Comments | pellucid: possibly I'm overthinking this

pellucid

possibly I'm overthinking this

Aug 01, 2009 19:56

Recently I decided that as something of a fic writing experiment, I should break out of my habitual mold and try to write a sort of fic I usually do not write: fluffy ship fic. The idea was spurred primarily by running into a couple of pairings that I wanted to read fic about but whose fandoms had a dearth of the sort of thing I wanted to read. If ( Read more... )

csi: ny

Comments 17

dionusia August 2 2009, 21:03:44 UTC

They're attracted to one another but can't/don't act on it for any number of reasons--because they work together, because they're afraid of ruining the friendship, because they've got various issues from other relationships or other things in their lives, etc. If there's a bit of codependency involved, all the better.

This sounds like a LOT of L/K fic, actually. Esp. pre-season 3; Zak angst, regs... :)

But I get what you're saying. I think you should just go try writing and playing around with whatever you like. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't...but only you have to see it, and you'll know what feels good.

pellucid August 7 2009, 12:40:53 UTC

I'm really not sure why L/K never pushed any of my buttons. Maybe those qualities only work for me within a procedural genre? Or maybe there were other harder to quantify things going on. Sometimes a pairing pings, and sometimes it doesn't, I guess. I was never opposed to Lee and Kara, and I loved them as the wonder twins and thought what happened in the finale was a travesty. But...they didn't push my pairing buttons. *shrugs*

As for the Mac/Stella fic, I'm so late replying to comments here that I've finished and posted it now, and it's formulaic, to be sure, but I think I'm pleased. And chaila43 used the term "procedural archetypes" rather than "cliches," and I think I approve of that way of thinking!

egeria61 August 3 2009, 02:46:20 UTC

If I ever get around to writing a story, I was thinking how fun it would be to write with (rather than against) the romance grain. Ideally, one should be able to use stereotypical situations, yet allow the characters to take that situation "someplace new." But I can see where my idealism might be doomed to failure. [Which in my case, would be as soon as I pick up a pen--LOL. That must be why I'm putting it off.] Btw, I may be underthinking the entire situation.

As you say, of course "fluff" doesn't always produce characters without depth and particularity, but I can see how a genre, partially defined by uniform ingredients, might also easily produce characters who are interchangeable. Good luck with that challenge--I hope you go through with your fluffy fic and eventually post it. XD

pellucid August 7 2009, 13:00:22 UTC

I think it really depends, both on the writer and on the reader, how formulaic romance fiction becomes. There are things a good writer can do, even writing with the grain, to differentiate her particular characters and her particular plot from all the rest.

But I also think much depends on the reader. Are you familiar with Janice Radway's study Reading the Romance? If not, it's a great academic book from the early 80s in which, in the wake of second-wave feminism's attacks on romance novels as merely reinforcing patriarchal values and norms, Radway went out and interviewed a bunch of avid romance novel readers--most of them midwestern suburban housewives--to see what they thought. And she found that a) they were thinking about their reading--not just reading mindless, comforting tropes, and b) that they interpreted these books really differently than the literary critics who were trashing them. Most of the readers strongly differentiated between the characters and plots (even while being able to list the elements they liked best in ( ... )

rose_griffes August 7 2009, 00:02:30 UTC

...but there comes a point at which all fluffy ship fic, at least for most pairings (an exception would be Booth and Brennan, whose canonical relationship pretty much is fluffy ship fic), strikes me as fundamentally out of character...

*nods* I think that's actually part of the draw--can the writer make me suspend my inherent disbelief in the couple long enough to enjoy the story? That's why detail is better in fluffy fic (for me as a reader, anyway). Whatever adds to the 'real' feeling in a story becomes more important when the basic idea is rather out of character for what we see in the source medium.

I have angsty cop partner buttons. ME TOOOOOO! I don't want/need to see the couple get together onscreen but I have a huge amount of fondness for this in fic--especially the early stages. I'm not so interested in stories that assume an established relationship ( ... )

pellucid August 7 2009, 13:18:23 UTC

especially the early stages. I'm not so interested in stories that assume an established relationship.Yes, this! It depends, to a certain extent--I will read established relationship fics for pairings like this sometimes, and sometimes I like them, but it's really the sexual tension and the initial moment of acting on the attraction that interests me. I'll happily read dozens of variations on the same scenario with the same couple if they play on that particular moment in a relatively well-written and interesting way ( ... )