Posts and Weather

[sunnycamehome2u]

The weather sucks today. DDOS attacks suck today. And the fact I smushed three fingers in the window, opening it to deal with the weather sucks.

If LJ goes down, there is a back up meme post at: http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/671.html

Rules:

• No pictures, real

Comments

Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

Canon!Anon a few threads up got me thinking...

I'm always told to "Show, don't tell" when I write, and by now, it's almost habit to not write "Timmy was a jackass," and instead show him being a jackass, etc.

But when it comes to fanfic, is it even a little acceptable to just Tell?

For instance, if we all know that Timmy is a jackass from canon, is there a point to showing it, aside from it just being good writing practice? And does this get boring/annoying to the fanfic audience, who might have to read about Timmy being a jackass in hundreds of fics, over and over again?

I ask because I'm writing a fic for a kink meme, and I normally would go all out on giving background and such, but in this fic, I just tell so much. And some part of my brain is going BAD BAD BAD, while another part is going, IT'S PORN, EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR MAIN CHARACTER IS AN ASSHOLE.

tl;dr - Is it more or less acceptable to ignore the Show Don't Tell rule for established canon characteristics?

Re: Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

I agree about the voice.

I get why the "rule" is there. I've read (started to read, and not made it through) plenty of fics in which all we get is tell tell tell. This happened and Jane felt sad. The next thing happened and she felt angry. With no physical blocking, no sense of the setting, no nothing but the dry dry telling, it doesn't work.

There are plenty of times when you have to just tell the reader what happened, though. Because you can't show every damn thing or you'll never get on with the story. There's a reason we have "exposition" as a term. We need it.

Also, I have never seen this mentioned, but I don't think show and tell are mutually exclusive. "She walked on into the great ruined hall, watching small dark shapes scatter, with a noise like leaves in the wind, into the shadows" -- you're telling the reader what happened but also creating a picture.

Re: Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

"You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

Re: Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

A+++.

Re: Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

AYRT, LOLing over here.

:-D

Whoops, that might have been too much "tell" ...

Re: Show Don't Tell in FanFic

[anonymous]

Oh, God, Show Don't Tell. I hate that rule. Sometimes telling is right, sometimes showing is right, and you have to use your own judgement as to which you use. There's no magic formula that will tell you, apart maybe from this: if it's necessary for the story, show it, if it's not, tell it. I was betaing for this author who was technically sound - good English, good prose, canon-compliant, all that. But she'd internalized this rule and she showed EVERYTHING, in a bald, flat, prosaic way that had me falling asleep before the end of the first chapter. It would have been a good story if she could figure out what to tell instead of show.