You should hear Neil Gaiman on the subject. Hoo boy.

Heh. I can imagine. You really do develop feelings for some of these fictional folks, and you really want it to work out for them but, well, it doesn't work that way. Sooner or later, the guy in the hockey mask's gotta do SOMEONE in, or else there's just no story.

Sooner or later, the guy in the hockey mask's gotta do SOMEONE in

Aint it the truth? Putting it rather crudely, all foreplay and no orgasm makes Reader a dull girl/boy.

Aint it the truth? Putting it rather crudely, all foreplay and no orgasm makes Reader a dull girl/boy.

Oh yeah. Besides, gleefully inflicting trauma? Fun.

No argument here, although I'd honestly rather read the trauma than have to inflict it on my own people.

No argument here, although I'd honestly rather read the trauma than have to inflict it on my own people.

Heh. I think, if I had a therapist, s/he and I would have many, many interesting conversations about the things I simultaneously love and hate doing to fictional people.

I think, if I had a therapist, s/he and I would have many, many interesting conversations about the things I simultaneously love and hate doing to fictional people.

"I will kill you, sir, in the most unpleasant and violent way imaginable." A fictional author, Paul somethingorother, telling Nero Wolfe that he was going to make him the murder victim in his next book

still owe you some notes on some other things of yours. which as it happens I hevn't forgot; I just need three spare hours to do it properly.

You've had a lot on your plate. And it's not like it's exactly been on fire for the last, oh, couple years. But when you get to it, yay! And I've lost count of what you have, if, when you do get to it, you could remind me?

Bev, you bet, but could you tell me the last chapters I've sent you notes on? I've read through 18, or thereabouts, and given general comments on the trends in characterisation and flow. There are a couple of things in the earlier chapters that I'm not sure I mentioned.

But I need to make notes. My brain is a sieve these days.

7-13 is the last you mention. I thought 18 was the last I'd sent. Do you want more? Later, perhaps, when things aren't so thick on the ground? Or have you entirely had enough?

And, mmph, maybe my story wasn't so bad on its own, even though the style's overdone, the way, you know, a chapter of Diary isn't so bad on its own. But it's still a cheap lyricism, and there's only so long, as an artist, one can coast on that.

Because your story was fan fic, Liz, I think that changes things. You benefit from it, in that we have the very well drawn, well defined characters in our head. All the foundation work has been done by ME. So I think you can use lyricism in fan fic, and it will be easier, but not cheap for your reader. It might be cheap for you, with regards to your sweat-equity in the story, thanks to ME footing the bill for us up front, but again, not overall, not for the reader. Fan fic starts out cheating. We know this, though. It's sort of written off. We all know it's a cheat. But we all get the same starting advantage, and what matters is where you take it.

...

deb -- GAH! I love the change. "Change" isn't right there, I don't know how to put it, but the way Angelus flows into Angel. That was gorgeous. Thank you.

After Wesley leaves, she puts the dishes in the sink and carries her son to the living room, where she sings the periodic table of elements to him to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, because if it works for the alphabet, it should work for chemistry. The dried flower arrangement on the coffee table catches her eye, and Fred reminds herself to hide it or throw it away before Wesley comes over for dinner. She owes a lot to those flowers, more than she can risk having revealed.

This is how I finally got to appreciate Fred. Not this story, but that she has this in her. Fred would be Tabula Raza-ing left and right, and you're right, she'd get away with it.