I'm not sure I'd label those two styles the way you do (especially the pejorative 'drivel on'). The style used in the short Sirius piece -- seemingly quite common in fanfics -- always strikes me as very ... well, stylised, and probably best suited to that kind of short character study. I'm not sure it would work especially well in a longer, plotty piece. It's rather like an actor declaiming lines as compared to trying to make them sound natural -- the former can certainly be effective, but you're aware you're witnessing a Performance rather than being drawn into the story. Likewise, with the stylistic approach you tend to be aware of the writing itself as much as what it's saying -- or at least I do.
To be honest, the Merlin paragraph you posted sounded OK -- it could do with some polishing, yes, but there's nothing which looks like obvious padding that doesn't add something to the scene. I think maybe you're often too hard on yourself with what you think as 'drivel mode' or even completed fics that aren't like your Sirius piece in style -- I remember you saying you couldn't stand Stop All The Clocks now, and then I went back and reread it and even knowing what happened it was still tense and scary. (And conversely? I think sometimes you overcredit the stylised fics. Becoming is a beautifully phrased collection of vignettes, but the last one felt somewhat unconnected (and canonically odd) to me, and I'm not sure the S/R stuff melds well with the Animagus theme.)
Mind you, I have the opposite problem -- I'm lousy at scene description, and have enough trouble getting anything written at all so I rarely throw any of it away. Polish, yes, but semi-connected scenes tend to result in something being added to the fic to make them fit. :)
Oh, you know, you do it quite often. You're one of the people I really listen very hard to. Not that it shows!
I'm not sure I'd label those two styles the way you do (especially the pejorative 'drivel on'). The style used in the short Sirius piece -- seemingly quite common in fanfics -- always strikes me as very ... well, stylised, and probably best suited to that kind of short character study. I'm not sure it would work especially well in a longer, plotty piece. It's rather like an actor declaiming lines as compared to trying to make them sound natural -- the former can certainly be effective, but you're aware you're witnessing a Performance rather than being drawn into the story. Likewise, with the stylistic approach you tend to be aware of the writing itself as much as what it's saying -- or at least I do.
I absolutely agree with you here. To be honest, I enjoy the 'editor-on' mode of writing as a way of flexing muscles, but it's very 'writerly'(I say that like it's a bad thing. I think it is.) I think it's a very fannish thing: ideal for stories where nothing is happening. I wouldn't pay money for stories written in this style, and I think it would take a superb writer to keep me interested in a long (1000 words + story). [If someone comes along with counter examples, fabulous. I look forward to reading them.]
To be honest, the Merlin paragraph you posted sounded OK -- it could do with some polishing, yes, but there's nothing which looks like obvious padding that doesn't add something to the scene. I think maybe you're often too hard on yourself with what you think as 'drivel mode' or even completed fics that aren't like your Sirius piece in style -- I remember you saying you couldn't stand Stop All The Clocks now, and then I went back and reread it and even knowing what happened it was still tense and scary.
You know, that is a really nice thing to say. Thanks! I think when one gets too close to a story - and that one took five months from writing to posting, because it was my first one - I wonder if you do only see the holes? What's your experience with that? I'm thinking in particular of NTLJ as your longest so far; you may of course have other examples!
(And conversely? I think sometimes you overcredit the stylised fics. Becoming is a beautifully phrased collection of vignettes, but the last one felt somewhat unconnected (and canonically odd) to me, and I'm not sure the S/R stuff melds well with the Animagus theme.)
Don't suppose you would care to expand on that (assuming you want to and have time, of course)? I know I felt that the last scene was an abrupt move on from the rest, but I didn't think it was that unconnected, so I'd love to know what didn't gel. It could again be me thinking that I've made links in the story that are actually only in my head. By 'canonically odd', do you mean S waiting with R for Pomfrey or something else?
Mind you, I have the opposite problem -- I'm lousy at scene description, and have enough trouble getting anything written at all so I rarely throw any of it away.
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
Polish, yes, but semi-connected scenes tend to result in something being added to the fic to make them fit. :)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
More on 'drivel on' (not the pejorative nature of it: I tend to be rude about things that matter to me) tomorrow. Though it's clear that, as a mode of writing, it applies to LJ comments as well. Honestly, I can't stop writing stuff.
Don't suppose you would care to expand on that (assuming you want to and have time, of course)? I know I felt that the last scene was an abrupt move on from the rest, but I didn't think it was that unconnected, so I'd love to know what didn't gel. It could again be me thinking that I've made links in the story that are actually only in my head. By 'canonically odd', do you mean S waiting with R for Pomfrey or something else?
Okay, IMHO, YMMV, etc.
To take the second one first, because it's easier: my first thought on reading the scene was: "um, when is this happening?" It must be after they became Animagi, but in that case Remus shouldn't be suffering from tearing himself apart -- stopping that was the point of them becoming Animagi in the first place. Or if it's after school, why is he in the Shack? Even if he still used it to transform, presumably at least one of them would normally be able to keep him company. And it did seem surprising that Sirius would risk Pomfrey seeing him there -- he's not supposed to be able to remain in the same room as a werewolf without getting attacked, and I thought she was probably supposed to get there to tend him pretty much as soon as the moon set. It's werewolfily dramatic, but I'm not sure where to fit it into the canon setup. (Minor point: 'witches' fingers' seemed an odd image for a Sirius POV -- I'm guessing it's intended to conjure up the 'witch as scary old crone' idea, but even though that might apply to his mother(!), as a wizard not a Muggle it presumably isn't his default view of witches.)
To take the first one second, because it's much more nebulous: to me it felt that the really original aspect of the piece, and the basic theme that runs through it, is that of an Animagus finding that the characteristics of their animal form seep into their human personality, or maybe just emphasise the parts of it that gave rise to that particular animal form (with a nice side nod to the possibly deleterious effect that has on Peter). Interleaved with that, there are the lines relating to the Sirius-Remus relationship -- maybe it was me, but they seem mostly orthogonal to the Animagus idea, and (again for me) the linkage between them didn't quite seem to gell as parts of the same whole. The first 'becoming' seems to be stated confidently, the second rather whispered. (That may of course just be because I find it awkward to semi-assume S/R without quite specific setup.)
In detail: Sirius has his wanting-to-fetch moment with James's note -- but this apparently leads to him going to see Moony, and presumably the realisation in the first line that he loves Moony more than himself? Not sure where that reaction came from? Initially I thought that first line was referring to his feelings of love and loyalty to James.
The idea that the RoR smells of Moony to Padfoot does link the two together, but also raises questions that aren't directly answered -- e.g. is the other Gryffindor Moony himself? Does he ask for a room that reminds him of Sirius, presumably in human form? If not, what's going on? If so, perhaps a little too subtle for over-literal people like me. :)
It then segues into the final scene in which the main theme of the preceding ones -- becoming like your Animagus form -- isn't really there, except as a little aside (and as I said above, I'm not sure why Padfoot wouldn't have to be there). That links well to the first line and the Moony-reflections, but if they're to be the takeaway at the end (and as the last section, that would be the natural feeling for a reader?) then the Animagus bits would feel like a side issue to me.
It also felt a bit 'something's missing' that Moony was the only one of the Marauders that Sirius doesn't observe directly doing something (as opposed to lying passively hurt). He's almost an offstage character.
Anyway, that's enough, or I'll have waffled on longer than the fic itself. :)
Oh, about the other stuffsnorkackcatcherFebruary 3 2009, 00:51:46 UTC
I think when one gets too close to a story - and that one took five months from writing to posting, because it was my first one - I wonder if you do only see the holes? What's your experience with that? I'm thinking in particular of NTLJ as your longest so far; you may of course have other examples!
I tend to see the holes only in retrospect -- certainly with NTLJ I wince at some of the clunky bits and the general ramshackle nature inevitable in a long story written off and on over a period of about two years and large chunks of which were made up as I went along. The early chapters especially feel variously weak, clumsy, and self-indulgent in parts, and there are Issues with characterisations -- one thing the CADOD did make me realise was how much I fall back on stereotypes and shorthands for anyone who isn't like me in some way. (e.g. Americans, Canadians, Irish, even Yorkshiremen!) It's a fairly grievous writerly limitation, and unfortunately one based on personality flaws rather than lack of practice. I did think of trying to match NTLJ up with DH, but I'm not sure I have the energy for it (and it never got a huge audience anyway, at least not one that stuck with it through the long delays).
With Medes and Persians, which also took ages, I went through a few compressed rounds of beta-induced tweaks after it was written, but mostly small ones -- eventually I got to the point of just feeling 'dammit, I need to get this thing posted'. Looking back over it, there are bits I really like where I think I got it spot on (e.g. the little bridging scene with Kingsley's secretary), and bits that seem clunky and insufficiently polished. But although I tend to want to tweak and sand down rough edges every time I look over a fic, I just can't do that months-of-revisions thing, let alone the rewriting-from-scratch, it would drive me up the wall, even though it might improve things noticeably. (Sometimes it goes the other way. Sleeper Awakes was written quite quickly and I thought it was competent and nicely long, it wasn't until the reviews arrived that I realised it might be working better than I thought.)
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
And that was a really nice thing to say too. Also thanks! But I usually have only the vaguest idea of the 'scenery' in a scene, and hence don't even think of describing it except where it's necessary for stage business. I admire people who can picture their scene with clarity and describe it as if they were there. (Ironically -- as a man -- I tend to have a weak visual imagination. Possibly because I have a bad tendency to spend too much time bouncing around in my own head, my characters do the same.)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
On reflection, mostly but not entirely -- I usually have some ideas for what the basic scenes are going to be in my head, and write them down more or les in order. The slog is writing the bits that connect ideas A to B. But then in the writing ideas C, D, and E suggest themselves, which then have to be worked in, which usually means going back and tweaking bits and writing anything from a sentence to a scene to set them up ... If I had more discipline I'd leave out D and E, but I tend to have a kitchen-sink approach in practice. And when (as often happens) I only have a vague theme and idea for the story (e.g. 'Percy fights evil through bureaucracy, writes roadblocking notes"), that means a lot of to-ing and fro-ing working out setup and fitting things together. (I find I tend to program the same way, which isn't necessarily a good idea there either, but I suspect it's not uncommon.)
I'm not sure I'd label those two styles the way you do (especially the pejorative 'drivel on'). The style used in the short Sirius piece -- seemingly quite common in fanfics -- always strikes me as very ... well, stylised, and probably best suited to that kind of short character study. I'm not sure it would work especially well in a longer, plotty piece. It's rather like an actor declaiming lines as compared to trying to make them sound natural -- the former can certainly be effective, but you're aware you're witnessing a Performance rather than being drawn into the story. Likewise, with the stylistic approach you tend to be aware of the writing itself as much as what it's saying -- or at least I do.
To be honest, the Merlin paragraph you posted sounded OK -- it could do with some polishing, yes, but there's nothing which looks like obvious padding that doesn't add something to the scene. I think maybe you're often too hard on yourself with what you think as 'drivel mode' or even completed fics that aren't like your Sirius piece in style -- I remember you saying you couldn't stand Stop All The Clocks now, and then I went back and reread it and even knowing what happened it was still tense and scary. (And conversely? I think sometimes you overcredit the stylised fics. Becoming is a beautifully phrased collection of vignettes, but the last one felt somewhat unconnected (and canonically odd) to me, and I'm not sure the S/R stuff melds well with the Animagus theme.)
Mind you, I have the opposite problem -- I'm lousy at scene description, and have enough trouble getting anything written at all so I rarely throw any of it away. Polish, yes, but semi-connected scenes tend to result in something being added to the fic to make them fit. :)
Reply
I said something perceptive? How did that happen?
Oh, you know, you do it quite often. You're one of the people I really listen very hard to. Not that it shows!
I'm not sure I'd label those two styles the way you do (especially the pejorative 'drivel on'). The style used in the short Sirius piece -- seemingly quite common in fanfics -- always strikes me as very ... well, stylised, and probably best suited to that kind of short character study. I'm not sure it would work especially well in a longer, plotty piece. It's rather like an actor declaiming lines as compared to trying to make them sound natural -- the former can certainly be effective, but you're aware you're witnessing a Performance rather than being drawn into the story. Likewise, with the stylistic approach you tend to be aware of the writing itself as much as what it's saying -- or at least I do.
I absolutely agree with you here. To be honest, I enjoy the 'editor-on' mode of writing as a way of flexing muscles, but it's very 'writerly'(I say that like it's a bad thing. I think it is.) I think it's a very fannish thing: ideal for stories where nothing is happening. I wouldn't pay money for stories written in this style, and I think it would take a superb writer to keep me interested in a long (1000 words + story). [If someone comes along with counter examples, fabulous. I look forward to reading them.]
To be honest, the Merlin paragraph you posted sounded OK -- it could do with some polishing, yes, but there's nothing which looks like obvious padding that doesn't add something to the scene. I think maybe you're often too hard on yourself with what you think as 'drivel mode' or even completed fics that aren't like your Sirius piece in style -- I remember you saying you couldn't stand Stop All The Clocks now, and then I went back and reread it and even knowing what happened it was still tense and scary.
You know, that is a really nice thing to say. Thanks! I think when one gets too close to a story - and that one took five months from writing to posting, because it was my first one - I wonder if you do only see the holes? What's your experience with that? I'm thinking in particular of NTLJ as your longest so far; you may of course have other examples!
(And conversely? I think sometimes you overcredit the stylised fics. Becoming is a beautifully phrased collection of vignettes, but the last one felt somewhat unconnected (and canonically odd) to me, and I'm not sure the S/R stuff melds well with the Animagus theme.)
Don't suppose you would care to expand on that (assuming you want to and have time, of course)? I know I felt that the last scene was an abrupt move on from the rest, but I didn't think it was that unconnected, so I'd love to know what didn't gel. It could again be me thinking that I've made links in the story that are actually only in my head. By 'canonically odd', do you mean S waiting with R for Pomfrey or something else?
Mind you, I have the opposite problem -- I'm lousy at scene description, and have enough trouble getting anything written at all so I rarely throw any of it away.
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
Polish, yes, but semi-connected scenes tend to result in something being added to the fic to make them fit. :)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
More on 'drivel on' (not the pejorative nature of it: I tend to be rude about things that matter to me) tomorrow. Though it's clear that, as a mode of writing, it applies to LJ comments as well. Honestly, I can't stop writing stuff.
Reply
Okay, IMHO, YMMV, etc.
To take the second one first, because it's easier: my first thought on reading the scene was: "um, when is this happening?" It must be after they became Animagi, but in that case Remus shouldn't be suffering from tearing himself apart -- stopping that was the point of them becoming Animagi in the first place. Or if it's after school, why is he in the Shack? Even if he still used it to transform, presumably at least one of them would normally be able to keep him company. And it did seem surprising that Sirius would risk Pomfrey seeing him there -- he's not supposed to be able to remain in the same room as a werewolf without getting attacked, and I thought she was probably supposed to get there to tend him pretty much as soon as the moon set. It's werewolfily dramatic, but I'm not sure where to fit it into the canon setup. (Minor point: 'witches' fingers' seemed an odd image for a Sirius POV -- I'm guessing it's intended to conjure up the 'witch as scary old crone' idea, but even though that might apply to his mother(!), as a wizard not a Muggle it presumably isn't his default view of witches.)
To take the first one second, because it's much more nebulous: to me it felt that the really original aspect of the piece, and the basic theme that runs through it, is that of an Animagus finding that the characteristics of their animal form seep into their human personality, or maybe just emphasise the parts of it that gave rise to that particular animal form (with a nice side nod to the possibly deleterious effect that has on Peter). Interleaved with that, there are the lines relating to the Sirius-Remus relationship -- maybe it was me, but they seem mostly orthogonal to the Animagus idea, and (again for me) the linkage between them didn't quite seem to gell as parts of the same whole. The first 'becoming' seems to be stated confidently, the second rather whispered. (That may of course just be because I find it awkward to semi-assume S/R without quite specific setup.)
In detail: Sirius has his wanting-to-fetch moment with James's note -- but this apparently leads to him going to see Moony, and presumably the realisation in the first line that he loves Moony more than himself? Not sure where that reaction came from? Initially I thought that first line was referring to his feelings of love and loyalty to James.
The idea that the RoR smells of Moony to Padfoot does link the two together, but also raises questions that aren't directly answered -- e.g. is the other Gryffindor Moony himself? Does he ask for a room that reminds him of Sirius, presumably in human form? If not, what's going on? If so, perhaps a little too subtle for over-literal people like me. :)
It then segues into the final scene in which the main theme of the preceding ones -- becoming like your Animagus form -- isn't really there, except as a little aside (and as I said above, I'm not sure why Padfoot wouldn't have to be there). That links well to the first line and the Moony-reflections, but if they're to be the takeaway at the end (and as the last section, that would be the natural feeling for a reader?) then the Animagus bits would feel like a side issue to me.
It also felt a bit 'something's missing' that Moony was the only one of the Marauders that Sirius doesn't observe directly doing something (as opposed to lying passively hurt). He's almost an offstage character.
Anyway, that's enough, or I'll have waffled on longer than the fic itself. :)
Reply
I tend to see the holes only in retrospect -- certainly with NTLJ I wince at some of the clunky bits and the general ramshackle nature inevitable in a long story written off and on over a period of about two years and large chunks of which were made up as I went along. The early chapters especially feel variously weak, clumsy, and self-indulgent in parts, and there are Issues with characterisations -- one thing the CADOD did make me realise was how much I fall back on stereotypes and shorthands for anyone who isn't like me in some way. (e.g. Americans, Canadians, Irish, even Yorkshiremen!) It's a fairly grievous writerly limitation, and unfortunately one based on personality flaws rather than lack of practice. I did think of trying to match NTLJ up with DH, but I'm not sure I have the energy for it (and it never got a huge audience anyway, at least not one that stuck with it through the long delays).
With Medes and Persians, which also took ages, I went through a few compressed rounds of beta-induced tweaks after it was written, but mostly small ones -- eventually I got to the point of just feeling 'dammit, I need to get this thing posted'. Looking back over it, there are bits I really like where I think I got it spot on (e.g. the little bridging scene with Kingsley's secretary), and bits that seem clunky and insufficiently polished. But although I tend to want to tweak and sand down rough edges every time I look over a fic, I just can't do that months-of-revisions thing, let alone the rewriting-from-scratch, it would drive me up the wall, even though it might improve things noticeably. (Sometimes it goes the other way. Sleeper Awakes was written quite quickly and I thought it was competent and nicely long, it wasn't until the reviews arrived that I realised it might be working better than I thought.)
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
And that was a really nice thing to say too. Also thanks! But I usually have only the vaguest idea of the 'scenery' in a scene, and hence don't even think of describing it except where it's necessary for stage business. I admire people who can picture their scene with clarity and describe it as if they were there. (Ironically -- as a man -- I tend to have a weak visual imagination. Possibly because I have a bad tendency to spend too much time bouncing around in my own head, my characters do the same.)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
On reflection, mostly but not entirely -- I usually have some ideas for what the basic scenes are going to be in my head, and write them down more or les in order. The slog is writing the bits that connect ideas A to B. But then in the writing ideas C, D, and E suggest themselves, which then have to be worked in, which usually means going back and tweaking bits and writing anything from a sentence to a scene to set them up ... If I had more discipline I'd leave out D and E, but I tend to have a kitchen-sink approach in practice. And when (as often happens) I only have a vague theme and idea for the story (e.g. 'Percy fights evil through bureaucracy, writes roadblocking notes"), that means a lot of to-ing and fro-ing working out setup and fitting things together. (I find I tend to program the same way, which isn't necessarily a good idea there either, but I suspect it's not uncommon.)
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