Comments | teenybuffalo: Seven things that will make me love a story

teenybuffalo

Seven things that will make me love a story

Dec 17, 2007 21:24

It was hard to hold myself to only seven things. There are many more, but these are tops on my list.

1. Have a first-person narrator with an extremely likable, personable voice, who's addressing the audience in much the same way he talks to the people around him. This has a magnetic attraction for me. A lot of Sid Fleischman's books are in the ( Read more... )

meta, memes

Comments 4

asakiyume December 18 2007, 13:28:14 UTC

Teeny, I just LOVE this entry. You're such an amazing writer, and these things you've picked are just so *good*; I'm nodding the whole way through.

(1) I loved what you said about voice and Meadowlands, that you liked the people's voices so much that you didn't notice how much you hated the plot until it was over--amazing! And that really does show how good a voice can be.

(2) "Playing pretend is just so much fun." Oh, double yes. When I was 12, I discovered a friend who was willing to play pretend--at an age when most people had given it up. I was in paradise. We played spies and other things through our early years in high school. It was GREAT.

(3) Your rendition of the Marcus Aurelius-Commodus scene in Gladiator. I haven't seen the movie, but your little dialogue summary makes me (a) laugh and (b) want to see it!

(4)Charlton Heston wrote his autobiography decades later and said something offended along the lines of, "People tell me that our characters were supposed to have been homosexual, or the like. Now that's just ( ... )

teenybuffalo December 18 2007, 18:16:34 UTC

Aww--thanks a lot. I feel the need to be positive about books for a change--by default, I spend so much more time complaining about books I don't like ( ... )

rushthatspeaks December 19 2007, 02:40:46 UTC

That is indeed what a good LARP is like. One way you can tell whether it's a good LARP is whether it is like that, or at least determinedly trying for it (sometimes reality is against that-- once I was in a LARP that was going beautifully, and then the building's cleaning service turned up...).

The slashiness of Ben-Hur makes me very happy. The intentionality of it first came to light in an interview with the screenwriter in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which I have seen; basically, the actor playing the Roman guy came up to the screenwriter and said 'I haven't got any motivation', and the writer said 'You're right, you don't. How about if your character and Heston's were lovers when you were adolescents? That wasn't that uncommon in that day and age, and it would make you make more sense. You're trying to start it up again, and he's all married and doesn't love you as much as you hoped he did.' And the guy said 'That's great, but Charlie would *flip*', and the screenwriter said 'So don't tell him.' And there it is. This ( ... )

teenybuffalo December 21 2007, 16:37:52 UTC

This is most encouraging re: LARPs.

because even when I was in eighth grade and didn't know from slash that moment seemed to have undertones I was clearly missing

That was sort of weirdly hot. I remember the wine-drinking even though I don't remember any of the dialogue. And now I want to watch "The Celluloid Closet".