When you disguise whispers as screams.

[lyssie]

so, I was just rambling at myself, trying to understand the difference.

Why is it I condemn some authors, but then raise others up?

Take Little Red (whom I was babbling to the cat about). She writes fluff. Sappy fluff. Full of squishyness and I love yous and cuddles and snuggles. What makes Little Red fic so much better than the hundred or so authors who do similar things?

ok. So, I was also talking to the cat while I fed her. ANYway.

The difference is in the phrasing. The way the narrative tugs you along. In Little Red fic, there's this abrupt sense when you get to the end. You cry, because it's OVER. And it shouldn't be. There should be more, because the characters were painted, drawn and quartered so finely, that you saw them. You saw Daniel, Janet, Sam, Liz, Teal'c, Jack, Shep, etc, etc. And you want more, because in turn, the words evoked so many images. And such rich character that you don't want it to stop.

It's the difference between. oh...

Debbie Gibson's "One Hand, One Heart" (And I need to find the lyrics for posting just to annoy people on the List) and Nickelback's "Feeling Way Too Damned Good".

They're both SAPPY as hell. But where DG is all stupid sweetness, Nickelback is all Stupid!Cute.

Hrm.

Am cold. *gets Liz blanket*

I suspect I also have a kink for NOT speaking. Take, oh, Ellyfic. SO MUCH of her stuff is unspoken dialogue. It's phrases and turns and looks and touches that build on each other, until you're slammed into the present with, with.. *flails*

*eyes the cat*

I suspect I needed to ramble about good fic for a bit. Hrm.

Comments

[katcorvi.livejournal.com]

Keep talking to the cat and ramble on.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

Good fic is fic that keeps me reading after 150 words. If it doesn't, it's BAD. Because my opinion is GOD'S OPINON! BWAAHAHAHAHH!...er... *loves*

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

hey! I'm God, damnit!

*sulks*

(give me a Starbuck and I'll stop sulking)

[livilla.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I should feel sorry for the cat, or jealous...

[splash-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I think the fluff thing is a fine line between focusing on the positive traits in characters and egregious overemphasis of them. Writing fluff is all about highlighting the happy, but so many people seem to think that the key is to take the happy traits and make them the sole focus of the characters and the story. Which, yes, makes for something fluffy, but skews the characterization way out of whack and leaves me with the sense of a completely one-dimensional effort that comes across more like parody. Fluff is not charicature.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Exactly. If you don't have the characterizations, then it's completely hollow.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*dies at your icon*

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*g*

[anr]

*is in total agreement with the above, especially in regard to Little Red-fic and Elly-fic*

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of these people. But I love it when an author can make characters do something that I would never have imagined them doing in a million years, and making me believe it. It makes you start to wonder just what "out of character" really means.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's also a matter of the ability to make the ubelievable believable. huh. Or writing style. I'm a sucker for good turns of phrase.

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

Um. You rock my world SO FREAKING HARDCORE for posting this. I'm going to put it somewhere for when I have an attack of writerly "omg am USELESS for write nothing but FLUFF!" moment or when work is evil. :)

And... I think you've made a really awesome point, aside from that. I mean... you're taking a character -- Jack, say -- and putting him in a situation. The story'll go very differently if it's a situation of NUCLEAR WAR vs. navigating the local CVS. But the character should remain the same. I'd say "it'd be neat to pull out all names and distinguishing features and see if you can still tell what character it is", but you already kinda did that with your fandom-blender meme. Which was awesome, by the way.

And the not speaking thing is hardcore cool, and elly does it so well. I mean, TV is a visual medium, yes, but there is A LOT of dialogue. So writing characters we know from dialogue without it just requires a bitchin' amount of skill. And elly's awesome because you don't really realize that they're not talking. Anytime you read a fic and you really *notice* the device or style... it removes you from the story.

*hugs you*

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*smooches*

I was trying to understand why I was looking at fic on the sjfa and hating some of it so much when it all seemed to be fluffy/humorous/etc. And you are fluffy at times, and what the differences were...

Hence, a long ramble about it.

One of these days, I'll get all organized and do a long essay on this sort of thing. *snuggles*