(no subject)
My SPN fic is starting to get troublesome. Not the writing of it - that still works pretty okay, even if I don't have much time now with all the RL work. No, the trouble is that it started out as a series of short scenes showing John and the boys immediately post-Mary. Then one of the scenes started to evolve. Now it's half case fic, and the case is just getting longer. I'm abbreviating like crazy, and the only result is that the pages look as if the exposition fairy shat on them.
Maybe I should break out the case, make it a fic of its own, but the trouble is that it still fits into the larger timeframe, with John's early development and his relationships with the boys. I can't quite picture the fic without it, not on a thematic level.
So instead I have a fic that's getting more and more unbalanced. *sigh*
***
In other SPN news, I browsed through a book on Swedish children's authors yesterday, and when I came to Viveca Lärn (who used to be Viveca Sundvall when I was a kid - very confusing), I stopped, re-read what the author said about the character of Anders, and went, "OMG, wee!Dean!"
Today I read some passages from her Eddie books (I have most of them at home), and the impression was confirmed. While the odd, creative and strangely fragile Eddie has very little to do with Sam, his brother Anders is very Dean-ish. Cool, competent (far too competent for a nine-year-old), with an eye for scams, and very mothering of his brother, keeping the family together when their dad is off working for days - or worse, off drinking. (It should be noted that while Lennart is a common alcoholic instead of a demon hunter, he's actually a sweeter dad than John is in many ways.)
It made me rather sad that the books haven't been translated to English - with my usual luck, there are some VL picture books translated to English, and these books translated only into German. *sigh*
Still, if I can't pimp the entire books, at least I can do a rough translation of a favourite Anders passage from Eddie och Maxon Jaxon. (And since it may be needed in this day and age - there's nothing inappropriate about Axel, he's just an incredibly nice man.)
For class 3B, the bell finally rang after the final class before lunch. As Anders was about to leave the room, Axel called him in:
"Could you stay for a while, Anders. I want to talk to you."
The rest of the class left, mumbling a lot to each other. What had he done, Anders, and so early in the term?
"I think he has robbed a bank," said Maria Magnusson. "At least he has new shoes."
"He has probably thrown a blackboard wiper at the headmaster," said Mimmi.
"No, I think he has poured pea soup into the janitor's mail box," Jorma said. ”Last spring.”
Axel closed the door to the classroom.
"Well, Anders," he said, "you know that I went to the circus with Eddie yesterday."
"Mmm," Anders said, looking out through the window. He saw Eddie trodding about on the schoolyard in dripping wet clothes like a fool, and his stomach clenched. What had that little brat done now?
"Well," said Axel, "now I thought you and I should go to the circus today. Then I won't go to the circus anymore."
"That's not necessary," Anders said.
"But I think it would be fun," said Axel, "and besides, it was Eddie's idea."
"I don't have time anyway," Anders said, staring out through the window. Now he couldn't see Eddie anymore. He felt like he was about to start crying.
"Don't you think circuses are fun?" Axel asked, sounded worried as if Anders was ill or something.
"Not really," Anders said, trying to make his voice as steady as he could.
Axel sat down on the window sill and thought.
"Are you going to do something else, more important?" he finally asked.
Anders nodded. Now he couldn't even talk anymore.
"What?"
There was a long pause, but Axel seemed to be in no hurry.
"Take care of Eddie," Anders said. His voice sounded strange.
Axel hugged Anders.
"I see. Your dad's working all day? Coming home late?"
Anders nodded.
"If Eddie goes with us, then," Axel said. "Do you think that would make the circus more fun?"
Anders nodded and swallowed.
"It's okay," he said. "Eddie's so small, he probably didn't get it the first time."
***
So, there's another flurry of discussion in metafandom about characters of color, and it seems to me that if the purpose is venting, it's all very well, but if the purpose is getting more fic, the method may be... well, not wrong, but insufficient.
See, I suspect that people who are specifically interested in writing CoCs (and yes, I know that acronym is incorrect, but CsoC looks majorly weird), the people whose interest rise when they see a black or brown face on television - most of them are already writing. And the people who have issues with writing CoCs, well, they have issues, and perhaps you can get past those issues in certain cases, in which case more power to you.
But the main potential for conversion, the way I see it, must be all those people inbetween. The ones who don't really care if there's more fic about CoCs in general, but who could easily be convinced to lobby for specific CoCs.
And yeah, I count myself into that group. Tell me "more fics about CoCs in the Buffyverse," and I'll go "Yes, nice, there should be." Tell me "more fics about Robin," and I'll go "HELL yeah! Where do I sign up?"
Obviously it's time-consuming and frustrating to go with the character-by-character appeal if what you really want is the big picture, but OTOH I think it's easier to get people interested in specific characters than in big ideas about justice. Not to mention that it keeps the guilt out of the mix. (I write my fair share of CoCs, but I rarely get less of an urge to do so than when it's implied that writing them would be a Good and Moral thing to do. Ecch.)
The easy part is involving the people who are already fans of the character. This can be done with feedback. Feedback is a lovely thing. Catch them with honey and all that.
The somewhat harder part is winning over new fans. Pimping can work. mimesere has done some wonderful Gunn pimping, for example (even if her Gunn definitely isn't my Gunn). Icons - particularly lewd or suggestive icons - can be useful too. Repeatedly mentioning someone, comparing him/her to other characters in a favorable manner (not "X is so much better than Y and should get more attention!" but "X is a lot like Z in these ways, isn't that interesting?") and involving him/her in picspams and metas can work too.
Now, I'm not claiming to say anything new here - I'm sure most interested parties already do this stuff. But, well, it bears repeating. It's not always necessary to start off with declaring that a character should get more love because s/he's a CoC. You could start off with the character being smart, resourceful, good with gadgets, capable of doing very bad things and of feeling ashamed of said very bad things, a romantic where women are concerned, and with a very unpleasant past that he's not proud of yet will admit readily. (Anyone wanna take a guess who I'm talking about? *grin*)
I'm not saying "Don't talk about race." Obviously you should talk about race, and talk about it a lot where it's relevant. I'm just saying that if race is the main angle used, it's easy to get the impression that race is the main angle to the character. And that may prove a problem not only when luring new writers in, but in getting them to write something decent once they're started.
***
And finally, a sunshine story about How Katta Got to Fic on her Work Time: when storyteller Anna does her reading up/paperwork in the library, and I do mine, we often end up pretty chatty. Today she revealed that some four-year-olds had asked her for a story about Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. Talking to her son (who's twelve), she'd come to the conclusion that she could adapt the Three Little Pigs.
Naturally, we spent the next hour or so working out the details:
Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man leave their mommy, who may or may not be Marge Simpson. (We had some difficulty with the mommy.) They go out in the world and decide to built themselves homes. Spider-Man builds his home out of spiderwebs, Superman builds his out of ice, and Batman builds a Batcave.
Then Godzilla comes up from the sea and decides he wants to eat our three superheroes. He huffs and he puffs on Spider-Man's house, until the cobwebs fly off. Fortunately, Spider-Man throws a sticky web into a tree and jumps away, into the ice house of Superman.
Godzilla follows them, and he huffs and puffs and breathes fire until Superman's ice house melts. Superman tucks Spider-Man under his arm and flies off to the Batcave.
Godzilla follows them there too, but since the door is closed he goes down the pole, which leads directly into the Bat-Mobile. Batman's smart, though, and has remote-controlled the Bat-Mobile so it goes off with Godzilla to Madagascar.
And the three superheroes live happily ever after.
The story may yet change, of course, but that was this afternoon's version. :-)
P.S. Anna told me that while the Swedish Läderlappen isn't macho, and the real name for bats, Fladdermusen, is even worse, few things could be less macho than Pipistrello. She didn't know if that was what Batman was actually called in Italian, though.
Maybe I should break out the case, make it a fic of its own, but the trouble is that it still fits into the larger timeframe, with John's early development and his relationships with the boys. I can't quite picture the fic without it, not on a thematic level.
So instead I have a fic that's getting more and more unbalanced. *sigh*
***
In other SPN news, I browsed through a book on Swedish children's authors yesterday, and when I came to Viveca Lärn (who used to be Viveca Sundvall when I was a kid - very confusing), I stopped, re-read what the author said about the character of Anders, and went, "OMG, wee!Dean!"
Today I read some passages from her Eddie books (I have most of them at home), and the impression was confirmed. While the odd, creative and strangely fragile Eddie has very little to do with Sam, his brother Anders is very Dean-ish. Cool, competent (far too competent for a nine-year-old), with an eye for scams, and very mothering of his brother, keeping the family together when their dad is off working for days - or worse, off drinking. (It should be noted that while Lennart is a common alcoholic instead of a demon hunter, he's actually a sweeter dad than John is in many ways.)
It made me rather sad that the books haven't been translated to English - with my usual luck, there are some VL picture books translated to English, and these books translated only into German. *sigh*
Still, if I can't pimp the entire books, at least I can do a rough translation of a favourite Anders passage from Eddie och Maxon Jaxon. (And since it may be needed in this day and age - there's nothing inappropriate about Axel, he's just an incredibly nice man.)
For class 3B, the bell finally rang after the final class before lunch. As Anders was about to leave the room, Axel called him in:
"Could you stay for a while, Anders. I want to talk to you."
The rest of the class left, mumbling a lot to each other. What had he done, Anders, and so early in the term?
"I think he has robbed a bank," said Maria Magnusson. "At least he has new shoes."
"He has probably thrown a blackboard wiper at the headmaster," said Mimmi.
"No, I think he has poured pea soup into the janitor's mail box," Jorma said. ”Last spring.”
Axel closed the door to the classroom.
"Well, Anders," he said, "you know that I went to the circus with Eddie yesterday."
"Mmm," Anders said, looking out through the window. He saw Eddie trodding about on the schoolyard in dripping wet clothes like a fool, and his stomach clenched. What had that little brat done now?
"Well," said Axel, "now I thought you and I should go to the circus today. Then I won't go to the circus anymore."
"That's not necessary," Anders said.
"But I think it would be fun," said Axel, "and besides, it was Eddie's idea."
"I don't have time anyway," Anders said, staring out through the window. Now he couldn't see Eddie anymore. He felt like he was about to start crying.
"Don't you think circuses are fun?" Axel asked, sounded worried as if Anders was ill or something.
"Not really," Anders said, trying to make his voice as steady as he could.
Axel sat down on the window sill and thought.
"Are you going to do something else, more important?" he finally asked.
Anders nodded. Now he couldn't even talk anymore.
"What?"
There was a long pause, but Axel seemed to be in no hurry.
"Take care of Eddie," Anders said. His voice sounded strange.
Axel hugged Anders.
"I see. Your dad's working all day? Coming home late?"
Anders nodded.
"If Eddie goes with us, then," Axel said. "Do you think that would make the circus more fun?"
Anders nodded and swallowed.
"It's okay," he said. "Eddie's so small, he probably didn't get it the first time."
***
So, there's another flurry of discussion in metafandom about characters of color, and it seems to me that if the purpose is venting, it's all very well, but if the purpose is getting more fic, the method may be... well, not wrong, but insufficient.
See, I suspect that people who are specifically interested in writing CoCs (and yes, I know that acronym is incorrect, but CsoC looks majorly weird), the people whose interest rise when they see a black or brown face on television - most of them are already writing. And the people who have issues with writing CoCs, well, they have issues, and perhaps you can get past those issues in certain cases, in which case more power to you.
But the main potential for conversion, the way I see it, must be all those people inbetween. The ones who don't really care if there's more fic about CoCs in general, but who could easily be convinced to lobby for specific CoCs.
And yeah, I count myself into that group. Tell me "more fics about CoCs in the Buffyverse," and I'll go "Yes, nice, there should be." Tell me "more fics about Robin," and I'll go "HELL yeah! Where do I sign up?"
Obviously it's time-consuming and frustrating to go with the character-by-character appeal if what you really want is the big picture, but OTOH I think it's easier to get people interested in specific characters than in big ideas about justice. Not to mention that it keeps the guilt out of the mix. (I write my fair share of CoCs, but I rarely get less of an urge to do so than when it's implied that writing them would be a Good and Moral thing to do. Ecch.)
The easy part is involving the people who are already fans of the character. This can be done with feedback. Feedback is a lovely thing. Catch them with honey and all that.
The somewhat harder part is winning over new fans. Pimping can work. mimesere has done some wonderful Gunn pimping, for example (even if her Gunn definitely isn't my Gunn). Icons - particularly lewd or suggestive icons - can be useful too. Repeatedly mentioning someone, comparing him/her to other characters in a favorable manner (not "X is so much better than Y and should get more attention!" but "X is a lot like Z in these ways, isn't that interesting?") and involving him/her in picspams and metas can work too.
Now, I'm not claiming to say anything new here - I'm sure most interested parties already do this stuff. But, well, it bears repeating. It's not always necessary to start off with declaring that a character should get more love because s/he's a CoC. You could start off with the character being smart, resourceful, good with gadgets, capable of doing very bad things and of feeling ashamed of said very bad things, a romantic where women are concerned, and with a very unpleasant past that he's not proud of yet will admit readily. (Anyone wanna take a guess who I'm talking about? *grin*)
I'm not saying "Don't talk about race." Obviously you should talk about race, and talk about it a lot where it's relevant. I'm just saying that if race is the main angle used, it's easy to get the impression that race is the main angle to the character. And that may prove a problem not only when luring new writers in, but in getting them to write something decent once they're started.
***
And finally, a sunshine story about How Katta Got to Fic on her Work Time: when storyteller Anna does her reading up/paperwork in the library, and I do mine, we often end up pretty chatty. Today she revealed that some four-year-olds had asked her for a story about Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. Talking to her son (who's twelve), she'd come to the conclusion that she could adapt the Three Little Pigs.
Naturally, we spent the next hour or so working out the details:
Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man leave their mommy, who may or may not be Marge Simpson. (We had some difficulty with the mommy.) They go out in the world and decide to built themselves homes. Spider-Man builds his home out of spiderwebs, Superman builds his out of ice, and Batman builds a Batcave.
Then Godzilla comes up from the sea and decides he wants to eat our three superheroes. He huffs and he puffs on Spider-Man's house, until the cobwebs fly off. Fortunately, Spider-Man throws a sticky web into a tree and jumps away, into the ice house of Superman.
Godzilla follows them, and he huffs and puffs and breathes fire until Superman's ice house melts. Superman tucks Spider-Man under his arm and flies off to the Batcave.
Godzilla follows them there too, but since the door is closed he goes down the pole, which leads directly into the Bat-Mobile. Batman's smart, though, and has remote-controlled the Bat-Mobile so it goes off with Godzilla to Madagascar.
And the three superheroes live happily ever after.
The story may yet change, of course, but that was this afternoon's version. :-)
P.S. Anna told me that while the Swedish Läderlappen isn't macho, and the real name for bats, Fladdermusen, is even worse, few things could be less macho than Pipistrello. She didn't know if that was what Batman was actually called in Italian, though.