strange new worlds (fan fic cliches cont...)
POSTED BY: wytchcroft
UPDATED: Monday, August 20, 2007 06:11
VIEWED: 8144
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sort of running on from a prev thread here...
i find it difficult to avoid cliches when creating and/describing new planets.. i sorta bend round best i can... (brief descriptions, not many environments) -- but it's a weak spot..
a lot of the fics tho seem to be set on the same world (very interchangeable)...
(i guess that fits the well known gag that all the planets in the tv show look like Malibu!)
... anyone agree??
any thoughts, tips on world creation - cliche avoidance etc much appreciated...
(i see the kissy fics are back!)
make someone a browncoat today - don't drive nobody away
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Too much desert. There's always this big wasteland with no color and lots of heat and a hick town with yokels. I'm pretty sure everywhere in the Verse doesn't look like the damn Navajo Desert or the damned Oregon Trail.
_____
"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)
How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?
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Quote:
How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?
LOL! HA HA! yeh, i'm just jealous coz i can't do that stuff!
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Quote:
Originally posted by wytchcroft:Quote:
How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?
LOL! HA HA! yeh, i'm just jealous coz i can't do that stuff!
i know you wychfrend - r u truthful here?
i like western planets like on the show - but the movie had some new ones - they were a little diffrent maybe so now u can choose.
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*Sneaks in to respond*
I get your drift with planet cliches. In the show, all of the planets looked like they were basically the foothills of Southern Cali. Not very attractive, dusty, nothing but shrubs and lizards. It's really easy to just either go along with that or the norm for all of the other fiction out there. It's like going along with the 'Kaylee is from Harvest' thing. It's so hard not to because it's fanon at a point.
My trick is more or less I've traveled a good deal in the nineteen years I've been on Earth-that-was. I do live in Cali where the series was filmed, but I know that Northern California is a far cry from Southern California, plus I have been to many other states, so I always try to incorperate a state or place into a town or planet. They're all so different, so it's easy to just insert an area I have seen myself. I just assume that every planet had a different reaction to the terra forming processs as well as posesses a different purpose for the Alliance. Poorer looking planets would just have settlers dumped on it, nicer ones like core planets would be used for more 'useful' and profitable things.
Aberdeen in my fic is generally that fine line between Montana and Wyoming. Montana has lots of prairie in certain areas, rolling hills that just go on forever (Especially right after you leave Glacier National Park, you exit the forest and are just immedaitely met with plains). However when you reach Wyoming, you have this sparse, hard, red desert like area for the most part.
Also, names really help convey the scene. The planet Sierra is all forest, and it's named (I made it up) for the mountain range nearest to my home, the Sierra Nevadas, and I wanted it to be more lush woods. A vacation planet for those who enjoy nature, that place that is up and coming, with fine dining, casinos, good shopping and spas popping up in small cities. So like a Lake Tahoe which is in the Sierra Nevadas. And Ming-Yu, the name of the new city the crew stayed at in my fic, translates into 'Brilliant Jade' (ironcally the name of a painting I did, but I digress). Jade is green and the city itself is nestled in the woods and would be flooded with green in the spring, so hence the name.
I really hope that helps and I'm not rambling. I'm, sure a much more seasoned and eloquent writer has a better response. 
Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash
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Interesting AND helpful - you rule!
making my mind move - thanks!
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glad I could help... but one question...
Kissy fics? Elaborate please? lol.
Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash
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Haha. In my experience anyone can do anything if they try hard enough and practice. Seriously. Hey, do you need a beta? :)
_____
"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)
How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by TuJiaoZuo:
*Sneaks in to respond*
I get your drift with planet cliches. In the show, all of the planets looked like they were basically the foothills of Southern Cali. Not very attractive, dusty, nothing but shrubs and lizards. It's really easy to just either go along with that or the norm for all of the other fiction out there. It's like going along with the 'Kaylee is from Harvest' thing. It's so hard not to because it's fanon at a point.
My trick is more or less I've traveled a good deal in the nineteen years I've been on Earth-that-was. I do live in Cali where the series was filmed, but I know that Northern California is a far cry from Southern California, plus I have been to many other states, so I always try to incorperate a state or place into a town or planet. They're all so different, so it's easy to just insert an area I have seen myself. I just assume that every planet had a different reaction to the terra forming processs as well as posesses a different purpose for the Alliance. Poorer looking planets would just have settlers dumped on it, nicer ones like core planets would be used for more 'useful' and profitable things.
Aberdeen in my fic is generally that fine line between Montana and Wyoming. Montana has lots of prairie in certain areas, rolling hills that just go on forever (Especially right after you leave Glacier National Park, you exit the forest and are just immedaitely met with plains). However when you reach Wyoming, you have this sparse, hard, red desert like area for the most part.
Also, names really help convey the scene. The planet Sierra is all forest, and it's named (I made it up) for the mountain range nearest to my home, the Sierra Nevadas, and I wanted it to be more lush woods. A vacation planet for those who enjoy nature, that place that is up and coming, with fine dining, casinos, good shopping and spas popping up in small cities. So like a Lake Tahoe which is in the Sierra Nevadas. And Ming-Yu, the name of the new city the crew stayed at in my fic, translates into 'Brilliant Jade' (ironcally the name of a painting I did, but I digress). Jade is green and the city itself is nestled in the woods and would be flooded with green in the spring, so hence the name.
I really hope that helps and I'm not rambling. I'm, sure a much more seasoned and eloquent writer has a better response.
Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash
Excellent example! My friend "hisgoodgirl" comes up with fabulous worlds and names and I honestly have no clue how she does it! I asked her once and she lives in South Carolina and says that she basis a lot of it off the area she lives in.
I guess it's an extension of "write what you know"
_____
"You know that's gonna fall off."
-----Nathan Fillion (to me while drunk)
How are ships unlike food?
1. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
2. You can have as much as you want, when you want.
3. Cravings can be very specific.
I mean, hello it's not as if there's 'ship police?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by danniisupernova:
Too much desert. There's always this big wasteland with no color and lots of heat and a hick town with yokels. I'm pretty sure everywhere in the Verse doesn't look like the damn Navajo Desert or the damned Oregon Trail.
_____
thanks to this thread i have new ideas - i'm working on a Bayou meets VeKong Delta kinda place called Saleeni Station... hopefully (if i avoid the cliches THOSE places can contain) it will be fresh but still allow for a 'western' feel.
make someone a browncoat today / don't drive nobody away
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