Fanfic Commentary Meme: "Ice and Stones"
Still working on the responses to this meme (just one more post to go after this one); nicole_anell wanted some thoughts on this piece from Ice and Stones:
He dreams the genocide never happened. He dreams he never built the Cylon detector. He dreams they’re still on New Caprica, happy and free.
He dreams Felix Gaeta tries to shoot him. Then he remembers that actually happened. He dreams he didn’t talk Felix Gaeta out of it, and that he sometimes wishes did.
Starbuck begs him to say he loves her. Six calls him by the wrong name.
He thinks he may be getting two things confused somehow.
One night he dreams of the Legion basestar. He’s roaming the halls blindly, and then he turns into a corner half-hidden in shadow.
Two model Tens are already there, and they’re occupied. He can’t look away. Tangle of hands and mouths and skin, and two sets of eyes glance at him, so full of malice and disdain.
He’s not sure what’s worse: that they glower at him or that they so quickly look away. Their indifference or their hatred.
He turns and he runs until he’s far away, and it isn’t until he feels the soreness in his throat that he realizes he’s been screaming.
He wakes up and the nightmare haunts him for the rest of the day. And then he remembers it wasn’t a nightmare.
But he pretends that it is.
* First of all, I find it kind of funny - or at the least...noteworthy - that you'd ask for more about this one, Nicole. I mention it in a note on the original post for the story, but your fic "Glass Slipper" was pretty much the driving force of influence when I was writing this. And I mean that in the biggest possible way.
I'm probably not the only one who does this (or who knows, mayhaps I am) but sometimes, there'll be a fic by somebody else I read, and there's just something about it, maybe the type of story it tells or even just the way it's written and the style and language it uses, and I really admire it and am stunned by it and maybe feel an eensy bit jealous, like, "Wow, I wish I could write something just like that", so...well, I kinda do. Or try to, anyway. I'll have an idea for a story of my own and thinking about it, I'll go something like "I think this story could really work if it I wrote it in a style similar to that other fic I read, [blank]". And so I make something of an attempt to follow that other fic's style or use it as a serious infulence, and that is very much what happened with "Glass Slipper" and "Ice and Stones". Basically, I was trying to do for Cylon!Gaius exactly what Nicole's fic did for Gina. I don't know of we'd call this cheating or homage; the line gets very thin around here. Sometimes I feel like the only thing that successfully defines something as homage is whether or not the original writer likes the "copying" work - so in this case, I tenatively submit that I was evidently successful ;)
(And anyway, isn't that just the way, though? So much of our feeling toward our own work as writers as to whether or not its successful is entirely dependant upon the happiness of others with it - critics, readers, contemporaries.)
* I have this on and off battle with brevity and minimalism in my writing, especially in the longer drawn-out "verses" that are comprised of a series of connected stories. With this story I was very much going for minimalism, in this kind of hope that the law of "less is more" applied here: I thought the less words I used to try and capture Gaius' confusion and mental breakdown, the stronger and more powerful it would feel. You can definitely see that technique at work in about the first ten sentences or so of this segment. Looking back on it now, I'm a little wishy-washy, because at some points it feels a little rushed and choppy, but I'm still relatively satisfied with it. I still think I took the right tactic for doing what I wanted, and conveying what I was trying to convey.
* And then he remembers it wasn’t a nightmare. Even now, I'm still a little concerned and frustrated with the conclusion to this segment, because I'm vexed that I don't feel 100% satisfied that what I want the reader to realize is coming through clear enough here. I hate it whenever there's any doubt someone might read something I've written and misinterpret an action of the scene wrong, because that makes me feel I've failed at the number one duty of the writer: tell the reader what the fuck is going on. I think this part mainly bothers me in that even while I was writing it, I stared and I stared at this part and I still couldn't come up with - still can't - any different way to say it to make it more clear. So I'm forced to let it stand; I just don't like the fact that I have to.
To lay it all out, point-blank: Once while Gaius was on the Legion basestar, he came across two of his dopplegangers having sex, and got hella freaked out by it. Back on Galactica, he remembers it in a dream, but at this point he's so screwed up he at first thinks it's just a nightmare. And then he remembers it actually happened.
Part of the reason I suck so hard at being brief in my writing. I feel a lot more comfortable, a lot more confident, when I can explicitly describe things, because I am so obsessed with constructing all the details of my own narrative, it ain't even funny. As soon as I go into a more poetic, "floating words" kind of place, I get freaked that I might not even be making any sense any more, and instead of coming off all introspective and arty have merely lapsed straight into incomprehensiability.
* Two model Tens are already there, and they’re occupied. He can’t look away. Tangle of hands and mouths and skin, and two sets of eyes glance at him, so full of malice and disdain. When I'm writing a series of interconnected fics (without flat-out calling it a WIP), it's typically because I have a much bigger universe in my head that I keep abruptly deciding I haven't successfully vented out all the details I wanted to yet. Often there will be more events, scenes and developments that I know of that will never make it to the page, because I didn't have the inspiration, or didn't quite feel the need to tell that part of the story. (If you ever have a lot of time to kill, ask me about the parts I didn't write in any fic series longer than two parts. I can almost guarantee, you'll be getting quite an earful.) By the same token, in this mess of vaguely interconnected, floating scenes, there will be moments that I feel I have to write, that I have to get out, and occasionally I'll all but shoehorn them into what I do decide to write, just to make sure it gets out there. In this universe, I really, really wanted to establish that the model Tens of the Cylon Legion were regularly boinking each other. I don't know if I necessarily felt that was an important detail for the series; just that it was a particular part of the story that I really wanted to tell. So by that token, you could say at the least it was important to me. But the point is, I wanted to get that part out there, and at the time I was writing this one fic, I wasn't sure I was going to have another chance. So I had to make sure it got in here. Luckily though, I feel as if it actually, decently belongs here - it may have been a "shoehorn", but it doesn't really read like it.
He dreams the genocide never happened. He dreams he never built the Cylon detector. He dreams they’re still on New Caprica, happy and free.
He dreams Felix Gaeta tries to shoot him. Then he remembers that actually happened. He dreams he didn’t talk Felix Gaeta out of it, and that he sometimes wishes did.
Starbuck begs him to say he loves her. Six calls him by the wrong name.
He thinks he may be getting two things confused somehow.
One night he dreams of the Legion basestar. He’s roaming the halls blindly, and then he turns into a corner half-hidden in shadow.
Two model Tens are already there, and they’re occupied. He can’t look away. Tangle of hands and mouths and skin, and two sets of eyes glance at him, so full of malice and disdain.
He’s not sure what’s worse: that they glower at him or that they so quickly look away. Their indifference or their hatred.
He turns and he runs until he’s far away, and it isn’t until he feels the soreness in his throat that he realizes he’s been screaming.
He wakes up and the nightmare haunts him for the rest of the day. And then he remembers it wasn’t a nightmare.
But he pretends that it is.
* First of all, I find it kind of funny - or at the least...noteworthy - that you'd ask for more about this one, Nicole. I mention it in a note on the original post for the story, but your fic "Glass Slipper" was pretty much the driving force of influence when I was writing this. And I mean that in the biggest possible way.
I'm probably not the only one who does this (or who knows, mayhaps I am) but sometimes, there'll be a fic by somebody else I read, and there's just something about it, maybe the type of story it tells or even just the way it's written and the style and language it uses, and I really admire it and am stunned by it and maybe feel an eensy bit jealous, like, "Wow, I wish I could write something just like that", so...well, I kinda do. Or try to, anyway. I'll have an idea for a story of my own and thinking about it, I'll go something like "I think this story could really work if it I wrote it in a style similar to that other fic I read, [blank]". And so I make something of an attempt to follow that other fic's style or use it as a serious infulence, and that is very much what happened with "Glass Slipper" and "Ice and Stones". Basically, I was trying to do for Cylon!Gaius exactly what Nicole's fic did for Gina. I don't know of we'd call this cheating or homage; the line gets very thin around here. Sometimes I feel like the only thing that successfully defines something as homage is whether or not the original writer likes the "copying" work - so in this case, I tenatively submit that I was evidently successful ;)
(And anyway, isn't that just the way, though? So much of our feeling toward our own work as writers as to whether or not its successful is entirely dependant upon the happiness of others with it - critics, readers, contemporaries.)
* I have this on and off battle with brevity and minimalism in my writing, especially in the longer drawn-out "verses" that are comprised of a series of connected stories. With this story I was very much going for minimalism, in this kind of hope that the law of "less is more" applied here: I thought the less words I used to try and capture Gaius' confusion and mental breakdown, the stronger and more powerful it would feel. You can definitely see that technique at work in about the first ten sentences or so of this segment. Looking back on it now, I'm a little wishy-washy, because at some points it feels a little rushed and choppy, but I'm still relatively satisfied with it. I still think I took the right tactic for doing what I wanted, and conveying what I was trying to convey.
* And then he remembers it wasn’t a nightmare. Even now, I'm still a little concerned and frustrated with the conclusion to this segment, because I'm vexed that I don't feel 100% satisfied that what I want the reader to realize is coming through clear enough here. I hate it whenever there's any doubt someone might read something I've written and misinterpret an action of the scene wrong, because that makes me feel I've failed at the number one duty of the writer: tell the reader what the fuck is going on. I think this part mainly bothers me in that even while I was writing it, I stared and I stared at this part and I still couldn't come up with - still can't - any different way to say it to make it more clear. So I'm forced to let it stand; I just don't like the fact that I have to.
To lay it all out, point-blank: Once while Gaius was on the Legion basestar, he came across two of his dopplegangers having sex, and got hella freaked out by it. Back on Galactica, he remembers it in a dream, but at this point he's so screwed up he at first thinks it's just a nightmare. And then he remembers it actually happened.
Part of the reason I suck so hard at being brief in my writing. I feel a lot more comfortable, a lot more confident, when I can explicitly describe things, because I am so obsessed with constructing all the details of my own narrative, it ain't even funny. As soon as I go into a more poetic, "floating words" kind of place, I get freaked that I might not even be making any sense any more, and instead of coming off all introspective and arty have merely lapsed straight into incomprehensiability.
* Two model Tens are already there, and they’re occupied. He can’t look away. Tangle of hands and mouths and skin, and two sets of eyes glance at him, so full of malice and disdain. When I'm writing a series of interconnected fics (without flat-out calling it a WIP), it's typically because I have a much bigger universe in my head that I keep abruptly deciding I haven't successfully vented out all the details I wanted to yet. Often there will be more events, scenes and developments that I know of that will never make it to the page, because I didn't have the inspiration, or didn't quite feel the need to tell that part of the story. (If you ever have a lot of time to kill, ask me about the parts I didn't write in any fic series longer than two parts. I can almost guarantee, you'll be getting quite an earful.) By the same token, in this mess of vaguely interconnected, floating scenes, there will be moments that I feel I have to write, that I have to get out, and occasionally I'll all but shoehorn them into what I do decide to write, just to make sure it gets out there. In this universe, I really, really wanted to establish that the model Tens of the Cylon Legion were regularly boinking each other. I don't know if I necessarily felt that was an important detail for the series; just that it was a particular part of the story that I really wanted to tell. So by that token, you could say at the least it was important to me. But the point is, I wanted to get that part out there, and at the time I was writing this one fic, I wasn't sure I was going to have another chance. So I had to make sure it got in here. Luckily though, I feel as if it actually, decently belongs here - it may have been a "shoehorn", but it doesn't really read like it.