style stockholm syndrome

[seperis]

I've been thinking on whether to post this or not, but because I'm me, and because I ended up tagging for it, and because it exists, what the heck.

Comments

[pir8fancier]

I have had this happen to me recently as well. Where I find myself slipping into present tense and then have to bitch slap myself back into the tense I was using. And I think it's because you get so into the story that you FEEL like it's happening right there and then. I've actually changed the tense on pieces when I find that happening incessantly. It says to me that the piece demands that tense and why in the hell are you fighting it, woman? You got to listen to the writing voodoo.

[seperis]

Writing is voodoo. I feel like I should be leaving offerings somewhere.

[out_there]

And I wasn't thinking in present at all; I was thinking in past. And there is, at least for me, a dramatically different way I visualize and construct a scene, much less write it, depending on tense.Oh, god, yes. That's annoying as all hell and requires such a rewrite. It's the biggest issue when I've got a few wips going at once and I'm recording sections of each on my drive to work: remembering the damn tense. There's nothing like getting to the weekend, typing up the 30 minutes of recorded fic and then having to go through and rework it because it's the wrong tense and sentences just don't work well like that

[seperis]

There's nothing like getting to the weekend, typing up the 30 minutes of recorded fic and then having to go through and rework it because it's the wrong tense and sentences just don't work well like that.

God yes. It's diametrically differnet in how you *see* it. Yes.

I think it's Fannish Osmosis. We're writers, but we're readers: we read to enjoy, for the pleasure of sharing porn and beloved characters, and it simply sinks into our brains.

*g* It *is*. Now, though, I'm a lot more aware how limited my reading is by style if this feels so different.

[musesfool]

I find that fandoms require different styles.

I find this absolutely to be true. When I was writing Renault fic, it was all past tense and a lot more...flowery than I would normally be, because I was trying to match her style. Same with LotR. Past tense, mostly, more descriptive, less bantery, etc.

[ratcreature]

What is "not applicable"? I mean, there has to be some narrative voice in a story, no? Unless it's script format? Poems? All dialogue? *is confused*

[seperis]

All dialogue, correspondence, or documentation based.

[ratcreature]

BTW, thanks to your OCD spreading meta posts I now tag for POV (both grammatical and character) and tense, and while my current reading in SGA and SPN is almost all 3rd person, there is still more past than present tense (47 past to 33 present since I started) in my current tally.

[seperis]

*g* I live to spread the joy.

Now I want to tag for tense, though. *eyes log thoughtfully*

[cathexys]

I love the idea of fannish Stockholm syndrome...or maybe Borg's better, more of a community crossinfluence than a unidirectional...

And i'm now visualizing this multidimensional rhizome or something...with you stuck in the middle :)

[seperis]

I often think of fandom fondly as the place that taught me effective googling techniques, how to find impossible math problems, and how to wikipedia for context.

Rhizome, for example. I*g* I hadn't thought of fandom as string theory and ginger's illegitimate test tube baby, but it's a weirdly addictive thought when considering fannish influence at any given time is so multifactored.

[cathexys]

one of these days, we're gonna have to create an EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN FANDOM.

probably as a collectively authored wiki, because...

[seperis]

It would be like the strangest knowledge list ever. Can converse knowledgeably on lube varieties and substitutions, knows astrophysics theory pre 2005, can find a thousand obscure Arctic towns on a map, knows the type of indigenous wolves in three different states and the type of knife to use during a space battle due to decompression problems. Also can Venn diagram anything.

Like a resumee, even. A very weird one, where someone can say they read teh Kama Sutra for the articles and be totally truthful.

[seperis]

Yes, and no, not in the same way and not with the same kind of problems attached. And even then, I'm not sure I change styles so much as vaguely modify what I'm using now, if that makes sense.