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inspired to fic!
Mar. 30th, 2004 08:28 pmAs you know, my fic writing has sort of dried up of late, as I've been overtaken by the lust for narratological analysing and being jargon's bitch. But, hah! As these things go! Thinking about pov and tense and whatnot has got the fic juices going.
Mainly because I'm a perverse person.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
badgermonkey said she hated third-person present-tense instant-reporting so, of course, I felt compelled to write just that. And azewewish said she disliked omniscient 'head-hopping' so, of course, I felt compelled to write just that, too. And not to forget natasha1806 who egged me on.
So now I've started a fic that is (in part) third-person present-tense reporting-on-the-hop and (in part) omniscient and constantly intruding narrator and is (in part) second person but not second person character-bound ("you lean over to kiss Billy") but second person external narratee ("hello, dear reader, can you hear me?") and I am (of course, how else?) loving it.
Especially as I've always shied away from omniscient; it seemed to me just too difficult to pull off -- but somehow I've hit upon the trick that , for me, makes it flow. And I've realised that I've actually written omniscient for years. What is this, after all, but a narrator who knows more than either of the characters:
The big thing that had been encircling them all day was wrapped tightly around them, binding them together, twining its feelers about their throats, almost choking them. It was love, and love is big, love is terrible; it was wrenching the guts out of them.
(from A Perfect Day, May 2002.
In fact, I'm rewriting something that's been cooking on the back boiler for months and now I finally have found the tone and style to do it in, the one that keeps me gripped.
Now what *is* it that keeps me gripped to a fic? Because I've found it's not the pairing (not any more, anyway; it used to be: a new pairing could really get me going, e.g. Bern/John got me excited for three or more fics in a row but am now jaded veteran). It's not the plot (I have difficulty with plot, anyway, and as I'm rewriting an already existing plot, it's not about new plot). It's not being in a particular person's head (because I was in somebody's head, tight third-person pov, for this fic, but also objective, and I lost interest).
For me, I think (and at the moment) it is:
the setting (if I am somewhere that I love for the duration of writing, that is wonderful -- especially if I can smuggle in little reality-researchee detail-lets),
the words (I know the plot of this one so I don't need to hurry to get to it; I can take time and weigh up words and choose another one for the one that comes to mind first),
the rhythm of the sentences (sometimes a rhythm comes to me, a ta-da ta-da-da, and then I cast around for words of suitable length to fit that rhythm; and I like it when a particular style allows me to do that),
the feeling of doing something against the grain (annoying Demelza and Brenda is always immense fun, *gg*, as is pulling the rug from underneath cherished so-called 'writing wroolz' - but that is only one ingredient; that alone doesn't keep me going; I've tried basing fic on just that and it won't work),
the feeling that the choice of tone for this particular fic is just *right* (and that one is impossible to quantify; it's sort of a gut feeling, a 'click' in the solar plexus, an 'ah' of fitting a round peg into a round hole [whoops: inadvertent penile metaphor].
I've realised that for me fitting style to content is crucial to writing delight. And I came to that realisation in all the discussions I've had with you lot out there re tense, pov and omniscient narration. How heartening, and what wonderful interlocutrixes you all are, and who needs creative-writing classes?!!!
( So what grips you? )
Mainly because I'm a perverse person.
badgermonkey said she hated third-person present-tense instant-reporting so, of course, I felt compelled to write just that. And azewewish said she disliked omniscient 'head-hopping' so, of course, I felt compelled to write just that, too. And not to forget natasha1806 who egged me on.So now I've started a fic that is (in part) third-person present-tense reporting-on-the-hop and (in part) omniscient and constantly intruding narrator and is (in part) second person but not second person character-bound ("you lean over to kiss Billy") but second person external narratee ("hello, dear reader, can you hear me?") and I am (of course, how else?) loving it.
Especially as I've always shied away from omniscient; it seemed to me just too difficult to pull off -- but somehow I've hit upon the trick that , for me, makes it flow. And I've realised that I've actually written omniscient for years. What is this, after all, but a narrator who knows more than either of the characters:
The big thing that had been encircling them all day was wrapped tightly around them, binding them together, twining its feelers about their throats, almost choking them. It was love, and love is big, love is terrible; it was wrenching the guts out of them.
(from A Perfect Day, May 2002.
In fact, I'm rewriting something that's been cooking on the back boiler for months and now I finally have found the tone and style to do it in, the one that keeps me gripped.
Now what *is* it that keeps me gripped to a fic? Because I've found it's not the pairing (not any more, anyway; it used to be: a new pairing could really get me going, e.g. Bern/John got me excited for three or more fics in a row but am now jaded veteran). It's not the plot (I have difficulty with plot, anyway, and as I'm rewriting an already existing plot, it's not about new plot). It's not being in a particular person's head (because I was in somebody's head, tight third-person pov, for this fic, but also objective, and I lost interest).
For me, I think (and at the moment) it is:
the setting (if I am somewhere that I love for the duration of writing, that is wonderful -- especially if I can smuggle in little reality-researchee detail-lets),
the words (I know the plot of this one so I don't need to hurry to get to it; I can take time and weigh up words and choose another one for the one that comes to mind first),
the rhythm of the sentences (sometimes a rhythm comes to me, a ta-da ta-da-da, and then I cast around for words of suitable length to fit that rhythm; and I like it when a particular style allows me to do that),
the feeling of doing something against the grain (annoying Demelza and Brenda is always immense fun, *gg*, as is pulling the rug from underneath cherished so-called 'writing wroolz' - but that is only one ingredient; that alone doesn't keep me going; I've tried basing fic on just that and it won't work),
the feeling that the choice of tone for this particular fic is just *right* (and that one is impossible to quantify; it's sort of a gut feeling, a 'click' in the solar plexus, an 'ah' of fitting a round peg into a round hole [whoops: inadvertent penile metaphor].
I've realised that for me fitting style to content is crucial to writing delight. And I came to that realisation in all the discussions I've had with you lot out there re tense, pov and omniscient narration. How heartening, and what wonderful interlocutrixes you all are, and who needs creative-writing classes?!!!
( So what grips you? )
