Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Sister Poll to A-Plot

The discussion about A-Plot over on the Kerth Noms thread (and Yvonne's subsequent poll) have really got me to thinking about trends in LnC fanfic.

If you got a few minutes, I'd love to hear you weigh in.

Lynn

A-plot: I love them, but if it's not there, I'll live.

B-plot, generally the romance theme: If it's not there, then it's more of a comic book fic than L&C. The show was all about the interaction of these two characters falling/being in love, and that's what we love about them. If the personal interaction isn't there, I might as well have gone down to the comic book shop. And those have pretty pictures. (idly wonders when hers will come in)

Just to throw a monkey wrench into the works I'll say that I didn't really have a good answer to the first question (I think I went with "somewhat"). I'm somewhat aware of what other stories are out there, and if there's a trend that's popular at the moment, I wanna write something different I never like following the crowd... which of course lowers my chances of fitting into a Kerth award category, but such is life

PJ

I answered "other" for the B-plot. I like stories with good main plots, but I think a good B-plot is important, too. It's a balance thing, imho. But if a story is good, I'll keep reading until the end, no matter what.

As for writing, I write what my muse inspires me to write. Whether or not it's "popular" doesn't matter as long as I'm satisfied with the end result.

Question 1:
Somewhat.

Question 2:
Not at all.

Question 3:
I voted for "I don't care either way", although I like reading stories with an A-plot, to give me a feeling of real L&C episodes. I don't *depend* on A-plot to read a story, though.

Question 4:
See above.

Question 5:
Writer tastes. Although I might add "mostly" here.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Interesting question.
Personally, I don't seek out totally A-Plot stories, but if I happen to read one, I judge it for what it is. On the other hand, I could be very happy with a B-Plot focused fic. In my most recent forages into writing, I've tried to balance the two, probably with greater weight on the B side.

I think most of my answers were self-explanatory, but I did want to comment on the last question. In the first two questions I voted that as a writer I write what I want to, but in the last question I voted "Reader tastes - writers conform to what readers indicate they want." I nkow that sounds like a contradiction <g>

The truth is, I'm probably going to write a story whether I expect people to like it or not. I didn't expect All or Nothing to be well received because it didn't have a happy packaged ending, but I wrote it anyway because it was a story I wanted to tell and my muse wouldn't leave me alone until I did. (And I was wrong, apparently a lot of people liked it <g>).

On the other hand, the knowledge that you're writing something that isn't likely to be well received can be discouraging. And I don't mean that specifically for this fandom, but for fandoms in general. If I'm prioritizing what to work on next, I'm going to prioritize ideas I think will go over well over ideas that might get me hate mail .

Also, I've noticed a definite shift in the writing style and the language I use here than what I might use in other venues. There are certain criteria for "good" writing here and what it entails. Certain words are frowned upon. Certain types of scenes and executions are expected. I find myself writing more emotionally and melodramatically (although Paul tells me I'm wrong ) than I otherwise might.

So do readers influence writers? Maybe not their plots, but definitely their lexicon (in my humble opinion). And other writers probably have the most influence of all in that sense; if everyone else is doing it and doing well, chances are you'll want to do it, too.

Anyway, there's my 2 cents, which ended up being way longer than I intended. :rolleyes: And it probably made no sense at all, but such is life...

Kaylle

This is so intriguing I want to know more! What are the certain criteria for "good" writing? Which are the words that are frowned upon? Which types of scenes and executions are expected? You can't leave it there, Kaylle - you're driving me mad with curiosity!

Yvonne

Lol, so now I have to put my money where my mouth is <g>. Okay, let me see if I can find some examples... Probably best to use my own work so as not to single anyone out. And my fandom examples are going to be things I know <g> Sorry if people haven't read/heard of them and don't know what I'm talking about

Anyway, I guess the first example is All or Nothing . As I said, I was afraid to post it because it didn't have an explicitly happy ending. It's more open-ended than anything else. I didn't want to write an epic (and I didn't think an epic was warranted) but I didn't think it was realistic to turn L&C completely around, from a rather painful argument and Lois's aborted wedding to being happily in love, within the span of a short story. In that case I decided to do what I wanted instead of what the readers expected, but I did feel like there was an expectation for short stories to resolve everything satisfactorily.

That's partly what I meant by certain types of scenes and certain types of endings being expected. There's an expectation for some sort of romantic resolution, for one thing. (Of course there are exceptions to the rule; the first one that comes to mind is Nan's Pheromone, More Likely.) There's often an expectation of a revelation (depending on the type of story). If it's a long story, we generally expect Lois to react badly to the revelation and for the angst to last for a while. If it's a short story, we expect her to take it in stride or to be angry for only a short while before deciding she's in love with Clark anyway and it doesn't matter.

These are of course only generalizations, and I don't mean to imply they're bad. I think the nature of the show puts some limits on the types of stories we can write. There were really only two main characters and a small handful of supporting cast, and most of their relationships were pretty clearly defined. Whereas Smallville fans can write Clark/Lois, Clark/Lana, Clark/Chloe, Clark/Lex, Chloe/Lana ad nauseum <g>, our scope is much more limited. The few new characters that were introduced often disappeared just as quickly, so there isn't even a sense that we can introduce new permanent players.

Also, there isn't a consistent sense of the universe we're playing in. Star Wars, for example, has pretty specific guidelines for how things work (not that they can't be changed or ignored, especially in fanfic, but they are there). The Rebels are the good guys and the Imperials are the bad guys (depending on who you ask <g>). Jedi can use the Force, which opens up a certain number of otherwise impossible abilities to them. But in general the laws of physics work predictably, there are rules about space travel and the limits of technology, etc.

Lois and Clark's universe, on the other hand, is really a descendent of the comics universe of the early to mid-nineteenth century. In the comics, villains and kryptonians came out of the woodwork when necessary, with unexpected and inexplicable powers. Storylines could be static and episodic instead of continuing from issue to issue.

In L&C this was toned down a little, and the characters grew and changed over time. But we still had adversaries like Mxyzptlk and the New Kryptonians come and go with little explanation. The more realistic stories of S1 gave way to time travel in S2. Clark himself defies the laws of physics for reasons that are never pinned down, and he's constantly discovering new applications of his powers (being able to use his x-ray vision to pick out the impression of certain handwriting, for instance, or vibrate fast enough to dissolve himself into loose molecules and pass through forcefields...).

So on the one hand, that seems to imply that we can write as many different kinds of stories as we want. On the other hand, it means we can't really say what happens next, because there are so many possibilities and no way to rule them out. There's no ability to expand the mythology in a predictable way. This means that most of us end up writing a bunch of unrelated stories instead of developing our own private universes and writing extensively in them (Irene Dutchak, Yvonne, Nan, and others have done this, but they seem to be in the minority). Whereas a viewer of, say, Gargoyles could extrapolate that the presence of King Arthur in one episode makes introducing Merlin a logical extension of the story and start his/her own continuation of the series. We don't get a lot of direct continuations of L&C; partly because S5 and S6 and TUFS did such a nice job of them <g>, and probably partly because the show ended with fewer unresolved questions than most sci-fi/fantasy shows do.

So now that I've written a dissertation on how L&C is different from Star Wars <g>, I'll try to remember where I was going with this. Right, so because the set of stories is relatively small compared to more expansive universes (and harder to predict), we end up with certain (almost) unavoidable similarities between the way stories are structured. Which leads to an expectation that future stories will follow that mold. Again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just commenting, and at this point it's late enough that I may not even be doing that coherently...

As for changing one's lexicon... That's harder to quantify. And of course now that I've said it, I can't think of the words that are frowned upon. Certainly some American words that have different UK/European connotations seem to be frowned upon, although I don't see that so much in the reverse direction. Words like smoochie, which I personally abhor <g>, are well received. And I have a very specific memory of being told that someone hated a word I'd used, but now I don't remember what it was. Does anyone know what I'm thinking of, or am I completely lost here? <g>

And lastly, changing one's voice. Well, to some extent it's expected that stories for different fandoms are going to have different tones. L&C had, for the most part (imho), an optimistic, idealistic view of the world. Our fanfic reflects that. Fanfic for another show, say X-Files, might have a much darker feel, because the show was darker in general. On top of that, there seems to be an expectation here that our fanfic is romantic. Kisses can be life-changing, lovemaking even more so <g>, and emotional angst is dramatic and overwhelming. I offer up my own work as an example <g>.

From All or Nothing:
Or, from In Dreams:

and
As a writer, I read a lot of fanfic before I tried writing my own, so that I had a feeling for the fandom and what they wanted. Then I posted the first part of ID very tentatively. Now, maybe I'm just overcritical of myself, but those quotes feel heavy-handed to me. Twisting the knife just one turn too far <g>. And going into far more sensual detail than I would have before this story. Part of that is probably just me growing up, but it's a self-reenforcing habit-- if I write this way and it's accepted, I learn to continue to write that way. I've also noticed that the tendency to write that way has bled into my other work, a fact that disturbs me greatly, as the tone is not always appropriate for other venues.

And, just to prove that it's not just my voice, that I actually can write differently <g>, I offer one last quote, this time from an original work of mine. The second half was written about a year and a half ago, and feels more like the way I wrote before L&C fic changed me <g>. The first half was written last spring, and has a different feel to it. The shift in tone feels quite obvious to me, despite being a similarly emotional scenes. But maybe it's just me.

(Very quick and dirty context summary: This is a fantasy story that takes place in the modern world. The main character is Calum, who at 21 has fallen in love unexpectedly with a human woman, Carlotta. His uncle, Keyth, lost his fiance in a battle 20 years ago and presumes her dead. These scenes take place in Carlotta's home, the night after Keyth is reunited with Anne.)
So that's something completely different <g>. Is it good writing by my standards? Well, it's not bad. Would it fly as L&C fic? Dunno. At the very least, it isn't the tone I expect to come out of my fingers when I sit down to write L&C. At any rate, I've been writing this for a couple of hours now and written much more than I intended, and I'm still not really sure what I've said. But if people have comments on any of it, I'd be happy to hear them <g>. Assuming anyone read this far

Kaylle

Fascinating, Kaylle! I may need to think about this some more, but here's an initial reaction, FWIW.

I love all of the extracts from your writing which you've used here. I would read and devour all of the stories. Yes, the story from another fandom (I have no idea what it is) does feel different in that there's less introspection, less creation of a melancholy mood by the narrative, but that doesn't make it any less 'angsty' or any less readable, as far as I'm concerned.

I enjoy introspection and angst, sure. But I also love writing by many people who don't write either of those - or, if they do, it's done very sparsely. For example, I'm a great fan of CC's work. And Nan's. And Tank's. And several others I could name.

I don't know whether this means you have nothing to worry about, or whether we have become too fussy here - comments, anyone? I'm currently working on (ha ha!) a novel set in the UK, and I suspect that those Americans who have seen the small amount written to date will have noticed a huge difference in vocabulary to my L&C writing. There are lots of words I avoid using because either they're not common in the US or they have a different meaning - off the top of my head, I avoid 'pavement' because to me it's what you call a sidewalk, but to you it's what I call the road!

Anyway, that's all I have time for now; I'm looking forward to other people's comments on Kaylle's examples.


Wendy

LOL Wendy, at this -

So very true! I know this is a bit OT, but I'm going to remark. I guess I'm just so accustomed to reading books written by Americans and published by US publishers that it does come as a shock to me to read stuff written by a person from the UK, intended for a UK publishing. It's very neat to read the "uncensored" version that hasn't been converted to American-isms. And it gives me a huge appreciation for what all of the UK writers for this fandom must go through to keep their stories sounding as true to US English as they do. I equate it with the difficulty of us Americans writing for a UK show fandom, trying to make ourselves use the correct words and nuances of speech - I know I'd be mucking it up famously!

Lynn

Nice point, Kaylle, and one I hadn't thought of before.

And, totally unrelated to the actual topic...

WOW!!! I love this!! Especially Carlotta's line!

I'm wondering, hoping, that we get to see this in the Original Fic folder!

But, as for your point... I do see a distinction between the first and second parts. I see what you mean about not wanting to write L&C that way, though, I don't think it would be a bad thing if something *was* written that way. 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. Now, I'm not sure where I'm going or if I've even made the point I was aiming for, so I'll just stop.

Though I did want to remark on what Lynn said:

Ditto!

Sara

Kaylle, looking at your examples, what I see is a difference in style. The last part of the last example is written in the less introspective voice, the action-and-dialog-heavy style common to most sci-fi and mystery writing. It is, in fact, the voice that I came to L&C with--minimalist in many ways, using a relatively shallow POV. If you check out "Faster Than a Speeding Bullet," you'll see what I mean. Even at the most dramatic, angsty moment of the entire story, I was very spare: That was the whole scene. Some description of action plus a little introspection, but not much for the angsty climax of a 250K story. However, that difference was perfectly well accepted in this fandom.

However, I've had to learn to change my naturally spare style while I've been working on a romance novel. In that field, deep POV and more introspection are requirements for publication because readers don't read to find out what happens. They already know: boy meets girl, obstacles prevent boy and girl from getting together, boy and girl overcome obstacles through personal sacrifice and make a permanent commitment to each other. The audience reads to share the process, and in order to do that, the story has to be written in a very deep POV so every sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste is experienced through the perception of the POV character.

Personally, I don't think you can say one style of writing is "better" than the other. One is only better at enabling you to achieve your purpose or not. Since much of l&C fanfic is written as a romance, a more introspected style with a deep POV would be more appropriate for the purpose. For those of us who worked on TUFS, S5, and S6, our purpose wasn't to write a romance, but to continue L&C's story, so plenty of action and dialog plus a shallower POV was more appropriate for our purpose.

On the other hand, shifting styles doesn't absolve writers from the elements of good story-telling: maintaining a pace that keeps your readers from falling asleep, maintaining consistent characterization, and showing rather than telling. That last point is a real killer for many people who write lots of introspection. It's so easy to have the character tell the reader how s/he is feeling and why, rather than figuring out how to show how the character feels.

I think that's what you were perceiving in your first few examples, Kaylle, the ones you said went too far. I've been struggling with a similar problem in my writing, and if you guys can stand it, I'll give an example of this problem of telling vs showing.

I submitted the first fifty pages of a romance novel to a writing contest last summer, still using my often too-spare-for-romances style. One judge responded this paragraph in the parentheses that follow: Since the hero and heroine had been discussing a boss who upset her and the hero had just signalled for the waitress to come over to take their order, I hadn't thought further explanation was necessary, but I knew that was shallow POV thinking. So my next thought was to address the judge's question by writing something like: But I knew that was telling (in fact, I out-and-out said Kelli was unhappy) rather than showing, which this judge had nailed me for throughout the selection I submitted. So I tried to use introspection to show how and why she felt as she did, without explaining it too much: The judge liked that change. She told me, "You've explained how she's feeling and why she's feeling that way. Plus you help us dread with her going back to work and you make her more sympathetic of a heroine. We all understand embarrassment and humililation."

Anyway, after my own struggles with showing rather than telling in introspection, I think that's what your perceived problem is, rather than it being a matter of fandom expectations.

As far as the rest of your point goes, I think most L&C fanfic readers expect a romance, which by definition has a happy ending and emphasizes deep POV and introspection rather than shallower POV and action/dialog. But that doesn't mean there isn't room in this fandom for other styles of writing, and when fics in other styles are well done, they get nominated for Kerths and some of them even win.

I had a difficult time answering the first part of the poll because, for me the length of the story is an important variable. In a long fic, I really do need an A-plot to keep me interested - it's the A-plot that acts as a stimulus for character development or relationship development or the appearance of interesting secondary characters ( a B-plot can do this too but it's kind of restricted to waiters in restaurants or salespeople in lingerie and jewellery and chocolate shops<g>). Also, I'm a fan of the series L & C:THAOS, so stories with an A plot remind me of the show that I loved. Now this doesn't mean that the A-plot has to dominate - but that there should be a nice (whatever that word means<g>) balance of A and B plot.

As someone who has been criticized for writing too much A-plot, I'm probably just being defensive though.

Different matter for short fics - no A plot required.
- Just a bit of lovely writing or an elegant, yet emotional vignette or a bizarre twist that leaves you grinning (Paul and Mary!)

Interesting thoughts on what L & C fanfic is, Kaylle - wish I had time to get into a discussion of your ideas. And as always, Sheila has terrified me with her deep and shallow POV discussion... just when I thought I had it figured out...

c

In an effort not to hijack this thread any more, I've started a thread in the Fanfic Related folder to respond to the comments people had about my long rambling essay up there. If people want to continue the conversation, please visit the new thread.

Trends in L&C fanfic

Kaylle