in a very blue moon

[ailis_fictive]

This is not the Big Intro post. (I'm procrastinating.) This is Random Thoughts.

Speaking of procrastinating, I'm putting off finishing The Queen of Attolia because I don't want it to be done. And I'm kind of hating everyone I know who didn't sit me down and tell me to Read This Dammit. I've read three-volume epics that didn't pack as much Good Stuff in as this little 250-page YA book. I have The King of Attolia on a shelf looking reproachfully at me, and I'm almost scared to start it. For QoA I was rather thoroughly spoiled, and have actually read most of the rest of the pages, just not in order. (A book has to get me really worked up to make me do that...) For KoA...I know the basic plot-motif, but none of the actual plot or the end.

But what I actually wanted to say was...I came (finally) to this series after being reminded by a Vokosigan crossover. And in my head, the minister of war is Aral Vorkosigan. Just is. I've no idea what he's doing there, or, contrarily, how he ended up on Barrayar later, but...same person. (And now I really want Eddis and Gregor to sit down and have a natter. Though I'm not sure Gregor and Attolia would do as well. Or possibly they'd do even better, and I'm just scared to bend my brain that way.)

Second random thought of the day, pulled over from a comment else-journal and refined a bit. Even though I'm still not writing the essay. Though I may go hunt up some of the academic work out there on fanfiction.

One of the things I find really fascinating about fanfic is that we can tell the same story--not just the same core theme/idea ("becoming a parent changes your relationship with the future") but the same basic plot with the same characters ("Gregor learns the truth about the Escobar invasion")--in many different ways. It becomes a prism, light coming through in different ways, reflecting and refracting. As soon as I hit that image, though, I was reminded of the way I describe Criminal Minds--it's a fugue on certain themes, hung on an episodic crime drama. They repeat and reverse and refine a set of themes about good and evil, about survival and recovery. There's a little more variation in the actual storytelling but...not much. Now I wonder if *really good* episodic TV (and crime series, both TV and book, since they have *such* a defined structure) aren't doing something very close. Of course, any sufficiently large body of work by a single author will usually start to show something similar--we all have our elephants--but there is something different--and, I think, richer--about multiple people telling the same story.

I'm starting to get really interested in looking at the various fandoms I've read extensively in and brushed against, and figuring out what stories tend to...ah, develop the largest prism, and isn't that metaphor becoming unwieldy? But...there are stories that get told once or twice, and then there are the ones we converge on.

And I'm stopping now, or this will turn into that essay I'm not writing. Or possibly a thesis.

(and, post scriptum, if you happen on this or any post of mine months or years from when it's posted, feel free to comment anyway. I'm happy to get blast-from-the-past commentary!)

Comments

[ailis_fictive]

narrative kink--oh yes, certainly. We're back to oaths and loyalty again (fancy that!) and fandoms drawing people who like the things the fandom likes, who write the things they like, which draws people who like... And I think we might also be around to shipping, too, because if you are sufficiently in love with a particular character, or a pairing, watching them come together again, and again, and again...there's a couple of movie scenes that my husband looks up and watches on YouTube at least once a week. Like that. (I have a few book-scenes that I do the same thing with, less regularly...)

I'm also interested by the things we see *once*, though it may also have to do with the fact that certain stories can't be told without the space--and time--of a longer piece, and thus get written less often. I think I've found one "Miles does an Auditorial investigation." And then there's the missing scenes that are short, and tempting, but hard to write; I *adore* the one "Gregor and Simon's moring meeting during Memory" that I've seen...but I've only seen the one. (And it's currently working as The Answer for me, and I have no desire--or ability, I think!--to re-tell that one myself.)

(My own half-written 'Escobar secrets' fic starts with Galeni learning the truth...)

Ooof. There's an interesting wrinkle. (I think I've seen you mention this before, as I was wandering around the Internet?) I shall make hopeful eyes at you that it finds its way to complete someday.

[hedda62]

though it may also have to do with the fact that certain stories can't be told without the space--and time--of a longer piece, and thus get written less often

Or the mental effort? Making up Auditorial cases worthy of Miles is hard. It's always the plot that stymies me, and that I try to handwave or avoid. Whereas I can do emotional complication till the cows come home (and moo despondently and feudally).

But yes. I suspect there are lots of reasons that the one-shots are one-shots, but it's very interesting that they exist and what they turn out to be.

[philomytha]

Oh, heavens, plot. I'm pretty good at getting into plots, much worse at getting out of them, and plots which you're almost required to solve by the hero being very clever - which is to say, anything featuring Miles - are the hardest thing of all. I expect this goes a long way to explaining why the most popular stories to write are the ones where the (action/adventure/mystery/intrigue) plot, if any, takes a firm back seat to the emotional plot. (She says, looking at a fic where the action plot is fine but figuring out the emotional plot is almost impossible...)

Readers, of course, tend to like an action plot along with the emotional plot.

[ailis_fictive]

Plot, yes. Or possibly yeeesh. Story-shape I can do, but the actual brass tacks of plot... I just wrote an episode tag for a TV show that doesn't exist. I did not, note, write the *episode*. I know exactly as much of the events of the episode as was necessary to write the tag. I'd love to write the episode, but it's not *there*. (It would also require several orders of magnitude more world-building than I've done, in a world-style that I'm not great at building...)

[hedda62]

This is scarily similar to how I got started writing a series of what will be five or more novels. WATCH OUT. :)

[ailis_fictive]

...I am casual friends with an award winning writer who--before she was published--also started writing fic for a spinoff series that didn't exist--that is, an RPG framed as a spinoff as a real show. Which developed back-story, and a Next Generation...

And now has one novel published, the second going to press, the third being written, and the fourth under contract. I get a lot of amusement out of finding the shadows of the source series in the published book, though it's subtle enough that you have to know what to look for.

There's a couple other stories in this world I'd like to tell, and I'm idly looking at a couple of books that would be handy for world-buliding....

[hedda62]

Mine was going to be a one-off book about the fans of a particular series of time-travel novels. I ended up writing the series instead. No regrets.

[ailis_fictive]

<3

This is the one that you have a few chapters of up on Ao3? I have not read it yet, as I'm somewhat allergic to unfinished stories, but I suspect I'll break down before the end of December...

[ailis_fictive]

...I should probably note that I found the a novel-shaped story for this universe yesterday and it is now bubbling away in my backbrain.

It is also disturbingly romance-novel shaped, although with space pirates, political intrigue, war, and a happily-ever-after that is a lot closer to "we may be able to make this work. We sort of have to." than "And life is now all sunshine and rainbows."

[hedda62]

Love it already. :)

[ailis_fictive]

>Whereas I can do emotional complication till the cows come home (and moo despondently and feudally).

At which I laughed so hard I scared the cats.