Plot detangled

[beccaelizabeth]

I solved the murder mystery component of a plot I've been attempting to wrangle.
It's a bit frustrating, the time between knowing what the murder scene looks like and only as much as your detective knows, and figuring it out. It's a bit difficult to write so much as the next scene, with only those parts. Now I know.
... I feel all accomplished and stuff, yet I've not set pen to paper for the actual writing of this.

Also, when I say 'solved', I mean I know the how and why of things. I haven't named the characters or described them or anything useful like that.

Poll #5828 The naming of things

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

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If I name a character Captain Jack, is that

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obviously a rip off of Torchwood AND Pirates of the Caribbean AND Master and Commander AND many folktales and songs all at once
2 (28.6%)

Pretty generic, since all those others have already used it
5 (71.4%)

If that Captain Jack has a flexible relationship to mortality, does that change things?

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Yes, he's clearly Torchwood AND Pirates
4 (57.1%)

No, there's still several of them, it's still just a fairytale name
3 (42.9%)

If that Captain Jack has multiple copies, does that change things?

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See, now you're just down to Pirates, that's cheeky
2 (28.6%)

Nothing wrong with ripping the good bits from Pirates to completely new contexts
3 (42.9%)

Don't worry, nobody will notice
2 (28.6%)

If I have a mix of characters from various fandoms yet am not writing a fanfic crossover, do I need to rename them all to file the serial numbers off?

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Yes, people are going to notice if you have one from Star Trek, one from SG1, some Doctor Who, a splash of B5, and...
5 (71.4%)

No, they're stirred together so much nobody will notice
0 (0.0%)

As long as the surnames change they're not the same anyway
2 (28.6%)

The way I figure it is, if I take a bunch of characters from fandoms that would never meet, throw them at each other, in a setting that is a whole new 'verse (even if it do use familiar tropes like stargates and psi, it remixes those too), and don't worry about keeping them 'in character' compared to the television versions but just let them be the people in my head, I'm not in fact writing fanfic. I wouldn't call it original, but there's a grand shortage of originality in a great many stories and they worked out okay. (I am not Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was a bold one for ripping and remixing sources.)

The only part I'm at all concerned about is if I'm going to have to rename people once I'm done. Already it would be difficult to rename Captain Jack. I'd have to rename the Ground Assault Command as well. And I still need a name for the sort of pilots that go from planets to Fleet ships in deep space and zoom around doing dogfights. They're not the air force on account of not always being in air. If I start trying to work in Vacuum and Ground I can get some really unfortunate acronyms.

Comments

[baronjanus]

Way I see it, if it's just Jack the Adventurer, then it's clear, it's alright to use, and the same goes for all the others; but if it's Jack who uses the gadgets we're all familiar with, and the speech pattern is the same, and the in-world references are very similar, *then* there's a problem. *But*. It's entirely my opinion on that, and maybe Cat's too, but it's very much not a general public thing. The general public won't know these fannish people, and wouldn't recognise a fanon speech pattern if it spat them in the face and used only catch phrases.

So, to answer the first dilemma from my own pov... If *you* can recognise your new Jack as "looks exactly like, sounds exactly like", then you should probably admit to fanfic, but if it's just an adventurer, happy-go-lucky, sexually-open guy who happens to be a captain and happens to be called Jack, then the way I see it, there's enough of them to allow it to be considered original.

I hope I managed to convey ideas with these words. It's a little complex maybe.