SGA - How to lose me from reading your story in less than 30 seconds ...

[patk]

Have Teyla address John as "Sheppard" and Rodney as "McKay" right there on the first page and I'm *out*. That's simply not her voice. It's either "John" or "Major/Colonel Sheppard" and "Rodney" or "Dr. McKay" - depending if she's talking to them in person or referring to them when talking to a third party

Comments

[popkin16]

Teyla refers to them by their titles on missions and such, too. Actually, I don't think she often calls them by first name....

But I do agree with what you've said!

[patk]

That's right, she addresses them as "Colonel" and "Doctor" but never as "Sheppard" and "McKay" only.

When I read that in the story I "heard" Ronon, not Teyla. He's the one who talks like that. Teyla with Ronon's voice ... hmm... hey ... perhaps I should have read on and would have find out that's it's a body-switch story! ;-)

[popkin16]

*nod* Exactly.

The bodyswitch idea is a good one and is probably the only thing that makes sense :P Does Ronon even use contractions? I know Teyla doesn't, but I can't recall if Ronon does...

[sinaida]

I know exactly what you mean. :) And reading a story, I notice stuff like that immediately, but I can't say that it bothers me so much (mostly), that I'd stop reading an otherwise interesting sounding story.

Welche isses denn? *neugier* *g*

[patk]

Of course you know because your laptop would explode all by itself if you would even try to do such a thing in on of your stories. *ggg*

Hast Mail wegen der Story.

[em_kellesvig]

You can sometimes tell who has seen the show and who is only writing from what they've read in other fanworks. Or maybe they just don't care enough to pay attention to the details. Sad.

[patk]

Yeah, when I was in TS fandom I watched this development as well. You could tell who wrote "fanfiction of fanfiction" so to speak and had never laid an eye on the original source.

Re: caring enough to pay attention. Personally I wouldn't even file that under "paying enough attention". If you just watch the show you simply notice how people address each other. It's not something complicated you have to pay close attention to in order to understand or remember - that's actually what makes me think that the author hasn't watched the show.

[sgamadison]

Or have Teyla speak in contractions. I know, you can miss one in the natural flow of writing, but yes, a beta reader should pick that out.

I probably would have stuck it out a little longer, but yeah, that kind of thing makes me back up--for all the reasons you name.

[patk]

It was such a low-level, uncomplicated thing to get right that I didn't hold up any hopes that the author bothered trying to do better with the more difficult characterization issues

[sgamadison]

Well, I know what you mean. I read one of the SGA novels and three paragraphs into it, I found myself thinking, "This author has never watched this show." Because if you love it the way a fan does, then you know it inside and out. However, there are degrees of love--SGA is one of my all-time favorite shows, but I am not good with names and titles, so I tend not to remember what happened in 'x' title episode. And I confess, I started writing SGA fanfic well before I saw S1--but I read a TON of fanfic before I did that. I mean, like the Wraithbait archive in alphabetical order. *coughs*

Or it is a body-switch story and it's actually Ronon talking through Teyla's mouth here. ;-)

That deserves a full snort here!

[antares04a]

I notice things like that but when the story is interesting enough (or the sex is hot enough *lol*) I can ignore it.

Can't you call it 'artistic licence' and read on? *g*

I mean with writing in German you always have the problem if you chose a "Sie" or a "Du" - and there I very often go against what is said in TV because I think the German translation is wrong and Rodney wouldn't call John "Sie" after five years. So when I claim "artistic licence" for me I can't be too strict with other people.

[patk]

Sadly, it threw me out so early, I didn't even got to find out if there *was* hot sex involved at some point. ;-)

Re: the "artistic licence" - it's a no go with me because in my perception the way a person speaks is inextricably tied to the personality/identity. If an author doesn't bother to get something as simple as the voice in case of addressing her teammates right, I simply don't trust her to bother more with the more complicated characteristics. When Teyla starts to sound like Ronon, I wonder how Ronon will ring.

Hm ... body-switch story? Alternate universe? Have I really stopped too early? ;-)