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elfwhistletree September 7 2008, 23:08:08 UTC
Gratuitous icon is clearly for "savouring" ;-)

You write beautifully, and should stick to your own style - but maybe that will develop into longer stuff - time alone will tell... s'all good ♥

I am sad enough that I can never replace an icon, but I'm slowly gaining space so can fit in a selected few, and this one seemed applicable, although not really to this post, now I think about it - I was going to write about Mamma Mia! as well, which is full of trios.

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elfwhistletree September 7 2008, 23:29:41 UTC
I appear to have a bit of a weakness for trios - as discussed in http://elfwhistletree.livejournal.com/17552.html#cutid1 among other places :-)

School run tomorrow again, so I must exercise willpower and go to bed - hope you can wrangle your assignments adequately in the available time ;-(

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halotolerant September 7 2008, 22:45:44 UTC
Yays for Wilkie Collins! *dances*
The Woman in White is EVEN BETTER *unsubtlety, thou art halotolerant*

I love episodic stories for a lot of the same reasons - I like having the chance to get to know characters over a long period of time and many different events and to see how they and their relationships evolve in response to very different things. I also like having little cliffhangers to keep you reading/watching on as well as a giant humungous unresolved arc. Eva Ibbotson is the best author I've ever read for this - many years ago my brother and I once utterly refused to go to sleep until we'd heard the whole of The Secret of Platform 13And of course I love writing in instalments. There is a hideous lovely power in knowing you have an ending which everyone else is wondering about. This is actually why I get so frustrated with series that don't have an ending worth themselves - the X Files springs to mind - because that is, after all, the payoff. (I'm not saying my endings are perfect, but I can and will demand from others things ( ... )

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elfwhistletree September 7 2008, 23:03:36 UTC
Amazon shopping basket engaged, Captain ;-)

Endings are the hardest part of stories, IMHO - partly because of the whole build up thing, but also because I, for one, would quite like the story to go on for ever = yours stand up pretty well also IMHO ♥

Neal Stephenson is notorious for his lack of endings - he got round this by writing a three-volume prequel to the Cryptonomicon so he could reuse the same one.

Buffy and Angel just sort of peter out, which is common, as is "Rocks fall, everybody dies" ( e.g. "The Last Battle" ) - I was relieved that JKR managed to avoid these. Terry Pratchett seems to like to have several ending to each book - I'm OK with that too. If the story is good enough, then it carries on in my head, so I can generally cope.

I missed "Lost in Austen" - I kind of ran out of steam after A2A and I'm not sure if the MIB would thole it, but I have half a plan to look for it on Virgin replay.

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draycevixen September 7 2008, 23:49:56 UTC

Ooooh, whenever I think along these lines I always start imagining what it would have been like to wait for the latest installment of Sherlock Holmes or the next chapters of Charles Dickens.

My brothers and I all learned to read at a ridiculously early age in large part because my Mother was excellent at selecting books that would fascinate us... and then refuse to read more than one chapter a night.

Erm... rambling...

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elfwhistletree September 8 2008, 23:02:31 UTC
Rambling is cool - I started it, after all ;-)

I can match your reading story - Daffodil Ranger listened to 6 and half books of Harry Potter in the car, as they were too long to read herself, in her opinion, and then read the second half of Deathly Hallows once it was pointed out to her that we weren't going on any long journeys for a few weeks. That really made me laugh :-)

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johnnypurple September 8 2008, 02:02:36 UTC
I know what you mean. I had to be very restrained watching things like Life On Mars - which i loved. It was fucked around on Aussie TV, so I ended up just watching it on DVD. But I limited myself to one episode a day - though I was tempted to gorge on it (because I loved it so) but I knew I'd enjoy it more if I didn't do that. As it was, the episodes tend to blur into each other (in my head) and I wish they didn't. Though they'd do that even more if I'd watched it all in just one or two sittings. We are pacing ourselves with Dr Who (which is on TV now) though I am resisting the temptation to just download the rest of the season and watch it. (Rose!)

I don't tend to write sagas. That's too much "plot" for me to work out and I don't really do "plot". Though I like the idea of a thing in many parts. Maybe I shall attempt it. But I'd be worried I wouldn't finish it and that would be unsatisfying. I think I'd have to write it all and finish it before I started posting. Hmmm... maybe I shall try. But what about? *ponders* "The Stig goes to ( ... )

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elfwhistletree September 8 2008, 23:05:44 UTC
LoM was good, but rather confusing, with all the dreams and flashbacks and stuff - I think if I watched a whole series my sanity would become even more endangered, at least for a few days.

You should write what you like - that seems by far the best plan - but stretching your range a little might lead to pleasant surprises. I haven't forgotten about the Impala fic, you know ;-)

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johnnypurple September 9 2008, 05:44:10 UTC
LoM pressed all my buttons. Well, maybe not all (it did not contain red braces, steampunk, dwarves, clingfilm, fauns or gary oldman!) but a lot of them: time travel, weird dreams, John Simm, slashiness, not-quite-sense-making. My sanity was in no danger from that - after a thesis on David Lynch, I have quite a high tolerance for weirdness.

I do enjoy writing surprising/unexpected things. Maybe I should get people to give me prompts and then see what happens. Maybe when I finish my current fic. Aah, the Impala orgy one, right? I had almost forgotten that one - it might make me sad to finish & post it - because it features Doodle and she'll not be around to participate in the virtual orgy! I'd have to send her a copy I guess.

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elfwhistletree September 9 2008, 08:59:48 UTC
You have a fine collection of buttons :-)

Unsurprisingly my weirdness tolerance is lower than yours, without being non-zero - I like to pretend, at least to myself, that things make sense, if perhaps in a strange way.

I hear what you are saying about the feeling sad - perhaps you should keep that one on the back burner and maybe one day it could be celebratory instead?

*hugs*

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mrsquizzical September 8 2008, 09:05:59 UTC
that's a great point. i love when there's this treat of a huge new fic posted in its entirety and there to just completely lose yourself in for a saturday afternoon (or a weeknight til the wee sma's - but that's another issue altogether...).

but the joy of anticipation and the bubbles of glee when a new installment is posted is one of the real joys of fandom i've found.

even waiting for the next book from jk made the reading sweeter.

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elfwhistletree September 8 2008, 23:08:20 UTC
I know all about the wee sma's - I'm trying to keep that one under control ;-)

For me, I think even if it's a complete long story, I need to get up and walk around, or something like that, after an hour or too - partly I am old and creaky, but mostly it's just to allow it all to sink a bit deeper into my brain - otherwise I get things muddled a bit.

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