Really good scene setting, basically. The difference between 'some bar in Chicago' and 'this bar in Chicago.' I like stories where the setting is as fully felt and exact as the characters themselves, where the setting is woven throughout the story.
I fail at bookmarking descriptively, so the only example I can call to hand at the moment would be j_s_cavalcante's Under the Skin, with the Chicago-summer-hot rainstorm moving across the plains... But I know there are others, stories where wood floors click under heels, post-CotW stories that show exactly how small a tent is or exactly how wide open the world is (or both), SGA stories that point up the saline smell of the air throughout the city.
If an author can transport me to the time and place of her story within the first few paragraphs, I'm going to read it through.
Anime AUs... so often bad. So often set in high school - but perhaps that's an artifact of which anime fandoms I'd been reading. The few that I did enjoy, I often came away from wondering why the author called it fanfiction, because they tended to read as good original fic, with names I knew. The ones I've been reading in dS are so specifically the characters - often with interesting nods to show canon - that they really can't be separated from their inspiration.
Having written mpreg, I am no longer in a place to judge. /o\ But that's exactly it. Kinks that I had NO interest in handled well and made hot. Crackish slash cliches - genderfuck, mpreg, aliens made them do it - turned inside out, reimagined, played with lightly by some and handled seriously by other until they feel like whole new creations, and I forget why I ever avoided the idea. (I would love to see that rec post! You should do it - recs are good!)
she's so cute when she's incoherentifreetJune 21 2007, 19:57:54 UTC
Okay - yes, what is UP with the Regencies? Very odd.
As fspider and I were saying, dS fandom has actually cranked out a number of AUs with characters who are distinctly the show's characters - not just names and appearance, but personality/essence - in wildly different settings and situations from the original story. A couple of them are rec'ed all over the place, so much so that they've acquired fandom shorthand - Professor!Ray, the Hockey AU, the Pizza AU. It's weird. I'm not used to liking AUs - other than the 'what if' type.
I think it's possible to write good fusion stories... but the fail rate for posted attempts seems high. The odds of a new set of characters making entirely the same decisions as the originals did when moved to a new plot line are not great - a good author would have quite a bit of work making sure the characters were true to themselves without wandering off plot.
Comments 4
I forgot to put kidfic and girly-men in mine. Must update...
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I fail at bookmarking descriptively, so the only example I can call to hand at the moment would be j_s_cavalcante's Under the Skin, with the Chicago-summer-hot rainstorm moving across the plains... But I know there are others, stories where wood floors click under heels, post-CotW stories that show exactly how small a tent is or exactly how wide open the world is (or both), SGA stories that point up the saline smell of the air throughout the city.
If an author can transport me to the time and place of her story within the first few paragraphs, I'm going to read it through.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Having written mpreg, I am no longer in a place to judge. /o\ But that's exactly it. Kinks that I had NO interest in handled well and made hot. Crackish slash cliches - genderfuck, mpreg, aliens made them do it - turned inside out, reimagined, played with lightly by some and handled seriously by other until they feel like whole new creations, and I forget why I ever avoided the idea. (I would love to see that rec post! You should do it - recs are good!)
I KNOW. Me, too!
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
As fspider and I were saying, dS fandom has actually cranked out a number of AUs with characters who are distinctly the show's characters - not just names and appearance, but personality/essence - in wildly different settings and situations from the original story. A couple of them are rec'ed all over the place, so much so that they've acquired fandom shorthand - Professor!Ray, the Hockey AU, the Pizza AU. It's weird. I'm not used to liking AUs - other than the 'what if' type.
I think it's possible to write good fusion stories... but the fail rate for posted attempts seems high. The odds of a new set of characters making entirely the same decisions as the originals did when moved to a new plot line are not great - a good author would have quite a bit of work making sure the characters were true to themselves without wandering off plot.
Reply
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