Open thread: Is three a crowd? How about seven?

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Hi all! I'm your non-superhero sub for confusedkayt this week. Greetings, especially those woeful souls like me who are not Writercon-bound just now (sobs). How's the writing going? I very nearly had nothing to report, but just squeaked in a still_grrr drabble to break the dry spell. How about you - are the holidays inspirational or distracting

Comments

[quinara]

*waves* Writing's not going quite as well as last week, but still continuing on. I'm tentatively beginning to think that 2009 will be a good year for me.

As for the theme, the first thing that springs to mind is how guilty I often feel about my reading - in writing I'm much more likely to stick in supporting cast/attack things from a more gen-type slant, while reading I can be guilty of wanting supporting cast to get out of the way so Spuffy can come back to the fore. :( Although, I do think that depends a lot on the writing - like a lot of things I think supporting cast can be used as a delaying tactic in a romance plot built around misunderstanding after misunderstanding until Chapter 34. And almost everything tends to annoy me in those fics. (Though I still read them!)

[bogwitch]

>>I can be guilty of wanting supporting cast to get out of the way so Spuffy can come back to the fore

Just like watching the show then!

[quinara]

Pretty much! Though usually the fic characters have fewer funny lines. :(

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Great to hear you're writing (says your avid public!)

I think I'm exactly opposite to you; like to read supporting characters, but find them fiddly to write. Maybe that is a ship thing, since I'm not wildly Spuffy or anything else - happy to take what comes, in fact!

Years ago I read a novel with a supporting character (heh) romantic novelist, who shot onto the scene every few chapters having stuck her heroine into ever deeper perils and finding it hard to extract her. It nearly-but-not-quite cured me of such novels. Or so I tell myself...

[bogwitch]

Writing is going pretty well, nothing much too do at work makes the imagination fire. Sulking about the lack of feedback my last few fics though, especially my last one.

Supporting characters are important, but hard to do well, particularly if the fic is in their POV. Mostly, I'd say avoid making the story about them and not characters people are reading for, but I have read good fics done like that.

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Huh. Ungrateful readers. I can see it being hard to keep motivated if you're feeling that way, so it's good to hear you are still getting ideas. Hooray for summer work lulls!

Some fics written from supporting character POV (especially a weakly drawn OC) feel to me like those usually dire Christmas letters written from the POV of the family pet or a baby. Every bit of information forced round the concept, and not flowing right. Not that it's impossible to do well - but there is a LOT of dreck for every shining example. So - a preference for just pop-up characters who add a bit of plot and/or humour and move on, I guess. Thanks!

[bogwitch]

It always seems to happen to the ones I'm proud of. Maybe it's summer, maybe it's Writercon, maybe people just don't care, who knows?

There's a lot of dreck anyway. I think it depends on the motivation for the character being there. If they're vital to the plot, it should work, if they're there because the writer is rather enamoured of their creation, it won't.

[angearia]

Sulking about the lack of feedback my last few fics though, especially my last one.

It's the worst feeling sometimes. It really wreaks havoc with your confidence. At least, for me it does. I'm so grateful to LJ because people actually leave you feedback here. They start a dialogue. Elsewhere I'm lucky to get 1 or 2 comments for the hundreds who read the chapter/one-shot.

[eowyn_315]

Writing is... actually happening, which is kind of a surprise. It's not good writing (and to be honest, it's more revising than anything else), but it's something. It's a rewrite of a multi-chapter fic I started two years ago, which so far I've only posted to my feedback group.

I love supporting characters. I'm a big fan of fics that capture the balance of the show in terms of characters, especially if it's a long, plotty fic. This is why I think I'd like to read more gen, because if they're not focused on a pairing, then other characters see more action.

In my own writing, generally, the longer the fic, the more characters it has. My multi-chapter fics almost all include the entire Scooby gang, whereas my one-shots tend to be focused on one character or pairing.

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Good news that you're writing! Getting the time and the writing-brain together is a great start.

You're so right about Joss shows having a balanced cast; the trick for writers is to capture that, and perhaps it's easier to find that balance in plotty/gen-type fics. Equivalent, I suppose, to fan complaints about underusing Xander in the show once Spuffy got going - the balance shifts and the supporters slip out of view, perhaps.

[eowyn_315]

One of the things I've always loved about BtVS/AtS is that supporting characters like Spike, Willow, Wesley, and even Faith, who was only in a handful of episodes, were given such great character arcs.

I think the problem with Xander was less about Spuffy taking over and more that they ran out of things for him to do. I have heard that they considered killing off the character at multiple points in the show because they didn't have an arc for him, and it kinda shows.

There is definitely weight to the season 7 balance complaints, though. There's an example of too many supporting characters, and the shiny new ones (the Potentials) inevitably took screen time away from the long-term characters we know and love.

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Oh lord, the wave of Potentials - yes, a much better example of how not to use supporting characters. Or else of having such a large core cast that not everyone could get airtime. I would think the same gimmick might have worked if it was only Buffy+Watcher+Nearly-Boyfriend coping with hordes of new people, for example. Though probably not for the number of episodes they sustained it - I could see it being a Pylea-type arc rather than over half a series.

[brutti_ma_buoni]

Yay back at you! I love the sound of happy writers!

[eowyn_315]

Glad to hear you've found a beta!

[angearia]

Yay! Good for you! :)

[dawnofme]

The writing is going well for me. I've churned out almost eighteen chapters of a new story in just a couple of weeks, and I'm only a couple of chapters away from the ending

[bogwitch]

18 chapters in two weeks? It took me five years!

[dawnofme]

LOL! That's what participating in National Novel Writing Month will do for you. I'm going by memory, but I think I wrote 75,000 words in thirty days last November. I currently have the manuscript with a friend to beta it and hope to start submitting to publishers in the near future.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, so I can stay up to all hours of the night writing and not have to get up too early in the morning.

And there's something to be said for quality over quantity though. I'm guessing your fan fiction is better than mine for all the thought you can put in to it over five years versus two weeks. :)

[bogwitch]

Gulp.

Although I work, I live alone, so I haven't really the excuse. Part of the problem is the complexity of the plot. I have loads of notes, but I can't kept it all in my head!