I wrote a huge post on this in poor Lynn's Sister Poll to A-Plot thread. I apologize profusely to Lynn for hijacking her thread wink In case anyone wants to continue the discussion, I'd suggest we do it here instead of taking that thread further off topic.

Anyway, I'm not going to repeat my whole argument here, but I did want to respond to the comments that were made and maybe take things another step further. If you missed the first argument and replies, you can read it here .

Wendy said:
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I'm not doubting your impression here, but I do suspect that you don't see much of the UK-English vocabulary and expressions which could be used. I've discussed this with Yvonne and others on several occasions: while it's true that UK-English writers do sometimes use vocabulary which is less common, or even unknown, in American English, what you don't see is the extent to which we already censor ourselves.
I don't mean to imply that the UK-English folcs aren't doing their best or that I'm upset with the way they write! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come off that way wink I just meant that I've noticed more commotion over American English words than UK ones. But maybe it's just my selective memory, who knows? wink

Sara said:
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Though... that does bring up the point of happily ever after and putting your toys back where you found them. It's sad to say, but I think you're right in that respect. If I imagined Calum and Carlotta to be Lois and Clark, I have no problem with the tone in which it was written, but I *would* expect them to be together in the end, and that may or may not be the case with your story. And if you *had* written this as Lois and Clark (and making a huge assumption that they don't end up together)... I'm not sure how folcs would react. Uneasy, at best, I'm guessing.
That's something else that's interesting to me. There's an expectation that Lois and Clark will always end up together. No mistake is so great that they can't overcome it. In that sense there are no permanent consequences (in the relationship arena). I don't see that so much in other fandoms. Again, your mileage may vary, but around here we like to have our angst and resolve it too! smile

And once more with my bizarre examples! This one's not mine, I'm quoting from Gheorge2's Stuff , a Star Wars fic. It's cited on that site as "More or less [the] Official Luke-Mara fanfic of Club Jade" (Club Jade being the biggest fanclub for the character Mara Jade). But it doesn't end happily. To the contrary, the author notes that the two are too damaged for love and s/he doesn't foresee them ever marrying.

Earlier in the story, Luke confesses to being lonely, and Mara offers to help him find a girlfriend for a commission (22% of the woman's net worth <g>). Through the story, they get closer, but never quite seem to get over that last hurdle. From the epilogue:
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Because Mara professes every intention of collecting her 22.5% commission and Luke avers an interest in respectability, they venture out of orbit periodically on longer sojourns, whether to search for respectable women, or on trading runs or for secretive NRI business. They haggle constantly about the rates, terms, and options of the finder's fee arrangement. To the very observant, the entire argument has appeared rather academic -- it may seem that perhaps, Mara has not been looking all that hard, and that when she occasionally finds some respectable, invariably not all that attractive of a prospect, Luke has always been too busy to meet her. And they keep meaning to post that lonely heart advertisement, but somehow, never seem able to agree on the appropriate wording.
Would a fic like that fly in FoLCdom? I have a hard time seeing it. That's not a criticism of FoLCdom, it's just an observation. And I don't mean necessarily to hold up Stuff as an example to be followed; I disagree with quite a bit of it. But apparently enough of the Club Jaders like it to make it their official fic.

It's hard to imagine FoLCdom agreeing on one fic to represent us. Can you imagine that process? dizzy But if we did try at least to narrow it down, which I suppose is basically what we do every year for the Best Overall Kerth, I'd imagine we'd go with something a little more romantic, a little more angsty, and with a definite happy ending. Winners and nominees of the past few years have all fit that mold pretty well. They also usually have both a-plots and b-plots.

I've forgotten what I was trying to prove, so I'm just going to stop now and see if anyone else has anything to say <g>.

Oh, and I did want to clarify one other thing. The second excerpt in the poll thread, the Calum and Carlotta story, is from an original work of mine. I don't anticipate posting it in the OF folder. I've been writing and rewriting it for almost half my life, and when I finally get it finished I don't want any potential roadblocks to attempting to get it published. Having it posted in its entirety on a website seems problematic and risky. If someone is especially interested, I could probably do with another beta. Other than that, I'm afraid it will have to stay in the dark on my hard drive for a while longer <g>.

Anyway, any thoughts, anyone?
Kaylle

[And I found this today, so in honor of the SW excerpt I'm posting it, despite it being completely off topic.
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