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pezI'll try to describe this without it all being a massive jumble.
People who read stories can be very unforgiving.
By that, I mean when people read a story, they'll pick things out and ask why it "doesn't make sense" (more on that later), that something isn't explained enough, that the characterisations are off.
On the contrary, when things are expressed as drawn art, it seems like most can be forgiven: "I don't think Dave would really talk like he does in that speech bubble or reaction to Rush in such a way, but the pictures are pretty ♥ so I'm a fan of this artist anyway."
As someone who can only write, that is really frustrating.
About the making-of-sense: when I write in a "fantasy" setting I can happily accept that things don't map to the world as we know it. For example, I have no problems with saying that there are telephones and trains in the TLR world. So what that some bits of the game look unmodern? The ideas don't actively contradict with canon, and canon has things like visistones and researchers in white coats and teleporters. Also, I don't mind saying something like "they invented the car only 100 years ago, but now everybody travel by private hovercraft." It doesn't matter to me that after inventing the car, they need to have invented technology-A and technology-B before they can actually get to the hovercraft and that'd take way more than 100 years, because their world is not my world. I also don't mind saying that they have internet and computers but don't have TVs. It doesn't need to map.
But if I actually wrote that, what would the reaction be? And if that was drawn as a manga or doujinshi, what would the reaction be? I suspect that people would still recognise it as a "plot hole" in both cases, but in the drawn format they'll go "ah well, doesn't matter too much" and read on whereas in the fic format they might stop reading altogether.
Another way to describe it might be "imagine if Weiß Kreuz was a novel". Would it still be nearly as popular, what with obvious plot holes so huge that one can drive a car through?
I talk about this now because I'm trying to write a story and I'm stuck on how much making-of-sense it needs to be, whether a story can be just told as it is, without further explanation carefully weaved into the prose so that it's unobstrusive and doesn't disrupt the pace. I'm also wondering how long someone would stay with me until I get to "the point" - Dave won't sound like Dave for perhaps half of the fic. In fact he'll probably end up sounding more like Qubine. But there is a reason for it. Must I add a note in the beginning asking people to stick with me, or not bother? Usually I don't worry about these things and I see having to add extra notes as a bad sign. But this story is a pretty fun one and I would very much like it to be read, and not want someone to close the window within the first 2000 words saying "she writes Dave all wrong, she obviously hadn't even played the game."
Your views?
People who read stories can be very unforgiving.
By that, I mean when people read a story, they'll pick things out and ask why it "doesn't make sense" (more on that later), that something isn't explained enough, that the characterisations are off.
On the contrary, when things are expressed as drawn art, it seems like most can be forgiven: "I don't think Dave would really talk like he does in that speech bubble or reaction to Rush in such a way, but the pictures are pretty ♥ so I'm a fan of this artist anyway."
As someone who can only write, that is really frustrating.
About the making-of-sense: when I write in a "fantasy" setting I can happily accept that things don't map to the world as we know it. For example, I have no problems with saying that there are telephones and trains in the TLR world. So what that some bits of the game look unmodern? The ideas don't actively contradict with canon, and canon has things like visistones and researchers in white coats and teleporters. Also, I don't mind saying something like "they invented the car only 100 years ago, but now everybody travel by private hovercraft." It doesn't matter to me that after inventing the car, they need to have invented technology-A and technology-B before they can actually get to the hovercraft and that'd take way more than 100 years, because their world is not my world. I also don't mind saying that they have internet and computers but don't have TVs. It doesn't need to map.
But if I actually wrote that, what would the reaction be? And if that was drawn as a manga or doujinshi, what would the reaction be? I suspect that people would still recognise it as a "plot hole" in both cases, but in the drawn format they'll go "ah well, doesn't matter too much" and read on whereas in the fic format they might stop reading altogether.
Another way to describe it might be "imagine if Weiß Kreuz was a novel". Would it still be nearly as popular, what with obvious plot holes so huge that one can drive a car through?
I talk about this now because I'm trying to write a story and I'm stuck on how much making-of-sense it needs to be, whether a story can be just told as it is, without further explanation carefully weaved into the prose so that it's unobstrusive and doesn't disrupt the pace. I'm also wondering how long someone would stay with me until I get to "the point" - Dave won't sound like Dave for perhaps half of the fic. In fact he'll probably end up sounding more like Qubine. But there is a reason for it. Must I add a note in the beginning asking people to stick with me, or not bother? Usually I don't worry about these things and I see having to add extra notes as a bad sign. But this story is a pretty fun one and I would very much like it to be read, and not want someone to close the window within the first 2000 words saying "she writes Dave all wrong, she obviously hadn't even played the game."
Your views?
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Date: 2010-05-24 08:46 am (UTC)For fanfiction that's the best option, I think :) Anyway, it's not only 'fan', but also 'funfiction', so it should be fun for the writer and his/her readers mostly, shouldn't it? I think once You leave a note at the very beginning, that things are going to be different at start, it will keep most of those uncertain and make them wait for the explanation.
[i]Some people say that words leave more room for imagination than pictures, though in terms of depth I really don't know... manga is always limited by page length (the mangaka is told they can only have a fixed number of pages every issue, and end up having to cut stuff out during planning), whereas writers are usually not limited by length, so you never know how deep the story/characters could have been if the mangaka had their own way.[/i]
I'm not really THAT into mangas, but I do know how writing influences imagination. When skilfully applied, it leaves twice the information than it seems in the first place - it's all the matter of right words, right context, small bits and drops of information that seem casual, but make reader think more about the character/plot/situation. I know I am trying to achieve that effect - and I guess that You too do so, consciously or not :)
In case of professional writers (not us, fanfiction writers) the story they write is then cut into bits and pieces by the editor, then smashed again and given to the author to approve :) Again, it's the skill of giving out info in indirect way that is important here.
(An idea, if You want to try: think of a story, that would be consistent and had sense, but let it close at 5k sings. That's the thing I've been tortured with, until I learned how to write short forms. I'm still not too good at them, but at least I can make my thoughts shorter :P)
(Utena scares me a little, but knowing You, You'll surprise me. So I'm eagerly waiting to read it :) )