I'm about to do a different sort of exploration and focus on the first lines of the badfic to look at the places where the main
content problems lie in my opinion. I'll be using Shayne's version of the lines to look at how he worked through those issues. This is really bare bones so I might miss a lot of stuff, but I thought it might be interesting to dabble.
First, the lines to refresh the ol' memory:
Lois was in love with Superman. She also licked Lex Luthor. He was a hansome man and took he nice places. How can she decide? Sadly, Lois thinks that she will never choose.
and Shayne's rewritten version:
Staring down at the ring, Lois wondered why there was even a question in her mind. Lex represented everything she’d always wanted- fame, power, prestige. He offered her the kind of life most women only dreamed about, a life of excitement and privilege. There were a million other women who would do just about anything to step into her shoes.
So why did she keep having thoughts about ordinary brown eyes?
Most of you mentioned something along the lines of how bare the original passage was. I believe PJ mentioned needing depth and detail, if I'm recalling right, to contextualize the characters in concrete surroundings. Several people also pointed out that there were moments where some more direct expression of Lois' thought processes would enhance the fic. I think this boils down to the old adage: show, don't tell. I'll be going back to that.
To begin with the badfic-- I'm actually okay with the blunt "Lois was in love with Superman." The problem, I think, lies in the next line, "she also liked Lex." My feeling as a reader is that the latter undercuts the first to the point making both sentences read rather awkwardly content-wise. Between love and like, there's no contest, right? So from the get-go Lois' internal conflict doesn't seem quite as compelling. Let's look at how Shayne worked through this:
Staring down at the ring, Lois wondered why there was even a question in her mind.
Obviously, we have what PJ mentioned, let's call it, a physical context. And notice, Lois is looking at a ring. Immediately that sets the stage for a more dramatic internal conflict. With a ring we are meant to think of a proposal (she's wearing it, has she accepted? we wonder anxiously) which adds a certain urgency that wasn't present in the first passage. Check out the actual question too, which emphasizes how self evident her choice is. The successive lines will show us why and build up Lois' internal conflict even more:
Lex represented everything she’d always wanted- fame, power, prestige. He offered her the kind of life most women only dreamed about, a life of excitement and privilege. There were a million other women who would do just about anything to step into her shoes.
Compare this to:
He was a hansome man and took he nice places.
I'm not too keen on "nice" as an adjective, since I don't feel it's descriptive enough here. However, that's not my main problem with this part. It is rather, that I come off feeling that the language in this statement trivializes Lois' inability to chose. After all, it isn't that he's good-looking and takes her to nice places, (which incidentally makes her come off a bit shallow) but rather
what that means.
Shayne nails that one in the head explicitly by having Lois look to what Lex "represents." Then you have gradiose statements like "everything she'd always wanted," which all but blare out that Lex is The Right Choice (tm).
What I find most effective in Shayne's version here are the last lines--"the kind of life most women only dreamed about," followed by "There were a million other women who would do just about anything to step into her shoes." Why do I find these two lines effective? The first tells you straight out how coveted this lifestyle is, but the second plays it out. It's not just that these women want the life, it's that they would "do just about anything" for it. Further, since these statements are couched in Lois' pov, in these short sentences we are
shown just how valued Lois percieves this life to be. So through this statements, we also end up with a better sense of Lois' character--what she *thinks* she wants. The juicy part is getting to the bottom of this, since we're constantly getting clues that there's more lurking there.
Let's go back to the original:
How can she decide? Sadly, Lois thinks that she will never choose.
In the original, we are told that Lois "likes" Lex, my problem with the juxtaposition of like and love aside, the development of this moves to the concrete things he can offer her and even the exposition of these is lukewarm (again I'm refering to the use of "nice" and "handsome" in this context where we need to know what about this choice is so hard). So when we reach the question, it carries little punch. The conflict doesn't build; it stays flat throughout.
Compare this to Shayne's version:
So why did she keep having thoughts about ordinary brown eyes?
Notice that he doesn't
tell us directly that she's having trouble choosing. Rather he has it play out for us through direct thought. Here, I think the statement hinges on "ordinary." I see this as contrasting to "excitement" the word Shayne had Lois use to describe the life Lex offered her. We approach get to the good part-- as Lois begins to untangle the mystery, the narration puts us right there with her and this keeps us reading.
Tornado said:
[the story] does not serve to hold a reader's interest.
Ultimately, I think this is due to the narration's failure to dramatize or
show us Lois' conflict.
If I were content beta-ing for this person (which is what I do mainly for those people I beta for) I'd tactfully say something along these lines and provide a series of questions throughout.
Ick, pardon the length,
alcyone
