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Aug. 5th, 2008 12:34 pmNow, there should also be what the story is about, which is not the same thing as the plot. What the story is about - what are you trying to say? What kind of shape or impression are you hoping to leave upon the reader?
http://mouches-d-eau.blogspot.com/2008/07/craft.html
Alan Moore talking about comics
but it applies to any story.
Your basic story: stuff happens then stuff happens then stuff happens
Your basic plot: stuff happens because stuff happened and so stuff happens
What the story is about is another layer again.
I feel fanfic has a tendency to do the then then then version because we get so much because and so handed to us in the canon. Do a missing scene where they're just having sex, why not, the canon says they do that. But the because and so is the interesting part to me. Gets into the characters, choices, consequences.
Either way, what is it about?
I've done very little fanfic lately.
The one where Jack comes back after season 1 is about Home, what feels like home, what would coming home mean for him. So it's all about the little details that add up to domestic. The feeling this has been done before, the material evidence of prior presence, the care for non-sexual needs. Home.
The one with Owen, alcohol, and retcon is about coping mechanisms, and the temptation to just say forget it and get on with your own little corner of the world. Owen has been shoved into a position where he's supposed to be thinking big picture but he craves the familiar, the stuff he's trained for. Turn the clock back. Forgetting can do that a bit too easily... in a purely personal way. The world stays the same. Ianto and his stopwatch do the same thing in symbol, illustrating the futility.
My Ripper fic, about Giles, was meant to be about reaching the point where you've got everything you were ever told you should want, and nothing at all that's right for you. He's top of his career, head of the Watchers, got Slayers training all over the world, and... doesn't want any of it. So it then becomes 'being replaced by a younger model' and 'bits of the past won't let go'. It being Buffyverse, this is told through literal resurrections, vampires, and ghosts, but it's not about those things. You can tell the same about without using any of those.
When I say I like fic with a plot I usually mean I like fic with the same kinds of plots the series has, where there's things happening with aliens and explosions and running around finding alien tech and also shagging in the hothouse or whatever. Ideally, telling the story through the action sequences and threats that work as symbols, as well as through the sex sequences and actually saying things. But if it has all that and hasn't pulled together on the 'about' then it's sort of unsatisfying. Like bad action movies, you sit through all the stuff blowing up and at the end you're all "But what was it about?"
http://mouches-d-eau.blogspot.com/2008/07/craft.html
Alan Moore talking about comics
but it applies to any story.
Your basic story: stuff happens then stuff happens then stuff happens
Your basic plot: stuff happens because stuff happened and so stuff happens
What the story is about is another layer again.
I feel fanfic has a tendency to do the then then then version because we get so much because and so handed to us in the canon. Do a missing scene where they're just having sex, why not, the canon says they do that. But the because and so is the interesting part to me. Gets into the characters, choices, consequences.
Either way, what is it about?
I've done very little fanfic lately.
The one where Jack comes back after season 1 is about Home, what feels like home, what would coming home mean for him. So it's all about the little details that add up to domestic. The feeling this has been done before, the material evidence of prior presence, the care for non-sexual needs. Home.
The one with Owen, alcohol, and retcon is about coping mechanisms, and the temptation to just say forget it and get on with your own little corner of the world. Owen has been shoved into a position where he's supposed to be thinking big picture but he craves the familiar, the stuff he's trained for. Turn the clock back. Forgetting can do that a bit too easily... in a purely personal way. The world stays the same. Ianto and his stopwatch do the same thing in symbol, illustrating the futility.
My Ripper fic, about Giles, was meant to be about reaching the point where you've got everything you were ever told you should want, and nothing at all that's right for you. He's top of his career, head of the Watchers, got Slayers training all over the world, and... doesn't want any of it. So it then becomes 'being replaced by a younger model' and 'bits of the past won't let go'. It being Buffyverse, this is told through literal resurrections, vampires, and ghosts, but it's not about those things. You can tell the same about without using any of those.
When I say I like fic with a plot I usually mean I like fic with the same kinds of plots the series has, where there's things happening with aliens and explosions and running around finding alien tech and also shagging in the hothouse or whatever. Ideally, telling the story through the action sequences and threats that work as symbols, as well as through the sex sequences and actually saying things. But if it has all that and hasn't pulled together on the 'about' then it's sort of unsatisfying. Like bad action movies, you sit through all the stuff blowing up and at the end you're all "But what was it about?"