ostarella | Chapter 8 progress

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Chapter 8 progress

I ran into a stumbling block with 8 - there was one small scene I wanted to include, just to anchor things with canon. I figured it was just a small thing, and even though I wanted it in there, it was bugging me as to how to do it. I couldn't figure out how the details from the scene in the show could fit, realistically, into this story. Nor how to "casually" bring it up. So, this morning, half-asleep, it came to me. Both solutions.

One - I took canon too literally.

Two - instead of making it an incidental - make it the culminating point of the chapter, *and* it figures heavily into the why's of the rest of the story.

I am Brilliant.

Okay, maybe just brighter than a burned out light bulb ;-)

It was so neat, though - all I had to do was add two sentences to what I already had written and it changed the whole feeling of the chapter. That's what I love about writing - when suddenly, everything just...fits.

Now I just have to find time to get down and dirty with the details.

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Ah, that early morning half asleep time, very productive!

I can be a slave to canon sometimes too. I have to learn to deviate from it, or at least interpret in a creative way. Although an - um - creative interpretation of canon is what's what's led to me being in a sulk with the A-Slash group just now, so what do I know?

That happened to me last night, I'd just shut off the pc, went upstairs to bed, and worked out how I could possibly split the chapter I'm working on and make it all flow. That makes me just brighter than a burned out light bulb too ;o)

It's great when that happens...just frustrating when I'm not sat in front of the pc at the time.

look forward to seeing chapter 8 soon then ;o)

Well, there's creative interpretation and there's simply outrageous :-/ But good Lord, don't try to tell anyone that on *that* list - I know, been there, done that. Always amazes me how a group demands that people be open-minded about their genre and then turn around and refuse to reciprocate. No, actually if you push that to broader worlds, most people want others to accept their views but rarely want to reciprocate. But, yeah, with canon, I'll take liberties, but I really don't like to get too far off with characterization, because then one has to wonder if we're still writing about "our" guys or four other people LOL

You mean you didn't rush back and start typing? LOL One of the niceties about being single - when I do crazy stuff like that in the middle of the night, the only ones I have to explain it to are my dogs - and they already know I'm a little daft. ;-)

You? A Sulk?

I like sticking to canon too, or creatively interpreting it... (hence my 'how many ways can Face and Amy be interpreted' addiction, I mean, fiction) ...but not to the point it turns into Slash ;o)

lol! well, now I have a new pc and it doesn't take so long to boot up, I was v. tempted... hubby was out on a works xmas do, so I didn't have to explain myself to anyone ;o) but I had to start work early in the morning, (Friday nights now are early nights!) so I knew it would be a big mistake to boot up again. I have a notepad by my bed, so I noted it down in there ;o)

Aw, c'mon - give us a real humdinger! Just to remind me - I mean, wake us all up

It wasn't even so much the creative/outrageous interpretation, as it was the implied misogyny behind it. Slash I love. Slash in which the women characters are evil harpies while the men are all angels, not my cup of tea.

I don't even know how it happens, when it's women writing this stuff. Shouldn't they be trying to write female characters that are more sympathetic or at least realistic? Heck I'd rather read a huge Mary Sue, than slash with a evil bitch (canon or not) who has nothing better to do with her time that try to break up the gay fellas. That just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At least with a Sue I know the author wants me to like her, even if it doesn't work out that way!

Oh, you've got to have the notepad by the bed! :D

I think part of it is that some writers have a hard time writing bad guys, in general - but I know, even in het/gen - put an evil female in the mix and it's just horrible. Whatever characteristics a male BG would have are multiplied tenfold in a female.

Oh, man, could we open a can of worms with this: slash + terribly evil females = gender crisis? hahahaha

My bad...

I sleep on the couch in the living room - about 10 feet from my computer.

Save the trees!

I know... 8-|

Yep, I'm sulking! No, more I stepped away for a while, because if I'd stuck around there'd have been a fight.

I dunno, the A-Slash group is okay, but I don't think there's anything terribly exciting happening in the A-Team slash stories just now, most of it seems formulaic.

It's not a group for concrit either, and even though the rules have changed recently to allow more critical feedback on a story, I still feel able only to comment on things like plot, grammar etc and not characterisation, the way I would on the ATSB2, as some of the writers there seem pretty married to their characterisations.

I know we never saw the guys on the show in intimate relationships with each other, so of course one has to interpret, but their basic personalities wouldn't change even if their behaviour is different than we've seen before.

I've got a personal rule. I'm not allowed to take my laptop into the bedroom. If I allowed that to happen, I'd never get any sleep at all! And if I got myself a wi-fi network going so I could access the internet from anywhere in the house, forget it! I'd never get out of bed at all!

Female villains are probably the trickiest of all villains to write! I've done a couple in the past, and I'm doing one right now in the NaNo and I've got one for a future A-Team bunny that's in the planning stage. I just hope they work!

There's an odd sort of feeling that women doing bad things is worse than men doing the exact same bad things. As if they are betraying some ideal of femininity, some higher standard that men aren't held to. Not to say that men are forgiven for not reaching that standard, but more that they aren't even expected to be able to reach it.

I think that's my only real problem with slash - the characterization. I read an article by a gay man on how men's relationships are portrayed in fanfic, and basically he said "You've got it soooo wrong!" The feminization is one major flaw, but also the basic interactions between the couple (or triple). They just don't act like I would expect them to, in any kind of relationship. It really is like reading about strangers - just two guys. And I think that's the reason the stories get formulaic. If you don't have a good handle on the characters, it's hard to write a really creative story, so you have to fall back on clichés or formulas. Otherwise we probably wouldn't recognize our guys. ;-)

Oh man - writing a story, on a laptop, in bed - mini fridge within arm's reach - HEAVEN!! LOL

Yeah, like there's some kind of psychology at work there - women villains are so bad, because we put the "evilness" we'd like to do into them - and we're not *supposed* to have that evilness, so we have to make it *really* bad (slapping our own wrists). But we condescendingly accept that men are inherently flawed, therefore, it's okay for them to do bad things without being evil.

Man, I just don't understand women. LOL

I've read one definition of slash that it's "straight men having sex", which is fair in lots of cases. And it's possibly understandable when it is 99.9% women writing slash. But nowadays there's more available to read, watch, study about the way men relate to each other in situations that women wouldn't perviously have known anything about. So there's no reason not to get some realism into it.

And it's great when you run across an actual gay guy who writes slash fic! If they are a good writer it's like striking gold. There's a guy who writes slash for Bashir/Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (one of my favourite slash couples) and finding that was a joy.

Sometimes the slash story seems far too much like the standard romantic "bodice ripper" story, with the strong man and swooning heroine. But that means one of the guys has to be turned into the swooning heroine.

Luckily for me, I never read romance novels. :D

That's one thing that I never "got" in slash stories - where the guys would proclaim they're in this relationship and yet they aren't gay. I don't know, maybe I'm not "up" on gayness, but they seem to think that just because it's a monogamous relationship, that makes it not gay. I'm confused - or someone is. ;-)

But yeah, romance novels - I read them when I was a teenager (that's my only excuse). I think the really bad thing about romance novels is the heroine can be strong in everything except the relationship. So that does follow through in slash stories - Face takes out several bad guys with a heavy duty machine gun and then runs to Strong and Wise Murdock, crying for comfort at the life they can never have. Ewwww

Ah yes, the actual homophobic slash! How does that work? The implied message of it is: "Yes, I'm sleeping with my best friend, but I'm not one of those filthy homos!" If that is what the character is basically saying the story needs to address the issues that character may have to deal with. :D

hey, I didn't think it was like you to get Fanfiction-rage!

Hey, one of the reasons I don't really bother with Slash, is that it just seems so OOC for me. I can't really take it seriously. For Murdock and Face to be in love in the first place, just seems odd. I like it close to canon really. I know, I know, I have Face and Amy doing things they shouldn't sometimes, but I don't think that is totally unrealistic. As with Amy and Murdock too, but the boys. Nah!

From season 5 we get that Face and Murdock are good friends, oh it starts creeping in, in season 4 with the Wheel of Fortune, but intimate.... no!

yeah, I think you gave me that idea!!! ;o)

But yeah, romance novels - I read them when I was a teenager (that's my only excuse).

I think I read some, but not many, but I was in the waiting room of a train station today (It's a steam railway, and we took a steam train to see Santa) as it was bitterly cold, and there were loads of books. Took one out, just to read the back, as a matter of interest, it being a romance novel, and the blurb thingy on the back.

"blah, blah, blah, ...as he ran his fingers through her chestnut mane..." lol! I thought it was talking about a bloody horse, not a woman!!!! ...does mane give you a horse image, rather than long hair? well it does me!

It defnitely takes a huge grain of salt to read - I was totally shocked when I read my first one LOL But then I read a couple where the relationship was almost a sidebar to the real story, and I kept reading, trying to find more like that. And admittedly, some were just for the...ahem.

But the pairings are just so odd. I can see Face and Murdock - if one accepts the near-fallacy that those two were great friends in the show. I say near-fallacy because, as you say, other than a couple of the fifth season eps, the two of them weren't really shown as that close. Face seemed close to sharing BA's view of Murdock several times. They did a lot of scams together, but it was almost inevitable - I can't see BA doing that, and Hannibal would've had too much "fun" with it.

Then again, I could do a whole commentary on what I think the "real" relationships are in that group

Actually it's interesting to see what others think, what the show has led them to believe etc. etc. That's why I have Face teasing Amy... because he does on the show. And she teases him too.

Its great when you read a story, and think, 'hey that's what I think' or you agree with the authors way of doing/seeing something (you know what I mean, I can't spit my words out, or type them for that matter).

I don't disagree that they wouldn't be best of buddies, (why would they stick together otherwise?) but it's not *that* strong through the show. Face does certainly feel the same way as BA about Murdock at times. I think he's more tolerant than BA, but not as tolerant as Hannibal. In fact Hannibal encourages Murdock!!!! I think they are typical guys actually, they're not really going to show how they feel about each other, unless push comes to shove, i.e. one takes a bullet.

lol!

Then again, I could do a whole commentary on what I think the "real" relationships are in that group

I'm sitting comfortably and I have snacks ready. :-D

I can't help but think that maybe real life has influenced fanfic vis a vis Face/Murdock, Dirk/Dwight. Hannibal *definitely* encourages Murdock. You know, it's interesting to look at their relationship as an ensemble, but I've never really looked at Hannibal's relationship to the others from *his* POV. Hmmm. Maybe somebody still in "good standing" should suggest a discussion on the list LOL

Well - hello to you too! I'll have to think about that commentary - maybe something I could post here and see what havoc I can raise LOL Men are so interesting, anyway, and these four especially so...

yeah, I think you could be right about Face/Murdock and Dirk/Dwight. Season 5 does give us the feel that they are good friends. And they all have to be to stick together but I do wonder if Fanfic blurs my own thoughts, especially when I haven't watched a few episodes in a while. I must watch some in the New Year. I don't get the excuse like I use to. When I was pregnant, and had to put my feet up and take it easy ;o) Now I can't get away with being a lazy cow! ;o(

It's something we should maybe discuss on the Shrine - that's a great place to do it. Or what about that other Yahoo group I forget to check and we've been crap at keeping going Confidential or something?

Or we can just discuss it here!

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Chapter 8 progress

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