Fanfics - author and reader's POV

[katikat]

Fanfiction, love it. Love to read it and love to write it. But on both sides of this fanfic-y fence I encounter problems...

As an author: My biggest problem is keeping the characters IC - in-character - in h/c and/or angsty fics. The hurt!part is easy, even their reaction to said hurt. But what about the comfort? What's too little, what's too much? What's still IC and what's already OOC - out-of-character? How far can you go and still keep the characters recognizable?

I mean, take for example Supernatural - that one is quite easy. Basically, everything goes XP We've seen both Sam and Dean hurt, we've seen them cry and hug and take care each other - so, as long as the author avoids stupid pet names, everything else goes.

But what about White Collar? Several times we've seen Neal go all teary-eyed and/or scared, but so far, there hasn't been any serious h/c on the show. I mean, Neal is the resident damsel in distress and Peter's usual reaction to "Neal in peril" is anger - at Rice, at Fowler... But I'm not sure how Peter would react if he had to actually comfort someone - his "cowboy up" speech suggests that he would not go all mushy, so... We need more data!

As a reader: My pet-peeve? OOC behavior. Cringe-worthy pet names - that one hurts. I just can't imagine Peter calling Neal "my boy" or whatnot, yowza! /o\ I mean, Peter barely calls Elizabeth "honey"!

Another thing - when I read a fic and the description just doesn't fit. How did character A and character B get from the kitchen into the living room? Or when they are in a certain position together - like sitting on a couch and hugging - and I just can't imagine it, no matter how many times I read the description. Is he leaning against her with his back? If so, then how can she be hugging him like that?

A short while ago, I read a fic that many people had raved about - and I could barely get through it. In it, El was standing at the foot of the stairs, Neal and Peter were upstairs, but suddenly, El was leading Neal towards the couch. How did he get downstairs? When? While he and Peter were arguing? I need the author to tell me that, to walk me through it, even if in just a few short words!

So, what's your problems and/or pet-peeves?

Comments

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

Apologies for butting in to what seems to be a mostly private discussion here, but I ended up at this post via whitecollarfan's post about it, which I found on the lj friends feed for whitecollarfic. Did that make sense? Anyway, I found this to be some really interesting meta discussion, which I really enjoyed reading, and I had some, I don't know, "very meta?" thoughts on it. Hope you don't mind. :-)

With that in mind, I just wanted to add that I think a lot of the problems some of us (viewers and/or readers & writers of fanfic) are having related to anything to do with what Neal experienced in prison, or what threats to send him back might really mean, *do* come down to what seems to be almost a throwaway line in the Pilot (and the absence of any follow-up on it, because that's not what the show is "about," so to speak, as one of you noted). It's the whole, "Still, it only took you a month and a half to escape a supermax...impressive" line. I honestly have the feeling that Jeff Eastin wrote that line to make what Neal had done (in terms of his escape) more impressive (as opposed to having some idea in his head that Neal really *should* have been in a supermax). And if you read his original Pilot script, in which the show is set in San Diego (which, btw, I can't even imagine at this point ::grin::), the prison actually has a name, and it's an actual, real Federal prison, though it's "just" a standard high security facility and not actually a "supermax" (which is really another whole animal, so to speak).

I think he (JE) also has it in his head that Neal's experience there was not, in fact, what one might expect, what we might read into things based on that supermax line. He alludes to this in a bit of dialogue from the Pilot script that didn't end up in the episode. Peter has gone to the prison to help figure out what Neal is up to, in terms of his unexpected escape. The Marshals are interviewing other inmates while Peter is going through Neal's mail. The lead guy from the Marshals asks Peter how it's going. Peter informs him that Neal may have won a cruise, then asks the marshal how it's going on his side, might Neal have been scared into an escape, to which the reply is, "No, they loved the guy." So, realistic or not, I think in JE's mind (and so presumably the minds of the writing staff) Neal did just fine in prison, managing to charm people there just like he does everywhere else, and so issues related to that are just not part of the canon.

Now how does any of that affect the reading and writing of fanfic? That's probably another question altogether. I mean, does it even "count" since it never made it to the screen? How much weight should one give to authorial intent in this sort of thing? Do we just say, "Uh, Jeff, that doesn't really make sense to us" and carry on with what we think makes more sense? I don't necessarily have an answer to this at the moment, though my inclination would be to go with the fact that since we don't actually have on-screen canon about Neal's time in prison, we can more or less interpret it how we will. Regardless, I thought it was at least interesting to have some insight into what the writers might be working with in their own minds. Mileage, obviously, may vary. :-)

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Butt in, butt in *waves*

I also thought that the writers might have fluffed it up a la The Pointman with Jack Scalia where he was also a white collar criminal and ended up in prison and after some rough beginnings, he helped his inmates with his knowledge, so they left him alone and actually liked him.

Oh, it wasn't just the Peter's line, Elizabeth also said "he escaped a maximum security prison knowing full well you would catch him" when Peter was thinking of accepting Neal's offer :)

I think that for the fanfic writers, it's mostly a decision between taking the fluffy route or going more realistic. I like both scenarios, so I don't really care either way. It could be interesting to issue a challenge and see what various writers would do with it...

BTW, where did you see the original script? I didn't know the thing about San Diego :)

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

*waves back* Thanks. Glad to be here.

So first, yeah you're right, I was forgetting about Elizabeth's line about the prison. On the other hand, I think my point remains the same - i.e. that the motivation behind that part of the set up was to be able to make Neal look especially impressive by raising the level of difficulty of his escape, rather than it having anything to do with where he would likely really have been sent for forgery, and that the the premise was meant to go in the more "fluffy" (as you so nicely put it) direction. I actually agree with you from the fanfic perspective. I think a writer could take it either way. But I think the intended canon is that Neal's time in prison was not, in fact, traumatic in the way it might have been, especially considering the "where" we've been given.

As to the original script, Jeff Eastin posted a link - I think it was maybe on his Twitter feed - to a website where he'd posted the script. It's a TV writing website of some kind, and a number of pilot scripts are linked on it. Here's the URL:

http://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/us-drama/pilot-scripts/09-10-season

Enjoy.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Thank you for the link. Wah, Stokes - that's amusing :P

[whitecollarfan.livejournal.com]

This ends up being why I have trouble with some fics - because a LOT of what people are talking about is on the writers NOT the characters. I can't blame Peter for much of his comments about sending Neal back to prison because it's the writers who don't realize the implications.

If X happened because the writers thought it would be good or work for the characters, but it's really offensive or troubling - is it really right to bash the characters for it? Again I get that the point of fan fic is using the characters to work out what happened in canon but I think there are just some things people need to accept as being unrealistic and totally the fault of the writers, and to not take it out on the characters.