moving beyond that (through the beta process, but also simply by providing a critical and chatty audience that will call you on any blunder you make).
Still, I do think
December 4 2004, 11:40:14 UTC 7 years ago
As to how to do that -- Get the dialogue right. That's the one trick that works for me. If you get it just spot on, if you can get me saying, "fuck me sideways, that's *exactly* what Frodo would say to Harry Potter if they had a threesome with Captain Jack Sparrow on the slopes of Mt. Doom," then you got me. I'm in, no matter how silly your premise is.
Unfortunately it's a very unforgiving trick, because it doesn't take but a half step away from canon that hasn't been earned for me to pop right back out again. Which is why I don't read the cracktastic Id fic much. Unless it's close enough to my particular fic kinks that I'll forgive almost anything, which is rare.
By earned I mean I have no problem with characters changing (believeably) in response to the stimuli you're writing about. But you can't change them first so they'll respond the way you want them to. Or, you can, but I won't read it.
Reading the dialogue aloud is my best personal check on if I've got it right. Especially for media based fandoms, it's amazing what will look okay on a screen when you're writing it, but when you say it it's obvious that Character X has never said anything remotely like that, and never will.
The other trick is not to leave the humor out. At least in my fandoms, a thread of funny runs through even the darkest moments. Keeping that in already makes it feel more like canon, and leaving it out can make something otherwise plausible feel too pretentious.
December 5 2004, 07:50:52 UTC 7 years ago
Work like a madwoman on building up characters other the protagonist.
To me, the most annoying thing about MarySues and CanonSues is that all the other characters focus their lives around them. Everyone loves or hates Sue, wants to see her happy or destroyed for no reasons beyond plot. The minute the antagonist and secondary characters get lives of their own, the main character has to stand believably on his or her own as well (or collapse).
Working on all the characters creates an internal check system. Not only does the protagonist have to sound believable to reader, he/she has to sound believable to the secondary characters in the story, and viceversa for the secondaries.
When the major players are rounded out and breathing on their own, cracktastic plots read much more like "crossroads of circumstance" rather than the author wanted to write about THIS situation.
Anonymous
December 7 2004, 16:38:06 UTC 7 years ago
Amen. Or you could just stop there after "reasons", because a lot of times when this happens, not even plot accounts for it. Character narcissism.
The corollary to this is the character-bashing (usually of the canon hero) that takes place when a writer just can't get a handle on the idea of there being more than one good person in a given universe. Only their beloved Canon Sue can be admirable, and everyone else is just PICKING ON HIM! *g*
xxx, Mog
December 5 2004, 18:12:57 UTC 7 years ago
As someone else said, being self-aware is critical to good fic. As for the rest of the toolbox...
Keep the secondary characters true to themselves
Stay away from hard science if you don't understand it
Don't make up another sentient species just to get your characters in a "situation"
Do make up a sentient species if the PLOT demands it
DO a couple codas to episodes to get a feel for character (some of the codas I've read are actually better than the episode and explored a nuance I didn't catch).
Read ALL the fanfic even the junk. Get a feel for what works and what doesn't. Read the books, watch the episodes.
Characters EMOTE. I've read absolutely stunning writing that has no emotion at all. The story didn't work because the characters were cardboard.
And in fact, if you notice, writing fanfic is more about writing character than anything else. Plot is a device, not the story. Character is the story. What did they do? How'd they do it? Why'd they do it? Where and when are less important than delving into the psyche of the character.
Merry
December 5 2004, 19:34:30 UTC 7 years ago
I agree with most of what's been said here; I'm going to attempt to make my point, but it may dribble on into nonsense. If so I apologize.
maybe not simply the fact that we're using other people's characters, but the sort of characterization work that using existing characters requires of us.
Or that by having the rigid structure of recognizable characters, we are allowed to push the boundaries of id farther than an original story. Like you and other posters have said, the danger of original stories pushing the boundaries is the authorial stand-in. Also, it's harder for the reader to know the original characters, know what makes sense and what doesn't. With the framework of well known characters to cling to, both the writer and reader can push farther into cracktasticness. Sometimes this results in utter OOC crap, othertimes it results in pure brilliance.
If you have to keep asking, at every step, what one specific character, whom you've seen in a lot of settings, would do in your story's situation-
This is the challenge and joy of fanfic. The what-if's. It's taking that character we all know so well, and putting them in strange and new situations, and still believing that they are the same character. So we as authors study every aspect of behavior--speech patterns, word usage, common gestures, personal history, emotive trends, abilities and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. When those traits are brought into the story, it doesn't really matter what situation the character is in, because it's still that character. An original author must work harder to get the reader to know that character.
Um, does that make any sense? I love your thoughts on this. Love the meta. I wank in a slightly direction here if you're interested.
*runs away*
December 6 2004, 16:06:39 UTC 7 years ago
Anonymous
December 7 2004, 16:51:06 UTC 7 years ago
vortextually
Yeah, it can be fascinating, but I think for most people the fact that it usually goes along with not very good writing is an offputter. The combination of that with the "Argh!" factor as you hit dead-center of the vor-text sends us hightailing. But yeah, if you stay, you may see some amazing things. Nak-id.xxx,
Mog
December 7 2004, 20:37:45 UTC 7 years ago
Re: vortextually
[But yeah, if you stay, you may see some amazing things. Nak-id.]Nak-id, oh the puns they make me laugh.*g*
I love the art of reading, and sometimes a challenge is just what I need. There's a person, writing/posting, and they are trying to communicate the visions/madness/feelings/weird porn etc. in their mind, and I have to decode their transmission to get to it.
! It actually is a blast for me when people experiment with language (though I *do* recognize and appreciate those who get into "proper" grammar, also.). When I'm in the mood to do it, easy-to-read just doesn't give me enough of a cipher. Case in point, I like to read esoteric and badly translated manga. When I figure out what is going on in the story, I get *almost* as good a rush as from Jane St. Clair's good porn.
February 5 2005, 14:16:46 UTC 7 years ago
Dialogue that sounds like it could actually be said by the characters, recognizable characterization (or showing gradual development if the character isn't similar to canon), and lack of character bashing, I'd say.