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May. 9th, 2009 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightMy rather jaded post about the latest Buffy comic yesterday neglected to mention that there is currently a Buffyverse comics series which is a pretty good read. This is John Byrne's 4 parter for IDW, Angel: Blood & Trenches, set in WW1, in which Angel encounters not only a notorious vampire from the show (not Spike) but a recent ancestor of Wesley's (his grandfather, maybe). Excellent art, an interesting story, and the latest issue, which suddenly turns everything on its head and shows us the story so far from Colonel Wyndam-Pryce's POV, a minor revelation. Also, though there are a few small mistakes with the setting (at one point Colonel Wyndam-Pryce refers to 'Queen and country') for the most part, Byrne has obviously done his research. Recommended.
:uses nearest appropriate icon, which isn't very near, but never mind:
Some thoughts within about research for fics and about the 'canon' question, which has been exercising people this past week (and well aware I've contributed nothing useful in that discussion).
I had a nasty moment yesterday when thinking about my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
plot_wout_porn story, to do with the logistics of the plot. Without giving anything away, I'm afraid I've set my protagonists an impossible task and may have to refer to the standard Buffyverse get-yourself-out-of-difficulties ploy of waving an (almost) figurative magic wand to help them to accomplish it. I feel bad about this and hope that when I edit I can extricate the characters from that situation somehow by setting things up better nearer the beginning. This may mean writing extra scenes, or just peppering what I've already written with a little more exposition, while trying to ignore the dreaded info-dump. We'll see. One thing I do know is that, when starting the story, I was relying far too much on my memory (which I should know better than to do these days) and hadn't done nearly enough research.
As they say, bummer.
Finally, re: the question of canon. There have been a lot of posts about it this last week, from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gabrielleabelle, rahirah and slaymesoftly. I've read their posts, thought, 'how true' when reading each of them, although they don't all say the same thing, and failed to leave a comment on any, though I really should have, because I've been feeling brain-dead and stupid most of the week (post-James-viewing stress disorder or something). In actual fact, I'm not sure I feel qualified to comment, given that an awful lot of my stories veer wildly off from canon both in terms of what happens in them and in terms of characterisation. I started off writing horrible, abuser Giles, for f**ks sake! and have since written a not inconsiderable number of the characters as, let's say, not quite right in the head. Plus, I've quite happily written Fairy!Spike, and you can't get any less canon than that. I like to kid myself that even in the most out-there situation I've written, the characters remained in some way recognisable as their canon selves and that the way I'd skewed their personalities would explain their OOC behaviour, but YMMV, obviously.
On the other hand, this doesn't mean I don't accept as canon what I saw on screen. I do. For me, the fun of fic writing is taking that canon as a starting point in some fashion or other, either event-wise or character-wise, and veering off at a tangent. It's also a challenge to try and do it well. If I've written something that changes the events of canon for fic purposes - ie. Buffy's dead or Xander's gay (never written that, but you never know) - I'm not going to explain that beforehand. I'm hoping that this change will be so natural to the story that I don't have to explain it.
Hmm. Anyway, lots to think about. One thing I do believe, though, is that while the facts of canon may be indisputable, the interpretation of them is not. People see what they want to see, or what suits their own prejudices. I could go into a long list here of what I consider bizarre interpretations of canon (starting with the hoary old Angel-and-Angelus-are-two-totally-different-people chestnut), but it would be a very long list, and some of the people who hold those views would no doubt find my interpretation of canon bizarre in turn.
Finally, finally, this isn't really apropos of any of those other posts. As I said, at the time I read them, I was feeling far too stupid to make a sensible comment, and this post probably shows that situation isn't much improved.
:uses nearest appropriate icon, which isn't very near, but never mind:
Some thoughts within about research for fics and about the 'canon' question, which has been exercising people this past week (and well aware I've contributed nothing useful in that discussion).
I had a nasty moment yesterday when thinking about my
plot_wout_porn story, to do with the logistics of the plot. Without giving anything away, I'm afraid I've set my protagonists an impossible task and may have to refer to the standard Buffyverse get-yourself-out-of-difficulties ploy of waving an (almost) figurative magic wand to help them to accomplish it. I feel bad about this and hope that when I edit I can extricate the characters from that situation somehow by setting things up better nearer the beginning. This may mean writing extra scenes, or just peppering what I've already written with a little more exposition, while trying to ignore the dreaded info-dump. We'll see. One thing I do know is that, when starting the story, I was relying far too much on my memory (which I should know better than to do these days) and hadn't done nearly enough research.As they say, bummer.
Finally, re: the question of canon. There have been a lot of posts about it this last week, from
gabrielleabelle, rahirah and slaymesoftly. I've read their posts, thought, 'how true' when reading each of them, although they don't all say the same thing, and failed to leave a comment on any, though I really should have, because I've been feeling brain-dead and stupid most of the week (post-James-viewing stress disorder or something). In actual fact, I'm not sure I feel qualified to comment, given that an awful lot of my stories veer wildly off from canon both in terms of what happens in them and in terms of characterisation. I started off writing horrible, abuser Giles, for f**ks sake! and have since written a not inconsiderable number of the characters as, let's say, not quite right in the head. Plus, I've quite happily written Fairy!Spike, and you can't get any less canon than that. I like to kid myself that even in the most out-there situation I've written, the characters remained in some way recognisable as their canon selves and that the way I'd skewed their personalities would explain their OOC behaviour, but YMMV, obviously. On the other hand, this doesn't mean I don't accept as canon what I saw on screen. I do. For me, the fun of fic writing is taking that canon as a starting point in some fashion or other, either event-wise or character-wise, and veering off at a tangent. It's also a challenge to try and do it well. If I've written something that changes the events of canon for fic purposes - ie. Buffy's dead or Xander's gay (never written that, but you never know) - I'm not going to explain that beforehand. I'm hoping that this change will be so natural to the story that I don't have to explain it.
Hmm. Anyway, lots to think about. One thing I do believe, though, is that while the facts of canon may be indisputable, the interpretation of them is not. People see what they want to see, or what suits their own prejudices. I could go into a long list here of what I consider bizarre interpretations of canon (starting with the hoary old Angel-and-Angelus-are-two-totally-different-people chestnut), but it would be a very long list, and some of the people who hold those views would no doubt find my interpretation of canon bizarre in turn.
Finally, finally, this isn't really apropos of any of those other posts. As I said, at the time I read them, I was feeling far too stupid to make a sensible comment, and this post probably shows that situation isn't much improved.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 12:41 pm (UTC)Yes, precisely.
I was going to say something about plotting (having just finished writing about TGiQ from The Immortal's POV which was quite a challenge), but my head is full of cold so I shall let cleverer people tackle it. Good luck with your story though, I know how you feel!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 09:28 pm (UTC)Thank you. I managed to work out how to solve my problem without resorting to the magic wand thing but I didn't manage to actually write any more. :gloom:
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Date: 2009-05-09 12:47 pm (UTC)Yeah, but the thing is your wee fairy Spike was written totally in character. He was true to the spirit of the character as seen in the show, and I'd go as far and say that I think his voice was probably as authentic, (if not more) then most fics out there.
"Hmm. Anyway, lots to think about. One thing I do believe, though, is that while the facts of canon may be indisputable, the interpretation of them is not. People see what they want to see, or what suits their own prejudices."
Exactly.
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Date: 2009-05-09 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 01:24 pm (UTC)I hope that's okay?
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Date: 2009-05-09 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 01:56 pm (UTC)About canon, like I said to Rahirah, I'm always wary about any OOC accusation as I've seen it much too often used to discard elements of canon that hinder certain intrepretations of canon. For me, by definition there isn't any OCCness possible as long as it's the author who has written it. But of course, his scenes may be badly conceived or illogic.The best example of that is the Spike as an international arms dealer story. It could have been possible, but it would have required much more preparation and grounding than the stupid story we got. In regard to interpretation,there are different types of work: ones which try to prove a view and generally only pick elements that sustain their thesis,others that'll try to take into account every elements and look at their possible meaning(s). I rapidly grow impatient with the first type. One of the worst example of this type of meta I remember of was a piece of meta shoehorning Xander in the role of Iago in the Buffy/Angel (aka Desdemone/ Othello) relationship. I don't have a particular appreciation for Xander but it was so biased, so stupid that I dumped the whole thing. Hypercriticism and bias are a problem in works in History: you can end up with people who twist the sources so much that they end up "proving" you that Joan of Arc was a man or that the Shoah is a myth.
That's one of the thing I always admire in your writing: I don't necessarily believe the characters would do what you're making them do (the abuses Giles commited in your first stories) but you always make them do it in a way that is in character, if you see what I mean.
Word to that.
Sends good vibes to you for your rebellious story. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 09:41 pm (UTC)I've been very pleasantly surprised by this series. John Byrne is a very well known comic book writer/artist who has been around for donkeys' years, and I know he can do his stuff. However, in the first two issues of the book, I'd thought he was going to write this Wyndam-Pryce character in a particular way and was surprised and pleased to read no 3 and find that no, he wasn't going to do that, but instead to turn the story on its head and give real depth to his OCs. Plus, as I said, he seems to have done his research.
I'm with you on being wary of accusations of OOC-ness. I've seen it too often used to describe things that people don't like (more often than not to do with Spike). On the other hand, I'm very aware that many people reading my stories might consider an awful lot of the characters' behaviour OOC. These two things are not necessarily related but it still strikes me as somewhat ironic.
I'm also with you on being very irritated by the kind of canon interpretation that only wants to prove a point and indicate its own indisputable 'rightness.' The people who argue in this way often come across like scary religious zealots and my hackles tend to rise when I come across people like that.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:36 pm (UTC)Like everyone else, I have my own, probably twisted, interpretaton of 'canon', which is basically stay true to the spirit of the character as I got them in the show - which is also why I loved your fairy Spike and why I'm loving your Giles/Spike/Angel story I'm reading now.
For the same reason, there are pairings I don't read because they make no sense to me (just for example, a Spike/Lindsey would require an incredibly good-logical plot for me to read and appreciate it)
And by the way, I hope you don't mind that I added you on my f-list: as a newbie, I love to read these posts :)
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Date: 2009-05-09 09:57 pm (UTC)Fanfic can do amazing things with the characters, I think. I've read pairings that, if I stopped to think about it, would seem completely nonsensical, yet they've managed to convince me.
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Date: 2009-05-09 06:08 pm (UTC)One thing I do believe, though, is that while the facts of canon may be indisputable, the interpretation of them is not. People see what they want to see, or what suits their own prejudices.
Yes! So very much, this. And what a lot of people don't seem to get is that these interpretations are rarely "wrong". Some may be more canon-based than others, but most are valid. Just because you disagree with it doesn't mean that it's not canon.
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Date: 2009-05-09 10:02 pm (UTC)I know. As I said, though my post is in response to all the other posts to do with canon, it's not really an answer to, or a riposte to, any of them. I suppose I'm acutely aware of the fact that many people might consider my stories OOC in terms of characterisation, when to me, they don't seem so at all, and I think of myself as pretty much of a canon whore (except when it comes to the comics), which of course leads me on to consider canon and whether it really can be an objective thing divorced from interpretation. At times, I think it can, at others, not so much.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-10 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-11 08:07 am (UTC)