scribblemyname (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scribblemyname) wrote2011-03-08 10:38 am
scribblemyname) wrote2011-03-08 10:38 am
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2. Feeling the Beat
Everyone loves a good story, but what, madame, constitutes a good story? Answer's true: mileage varies, but here is what makes awesomeness to aiRo25.
1. A Climactic Resolution | The Apothecary's Daughter
This one may sound odd, but it's been bugging me forever. I wanted to love this book by Julie Klassen—I did love it at first—but it betrayed me. It had a climactic moment and an excellent resolution, but the climactic moment did not resolve either the external or internal primary storylines of the main character. Girls and boys, this matters. I couldn't decide for ages whether this book was worth rereading because the climax came too soon and didn't give me the emotional satisfaction I was looking for. This matters.
2. Breathe It In | D'Ancanto
I want a world with a character with a voice that breathes in every. single. word. of the entire fic. D'Ancanto by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xenokattz delivers. This thing has voice. What do I mean by voice?
3. Flesh It Out | Holography, Blind Sight
I visited the world of D'Ancanto; I've lived in the worlds of Holography and Blind Sight by Pat Foley and Valerie J, respectively. It's the nuances here. Slow and steady, never overwhelming, they worldbuild by assuming this place is real, and slowly but surely, a big picture emerges that's just amazing. Everything fits here. Consequences are considered, how they affect the big things and how they affect the small. No consequence goes unconsidered, leastwise not for long and never unintentionally.
4. The Art of Language | It Takes Two, To Practice
This fic can drive me right up the wall, but that's 'cause it uses language incredibly artfully while never making up its mind what tense it wants to be! You can go both ways, art by neglect and art by intention. Intend your art, I pray you. Please. Rogue in Rouge/Silver Nitte Iz crafted a masterpiece with this fic. It drowns me. What makes language artful? What makes me forget that I'm an editor and not just a reader?
In short, learn the rules to know how to break 'em.
4. Believability | Fools Rush In
Reading a new book, romance, by Janice Thompson on my desktop Nook and shocked that it does all the things I hate about these kinds of stories—and it works. Why?
First off, let me say this, I really, really, really get peeved when Remy faints in fanfics. Give. me. a. break.
This girl faints. She bemoans her sorry choices in Italian monologues. She loves her unlovable dog. They sing while cooking. They lambast the poor neighbors. It's melodrama, it's love at first sight, it's daydream and sighs and I'm not asking for a break.
They're Italian.
You can write absolutely anything you want if you can get me to believe it. I believe in this melodramatic, funny-as-all-get-out, claustrophobic, Italian family. It works.
Which brings me to...
5. Characters
It's the characters that make me a fan, that keep me coming back for more, that make me hate or love the fanfics that spin them just too far from who they really are. It's the characters that are the bulwark for me, the standard that should be relatively objective and inviolable. It's Dickon's Yorkshire ways and Mary's sharp eagerness that make me love The Secret Garden. It's Wolverine's gruffness and his soft spots and Rogue's feisty temper that made me fall in love with X-Men: The Animated Series. It's Ramos playing hotshot and Caitlin being sweet and Pierre not getting that some kids aren't cut out for something better that makes me love my Take the Lead. It's character, folks.
When it all comes down to it, a great story has awesome characters, a world that breathes and lives, a climactic resolution, and all the threads wrapped up (series can cheat on this last a bit).
And there you go, a book in the life of aiRo25.
1. A Climactic Resolution | The Apothecary's Daughter
This one may sound odd, but it's been bugging me forever. I wanted to love this book by Julie Klassen—I did love it at first—but it betrayed me. It had a climactic moment and an excellent resolution, but the climactic moment did not resolve either the external or internal primary storylines of the main character. Girls and boys, this matters. I couldn't decide for ages whether this book was worth rereading because the climax came too soon and didn't give me the emotional satisfaction I was looking for. This matters.
2. Breathe It In | D'Ancanto
I want a world with a character with a voice that breathes in every. single. word. of the entire fic. D'Ancanto by
xenokattz delivers. This thing has voice. What do I mean by voice?
• Telling Details
The setting is delivered in the language of the world. World means the very small slice of reality chosen for the story, in this case, a gritty New York underbelly through the lens of cops, criminals, and dirty politics.
• Real Dialogue
The words are from people living this walk, doing their beats, dancing their underworld tunes, and it makes the entire story feel as if I'm in this world. Nothing jars. This is how these people talk. And yet, it doesn't lose me. I get it, from the context, from the overall effect.
• Real Characters
These people live in this world. They aren't just dumped in there 'cause the author thought it would be interesting. They could only be them in this way in this world. It's a beautiful thing to read it done right.
3. Flesh It Out | Holography, Blind Sight
I visited the world of D'Ancanto; I've lived in the worlds of Holography and Blind Sight by Pat Foley and Valerie J, respectively. It's the nuances here. Slow and steady, never overwhelming, they worldbuild by assuming this place is real, and slowly but surely, a big picture emerges that's just amazing. Everything fits here. Consequences are considered, how they affect the big things and how they affect the small. No consequence goes unconsidered, leastwise not for long and never unintentionally.
4. The Art of Language | It Takes Two, To Practice
This fic can drive me right up the wall, but that's 'cause it uses language incredibly artfully while never making up its mind what tense it wants to be! You can go both ways, art by neglect and art by intention. Intend your art, I pray you. Please. Rogue in Rouge/Silver Nitte Iz crafted a masterpiece with this fic. It drowns me. What makes language artful? What makes me forget that I'm an editor and not just a reader?
• Word Choice
I'll be honest. This fic does not use accents consistently, though it tries. But it works because the story is about characters that are jumbling themselves together and she picks up parts of him just by touching, so the way they speak and start to overlap is awesome.
• Creative Use of Grammar
This is intentional—and awesome.The idea was preposterous, unthinkable, insane, ridiculous –
He'd been thrown out of bedrooms before, usually booted by the intrusive realization the femme wasn't quite as fancyfree as he'd imagined. Women had changed their minds, seen his eyes, ended up with a temper, a million different ways the hand could end unexpectedly.
But he'd never been kicked out, never so calmly, so considerately, so implacably.
– unpardonable.
A sentence divided in the way a mind thinks. This is an example of how to bend grammar. It's gorgeous.
• Flow
This story flows, man. Sucks you in and never lets go. It releases gently when it does, never spits you out. You have to read it to taste it properly, but sentences and ideas flow into the ones following. It likes to turn in on itself and reference things that have happened before. It invites you not to leave this world.
• Tense
Lord, help this woman learn tense! Past tense, present tense, this story never does make up its mind. It's the one thing I itch to fix about it, but truth is, a tense shift is not a small deal (don't listen to anyone say it is). I couldn't fix it. She would have to. 'Cause changing the tense changes how it ought to be said.
In short, learn the rules to know how to break 'em.
4. Believability | Fools Rush In
Reading a new book, romance, by Janice Thompson on my desktop Nook and shocked that it does all the things I hate about these kinds of stories—and it works. Why?
First off, let me say this, I really, really, really get peeved when Remy faints in fanfics. Give. me. a. break.
This girl faints. She bemoans her sorry choices in Italian monologues. She loves her unlovable dog. They sing while cooking. They lambast the poor neighbors. It's melodrama, it's love at first sight, it's daydream and sighs and I'm not asking for a break.
They're Italian.
You can write absolutely anything you want if you can get me to believe it. I believe in this melodramatic, funny-as-all-get-out, claustrophobic, Italian family. It works.
Which brings me to...
5. Characters
It's the characters that make me a fan, that keep me coming back for more, that make me hate or love the fanfics that spin them just too far from who they really are. It's the characters that are the bulwark for me, the standard that should be relatively objective and inviolable. It's Dickon's Yorkshire ways and Mary's sharp eagerness that make me love The Secret Garden. It's Wolverine's gruffness and his soft spots and Rogue's feisty temper that made me fall in love with X-Men: The Animated Series. It's Ramos playing hotshot and Caitlin being sweet and Pierre not getting that some kids aren't cut out for something better that makes me love my Take the Lead. It's character, folks.
When it all comes down to it, a great story has awesome characters, a world that breathes and lives, a climactic resolution, and all the threads wrapped up (series can cheat on this last a bit).
And there you go, a book in the life of aiRo25.
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