Disarm You With a Smile

Okay, so while I'm not going to jump into the "is it or isn't it good to give concrit" debate, I will address something that's been bugging the heck out of me in the discussions:

emailing

Guys. LJ has this nifty little feature wherein you have a forwarding email addy here at good ole livejournal. I know. I've used it. FOR CONCRIT! Umm, and other meta/wank/discussion issues.

"username"@livejournal is nearly flawless as a reliable email address if you want to comment to someone privately or ask a question or whatever. I know I read most of my comments through my personal email. They're easier to keep track of that way. Unless one opts to read comments on one's journal, chances are one is reading them in email. Usernames are attached to an email address at Livejournal's servers, and messages are forwarded to personal email accounts. It's so convenient. It makes that personal communication with LJers that much easier.

So, people who are putting up 'concrit' in comments are doing so for a reason. Not because they can't figure out how to privately email someone, but because they WANT others to see their helpful *cough* comments.

Okay. angstpuppy posted this link to an interview by Eric Kripke about Season 3.

( My impressions - spoilery, so beware )

First: go read this post by rahirah and all the comments and comment discussions to it. Interesting stuff in there. All very thinky.

This post isn't directly in response to rahirah's, but it is derivative of it. More of an amalgamation of thoughts as I read the post and comments. She and her commenters talk about non-con, characterization, and, to a certain extent, motivations. It's the last that I want to talk about, and in doing so, I think I might broach the other two as well. We'll see.

Now for what I really want to talk about. I want to talk about why the characters do what they do - not characterization so much as character psychology, if that makes sense. What made me think of this was reading rahirah's post and seeing references she made to the Spuffy relationship in season, 6 as well as Willow's spell in Something Blue. Granted, she was using them in the context of the non-con = no character development argument, and that argument is not really what I want to talk about. I do want to talk about the 'victim' character's reaction to non-con in fic.

Spineless women are bad enough, but spineless women suddenly inhabiting the bodies of smart, capable hero-types? Gah!
Is it so far fetched that in non-con stories, the 'victim' may not always act like the superhero he/she is purported to be in the canon text? More succinctly: is the 'spineless woman' reaction REALLY that far out of character? (comment by spiletta42 in rahirah's post)
( Spineless Woman or Victims in non-con fic )

***

and I had a whole other argument about Spike and Xander and thinking before they act, but I lost my train of though and it's 1 am here. LOL. I'll have to jot it down and organize it for another post at a later date.

I've had all day to sit and read LJ. yay! *hugs it* I've missed just sitting and reading you!!!!!

I've seen some very interesting, thought provoking posts today.

ETA: meta_fandom, please don't link to this post. thank you.

ladycat777 has a post that is in response to - or a discussion of - heatherly's post about the definition and consequences of child rape, incest, and pedophilia. Great googely moogely, MORE on the subject.

In both of those posts, there is mention of 'responsibility' of writers and readers, as well as Free Speech.

Here are my thoughts on the subject, and as I am a tactless Chelle, I'll make apologies for any offense I may make right away. This is written right in the LJ update window, so I may ramble, get opinionated, or even make very little sense. But there are issues circling LJ that are important to me - finally - and I'd like to speak my piece.
( And I'll cut it for those that don't care. )

I hope that made sense. Only like my 2nd time making meta.

SPN has blown up. Some would say it's about time. It's been growing by leaps and bounds, and when something grows, it takes on a life of its own that was completely different from when it was small. I get that. I understand it. It's kind of like people. We're simple, even very basic as children. Then into our teens, we develop identities that confound others. Then into adulthood we change again, losing some of the people we'd attached ourselves to in teenhood.

( I think fandom operates the same way. )

( Some thoughts on the BNF. )

( Final notes: )

Mostly this is for my benefit, to hash out in my mind my response to a fic.

electricalgwen has a fic O magnum mysterium that she's posted for fall_for_sx. Before you read my post, go read her fic. It's good. I'm the last one who will say it isn't. I love just about everything she's put down the pike, cuz she's really good with the characters.

That said? ( I wish I hadn't clicked on this one )

Even though the reader in me gets it and thinks it's good; the believer in me, the Christian in me, has her back up.

If being thought provoking is the mark of good writing? Then yeah, this was good writing.

screw it. I thought I'd do this in a day or two, but I made a preliminary list and figured "What the hell? I"m still up; this is something I can do tonight, and dammit, I'm curious as to what others think."

Thing is: this list is short. It's those writers/fans that are HUGE to me. I have so many more that I admire, that I read whatever the hell they write. But for some reason, they're not BNFs to me.

Anyway:
( THE LIST )

I didn't make this list to offend. I didn't make it to say that these people are better than others. It's just these are the fans that illustrate my interpretation of BNF. Others may disagree with me, and that's cool. I'm interested to see who you all think are BNFs.

For what I consider to be the definition of BNF, please see the previous post.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ programming.

I am considering posting something that may offend people on my flist. Why? Cuz I'm considering outing who I think are BNFs and why. But first things first: I think it necessary for me to explain what BNF means to me, or perhaps what it doesn't mean.

A BNF is:
*someone who is well known in the fandom. (not necessarily popular)
*someone who is talented and prolific (not either or, but BOTH)
*someone who supports new writers through feedback, concrit, recs, pimps, and/or community posts.
*someone not afraid to defend themselves or their flist, but who is reasonable, logical, and impassionate about it.

A BNF is NOT:
*someone who belittles others
*someone who is merely popular or prolific
*someone who expresses themself in flames or crude posts about other fen
*someone who's main descriptor is 'bitch,' 'psycho,' 'emotional blackmailer,' or 'user.'


Would a post outlining my examples of BNFs be a bad idea? *shrug* Don't know, don't really care. The fen I consider to be so DESERVE the label, because they are the best authors, brightest readers, kindest souls, and strongest people I know in the fandom. Of which I have only one.

My fandom is big, REALLY big. It's got millions of people in it. But it's only one fandom. And I have a very small friends list. I prefer it that way. I've seen smaller, true, but I've also seen HUGE flists, and I just don't want that. So, very likely, my BNFs are going to be VERY well know, cuz they're on so many lists. Again, I say *shrug*. Some of them have left my fandom. I still read what they write, because they're that damn awesome.

I'm going to take a day or two to compile my list and my reasons for that list. Then I'm gonna post it. I hope those I mention will be flattered, based on my definition of what a BNF is. I'm just so sick and tired of seeing the 'hate meme' threads and the term BNF thrown around as a pejorative. It's not, or at least it didn't use to be.

I've been seeing a trend. I'm not sure if I like it, or what my place COULD be in it.

Beloved stories like Bram Stoker's Dracula, Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of Oz, and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women are becoming new again.

I've just started reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova takes a new look at Dracula through her father's old correspondence and archeology. Fascinating concept.

Geraldine Brooks' March takes Mr. March, the patriarchal figure of Little Women who has left his family behind to go to war, and weaves a story of his time away from Jo and Meg and beth and Amy.

Gregory Maguire's Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West traces the origins of the nastiest witch in the Wizard of Oz, from her life as a lonely little girl to when she tried to kill Dorothy and Toto.

These are just three instances that give me hope. To think that authors, editors, agents, and publishing companies are taking a real and legitimate interest in what is basically fanfiction THRILLS me to no end. I'm not sure what to make of it, though.

I've always considered fanfiction to be a hobby. Something we do to keep beloved characters alive. I never once think of it as a productive means of breaking into the literary world. But there are three authors that have done it. Taken characters and stories we know and love and turned them into marketable works for public PAID consumption.

Fanfiction authors have stigmas to deal with, I think sometimes. We don't *create* most of the characters we write about, but in the process of telling new stories, we do create *new* characters, original characters that are rich and detailed and flawed and tragic and all the things that so-called real writers create their characters to be. So why the pejorative label on 'fanfiction'?

I can see the problems inherent with it, definitely. Having read some seriously bad, ill-concieved, poorly executed, and one dimensional stories my self. But what about the really good authors. I know so many, read them everyday, and then there are hundreds out there I've never heard of. What about the really talented among us? Those who craft their fanfiction and work on it, slave over it, plot it out and edit and rewrite and develop their stories? Those that create entire new worlds: AUs, post-apocalyptic universes, little slices of life that are so true to reality. Why is their work, so often rich with a kind of depth that is missing in trade fiction, marginalized simply because it's fanfiction? It makes no sense to me.

I've seen fic writers who get asked if they are published, and often they say they're working on "orignal stuff." Well. The examples above pretty much tell me that the market is open to some rehashing, re-exaimaning of older stuff. One of my favorite books of all time, John Gardner's Grendel is the retelling of an ancient story. But it is seminal work as well. A real piece of modern existential examination. And at it's core, what it really is, is fanfiction. An alternate POV of Beowulf. So why can't these wonderful exciting fanfic authors break into the marketable fiction world with their stories? If the three people above could do it, why not me? Or you? Or one of the writers you read? It's mindboggling.

I'd like to hear other's thoughts on this. What do you think of the trend of 'fanfiction' as 'real fiction?'

.....or "How I use my LJ"

Well, I've been on LJ for almost a year (Dec 5th for those that give a crap), and while I have commented on kerfuffles or kerfluffles, I am proud to say I've never been directly involved in one here. (There was a time on one of my Yahoo groups, but that is so totally different).

I've been reading over the last few days about the "why we write what we write" one, and a couple of others, and I have to say it cracks me up. So. I'm gonna offer my tips on how to avoid kerfuffles:

1. Don't read incindiary stuff.
Of course I blatantly flaunt this all the time.

2. (and this is the important part) Don't comment/respond/freeze/delete incindiary posts. This one? I live by.

So you guys who enjoy that sort of thing, love the rush it gives ya, thrive on the give and take of flinging veiled and not so veiled insults at each other? Y'all go right ahead. I'll stand over here on the sidelines, and grin.

So, I was over at euro_fics journal a little bit ago. She was talking of course about Serenity. But somehting interesting came up in the course of the discussion.

"The Spike Effect".

Apparently, this is that intangible, certain something that creates a "rabid ape-shit fascination" that makes people watch tv shows. I wonder. Could Spike, played by anyone other than JM have created such a stir? Would there have been this ephemeral name attached to him? I can't say. But it makes me think about what JM would think about this.

He is a very powerful actor, I'll grant him that, but does he deserve that kind of accolade. Was it JUST him that made Buffy fascinating? Or Angel? Ummm. Hmmm. I don't know. What do you guys think?

I don't know how or who or why, but I want to say a HUGE THANKS!!!!!

My question about how to write dark fic was somehow turned over to the metafandom group and Holy Hannah! I got so many GREAT pieces of advice and suggestions on how to make my stuff better.

So whoever you are, however you did it, Thank you from the bottom of my pea pickin heart. I got home from the movies today and jumped online and damned if there weren't a heapin handful of helpful emails. I almost cried. Thank you.

Hey all. I've been thinking about what and how I write. Well, the examination of my writing style was brought on by a request I received from soraidh here.

I've never really done a really dark fic. There was the one for the Music of Pain ficathon, but it wasn't really all that dark. I just took a look at what would have happened had Buffy been killed in Becoming II. I think I stuck pretty close to the characters in that one.

With the above challenge, which I did take up, though not exactly how she wanted, I found myself in a quandary. I can't do the dark torture-y stuff. I tried. The story I ended up writing started out with the torture and blood letting, but I couldn't do it. Found myself getting squicked by it. So I set about with a different kind of torture. Once I decided on that, the story just sort of fell out. Of course, it was bare bones, only barely grazing the depths I wanted to achieve. So I needed a beta BAD. Well, now it's finished - Not to be posted til November, can you believe it? And the thing is, it's supposed to be dark but it ends lightly. I mean, the ending is satisfying, not syrupy or anything fake like that, but I find myself going back to the happy, schmoopy side of things.

What is the point of this? Well. I'd like to be able to take my writing to a much darker place. I'd like to be the one people respond to with "ohh, that hurts so much" or "owie. So dark." So my question is this: what is the key to writing the dark stuff? Is it some psychological thing or some experience that puts a writer in that frame of mind? Does it require having some sordid or painful past? Or is it just being really in touch with the darker emotions?

If it is the last, then I'm screwed and destined to write lite fluffy pieces. And dammit that gets boring. I'm not the most emotionally available person in the western hemisphere. Hell. I'm barely in touch with what I feel normally. It's one of the reasons people don't get me most of the time. I don't feel things the way others do. Is that distance from my feelings going to hinder me, do you think? Should I just give this pursuit up? Or struggle with it and fight with it, hoping that writing will teach me to delve a little deeper, feel a little more?

I sent this question out into the cosmos. Any answers or opinions my flist wants to share are more than welcome. I mean, I signed up to lj cuz I wanted a place to put my writing, but it is a journal people. The big questions deserve a place to be posited.

Thanks for reading.

Ok. I am now all caught up. I thought I was missing something, and ohhh buddy was I right. I went into this, reading, thinking, come on, y'all. She's got to be kidding. Maybe you misinterpreted things. Because NO ONE in his or her RIGHT MIND would ask for money for fanfic for real. Would they? Well, ummm. Yup. She did. Damn. That is just freakin sad.

I'm new to the whole thing. ONly been in it for about 6 months, well, REALLY in it. I had a couple of stories going for a while, but nothing like what I do now. But even a newbie knows THIS ISN'T OUR STUFF!!!!! We didn't make these characters. We didn't set up this universe. How the hell cna we expect to get paid for work we didn't do? And I don't know about y'all, but the character and universe is the HARDEST part!

Am I late on the bandwagon? Probably. Am I as pissed as some? No. Just resigned. Eventually, it had to come to this. Unbelievable. At least I don't feel so lost anymore. I know what's going on now. Thanks god I think I suck. It would never cross my mind to expect people to pay for the crap I put out there. There are too many others better than I could ever hope to be for me to think I DESERVE to be paid. Wow.

Anyway. here's hoping the stupid stick stays pretty doggone close to the dumbass tree, and no one else gets a wild hair up their ass to ask for money to finish WIPs. *shakes head, bewildered*