fanfic feedback

Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:18 PM

Following up on my last blog…

I submitted the first chapter of my newest fanfic (to be posted momentarily) to my novel writing class, which included no Firefly fans, and even a few non sci-fi fans. Here’s a quick (and spoiler free) summary of the feedback.

Not surprisingly, the criticisms were mostly about too many characters and too much plot for a new reader to follow, though they did understand that’s just an unavoidable part of the chapter being a sequel. And fanfic. None of them had even heard of the show, so sorting out the full cast was a tough task.

Also, there was some confusion as to setting when the scenes shifted, which I hope I’ve clarified in what I'm about to post. A few writers in the class were not in any way sci-fi fans, and they were not comfortable with some things that I intentionally left vague. For instance, I have Alliance folks talking about finishing some mysterious business involving the captain, and one reader didn’t like the lack of fuller explanation. Of course, it must not have helped that everything this poor guy read was a mystery to him LOL!

Seriously, we did talk about how strange settings and such are a part of sci-fi. I’ve read sci-fi novels where the first few pages made absolutely no sense at first take, but after reading the novel all the new technology and language made sense. I’m comfortable with that, with reading apparent nonsense and having faith that it will eventually be explained. My two classmates who’d never read sci-fi weren’t so into it. Also, one part of some original fiction I wrote for the class referenced future tech that anyone who’d read or seen Dune would immediately get, but these two guys needed more background. It was an interesting insight to me, that there’s not only lingo but a method of storytelling that sci-fi fans accept easily but other folks might not.

The good feedback: I got much underlining of lines that pleased people – funny dialog mostly, and some descriptive phrases. (I had to credit Joss’s characters – so much personality! The teacher loved Kaylee, BTW.) One girl called my stuff very cinematic, easy to visualize. A man who had never read sci-fi was surprised at how relatable it was, both with Serenity’s parking ticket issue and how relationships would work when folks – real folks, not Star Trek idealizations – are stuck with each other on a space ship all the time. (I had to pass mose credit on to Joss for this too. Mainly, the idea that space travelers in the future will still be people just like us, facing the same kinds of challenges.)

The teacher’s comments pleased me most. She loved my use of dialogue, how it's cut with description. She went into her theory of judging good use of dialogue by looking at paragraph length, at how “thick” sections and “thin” should interplay, which thrilled me to no end! I’ve had the paragraph length theory for some time but thought it was just a weird *me* thing LOL! Anyway, for both the fanfic and my original fiction I shared, she called me a born storyteller and I’m just so grateful for the confidence boost. I really was afraid of writing outside fandom, and now I think I don’t need to be.

As for posting the fic: I know the Firefly fandom isn’t so lively as it was a few years ago. At the very best, this thing I’ve written will only reach a few hundred sets of eyes and pull out a handful of comments. But I have to say – I’m pretty insanely proud anyway. There surely is a lot to this chapter, and I think it came together well. It walks through all the BDH’s as well as the relevant OCs, reviewing the plot from the last book and setting up the action to come. I might comment more on the structure of this chapter later… some aspects of the upcoming plot depend on one basic thing being clear, but I didn’t want to spell it out explicitely. So the way I put this one together handles the problem implicitely. I love love love writing with layers like this – it felt almost architectural to put together. The squence of scenes definitely has an underlying shape in my mind, for whatever that’s worth

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