Wednesday, January 9, 2008

In Dreams


Finished reading: AD14

Work remains busy. There's really not much more to say about that. However, I'm beginning a new baseball story on another messageboard, a story which is taking up much of my present-moment thinking and has required a bit of research into baseball, 1983 style. I'll read the next two segments of "Apocalyptic Daria", and then I'll take a break for about a week for something new before I return to this tale.

(* * *)

Now, back to Daria and Jane on the lam.

The story starts with Daria and Jane trying to get some sleep, sharing a bed. (More on this later.) Jane wakes up and has some pizza, while Daria is dreaming that she is walking through a school gym converted to a hospital.

In Daria's dream, she sees people she knows either dead or suffering from radiation sickness. One moment her parents are in their normal work clothes, then she turns back towards them and they are either suffering from radiation sickness or are dead. Finally, Daria discovers Jane -- and herself -- as dead bodies punctured with bullet holes.

Daria screams and wakes up. Jane comes to confort her. They both share the fact that they miss their loved ones, and they thank each other for keeping each other alive.

(* * *)

Despite the compliments, I really didn't think AD14 was that great for a number of reasons:

First, a very minor complaint. Jane's banter with Daria -- these lesbian jokes -- were first amusing -- then intriguing -- and then started to get annoying with AD14. If I were Daria, I would really be starting to wonder about Jane's sexuality. "Jane, you're starting to creep me out here. You really need to find another theme, or seriously...you need to come out of the closet, because I can't tell if you're joking anymore, because you talk about this ALL the time."

The second complaint is the major one. It's hard to put one's foot down and say "this is the major problem", but I've seen it elsewhere and in AD14, we see it yet again. We see it in the dream sequence, and in Daria's reactions to it.

There's the old maxim of showing, not telling that most writers know. One doesn't simply tell the reader "Daria felt this way and Jane felt this way and Quinn felt this different way", but instead gives examples of how Daria and Jane and Quinn are reacting.

However, one can take this rule to the opposite extreme, the extreme where the author shows absolutely everything. In the omnipotent third person, this can be a bit dangerous. We not only get a physical accounting of events (this person went here, this person went there, that person did this, etc.) but also an emotional recounting of events (this person cried, this person raised their voices, this person was sullen). It reads as if a checklist is being checked off.

Sometimes, you have to decide to not show. Or better, to hint. The problem with showing and telling everything is that there's nothing left for the reader to do. Back before the year 2000, when Daria fandom fought on the ancient battleground of "is prose form or script form better?" one of the complaints about prose form was that it told everything. With the scripted form -- and no access into the characters' thoughts -- writers had to be much more subtle about conveying emotion.

The characters don't seem to have any subtlety or secrets. Rather, they just pour their emotions out. Seeing Daria, the calm one, act this way is particulary disturbing and probably not in the way the author intended. I suspect that if Daria ever truly got emotional, it would be a loud screaming jag the equivalent of a nervous breakdown, the result of emotions held back for so long finally leaking out. So much more could have been done with Daria not screaming, just waking up and saying, "can't sleep", the haunted look in her expression telling Jane everything she needed to know.

It was also a bad choice to put the dream in italics. This was a message to the reader: "what is happening is outside the scripted reality and is therefore not to be taken seriously". It might have been a homage to the M*A*S*H episode "Dreams". When I saw "Dreams" in its original airing, I didn't care much for it. The only parts of "Dreams" that worked were the parts that were truly surreal and there is nothing surreal in this dream; it's your standard near-linear post-apocalytic dream (if such dreams could be considered "standard").

The best prose writers have problems with such passages. It's a difficult thing to execute, and I was just waiting until Daria woke up because I knew nothing I was reading was "real". Yes, it's a lot to demand of fan fiction but it could have been handled better.

I'm probably the only person that didn't have praise for AD14, upon looking at the comments threads. It makes me wonder how useful message boards are and brings me back to the idea of fan fiction criticism. Fan fiction should probably not receive the same scathing treatment that a regular fiction writer might receive -- most of these writers write for pleasure or to improve their craft -- but where does one find a happy medium? Before you begin to suggest improvement, you have to point out where a work fails, and the only way that can be made painless is in dreams.

7 comments:

Scissors MacGillicutty said...

One problem with the open message board forum for criticism is the possibility, if not inevitability, of a poor signal-to-noise ratio: criticism that the author can use is that which displays a grasp of the author's overall intent and shows how certain things work against that. For example, putting the dream in italics gave away the game to the reader prematurely. If Doggieboy wanted to write a no-holds-barred thriller (and I think he did), he could rachet up the tension by omitting them and fooling the reader into thinking that Oh God, what's going on? for a moment.

On the other hand, there are readers who treat authors as if they were a wedding bands whose job it is to take requests. They never put it that bluntly, but that's what their so-called criticism amounts to. A writer with a certain level of confidence can simply discard the noise, but those without it—and who have talents that can grow—can be injured by it.

Another complication is that I think the optimal venue for critique is a conversation. The natural tendency for someone writing for an audience—even one as small as Daria fandom—is to state things definitively. For example, if a critic were talking to the author, the critic might ask, "Why'd you do this?" while if the critic is writing for an audience, the critic would write, "You shouldn't have done that."

Finally, I'm a sworn enemy of the "show, don't tell" maxim, and I think what you write about having to not show or to hint shows why it shouldn't be a maxim. (And see what I mean about definitive statements? ;)) Showing and telling and hinting all have their place; the important thing is to realize which mode serves the writer's intent at any particular point in the story. I also think the distinction is completely inapplicable to certain modes of fiction: a story consisting of emails between two characters, or the diary entries of one character, or an essay written by Daria...the list could go on and on, and these aren't exotic or unusual forms any more; if anything, the epistolatory and diaristic forms are throwbacks.

That big qualification in place, for the type of third-person linear narrative that "Apocalyptic Daria," the question of when to show or tell or hint is appropriate. If there's something I'd like see more of in Daria fic, it's writing that discards the standard third-person linear narrative: stuff like jtranser's "Stacy Rowe, Seeker," an epic of intentionally dense fragment that puts as much store in aphoristic comments in dialog and narration as it does in showing, telling, or hinting—although when it comes to certain things, such as the scope of ThirdSight Corp's actual powers, it merely hints and shows in a way that would warm the heart of any Creative Writing 101 teacher. Too bad the fragmentary style and deliberately run-on formatting would get him chased out of such a class—but then so much the worse for that class.

James said...

A postscript inspired by Scissors....

I would have to agree that the optimal venue for critique is conversation. For one, it keeps things civil; for the other, the Internet strips messages of their social signals, with one forced to resort to foolishness such as emoticons to convey tone. :)

The conversation, however, should usually take place before the final draft is made, and is called a "beta read". Virtually 99 percent of criticism is uninvited. I never bothered to ask Doggieboy if I might look at "Apocalyptic Daria", a conversation at this point would be akin to accosting someone one on the street:

ME: I have some comments on your fan fiction work.

THEM: (raised eyebrow) Who are you supposed to be?

Generally, I assume that people who post their works want criticism, even if they claim otherwise. These days you'll find fics either instructing readers to give only "constructive criticism" or prefaced with preemptory apologies -- "this is my first time; please be gentile". Receiving unasked for criticism, good or bad, is something that goes with the territory of actually publishing a work. After all, one doesn't turn down praise, so why should critique be condemned?

I'll keep writing unsolicited criticism. It's just less complicated that way.

Scissors MacGillicutty said...

I agree that once it's in the wild, it's fair game. Point of fact, I used to get kudos from somebody whose judgment I questioned and it made me doubt what I was doing more than actual pans. Then this person was quite turned off by something I wrote, and I was very relieved.

Maybe something those motivated to do so might offer some of the greener and less confident writers would be a beta-discussion of a fic over the phone or chat or Skype. There are a bunch of people I'd do it for. Whether they'd take my opinion seriously is another matter.

Finally, I think a lot of the praise on the MBs comes down to "Give us MOAR STOREEE!!!" rather than even a statement of what the person dispensing the praise thinks are strengths of the story. While it's a momentary ego-boost for the writer, it leaves the writer as rudderless as misguided "wedding band request" criticism.

cyde said...

The lesbian jokes in AD eventually turned me off to the story, to be perfectly honest. It was like, "Ok. He's building up to something which is looking less and less likely to happen." It started to make Jane seem pathetic and awkward.

A few jokes is alright. It's funny. A few more jokes makes you wonder if there's fire where all that smoke is coming from. Going on and on with it ad infinitum and never getting anywhere just gets tiresome. Either they're gonna have it out (in bed) or they aren't.

Personally, I can go either way with lesbian content in fanfiction, but please don't build the reader up with what looks like it might be an actual plot point if you don't plan on doing something (expediently) with it.

*shrug*

E. A. Smith said...

I remember when I started posting my first fics to PPMB ("Seven Days" was the first written on the board), I was hoping that people would critique as I went. I didn't know much about the Daria fandom at the time, and I was hoping that the fans of such a character would offer honest and useful commentary on the story (especially since good criticism was so hard to find from friends and family in real life). I very quickly learned otherwise, of course; while all the praise I got was certainly ego-warming, it did little to help me improve. I did eventually get some very useful feedback -- Kara Wild emailed me running commentary on "The Tempest" as I wrote and posted it, and Lobinske made one very pertinent critique of "Good Intentions" -- but of course they were the exceptions to the rule.

I think the problem with getting honest critique on the board ends up being the same problem you get from asking friends for critiques. Even in the Creative Writing forum, PPMB is more like a group of acquaintances than a collective of writers and readers, close enough to be chummy but not close enough to be brutally honest.

E. A. Smith said...

As for the lesbian issue, I'm just tired of any homosexual subtext between Daria and Jane. It's the most overused trope in fanfic -- employed for everything from easy drama to playful banter -- and it needs to die. It's fascinating to me that almost every other AU that posits a fundamental change to Daria's character (such as making her "slow", for example) inspires cries of the character no longer being Daria, while people don't seem to think making her or Jane a lesbian is that big of a deal (even though that's just as big of a personality shift).

It also somewhat bothers me that some people seem to think that you cannot have a close friendship between two people of the same gender without there being some possibility of latent homosexuality. Has our opinion of friendship fallen so far as to think that every close relationship must revolve around sex?

doggieboy said...

The lesbian joke subtext did have a purpose and it wasn't to build up to a slash fic. Jane did it to keep Daria's mind (and her own) off their situation. I never detailed that in the story, and I didn't think I really had to.

In my mind, I don't see them as lesbians, though I can see how some people do.

Could I have written that subtext better? Certainly. I'm always open to suggestions and since I consider "Apocalyptic Daria" to still be a work-in-progress (in my own mind, at least), constructive criticism is always appreciated.

In fact, constructive criticism for any of my works is appreciated. If I've made an error (grammatical or factual or other), I want to know about it so I can fix it.

Even if I don't use what is suggested in a critique, I'm thankful that someone took the time to give me their point of view.

I've gotten several "wedding band" requests over this story. A few I used, because they actually fit what I was working towards. Others I didn't.

I like what Scissors suggested about the dream. With his permission, I will use that. But at the very least I'll be cautious on how (or even if) I use dreams in the future.

It still boils down to constructive criticism. Since I don't use beta readers, I may be expecting a lot.