It's not so much that there isn't a larger world but whether or not it matters to the characters.
Ooo! I like this.
Yes-- put that way, it feels like it works.
Fred: So you don't worry that it's possible for someone to send out a biological or electronic trigger that effectively overrides your own sense of ideals and values and replaces them with an alternative coercive agenda that reduces you to a mindless meat puppet? Shopkeeper: Wow. People used to think that I was paranoid.
'Time Bomb'
Fan Fiction: Writers, Readers, and Enablers
This thread is for fanfic recs, links, and discussion, but not for actual posting of fanfic.
Am-Chau Yarkona - May 02, 2003 11:00:53 am PDT #5328 of 10000
I bop to Wittgenstein. -- Nutty
Connie Neil - May 02, 2003 11:03:27 am PDT #5329 of 10000
brillig
Works for me.
Connie Neil - May 02, 2003 11:11:05 am PDT #5330 of 10000
brillig
Is there a thought going on that plotty is better than non-plotty? That plottiness is something that should be worked towards? I'm wondering at the provenance of the original question.
Hah, used provenance in a sentence, yay, me.
Katie M - May 02, 2003 11:12:25 am PDT #5331 of 10000
I was charmed (albeit somewhat perplexed) by the fannish sensibility of many of the music choices -- it's like the director was trying to vid Canada. --loligo on the Olympic Opening Ceremonies
So... thinking about this some more, though maybe I should stop while I'm ahead... if the plot or action takes place just to give the writer a chance to see what happens to the characters, that wouldn't seem terribly plotty to me. Hurt/comfort, for instance, can have oodles of stuff happening, even fairly complex series of events, but mostly I wouldn't call it plotty. It's All About Them.
§ ita § - May 02, 2003 11:16:19 am PDT #5332 of 10000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
if the plot or action takes place just to give the writer a chance to see what happens to the characters
But if you're not in the writer's head, you can't tell -- surely the estimation should be from the reader's POV.
I know, for many stories that live in my head, that I have an emotional beat sheet, and an event beat sheet. Half the time I don't know which drives which -- but if I come up with a intricate and compelling sequence of events that works well with what I really want to do -- get her from emotion A through F -- it still might be a plotty story. Or vice versa.
Connie Neil - May 02, 2003 11:21:33 am PDT #5333 of 10000
brillig
Ooo, Plot in Service to the Emotions vs. Emotions in Service to the Plot!
Episodes of hurt/comfort in the context of a larger story score higher on the plotty scale (heh, she said score [my god, where is my head today?]) than a series of events designed to bring about a hurt/comfort scenario. That said, I have to admit that h/c is my favorite guilty pleasure genre.
Katie M - May 02, 2003 11:23:58 am PDT #5334 of 10000
I was charmed (albeit somewhat perplexed) by the fannish sensibility of many of the music choices -- it's like the director was trying to vid Canada. --loligo on the Olympic Opening Ceremonies
But if you're not in the writer's head, you can't tell -- surely the estimation should be from the reader's POV.
Oh, sure, it's all completely subjective on my part.
§ ita § - May 02, 2003 11:24:15 am PDT #5335 of 10000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
a series of events designed to bring about a hurt/comfort scenario
But how can you tell how/why they were designed? It could just be crappy writing that makes you think that.
Katie M - May 02, 2003 11:26:44 am PDT #5336 of 10000
I was charmed (albeit somewhat perplexed) by the fannish sensibility of many of the music choices -- it's like the director was trying to vid Canada. --loligo on the Olympic Opening Ceremonies
Episodes of hurt/comfort in the context of a larger story score higher on the plotty scale (heh, she said score [my god, where is my head today?]) than a series of events designed to bring about a hurt/comfort scenario.
Yes, exactly. I don't know that it's possible to judge which is which objectively, though. (Actually, I'm pretty sure it's not.)
That said, I have to admit that h/c is my favorite guilty pleasure genre.
Oh, me too. We can be mildly embarassed together.
Nutty - May 02, 2003 11:28:43 am PDT #5337 of 10000
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
I don't know, Connie. If I'm reading along in a plot-oriented story, and suddenly trip and fall into a soup of h/c? I'm more annoyed, because while I find h/c basically annoying, I find it especially annoying when it wrecks my expectations of a story. And because there's an inevitable shift in tone between the two. Same thing often happens when a plotty story detours into romance and then out again (as opposed to romance being its raison d'etre): whoops, I am reading a chapter 12 from a completely different book!