Random Rants

[jane_elliot]

Just some things that have been bugging me of late:

1. Is there any author out there who uses some or all of a canonical character's name as a handle that doesn't suck?

2. Have you ever seen any variation of "or so he thought" in a summary or story and have the story not be a grammatical disaster?

3. Has there ever been any clause in any sentence ever

Comments

[loveofthemorbid]

1. "Irene Adler" has written some well-regarded bookverse Sherlock Holmes slash.

[jane_elliot]

I'd forgotten about her (and I've even recced stories by her before:) Thanks for the reminder!

[feikoi]

1. I think it helps if the name used is from another fandom. *shrug* I know a /lot/ of online fen have fannish usernames, and later use them when they start producing works, so... But the problem you mention is rather prevalent on FFnet, at least.

3. For crying out loud! :P (For had he deigned to send a message, this entire tragedy may have been averted. Is something along those lines "telling"?)

4. OMG THIS. I don't begrudge others their interest in the BDSM-universes, but it's not my cup of tea, and would like to see more stories where it's just the relationship in question that draws on BDSM, not everyone in the world.

[jane_elliot]

3. I totally should have specified any *narrative* sentence. There's plenty of ways that starting a sentence with 'for' works in dialogue, but in narration it always sounds stilted and awkward.

4. I actually just read a Harry Potter fic that had BDSM in the bedroom and nowhere else (unsurprisingly it was an older fic) and was reminded how much I can enjoy BDSM if it's not the whole point of the story. Apparently I like kink when it's added as flavor, rather than as the main plot.

[feikoi]

There seems to be a dearth of lifestyle-BDSM fics, as well (at least in the fandoms I currently frequent). It would be nice to see those as a change of pace -- where the D/s dynamic pervades the entire relationship, but contrasts with the vanilla lives of the rest of the world? Or perhaps a "vanilla" relationship in a BDSM world, just to reverse the trope. *shrug*

[tyloric]

Jane... you hardly rec or rant anymore.

Please come back to us... I miss you... D:

[jane_elliot]

Aw, thanks:) Truth be told, the main reason I'm not doing as much stuff online as I used to is because I don't have internet access at work anymore and my evenings have been rather filled with trying to finish off the sequel to the Big Gay Western Romance. Hopefully once that's in the can, I'll have more time for fannish stuff.

[sheila_snow]

Jane,

I know you made this post many months ago, but if I don't get this off my chest, I'm afraid I might explode.

I tend to stick to rec sites for my fannish fix, because I simply don't have the time to wade through trash to find something good to read. However, I'm finding that more and more often, my concept of "good" and the reccer's concept of "good" are vastly different. I'm not exactly sure when basic spelling and grammar became "unimportant" to the overall quality of a story, but I'm sure it happened at some point when I wasn't looking.

For example, I just saw a rec for a Merlin AU that sounded very interesting, but I was a little worried when I noticed that the first sentence in the author's summary happened to lack a verb. Okay, maybe the reccer inadvertently left out that little detail, so I clicked on the link anyway. (And no, the reccer hadn't left out the verb - it was already MIA.) I was willing to overlook the use of "pined" instead of "pinned," but when I got to its' before I'd gotten even halfway through

[jane_elliot]

Honestly? I'm starting to think the whole "if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all" mentality of fandom is leading to a whole wave of reccers/readers who don't actually understand grammar or how it works. As a writer with an English degree, that pains me.