Writerly Ways
Feb. 17th, 2019 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI wanted to talk a little bit about writing to work through things. Of course there is a risk in that, that it comes across as preachy or it makes more sense in your head than it does on the page. I know that it can be very cathartic as well. I've been thinking about this for a while now, ever since I started migrating my old Buffy fiction onto AO3 and I can see how upset I was when I wrote these. (And isn't that why we write some fanfiction, to 'fix' it?)
In 2004-2006, I wrote a crap ton of fanfiction and much of it around two stories, Seeing Red from Buffy and Home from Angel and sometimes you end up wondering were was an editor? Did they test these ideas at all before dropping them.
Red gave us a strong heroine being nearly raped by a character that was unquestioningly one of the most popular on the show. first question was, should it have even happened? Second question should we not have had some consequences of this? For me this ended up a deal breaker. I stopped watching the show full time. I didn't see chunks of S6 and most of S7 of Buffy as a result. Partly because I was attacked like that, had to fight my way out of it.
Now if Buffy had hated SPike afterward I might have been okay but no, once again we see a woman being able to look past the abuse and say 'I still love him.' And nope, I'm out. She at one point BLAMES herself for the attack (at least Giles tries to point out it wasn't her fault which was surprising because at that point Giles was so out of character he was insulting in and of himself) Way to reinforce that women bring the abuse on themselves and are expected to forgive it. (Though in a way I think Noxon was trying to work something out). I do remember the trade magazines having on this and the actors themselves being upset.
So upset was I, that Spike disappeared from my stories. He was my favorite but stories after that either revolved around not forgiving him or trusting him or just plain old fashioned 'he died' at the end of S7. It was my process for dealing with this. By the end of S5 of Angel I was a bit more okay at least enough to let him back on the page.
As for Home, this story was SO dumb that most of my fiction (and there was an ungodly outpouring of it before S5 of Angel ever happened). I assumed that they decided Connor was unpopular so they're were going to write him out...in a way that made SO little sense, they had to undo it the next year with Origins.
I think this episode really shows the important of honest beta reading (because I'm pretty sure this did NOT have it as they were pulling half this season out of their ass to compensate for Cordelia's pregnancy which could have been SO easily done as She went to Pylea to help Groo who she was STILL with up until a few minutes before Connor arrived at the end of S3 and then just let her come back after the baby was born but whatever)
So we have a story line that turns Angel into an asshole who betrays his friends (but at least he was trying to save his son or something by giving his son to the people who were trying to dissect him for the entire season (so Angel is either stupid or brain dead) But that's not the worst thing a simple beta read might have been able to say 'are you sure you want to do this?' Because when you boil it down nothing about the scene in the mall makes a lick of sense. Granted Connor is very strong but there was no signs of violence so how the hell did he capture a dozen people and get them to sit patiently while he wired them up with explosives? Hell, how did he carry an unconscious woman into the mall in the first place without someone alerting authorities?
For that matter, how does Connor, raised by a man from the 1700s in a place with no technology (judging by his buckskins when we first see Connor) know how to make bombs from car batteries and propane tanks? How the fuck does he even know what car batteries and propane tanks are? Does anyone see Fred and Gunn explaining this to him at some point? Angel, at least has the excuse of being distracted by his son's pain that he doesnt' question this but it is NEVER questioned on the show, not once. None of it, not how Cordy got there, how he rounded up all those people and got them to sit there while he wired them up and how did he learn it in the first place.
And at the end of the day, we assume that he's acting on Connor's wish for a rest (but now 15 years out I can't remember if Angel ever heard that because I only remember it in the church with Cordy) which is why he gives Connor away instead of rewriting him and giving him away (and since Angel has knocked Connor out in the past, why murdering him and bringing him back was needed seems to be hey it's stupid but dramatic) and never does he think 'what happens if Connor gets into a fight at a frat party or something and KILLS someone with one punch' (which at least is addressed in Origins)
Ironically as dumb as Home was, I'm not sure David Boreanaz or Vincent Kartheiser had ever acted better than they did on that episode. They did absolutely nailed it. Stupid storyline, fantastic acting, go figure.
So yes, work out stuff with your writing be it fanfic or original. Get someone's eyes on it (I need to be better at not being a jerk and forgetting the stuff I'm supposed to beta read)
And have some links to go with my rambling.
From around the web
Use All Five Senses To Enrich Your Writing
On Day-Jobs And Starving Artists
Your Ideas Aren’t That Interesting
Making the Most of Author Bling
The Basics: So You Want To Write A Novel
And from Betty
Forget Strong Female Characters! We Need Complicated Female Characters Who Screw Up (A Lot) Loved this one
15 Questions Authors Should Ask Characters
How to Double Your Story’s Conflict in Seconds
Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Cultures
Backstory: How Not to Tell Too Much
How to Write from a Guy’s POV
I’ve Interviewed 300 High Achievers About Their Morning Routines. Here’s What I’ve Learned.
How to Advance Your Plot with Careful Scene Design ~ 5 Steps
Compound Sentences and Conjunctive Adverbs
Six Mistakes That Can Kill a Great Plot
Optimizing Your Story Ideas for Stronger Engagement
How Do I Write Exposition in Close Perspective?
In 2004-2006, I wrote a crap ton of fanfiction and much of it around two stories, Seeing Red from Buffy and Home from Angel and sometimes you end up wondering were was an editor? Did they test these ideas at all before dropping them.
Red gave us a strong heroine being nearly raped by a character that was unquestioningly one of the most popular on the show. first question was, should it have even happened? Second question should we not have had some consequences of this? For me this ended up a deal breaker. I stopped watching the show full time. I didn't see chunks of S6 and most of S7 of Buffy as a result. Partly because I was attacked like that, had to fight my way out of it.
Now if Buffy had hated SPike afterward I might have been okay but no, once again we see a woman being able to look past the abuse and say 'I still love him.' And nope, I'm out. She at one point BLAMES herself for the attack (at least Giles tries to point out it wasn't her fault which was surprising because at that point Giles was so out of character he was insulting in and of himself) Way to reinforce that women bring the abuse on themselves and are expected to forgive it. (Though in a way I think Noxon was trying to work something out). I do remember the trade magazines having on this and the actors themselves being upset.
So upset was I, that Spike disappeared from my stories. He was my favorite but stories after that either revolved around not forgiving him or trusting him or just plain old fashioned 'he died' at the end of S7. It was my process for dealing with this. By the end of S5 of Angel I was a bit more okay at least enough to let him back on the page.
As for Home, this story was SO dumb that most of my fiction (and there was an ungodly outpouring of it before S5 of Angel ever happened). I assumed that they decided Connor was unpopular so they're were going to write him out...in a way that made SO little sense, they had to undo it the next year with Origins.
I think this episode really shows the important of honest beta reading (because I'm pretty sure this did NOT have it as they were pulling half this season out of their ass to compensate for Cordelia's pregnancy which could have been SO easily done as She went to Pylea to help Groo who she was STILL with up until a few minutes before Connor arrived at the end of S3 and then just let her come back after the baby was born but whatever)
So we have a story line that turns Angel into an asshole who betrays his friends (but at least he was trying to save his son or something by giving his son to the people who were trying to dissect him for the entire season (so Angel is either stupid or brain dead) But that's not the worst thing a simple beta read might have been able to say 'are you sure you want to do this?' Because when you boil it down nothing about the scene in the mall makes a lick of sense. Granted Connor is very strong but there was no signs of violence so how the hell did he capture a dozen people and get them to sit patiently while he wired them up with explosives? Hell, how did he carry an unconscious woman into the mall in the first place without someone alerting authorities?
For that matter, how does Connor, raised by a man from the 1700s in a place with no technology (judging by his buckskins when we first see Connor) know how to make bombs from car batteries and propane tanks? How the fuck does he even know what car batteries and propane tanks are? Does anyone see Fred and Gunn explaining this to him at some point? Angel, at least has the excuse of being distracted by his son's pain that he doesnt' question this but it is NEVER questioned on the show, not once. None of it, not how Cordy got there, how he rounded up all those people and got them to sit there while he wired them up and how did he learn it in the first place.
And at the end of the day, we assume that he's acting on Connor's wish for a rest (but now 15 years out I can't remember if Angel ever heard that because I only remember it in the church with Cordy) which is why he gives Connor away instead of rewriting him and giving him away (and since Angel has knocked Connor out in the past, why murdering him and bringing him back was needed seems to be hey it's stupid but dramatic) and never does he think 'what happens if Connor gets into a fight at a frat party or something and KILLS someone with one punch' (which at least is addressed in Origins)
Ironically as dumb as Home was, I'm not sure David Boreanaz or Vincent Kartheiser had ever acted better than they did on that episode. They did absolutely nailed it. Stupid storyline, fantastic acting, go figure.
So yes, work out stuff with your writing be it fanfic or original. Get someone's eyes on it (I need to be better at not being a jerk and forgetting the stuff I'm supposed to beta read)
And have some links to go with my rambling.
From around the web
Use All Five Senses To Enrich Your Writing
On Day-Jobs And Starving Artists
Your Ideas Aren’t That Interesting
Making the Most of Author Bling
The Basics: So You Want To Write A Novel
And from Betty
Forget Strong Female Characters! We Need Complicated Female Characters Who Screw Up (A Lot) Loved this one
15 Questions Authors Should Ask Characters
How to Double Your Story’s Conflict in Seconds
Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Cultures
Backstory: How Not to Tell Too Much
How to Write from a Guy’s POV
I’ve Interviewed 300 High Achievers About Their Morning Routines. Here’s What I’ve Learned.
How to Advance Your Plot with Careful Scene Design ~ 5 Steps
Compound Sentences and Conjunctive Adverbs
Six Mistakes That Can Kill a Great Plot
Optimizing Your Story Ideas for Stronger Engagement
How Do I Write Exposition in Close Perspective?
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Date: 2019-02-18 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-18 03:25 pm (UTC)And you're right, they did it better in earlier seasons but in S6 Whedon looked away to work on Firefly and he apparently could have left it in better hands. (I was stunned at the time at the honesty Marsters had in interviews saying he didn't even want to show up to work because of what Noxon was having him do)