Ha, well, I figured that if I slipped it past you and Tel both, I was going to get away with that one!
And yes, not having a romance involved meant that the loyalty could be right at the heart of the story instead of being sidelined. Which was pretty much the point.
It's funny, I completely didn't intend the 'Aral Vorkosigan's Awesomeness' stuff - this fic wasn't written to show Aral being awesome, it was written to show Illyan being loyal, but it turned out that showing Aral being awesome was a necessary precursor.
Ah, right - Simon wouldn't have become that loyal to someone who wasn't completely awesome, so it is a necessary precursor. And it was done magnificently!
mm... I Don't know where to start because I read AVD when I was really down (well, still a little bit - I'm usually a happy person) and eagerly waited to each chapter
( ... )
I'm glad I managed to make you interested in Illyan. I've been fascinated by him since I first encountered him - that's why I started writing this story in the first place (and a good few others besides!).
Yes, choosing what to leave out is very hard, and I do have a large collection of things that I couldn't manage to fit in. Though I think with fanfic one can be more self-indulgent than with professional fiction, since that's part of why we write it - to write the scenes that the original storyteller had to leave out. At least, it is for me :-).
I thought I could let it go but I guess I'm addicted to having the last word :). I totally agree about fanfic in general being about writing scenes that were "left out" but then, AVD is more than fanfic - as you said your self it's almost a novel and to give an extreme example, I don't think you'd call "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" fanfic (mm... - why not actually? :D). So. I'm sure at least in this case, even if not in general, you did have to choose what to leave out so I just wanted to let you know you are not alone there. If Zweig (whom I really love) thought it difficult you are in a very good company. In second thought, do we really disagree about anything?
Very interesting post -- unsurprisingly, I like meta explanations and commentaries! And I'm also glad you decided against slash, agreeing that the loyalty issue is more interesting and far less well explored.
I'd also second the comment by igeret about tension -- both in that you did maintain it and that you needn't have worried much about that. You'll recall I took that issue head-on in the Peaceful Vorkosiverse stories, consciously in part as a narrative experiment, and while one can't, certainly, just ditch tension-as-a-hook permanently, I was left feeling quite strongly that the way it is promoted as the bottom-line necessity is misjudged, and quite often a cover or excuse for not developing anything that requires thought -- i.e. cut the gab and let's have another car chase, or whatever.
Also, there are at least two ways of thinking about this. One is to say that for many readers tension per se is not as necessary as is made out ; lulls and explorations and slacker periods are as natural and acceptable in a narrative as meanders and
( ... )
Hm, I think I need to unpack what I mean about maintaining the tension. My fear was that, given that I was retelling a slice of SoH, indeed, retelling the central part of SoH, which no doubt sticks in everyone's minds, that my readers would be bored, seeing the same events again with few new additions (so not the same problem as your PV series where you're telling a new story in a leisurely fashion and can rely on new events to hold interest, even if they're not new action scenes or problems). The need to add new material and cast a new light on what happens in SoH was always in my mind, so as to avoid repetition, which is dull even in a naturally meandering story. I've read fics like that in other fandoms, which repeat large chunks of what happens in canon without saying anything interesting about them or holding my attention, so it was a pitfall I'd seen other writers fall into
( ... )
Eh bien, that makes good sense. But, you know, the problem that was worrying you about AVD never really occurred to me in reading. I too have seen the kind of repeat-along-with-me fics you mention (and usually stopped reading them pretty swiftly), but your, hmm, I shall say 'reverse angle' was intrinsically interesting, and the canon that swam past always seen with that absorbing quality. You also had a story of your own in process (which the repeat-after-me fics often don't, really, I think) that was smoothly meshing with the canonical, so the 'tension' was always there both in the new light on the canonical and in the narrative evolution.
Which was what I meant about canon compliance. The full-blown AU is another matter -- gross deviations from canon like Tel's or mine that show up pretty much ab initio and wrench events onto a new path -- but even with a 'canon compliant' fic like AVD there's the constant reality of the new angle/p-o-v, and a running question about how that will interact with the canonical : as a seamless mesh ;
( ... )
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And yes, not having a romance involved meant that the loyalty could be right at the heart of the story instead of being sidelined. Which was pretty much the point.
It's funny, I completely didn't intend the 'Aral Vorkosigan's Awesomeness' stuff - this fic wasn't written to show Aral being awesome, it was written to show Illyan being loyal, but it turned out that showing Aral being awesome was a necessary precursor.
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Yes, choosing what to leave out is very hard, and I do have a large collection of things that I couldn't manage to fit in. Though I think with fanfic one can be more self-indulgent than with professional fiction, since that's part of why we write it - to write the scenes that the original storyteller had to leave out. At least, it is for me :-).
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I totally agree about fanfic in general being about writing scenes that were "left out" but then, AVD is more than fanfic - as you said your self it's almost a novel and to give an extreme example, I don't think you'd call "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" fanfic (mm... - why not actually? :D).
So. I'm sure at least in this case, even if not in general, you did have to choose what to leave out so I just wanted to let you know you are not alone there. If Zweig (whom I really love) thought it difficult you are in a very good company.
In second thought, do we really disagree about anything?
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I'd also second the comment by igeret about tension -- both in that you did maintain it and that you needn't have worried much about that. You'll recall I took that issue head-on in the Peaceful Vorkosiverse stories, consciously in part as a narrative experiment, and while one can't, certainly, just ditch tension-as-a-hook permanently, I was left feeling quite strongly that the way it is promoted as the bottom-line necessity is misjudged, and quite often a cover or excuse for not developing anything that requires thought -- i.e. cut the gab and let's have another car chase, or whatever.
Also, there are at least two ways of thinking about this. One is to say that for many readers tension per se is not as necessary as is made out ; lulls and explorations and slacker periods are as natural and acceptable in a narrative as meanders and ( ... )
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Which was what I meant about canon compliance. The full-blown AU is another matter -- gross deviations from canon like Tel's or mine that show up pretty much ab initio and wrench events onto a new path -- but even with a 'canon compliant' fic like AVD there's the constant reality of the new angle/p-o-v, and a running question about how that will interact with the canonical : as a seamless mesh ; ( ... )
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