Part 1 of a long rambleelviaproseJanuary 12 2015, 17:28:21 UTC
I found this really interesting to read! I really like all of your first lines, actually. Surprised to hear you don't consider that much when you write. And wrote a loooong comment in reply to your thing about justification. A lot is just me quoting you and other stuff, though :/
Justification is so complicated to me. And interesting. I think the work of justification, of building a case, is crucial to what writing does. You're building a world where the story you're telling makes sense. I think you can do this through tone, citation, explicit statements, and probably some other things, though.
I've certainly had the experience of reading a fic and finding it 100% excellent, well characterized, plausible, etc, and seeing a comment from someone saying it didn't seem plausible, though, so it seems in a way idealistic to think that a good fic would use that combination of things to sell any reader on the pairing
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Part 2 of a long rambleelviaproseJanuary 12 2015, 17:28:52 UTC
And to make things more complicated, sometimes for me, justification can actually make things worse. Maybe because the justification goes against my own sense of what makes the pairing work? Is this maybe the problem with NDF, rather than that it's justifying too much?
I think Judith Proctor's Touching Life is an almost flawless B/A story, and if I had to pick a favorite, it might be that. That said, there are a few passages that don't work for me. One is this one:
If Blake had made a pass at him on Liberator, he would have rejected it out of hand - he really had been remarkably conservative, a true alpha. Now that he had lost all inhibitions regarding the gender of whom he had sex with, he found a Blake who had neither youth nor power. There was nothing here to attract him, no trace of the man who had once held him by sheer force of personality. I think I could actually 100% buy that Avon would have rejected Blake out of hand, and even for reasons of sexual conservatism. In a way that should be a statement that's more with the
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Re: Part 1 of a long ramblex_losficJanuary 12 2015, 23:18:30 UTC
I agree about building a world with believable emotional consequences with your writing. I guess I'm not entirely convinced that's the same work as pairing justification
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Re: Part 1 of a long rambleelviaproseJanuary 13 2015, 00:29:11 UTC
Aha. Loved your takedown of Neil there, I have to say.
I agree about building a world with believable emotional consequences with your writing. I guess I'm not entirely convinced that's the same work as pairing justification?
Idk, when you say "justify" and "sell" what are you thinking of? It might be helpful to hear what you see this work being? Is it something that happens on an emotional level, an intellectual level, or both? I'd say that Ever Fixed Mark doesn't particularly sell D/M, and that that's not a bad thing. But one thing that makes D/M different from B/R is the history. D/M we always have the sense they had this time together where things worked--no matter whether we ship it or not, that's canon. And I do think that does a lot of work for shippers, whether NDF fans or otherwise. I say this as someone who shipped Brutus/Cassius, then D/M, then B/A. The first two had a pre-canon idyll, the third didn't, and I find justification, even for me, a diehard shipper, way more important with B/A than it ever was before
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this was a very interesting post, bb. i'm glad you took the time to write it - even though i obviously knew a lot of it. it's nice to have it thought about etc.
Not every story 'sells' a pairing, and frankly not every story should. There are many and various things a story can do, and having a conversation with non-believers /isn't/ always one of them. There are very popular stories aimed outside a pairing/fandom, like New Dawn Fades for D/M, that actually aren't very satisfying for people who are in the fandom/ship it.
this is true - also, there ARE stories that sell stuff that are really really good - i know you aren't excludign that possible with what you wrote, but t feel it should be said. and i assume that NDF is sort of... for people who shipped it based on the show, but didn't care about what it had been except in as far as it was backstory.
After a story or two for a pairing, I'm starting to either slide into laxness about justification,i had almost exactly the same arc with mine - but interestingly... as i was sort of
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I don't think NDF sells it, but I do think it is speaking primarily to an audience that wanders by, that, as you say, saw those Simm eps and was casually interested? That's an interesting case in that--NDF doesn't need to really sell anything, it could as easily be another pairing, it pretty much just operates from the belief that you are willing to see these people get together Because Hot Men With Some Plausible In-Canon Chemistry (plausible as in, you could make a case, and not--this is a fic born of a ton of OTP passion and analysis). It does what it does quite well, but it stopped meaning anything to me when I was properly in that pairing, when I'd thought and felt more about that canon and those characters. It works REALLY well for an audience that's come in from Buffy fic, with its conventions, and is within a certain bandwidth of interest and canon-knowledge. I'm not calling it out for not working for me--I think if it worked better for me, it might well be less popular. I'm damn sure there's K/S like that as well
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Comments 9
Justification is so complicated to me. And interesting. I think the work of justification, of building a case, is crucial to what writing does. You're building a world where the story you're telling makes sense. I think you can do this through tone, citation, explicit statements, and probably some other things, though.
I've certainly had the experience of reading a fic and finding it 100% excellent, well characterized, plausible, etc, and seeing a comment from someone saying it didn't seem plausible, though, so it seems in a way idealistic to think that a good fic would use that combination of things to sell any reader on the pairing ( ... )
Reply
I think Judith Proctor's Touching Life is an almost flawless B/A story, and if I had to pick a favorite, it might be that. That said, there are a few passages that don't work for me. One is this one:
If Blake had made a pass at him on Liberator, he would have rejected it out of hand - he really had been remarkably conservative, a true alpha. Now that he had lost all inhibitions regarding the gender of whom he had sex with, he found a Blake who had neither youth nor power. There was nothing here to attract him, no trace of the man who had once held him by sheer force of personality. I think I could actually 100% buy that Avon would have rejected Blake out of hand, and even for reasons of sexual conservatism. In a way that should be a statement that's more with the ( ... )
Reply
Reply
I agree about building a world with believable emotional consequences with your writing. I guess I'm not entirely convinced that's the same work as pairing justification?
Idk, when you say "justify" and "sell" what are you thinking of? It might be helpful to hear what you see this work being? Is it something that happens on an emotional level, an intellectual level, or both? I'd say that Ever Fixed Mark doesn't particularly sell D/M, and that that's not a bad thing. But one thing that makes D/M different from B/R is the history. D/M we always have the sense they had this time together where things worked--no matter whether we ship it or not, that's canon. And I do think that does a lot of work for shippers, whether NDF fans or otherwise. I say this as someone who shipped Brutus/Cassius, then D/M, then B/A. The first two had a pre-canon idyll, the third didn't, and I find justification, even for me, a diehard shipper, way more important with B/A than it ever was before ( ... )
Reply
Not every story 'sells' a pairing, and frankly not every story should. There are many and various things a story can do, and having a conversation with non-believers /isn't/ always one of them. There are very popular stories aimed outside a pairing/fandom, like New Dawn Fades for D/M, that actually aren't very satisfying for people who are in the fandom/ship it.
this is true - also, there ARE stories that sell stuff that are really really good - i know you aren't excludign that possible with what you wrote, but t feel it should be said. and i assume that NDF is sort of... for people who shipped it based on the show, but didn't care about what it had been except in as far as it was backstory.
After a story or two for a pairing, I'm starting to either slide into laxness about justification,i had almost exactly the same arc with mine - but interestingly... as i was sort of ( ... )
Reply
Reply
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