On doing the anon thing, pseudo-commentary on Depth of Need
I decided to do stargateanon on a lark. Despite the fact I had other commitments at the time, when the urge bit me in the ass I went ahead and signed up.
Why do it? Probably for the same reasons everybody does. Curiosity--do people regularly avoid my stuff for one reason or another? Or do I only have people comment because I have some really awesome friends who are willing to wade through my bs? Then there's the question of whether my style is recognizable. I've noticed that people don't do a lot of guessing on stargateanon, unlike the anonymous Christmas thing that was done last year, but there has been some. For me the question was one of whether I keep falling into the same writing traps, or whether I could write something that was different enough that people who read me wouldn't recognize me.
I don't know that I got any of those things answered. The story wasn't to the caliber that I wanted it to be--I ran out of time and didn't have it beta'ed, for one thing. But, the response was good, so I don't feel completely ashamed of it. I did see a lot of names responding that I'm not familiar with, so that was kind of nice. New people!
As far as the question of writing differently, I think that's why I came up short on the deadline. I can really get stuck on trying to find the perfect words when I'm writing anything, but this story made me hyper-aware of everything. The way I phrased things, the things I had the characters think, the scenery--it all seemed so ridiculously me, in a bad way. I had a good three thousand words done on the story when I happened to reread the beginning and realize it was almost exactly the same as Teyla Gone Wild. *facepalm* So that got rewritten. Oi.
I was given the following prompt: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep". - Saul Bellow
After a little bit of consultation with kagey to confirm that yes, that meant what I thought it meant, it seemed pretty obvious to me that this prompt was begging for a classic slash situation. One of our boys in denial about their feelings. Sometime back, kagey and I had been discussing having fun with Aliens Made Them Do It scenarios, and I said I'd love to do one where John and Rodney think AMTDI, but it's really themselves.
So it took me very little time to decide on the scenario. In fact, the entire structure of the story came to me very quickly. I don't know if there's a name for this kind of structure (it's not a Rashamon-type thing, but similar, I think), but I envisioned it much like an episode of the show. A problem is presented, we have a detective who interviewing the suspects, each revealing a bit of the plot from their perspectives, and then we have the resolution.
The problem I ran into was tone. I didn't want to tell it too seriously, because then it got kind of angsty and embarrassing and possibly made our guys look bad. On the other hand, I just didn't want to go for all-out knee-slapping silliness. I tried to go for something in between the two, something that didn't take itself too seriously but still felt like it was in the show-world. Like the Tower without red satin and blonde bimbos.
I love playing with POV, as you can probably tell. It's always fascinating to me to find out how differently the characters see the world. The majority of the story is told from John's POV, partly because of how I structured the story, and partly because John seems to be my default POV. Unless there's a reason for me to tell a story from another character's perspective, I almost always go with John.
Like I said above, I changed the opening so it wasn't exactly like Teyla Gone Wild, which meant I didn't wind up with very much Elizabeth in the story. Carson got a lot of little cameos because of his interviews, but not enough to reveal much about him. The focus was primarily on the team.
Teyla, of course, is my one of my other favorites, and I've written a lot from her perspective. I always feel uneasy when I do, however--always worried that I'll go over the top one way or another. I never really feel like I get her very well. But I barrel on despite that. She was the perfect one to open the flashback episodes with, since she's the observant one, the one who is going to notice the beauty of the terrain and be aware of the nuances of what's going on around her.
I'm not sure if I've written anything from Ronon's POV before this. I like Ronon a lot, but I'm not particularly comfortable with his voice and motivation. For one thing, he doesn't say a terrible lot on the show. This is reflected in the fact that his section is shorter than any of the other's. I tried to make him very to-the-point, yet still retain a bit of the humor and subtlety that I love so much on the show.
John was a lot of fun. At first I didn't have him touch anything, but then I decided that was stupid. We need to believe that something actually happened--and also, it's fun when John acts like a little kid in a candy store. Especially when he's playing with Rodney's mind while he's doing it.
I might adore John a little too much. :)
The problem I ran into with Rodney's section was a) writing sex and b) writing his mistaken revelation. Originally, I thought John and Rodney would actually have sex, but early on I realized it made more sense to just have them get hot and heavy. And not having sex here gave them having sex later more weight. Still, writing even simple groping is a pain in the butt. Why do I ever decide to write sex again? Argh.
The mistaken revelation was tricky, because I couldn't give it away that it was a mistake, yet I wanted to make the reader suspect. Rodney had to believe it, John had to believe it, but it couldn't be concrete. I tinkered with that section a lot.
Originally, I had the reveal come at the end of Rodney's interview, but that was way too abrupt and out of nowhere. So I went back and added extra sections from each of the team to make it flow a bit better. Several people commented on this section:
"And you're sure that you didn't experience any increased arousal?"
Ronon grinned, the predator coming alive at last. "I didn't want to fuck Sheppard or McKay all
of the sudden, if that's what you're asking."
Which made me smile, because I stuck that in there as kind of a "choose your own interpretation" kind of thing. I'm curious how people took it.
And then the sex. Which, you know sex.
I debated sticking the tag on the end for a long time. The betting pool thing is a huge cliché, and there's the whole question of whether Carson should have coughed up the gossip or not. But in the end, I decided it was kind of a silly story, and it needed a punchline badly. So I went with it. Several people said they liked it, which is good enough for me.
I'm going to have to let this story sit for a long time before I decide whether I like it or not. I love, love, love the idea of it, and I love how the structure came together. When I finished writing it, however, I hated it with a passion. I just really felt that my prose was lacking so very badly, and that my attempt to have fun with a cliché was riddled with so much cliched characterization that people's eyes would roll out reading it. After two weeks away, however, the hate has been tempered some, and I have more of a warm glow of "well, it made me happy in my head, anyway".
Writing it did make me feel like I don't do very well with out-and-out McShep, and that my strength lies in odd characters/pairings/stories and other fandoms. I'm not saying that I'm going to stop writing McShep (because I just love them too much), but I'm a little blue about them at the moment. The problem, I think, is that there's so much stuff out there, that I tie myself in knots trying to be original--and then wind up with something bland and cliched anyway. Oops.
Anyway, it was a very interesting exercise.
Why do it? Probably for the same reasons everybody does. Curiosity--do people regularly avoid my stuff for one reason or another? Or do I only have people comment because I have some really awesome friends who are willing to wade through my bs? Then there's the question of whether my style is recognizable. I've noticed that people don't do a lot of guessing on stargateanon, unlike the anonymous Christmas thing that was done last year, but there has been some. For me the question was one of whether I keep falling into the same writing traps, or whether I could write something that was different enough that people who read me wouldn't recognize me.
I don't know that I got any of those things answered. The story wasn't to the caliber that I wanted it to be--I ran out of time and didn't have it beta'ed, for one thing. But, the response was good, so I don't feel completely ashamed of it. I did see a lot of names responding that I'm not familiar with, so that was kind of nice. New people!
As far as the question of writing differently, I think that's why I came up short on the deadline. I can really get stuck on trying to find the perfect words when I'm writing anything, but this story made me hyper-aware of everything. The way I phrased things, the things I had the characters think, the scenery--it all seemed so ridiculously me, in a bad way. I had a good three thousand words done on the story when I happened to reread the beginning and realize it was almost exactly the same as Teyla Gone Wild. *facepalm* So that got rewritten. Oi.
I was given the following prompt: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep". - Saul Bellow
After a little bit of consultation with kagey to confirm that yes, that meant what I thought it meant, it seemed pretty obvious to me that this prompt was begging for a classic slash situation. One of our boys in denial about their feelings. Sometime back, kagey and I had been discussing having fun with Aliens Made Them Do It scenarios, and I said I'd love to do one where John and Rodney think AMTDI, but it's really themselves.
So it took me very little time to decide on the scenario. In fact, the entire structure of the story came to me very quickly. I don't know if there's a name for this kind of structure (it's not a Rashamon-type thing, but similar, I think), but I envisioned it much like an episode of the show. A problem is presented, we have a detective who interviewing the suspects, each revealing a bit of the plot from their perspectives, and then we have the resolution.
The problem I ran into was tone. I didn't want to tell it too seriously, because then it got kind of angsty and embarrassing and possibly made our guys look bad. On the other hand, I just didn't want to go for all-out knee-slapping silliness. I tried to go for something in between the two, something that didn't take itself too seriously but still felt like it was in the show-world. Like the Tower without red satin and blonde bimbos.
I love playing with POV, as you can probably tell. It's always fascinating to me to find out how differently the characters see the world. The majority of the story is told from John's POV, partly because of how I structured the story, and partly because John seems to be my default POV. Unless there's a reason for me to tell a story from another character's perspective, I almost always go with John.
Like I said above, I changed the opening so it wasn't exactly like Teyla Gone Wild, which meant I didn't wind up with very much Elizabeth in the story. Carson got a lot of little cameos because of his interviews, but not enough to reveal much about him. The focus was primarily on the team.
Teyla, of course, is my one of my other favorites, and I've written a lot from her perspective. I always feel uneasy when I do, however--always worried that I'll go over the top one way or another. I never really feel like I get her very well. But I barrel on despite that. She was the perfect one to open the flashback episodes with, since she's the observant one, the one who is going to notice the beauty of the terrain and be aware of the nuances of what's going on around her.
I'm not sure if I've written anything from Ronon's POV before this. I like Ronon a lot, but I'm not particularly comfortable with his voice and motivation. For one thing, he doesn't say a terrible lot on the show. This is reflected in the fact that his section is shorter than any of the other's. I tried to make him very to-the-point, yet still retain a bit of the humor and subtlety that I love so much on the show.
John was a lot of fun. At first I didn't have him touch anything, but then I decided that was stupid. We need to believe that something actually happened--and also, it's fun when John acts like a little kid in a candy store. Especially when he's playing with Rodney's mind while he's doing it.
I might adore John a little too much. :)
The problem I ran into with Rodney's section was a) writing sex and b) writing his mistaken revelation. Originally, I thought John and Rodney would actually have sex, but early on I realized it made more sense to just have them get hot and heavy. And not having sex here gave them having sex later more weight. Still, writing even simple groping is a pain in the butt. Why do I ever decide to write sex again? Argh.
The mistaken revelation was tricky, because I couldn't give it away that it was a mistake, yet I wanted to make the reader suspect. Rodney had to believe it, John had to believe it, but it couldn't be concrete. I tinkered with that section a lot.
Originally, I had the reveal come at the end of Rodney's interview, but that was way too abrupt and out of nowhere. So I went back and added extra sections from each of the team to make it flow a bit better. Several people commented on this section:
"And you're sure that you didn't experience any increased arousal?"
Ronon grinned, the predator coming alive at last. "I didn't want to fuck Sheppard or McKay all
of the sudden, if that's what you're asking."
Which made me smile, because I stuck that in there as kind of a "choose your own interpretation" kind of thing. I'm curious how people took it.
And then the sex. Which, you know sex.
I debated sticking the tag on the end for a long time. The betting pool thing is a huge cliché, and there's the whole question of whether Carson should have coughed up the gossip or not. But in the end, I decided it was kind of a silly story, and it needed a punchline badly. So I went with it. Several people said they liked it, which is good enough for me.
I'm going to have to let this story sit for a long time before I decide whether I like it or not. I love, love, love the idea of it, and I love how the structure came together. When I finished writing it, however, I hated it with a passion. I just really felt that my prose was lacking so very badly, and that my attempt to have fun with a cliché was riddled with so much cliched characterization that people's eyes would roll out reading it. After two weeks away, however, the hate has been tempered some, and I have more of a warm glow of "well, it made me happy in my head, anyway".
Writing it did make me feel like I don't do very well with out-and-out McShep, and that my strength lies in odd characters/pairings/stories and other fandoms. I'm not saying that I'm going to stop writing McShep (because I just love them too much), but I'm a little blue about them at the moment. The problem, I think, is that there's so much stuff out there, that I tie myself in knots trying to be original--and then wind up with something bland and cliched anyway. Oops.
Anyway, it was a very interesting exercise.