Disgruntle workers VERB+NOUN, not ADJ+NOUN

[lunabee34]

[Poll #1315922]

Comments

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Dude, YES!!!!!!!!

Every single beta I have had has had to chide me on POV issues. Either switching POV or being so slavish to POV that the non-POV characters come off as ciphers.

And they say the MOON is a harsh mistress. LOL

[executrix.livejournal.com]

POV changes are like...stripes! It's exciting and colorful as long as you weave in the ends when you change color, and it isn't just that you ran out of Petal Pink partway through because you didn't measure.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Josh was looking over my shoulder at this page and he about died at your icon. Many Josh points to your basket, Madame.

[havocthecat]

I only back-button faster on bad grammar because it's more immediately noticeable than OOCness.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I once read a like 4 million word (no kidding) fic even though it had the grammar of a one year old because it was pretty much the crossover junkie's extravangazna. Each new section introduced a new XOVER and it was like a game to figure out who and what and why.

TERRIBLE TERRIBLE AWFUL FIC. Which I read all of. And really kind of enjoyed.

[havocthecat]

*nodding* I see your point there, and I do understand that ESL writers might have more issues. (Though I have to say, a lot of the ESL fic writes I know have an incredibly good grasp of English.) I have strong feelings that ESL writers need to have betareaders with a REALLY strong grasp of grammar.

The above would make more sense if I wasn't realy freaking tired. I should sleep. Night! :)

[executrix.livejournal.com]

However, although there is no single standard of grammar that is universally accepted (as I found out by using "gotten" in a B7 fic), there are objective standards that can be consulted, there is something close to one view of what Character X is Really Like per fan, and nothing to check it against. It doesn't work to say "check it against canon" because of the familiar phenomenon of everyone having zir own idiosyncratic set of tapes.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

So what's going on in your show?

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting! I'm gonna jump sideways into this topic for bit. I was thinking about the "talking about their feelings" thing today as it relates to the sexin' in fics. I was reading reading a Wincest fic and was thinking about how so often when there's the sexin' happening (in pretty much any fandom), there's usually a WHOLE LOTTA talking going on. Maybe it's just me, but outside of porno movies, it just doesn't feel natural. A few endearments is one thing, but to talk their way through the entire procedue is just wrong! :)

I realize the dialog is part of the story telling, but it is something that can pull me out of a fic. Particularly if it's Dean going all "Cutie Pie, I'm really gonna give it to you now, you big hunka man." to Sam or to any one else, for that matter. Maybe that's where the OOC thing bothers me the most?

What do y'all think?

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

No, no, I agree.

For the most part (I'm sure there's an exception I can dredge up somewhere) the dialogue heavy sex scene gets on my nerves in any genre. Because people just don't do that. LOL Or if they do, we don't need to read about it. LOL I am very much a fan of the understated in fiction.

I'm not gonna deny that sometimes I just want to read an over the top, melodramatic, schmoopy extravaganza, but the pieces that I come back to over and over--the ones that I think are the best fandom has to offer--are usually more pared down.

[lwbush.livejournal.com]

I've almost stopped reading gen Buffy-fic (anything that doesn't mention Xander as a major character) because of the tendency to portray him as either evil or stupid, or totally unimportant to the group. An additional set to this is the Xander-centric stories that portray him as the poor, mistreated Scooby that the girls abuse and mistreat, either to pair him with Spike or some cross-over female.

Okay, so I love my Xander... when portrayed genuinely.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yes! I know exactly what you mean.

In the same vein, I hate those slash fics that make Buffy and Willow out to be the bad guys that want to destroy Xander's Big Gay Love or the ones where Xander and the gang aren't even friends.....poor Zeppo that nobody loves and all barely tolerate. I feel like saying, way to pick up on a shade of nuance and paint the whole damn fence that color.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, I never liked the ones that had to work that hard to make the Spander feasible. 'Course, I suppose that circles back around to the OOC thing. Buffy and Willow may have been insensitive at times in canon, but that doesn't make them bad guys.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I like POV changes, if done skillfully, both as a reader and a writer. I often write series where the POV changes from chapter to chapter.

I think canon believability is very important. I do feel fic has to go beyond canon or we might as well just reread/rewatch canon. It's the fanfic author's job to convince the reader that this could be canon. I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "canonicity" though. Some people decry slash as anti-canonical, but I see it as extra-canonical if done well, which all fanfic is.

Egregious misspelling or grammar/punctuation errors will make me stop reading a fic. Errors in the *title* will prevent me from reading the fic. In my main fandom (X-Men) there are a bunch of writers who misspell characters' names, which I find beyond sloppy. "Rouge" for "Rogue" is pretty common. Another one is Scott "Cyclops" Summers, who is sometimes called "Summer" - I guess on the assumption that the final S in his name is plural?

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with POV changes that are clearly demarcated as such--alternating chapters for instance. But if a whole fic has been from POV A and then suddenly, we hear POV C's internal monologue--that gets on my nerves.

You are right that canonicity is a loaded term and I'm probably not using it here to accurately portray what I mean. I mean canonicity in that canon characterization, plot, dialogue, etc. informs your fic choices as an author and in those places where your fic departs from canon, you do so consciously and for effect. For instance, if you're writing Rodney McKay, you're aware that in canon he's often a belligerent asshat, even if you choose not to highlight that aspect of his character.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

That kind of canonicity I can get behind. After all, a big reason I read and write fanfic is I really like the characters, so I want to see the characters I care about, warts and all. But I think for some readers/writers (particularly some slashers) what they really like is how the actors look, so characterization doesn't matter so much.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is one of the reasons that AUs were so hard for me to get into at first because I initially read several in which the characters bore no resemblance to the canon characters save physicality.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, AU's are all over the map. Some are so alternate it's hard to get the connection. Others just take one thing and change it. My secondary fandom is Star Wars TPM and AU where Qui-Gon didn't die is so common in that fandom that his death is known as The Scene That Didn't Happen.

I write X-Men movieverse, mostly post-X1 (although I've written X2 as well - can't stand X3). Some would consider that AU, since it contradicts X2, but I just consider it true to X1 canon.

Thanks for the card!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yay!

I'm glad it arrived.

Yours was amongst the first wave. I mailed all my overseas cards too late. I fear it will be into 2009 before they arrive, particularly in Australia. That country's mail always gets there the latest.

[crazydiamondsue.livejournal.com]

Angels and ministers of grace preserve the English major when it comes to fic reading at times. *shudder*

Rampant misspellings will get my back button. The occasional there/their/they're I can ignore, but when a writer obviously doesn't know the difference between then and than, I'm gone.

POV switch will bug me in the same paragraph; I can overlook it if it's not too obvious, though. Lack of vocative commas or question marks will bug me, but I'll just start reading the fic aloud in a monotone if the plot is good. :)

Canon/fanon depends on the fanon involved. If it's the fanon that Angelus raped William into submission over a hundred years (despite the fact that Angelus and William were only together for 20 years and Spike is hardly submissive in "School Hard") I can shrug and let someone's kink be their kink. However, if it's the fanon that Buffy smells like vanilla or that Xander was repeatedly gang-raped by his Dad and Uncle Rory every other Saturday night, I roll my eyes and hit the back button until it pops off the keyboard.

My biggest problem (and this may not sound like much to others, especially non-U.S. readers) is the Anglicanization of very American characters like Dean Winchester, Xander Harris or the RPS version of Jared Padalecki. I sighed and got over Xander tying his trainers before he left his flat to check the post on his way to the chemist before he met Willow for a pint at The Bronze.

However. Having Jensen and Jared attend a Tarts and Vicars party as a plot device to get them into the priest costumes from Nightmare is just...shoddy craftsmanship. Primarily because, while there are a few Anglican (Episcopalian) churches in the U.S., they're not so much in Texas. You know, on account of that big honkin' Hispanic population and all of those Catholic missions (hell, even Taco Bells!) there. They're most likely to know the word vicar if they're an Eddie Izzard fan. Not to mention that the unlikelihood of anyone under 60 in the U.S. using to word "tart" without the prefix "Sweet" or if referring to something they'd watched Martha Stewart make.

I have no idea who wrote the above scenario or in which fic I read it (and it wasn't a deal breaker, the fic was fun overall, but that STILL bugs me) but I do remember a comment was left about the unlikeliness of J2 attending a T & V party, it being so English and all, and the author saying someone else (non-Brit) had suggested the scenario. I looked up the person in question and they were like, Swedish. Or Swiss. Or Scandinavian. It was an S country. In other words: not even close to Texan.

The reason this bugs me so is that I have written fic that involved English characters (Wes, Giles), characters who spoke almost solely in created California slang (Buffy, Xander) and vampires of various origins (Darla, Angel) and I have NEVER had any of them say, "Hey, y'all, I'm fixin' to go kill a mess of vampires, yownto? Well, shitfire, I done tumped over this here jug of holy water. Sumbitch!"

(Okay, the likelihood my saying "this here jug" is slim but I will cop to "fixin' to" and "shitfire" as common staples of my vocabulary.)

The main point is that I tried to get the rhythms of Giles' speech which were nothing like Xander's and write them accordingly. It wasn't that hard because, you know, I watched the show and was able to suppress my "shitfire" tendencies. ;)

Well that was a lot of sound and fury signifying finickiness. I should get out more.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

No, no no no, I am with you every step of the way.

One of the reasons that I did not write much Harry Potter is that I knew I couldn't do the British voice. And so I left well enough alone.

What gets me every time is when Sam or Dean say "meant to" instead of "supposed to." "We're meant to burn the bones after salting them, Pip Sammy." LOL I don't know why, but that particular construction really lifts me out of a piece.

Also, any attempt at dialect or to phonetically render speech is pretty much an immediate ticket to the backbutton.

Oh man, the way I speak when I'm not teaching or in a professional setting is pretty much hick overload. From "ever which way" to "stobs" as a garbled version of staves, I have a firmly red neck. Alas.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

SPN, with its Greater Purpose Behind the Events, is one place where I could see "we're meant to burn the bones"--certainly a lot more than "'Pembleton, you're meant to testify on April 8th in the Wendle case,'" Gee said."

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahhahahaahahahhah.

Homicide: Life on Fleet Street

[tabaqui]

It drives me *batshit* when you're reading a fic that is from, say, Sam's pov and suddenly you have three or four lines of what *Dean* is thinking/feeling, and then you go back to Sam....that drives me *nuts*. Just - no.

And i hate it when my boys - any of my boys - are made into weepy messes, or get hysterical over nothing, or can't actually *do their job*. Gah.

Also, screeching Americanisms in Spike's mouth make me say bye-bye, as do screeching Britishisms in Sam'n'Dean's mouths. Spike might mock someone by using an American word or term, but he doesn't talk like a California surfer-dude, and never will.

And Sam'n'Dean do not say 'whilst', or pay with 'notes', or do 'maths'.
*flails*

:)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Does *anybody* say whilst? I thought people stopped saying that in the Regency period. LOL

I have one word for you in terms of fic hate:

"Wot?"

[tabaqui]

OMG.
Yes. And 'S'not' for 'It's not'. Please, please, please.
Spike is *not* an undereducated Cockney who drops his h's and never says 'ing' but always 'in'. Gaaaaaah.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

And even if he was, even if he was,

SPELL IT CORRECTLY AND TRUST YOUR READERS TO HEAR HIS VOICE.

OMG.

/rantypants

[tabaqui]

Jayzus, YES.
He didn't have so much an accent as a way of speaking.
*flails*

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

To expand on the deal breaker concept: The one that can kill a fic for me has to do with conversation and the lack of a thesaurus...Too often fics, especially ones written in the present tense, use the following phrasing, Dean says, ".." Sam says, ".." Dean says, ".." Sam says, ".." over and over. That word, 'says', kills me in a fic.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

That is so interesting because I know that most of us who were trained to write in a college setting were taught to use only says or said, depending on tense. LOL The idea is that says is a word that your eye will just skip over that doesn't stick out or detract from dialogue.

I find myself endorsing the concept; I can't remember the last time I wrote anything other than says for dialogue attribution, and yet most of the published fic I read does use a variety of attribution tags.

I wonder how other people feel about this.

I might make a top level post about this.

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

Interesting. To clarify, I guess for me 'says' irritates me because I convert a lot of fics to audio (found a neat program called Ghost Reader). It's a little flat, not the same as a real live person reading it, but it lets me listen to fic during my hour long drive to work. Words that are used over and over jump right out at you when you can hear it all! For some reason 'said' doesn't seem to bother me!

I think you're right that it's a word your eye will skip over and I never noticed in in the fics even after rereading them. It was only once it became audio that I noticed.

"Shut Up," He Explained

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I think it makes a difference whether the substitute for "says" adds any new information, or is only the writer's desperate attempt to add "elegant variation."

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Okay.

That makes a lot of sense.

I haven't really gotten into the whole podfic craze so I have no idea how I'd react to the same fic in written and verbal format.