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bronze_ribbonsTDIR
First and foremost, Ash is compiling a scrapbook to send to Susan Cooper, consisting of notes from fans of the books. Click the link for details. Deadline for contributions is 20 October.
Second, from Box Office Guru's Weekend Report (12-14 October edition): "...rounding out the top 10 was The Seeker: The Dark is Rising which fell 41% from its soft opening last weekend to $2.2M. Its cume stands at $7.2M and it should end up in the $12-14M range with some hope for success on DVD." A Wiki article on the film currently offers a good overview of the film's box office ("second worst debut of all time for a film released in more than 3,000 theaters") and critical reception. (ETA: The Three Investigators love in an AV Club comment thread is conjuring up high school memories like you wouldn't believe.)
Third, but not least: via skyehawke, I've just now come across rhymer23's fanfic writer's guide to TDIR. Haven't had time to do more than skim a few lines, but it looks like seventy kinds of awesome (and useful to non-TDIR fen as well, as it offers primers on how Oxford University is organised and other Useful Topics).
Pondering How to Produce Non-Ponderous Prequels
Lately, I've been working on at least two fics outside of my comfort zone. They're both what![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
schemingreader calls "canon spackle," which I rarely attempt, and I'm finding them challenging in several respects. Aside from reacquainting myself with the minutiae of the source universes (neither of the fics are HP), which is both entertaining and exasperating (Sayers, for instance, had continuity lapses and clunkers of her own -- I think the Dowager Duchess's black eyes (in WHOS) becoming brown in BUSM had been pointed out to me before, but still), I haven't been able to resist repeatedly pondering how to balance what the characters know at the time of the fic vs. what the readers know about they'll know later -- particularly for characters whose personalities or priorities shift significantly during the course of canon. The narrative momentum is different than that of futurefic as well -- with a prequel, the reader enters the fic knowing how (at least in a general sense) it's going to end -- but the writer still needs to infuse the story with enough tension, unpredictability, or flair to compel the reader to stay with it. (These things matter in futurefic as well, of course, but unpredictability is inherently an element of stories that aren't constrained by known canonical destinations.)
At the same time, speaking as someone who rereads favorite fics and books on a regular basis, unpredictability isn't the be-all and end-all of a story: I revisit some stories and songs for comfort, and others because there are new discoveries to be made when I peer at them from a different angle. (The second category is also a major reason why I find writing fanfic so rewarding -- trying to nail characterisations and settings has a way of motivating me to analyse source texts more thoroughly and thoughtfully than I would otherwise.) So perhaps it's not the big honking conundrum that currently has me foxed -- and I'm certain it doesn't apply to all writers of all prequels or "missing scene" fics -- but even so, I'm struck by how my current fics' temporal relations to canon affect the tools I've reached for in order to make them work -- because the timing sets the boundaries for what the characters know (not just about the future, but about themselves), because I want the reader to enjoy a degree of the surprises I've delighted in as I've become better acquainted with the characters (e.g., "cor, so that's what he was actually thinking...!"), and because (aha!) I have a habit of dwelling upon what intelligent characters choose to say aloud vs. what they refrain from (or outright fail at) articulating. (Hi, Professor Snape. Hullo, Mr. Lupin...)
(As I lamented to nineveh-uk in another thread, there are days when writing feels an awful lot like folding origami, of which I've never quite got the hang: I can see the shape I want to create, and I can see the folds I'm supposed to make to get there, but actually making the folds just right so that everything fits together just so -- ay, there's the devil of it!)
(That said, the past two days' net yield = 2400 words, so things are actually humming along. Even though my brain currently feels like one of those functional-but-freakily-fussy old cars that refuses to run until one kicks all its secret chakhras at a 65-degree angle, douses the bumper with black coffee, and sacrifices a turtle captured under the new moon to some deity with an unpronounceable name...)
First and foremost, Ash is compiling a scrapbook to send to Susan Cooper, consisting of notes from fans of the books. Click the link for details. Deadline for contributions is 20 October.
Second, from Box Office Guru's Weekend Report (12-14 October edition): "...rounding out the top 10 was The Seeker: The Dark is Rising which fell 41% from its soft opening last weekend to $2.2M. Its cume stands at $7.2M and it should end up in the $12-14M range with some hope for success on DVD." A Wiki article on the film currently offers a good overview of the film's box office ("second worst debut of all time for a film released in more than 3,000 theaters") and critical reception. (ETA: The Three Investigators love in an AV Club comment thread is conjuring up high school memories like you wouldn't believe.)
Third, but not least: via skyehawke, I've just now come across rhymer23's fanfic writer's guide to TDIR. Haven't had time to do more than skim a few lines, but it looks like seventy kinds of awesome (and useful to non-TDIR fen as well, as it offers primers on how Oxford University is organised and other Useful Topics).
Pondering How to Produce Non-Ponderous Prequels
Lately, I've been working on at least two fics outside of my comfort zone. They're both what
schemingreader calls "canon spackle," which I rarely attempt, and I'm finding them challenging in several respects. Aside from reacquainting myself with the minutiae of the source universes (neither of the fics are HP), which is both entertaining and exasperating (Sayers, for instance, had continuity lapses and clunkers of her own -- I think the Dowager Duchess's black eyes (in WHOS) becoming brown in BUSM had been pointed out to me before, but still), I haven't been able to resist repeatedly pondering how to balance what the characters know at the time of the fic vs. what the readers know about they'll know later -- particularly for characters whose personalities or priorities shift significantly during the course of canon. The narrative momentum is different than that of futurefic as well -- with a prequel, the reader enters the fic knowing how (at least in a general sense) it's going to end -- but the writer still needs to infuse the story with enough tension, unpredictability, or flair to compel the reader to stay with it. (These things matter in futurefic as well, of course, but unpredictability is inherently an element of stories that aren't constrained by known canonical destinations.) At the same time, speaking as someone who rereads favorite fics and books on a regular basis, unpredictability isn't the be-all and end-all of a story: I revisit some stories and songs for comfort, and others because there are new discoveries to be made when I peer at them from a different angle. (The second category is also a major reason why I find writing fanfic so rewarding -- trying to nail characterisations and settings has a way of motivating me to analyse source texts more thoroughly and thoughtfully than I would otherwise.) So perhaps it's not the big honking conundrum that currently has me foxed -- and I'm certain it doesn't apply to all writers of all prequels or "missing scene" fics -- but even so, I'm struck by how my current fics' temporal relations to canon affect the tools I've reached for in order to make them work -- because the timing sets the boundaries for what the characters know (not just about the future, but about themselves), because I want the reader to enjoy a degree of the surprises I've delighted in as I've become better acquainted with the characters (e.g., "cor, so that's what he was actually thinking...!"), and because (aha!) I have a habit of dwelling upon what intelligent characters choose to say aloud vs. what they refrain from (or outright fail at) articulating. (Hi, Professor Snape. Hullo, Mr. Lupin...)
(As I lamented to nineveh-uk in another thread, there are days when writing feels an awful lot like folding origami, of which I've never quite got the hang: I can see the shape I want to create, and I can see the folds I'm supposed to make to get there, but actually making the folds just right so that everything fits together just so -- ay, there's the devil of it!)
(That said, the past two days' net yield = 2400 words, so things are actually humming along. Even though my brain currently feels like one of those functional-but-freakily-fussy old cars that refuses to run until one kicks all its secret chakhras at a 65-degree angle, douses the bumper with black coffee, and sacrifices a turtle captured under the new moon to some deity with an unpronounceable name...)
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(no subject)
17/10/07 00:09 (UTC)Secondly, I love your origami metaphor - that actually rings very true to my own process. I can see what I want to accomplish, but sometimes getting from A to B is not as simple as it looks.
I'm working on something prequel-esque and having some of the same issues - what of a character's personality would be the same when he's younger, and what can I safely change without it being off? I think it's even more difficult as someone who is fairly young myself and still not able to have a lot of perspective on what elements of my own life have changed me over time. If the only view of a character we have in canon is age 35 and I'm trying to write age 17, I don't have a solid frame of reference for what those major changes might have been.
(no subject)
17/10/07 03:38 (UTC)I've missed you, and I've missed posts like this one. What you said about narrative momentum for canon spackle being different than for futurefic, for example, in holding a reader who already knows at some level what's going to happen made me think "Aha! That's why I find that kind of story so hard to write!" though I'd never managed to articulate it. I hope you've been well.