ficsnark

[cimorene]

wtf? pwp fades to teacup poodle methos convinced duncan is going to leave him soon, then duncan convinces him with a few sentences that his insecurity is unfounded and the story closes with: And as they kissed again a pair of night-hunting hawks flew silhouetted across the moon. uh... well... good for them? the weird thing is that last night i read two really good stories by esjay, the same author--the marrying kind and straight and low, the latter of which was truly outstanding, well-characterised, hilarious and wicked and unfolding perfectly--in short exemplary story-telling. like... what happened?

this icon is a group effort, the result of mace_m's couch and highlander eps and comments by everybody present, more or less. as the eminent master chi has said, who cares that you can barely read it?

Comments

[morningfine]

esjay is weird like that. Some of her stuff is incredibly good and the rest -- isn't. Kiss of Shadows would be the story with excessive dying, by the way. I liked parts of it tremendously, and then -- well, usually then someone died. I think my main complaint with that one was that it came to what I thought would be an end too many times, and then there was yet another setback. Kinda like Speed to the power of ten.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's very rare that i even have the desire to read something that long. i opened it up once... no... twice... but i didn't read more than half a chapter before my attention span ran out.

[morningfine]

Ah. Well, I'm all for epic fiction, when it works. When it doesn't feel like it's stretched thin and worn to a thread before the author can let it go. I had a time when I hardly read nothing shorter than 50 000 words, but I've had to give that up. No time anymore. Still, I enjoy long and involved fiction most.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

50,000 isn't all that long--it's not even official novel-length, just novella. i'm sure that kiss series all put together is a loooooooot longer than that. i think 20.000 - 70.000 or so is my favorite length.

[morningfine]

i'm sure that kiss series all put together is a loooooooot longer than that.

Sure. But it's been a while since the last time I read anything that long. My favorite fics of all time range from 95,000 words to 412,000 and on to a huge arc of 12 fics in which the parts vary between 10,000 and 107,000 words. Longer the better, but I havent really found anything good and epic in my recent obsessions. More's the wah.

I think the thing I love about long and involved fics is that they have a way of sticking with you that short fics, no matter how good, can't really accomplish.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i don't find that i remember long fics more. if i remember a long story it's usually a sharp moment of impact that i remember, and i remember those from very short stories, even scene-length vignettes (although i don't really like one-scene stories much), too.

it's probably a difference in brain chemistry or something. my attention span is short in everything, not just stories. although i remember when i was a child reading novels all day, they have to be quite good, and it's easier to find high quality science fiction than high quality fan fiction. especially if your parents have a large private library of it... .

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

heheheh... I totally agree. That pwp is crap. And I should know, I wrote the hideous thing. Not even a mother could love it. And the terrible thing is I've done worse than that. Much much worse. The only thing I can say for it is that it's really really old and hopefully I write a little better these days. But not always:)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

...

:cough: kind of embarrassing, but since the entry was overall, i think, more complimentary of the other stories than critical of the pwp, i feel relieved of the need to apologise. "straight and low" was delightful and wonderful in so many, many ways.

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

Heh. Don't be embarrassed. I say worse things than that about my stuff all the time. My only (very poor) excuse is that I've been doing this for a fair while now and the difference between the old stuff and the new is large and frequently cringe-inducing. I'd take a bunch of the old stuff down, but people ask for it (god knows why), and it's easier to leave it there.

But I'll tell you a weird and scary thing. I got about twice as much feedback for that piece of utter horseshit than I did for 'The Marrying Kind'. If anyone can explain that to me, I'd be glad to hear it.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

what! no way! that's SO WRONG. the marrying kind is brilliant. i had to follow my lovely mate (who really doesn't care about highlander but has gotten very used to listening to me squee about it in the past few weeks) around for like fifteen minutes as i attempted to explain it through my giggles.

"a romantic comedy, except not."
"not romantic? not a comedy?"
"no! it's romantic and it's a comedy, but it's--ahahah."
"not a typical romantic comedy...?"
"no, it kind of is, in a way--like, you know, a romantic comedy MOVIE, except... not, because..."
"uh-huh."
"see, it's really really funny, and it has a kind of romantic comedy plot, and it's kind of light..."
"uh-huh."

it reduced me to incoherence! it was so much fun! i should send you some feedback. let's see if i can remember to do it.

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

*g* What can I say? Thanks:) I'm really pleased that one worked for you.

Oh, and you've spurred me to do what I've been meaning to for ages - stick the posting dates on the story listings on my website.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i've toyed with that idea in the past too for the same reason. but i don't have the dates anymore.

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

Neither did I, so it took me three hours of slogging through the ygroups message archives and my own files. *sigh* But it's done now.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

ahhhhhhhhhh. i have mostly migrated away from my yahoogroups fandoms. that didn't even occur to me. :)

[morningfine]

::battles embarrasment::

Since I doubt I'll ever get off my ass to send any real feedback, I'll clarify what I said above and this time actually aim it where it matters, aka you: some of your stories, such as the abovementioned Straight and Low and The Marrying Kind I've enjoyed enormously, and there's no way I would've trudged through the Kiss series if I'd thought it wasn't worth it. The third part showed how much you've developed as a writer (although I had some minor disagreements about how the story was handled, but, but, this isn't the place for them), so I shouldn't have been surprised to find that some of your (obviously older) works are ...ahem... less than brilliant. ::g::

But I'll tell you a weird and scary thing. I got about twice as much feedback for that piece of utter horseshit than I did for 'The Marrying Kind'. If anyone can explain that to me, I'd be glad to hear it.

Uhh, if I can manage to read the 'piece of utter horseshit' I'll share my theories. ::g:: Unfortunately I think it's just the way of fandom: overdone emotional crap rakes in the reviews.

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

Uhh, if I can manage to read the 'piece of utter horseshit' I'll share my theories. ::g:: Unfortunately I think it's just the way of fandom: overdone emotional crap rakes in the reviews.

Please don't read it*g*. It's embarrassing and it's not like I'm going to rewrite it or anything. I'm well aware of its myriad faults. But if you were ever moved to crit any of my recent stuff, I'd be more than happy to hear it.

As for the Kiss series, the first story (and yeah, I know it has problems) was written a few months after I started writing. I had a lot of crappy writing habits to overcome and it took me a long time to work my way through them. The second story is basically a vignette caused by too many U2 songs. The third one I'm actually fairly pleased with. There are spots I'd change if I was interested in rewriting it, but overall, as a first novel I think it works. There's some hokey plot devices and a few dodgy story developments, but I'm still pretty fond of the old monster. It was fun to write.