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stunt_muppet at 12:21am on 12/09/2009 under doctor who, fanfics, methinks it's loltastic, randomness, star trek, writing
stunt_muppet at 12:21am on 12/09/2009 under doctor who, fanfics, methinks it's loltastic, randomness, star trek, writingTrivialities first: Not only are Linkara and Spoony doing a joint review, but there's been a Blake's Seven reference AND a "He tried to kill me with a forklift" song within the space of ten minutes.
Like I didn't already have a raging fangirl crush on both of them.
Also, while I've been watching bits and pieces of Star Trek: TOS, I hadn't really been making a concerted effort, since over the summer I didn't have much opportunity to watch and this year so far I've been too busy getting my classes and things in order to take up a new fandom.
However, I'm well tempted to take a look at The Next Generation, purely because I've watched the video review of the Star Trek: Borg FMV video game (yeah, there was a game; don't act so surprised*) and Q looks awesome. I mean, he also looks like a smug, insufferable douche, but an awesome smug insufferable douche, and at least in the game footage John de Lancie looks like he has the time of his life playing him and I always get a kick out of it when I can tell actors are enjoying their roles.
Of course, I have vague memories of watching TNG with my dad when I was very young, and even though I didn't know who the characters were or what they did I remember being very fond of Data and Worf. And Geordi, but I suspect I mostly liked him because he had a cool visor.
So, friends more versed in TNG than I, is Q really that amusing or does he wear a bit thin on the actual show? How much does he even show up? And does Worf ever get to be as badass as he should be? And does Geordi have a whole lot of ablism!fail plotlines?
*On the subject of video game tie-ins, did you know there was actually a Doctor Who pinball game? Which seems like one of the most incongruous extensions of a brand I've ever heard of, because, really, it's not like they even made a proper game out of it (and I think Who would make a nifty point-and-click PC adventure a la King's Quest or Curse of Monkey Island), it's just pinball with the characters pastede on yey.
Although two more minutes on Wikipedia tells me there are also various games for obscure consoles and/or CD-ROM, which still seem odd and incongruous to me, mostly because I'm hurting my brain trying to imagine Colin Baker or Patrick Troughton in sprite form.
Although, reportedly, the CD-ROM game has Raston Warrior Robots, which is a substantial point in its favor. It also apparently includes some rather silly-looking clips of Anthony Ainley on a 'shoppy flame background and the posthumous voice of Jon Pertwee, because apparently it wasn't creepy enough when the audios did that.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, I can't be the only one unsettled when the voices of dead actors are used in movies, especially if those actors have been dead for a while (i.e. they didn't die between the end of filming and the release of the movie a la Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). I mean, granted, it doesn't happen very often (the only time I remember it happening was "Laurence Olivier" in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), and it doesn't quite apply in this situation because Pertwee had agreed to appear in the game before his death (though it's more applicable in the case of Zagreus) but when I saw it in Sky Captain all I could think about for the rest of the movie was the Unfortunate Implications.
I mean, Olivier didn't agree to appear in that movie. You don't know he would have had he been alive. (Although hey, doing camp action movies seems to be a Thing for legendary Shakespearean actors, see Exhibit A: Ian McKellan.) If you're an actor of such stature that people would want to use your image, who gets to decide which films you "appear" in? Are you, after your death, to be sold to anyone who pays enough, or will considerations be taken for what sort of work you did and exactly how your image is to be used? Will actors have to start drafting such considerations in their wills, or will that be seen as presumptuous? Of course there are limits to how a dead actor's likeness can be used, as they can't record new reactions or new dialogue, so I can't really believe that using dead actors will be anything beyond a novelty, but it's still creepy.
---
That went on for way longer than I expected. On to the main topic! Also, all generalizations are based on my own experiences and may not apply across all fandoms
Talking with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kindkit recently brought to mind a trend I've noticed in fic; out of all the fic in every fandom I've read, most use either a) first-person POV (which isn't frequent) or b) tight third-person POV, where the narrator is only privy to one character's thoughts and feelings at a time. While I've read some fics that use omniscient POV (either journalistic description-only omniscient POV or an omniscient POV that describes all the characters' thoughts and feelings as appropriate), they're not the majority; most fic only changes POV between scenes if it changes at all.
And I think, because most fic (in my experience) is in that tight third person, a switch in POV within a scene can look like the author slipped up. It reads as messy, or just incorrect, even though I think it's technically valid. I'm curious; do you think that a POV switch within a scene actually is sloppy? Or are we just so used to reading the single POV at a time that omniscient POV reads wrong?
For that matter, why do most fics go for tight-third-person? For an introspective fic, or a fic about, say, one character specifically reacting to another, the choice is an obvious one, but even in, say, ship-fic, if the thoughts and feelings of every character involved are included, they're included one at a time. Technically, you could include both of their thoughts in the same scene, and in some cases it might actually better serve the fic to do so. Of course, the switching POV also gives the author a convenient location for a scene break.
Do you find you usually write in limited-third-person POV? Any particular reason why? What affects your choice of POV when writing, or where you switch POV if at all? How would a POV switch within a scene read to you?
---
Oh my gracious it is so late. I really must go to bed, like two hours ago.
Like I didn't already have a raging fangirl crush on both of them.
Also, while I've been watching bits and pieces of Star Trek: TOS, I hadn't really been making a concerted effort, since over the summer I didn't have much opportunity to watch and this year so far I've been too busy getting my classes and things in order to take up a new fandom.
However, I'm well tempted to take a look at The Next Generation, purely because I've watched the video review of the Star Trek: Borg FMV video game (yeah, there was a game; don't act so surprised*) and Q looks awesome. I mean, he also looks like a smug, insufferable douche, but an awesome smug insufferable douche, and at least in the game footage John de Lancie looks like he has the time of his life playing him and I always get a kick out of it when I can tell actors are enjoying their roles.
Of course, I have vague memories of watching TNG with my dad when I was very young, and even though I didn't know who the characters were or what they did I remember being very fond of Data and Worf. And Geordi, but I suspect I mostly liked him because he had a cool visor.
So, friends more versed in TNG than I, is Q really that amusing or does he wear a bit thin on the actual show? How much does he even show up? And does Worf ever get to be as badass as he should be? And does Geordi have a whole lot of ablism!fail plotlines?
*On the subject of video game tie-ins, did you know there was actually a Doctor Who pinball game? Which seems like one of the most incongruous extensions of a brand I've ever heard of, because, really, it's not like they even made a proper game out of it (and I think Who would make a nifty point-and-click PC adventure a la King's Quest or Curse of Monkey Island), it's just pinball with the characters pastede on yey.
Although two more minutes on Wikipedia tells me there are also various games for obscure consoles and/or CD-ROM, which still seem odd and incongruous to me, mostly because I'm hurting my brain trying to imagine Colin Baker or Patrick Troughton in sprite form.
Although, reportedly, the CD-ROM game has Raston Warrior Robots, which is a substantial point in its favor. It also apparently includes some rather silly-looking clips of Anthony Ainley on a 'shoppy flame background and the posthumous voice of Jon Pertwee, because apparently it wasn't creepy enough when the audios did that.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, I can't be the only one unsettled when the voices of dead actors are used in movies, especially if those actors have been dead for a while (i.e. they didn't die between the end of filming and the release of the movie a la Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). I mean, granted, it doesn't happen very often (the only time I remember it happening was "Laurence Olivier" in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), and it doesn't quite apply in this situation because Pertwee had agreed to appear in the game before his death (though it's more applicable in the case of Zagreus) but when I saw it in Sky Captain all I could think about for the rest of the movie was the Unfortunate Implications.
I mean, Olivier didn't agree to appear in that movie. You don't know he would have had he been alive. (Although hey, doing camp action movies seems to be a Thing for legendary Shakespearean actors, see Exhibit A: Ian McKellan.) If you're an actor of such stature that people would want to use your image, who gets to decide which films you "appear" in? Are you, after your death, to be sold to anyone who pays enough, or will considerations be taken for what sort of work you did and exactly how your image is to be used? Will actors have to start drafting such considerations in their wills, or will that be seen as presumptuous? Of course there are limits to how a dead actor's likeness can be used, as they can't record new reactions or new dialogue, so I can't really believe that using dead actors will be anything beyond a novelty, but it's still creepy.
---
That went on for way longer than I expected. On to the main topic! Also, all generalizations are based on my own experiences and may not apply across all fandoms
Talking with
kindkit recently brought to mind a trend I've noticed in fic; out of all the fic in every fandom I've read, most use either a) first-person POV (which isn't frequent) or b) tight third-person POV, where the narrator is only privy to one character's thoughts and feelings at a time. While I've read some fics that use omniscient POV (either journalistic description-only omniscient POV or an omniscient POV that describes all the characters' thoughts and feelings as appropriate), they're not the majority; most fic only changes POV between scenes if it changes at all. And I think, because most fic (in my experience) is in that tight third person, a switch in POV within a scene can look like the author slipped up. It reads as messy, or just incorrect, even though I think it's technically valid. I'm curious; do you think that a POV switch within a scene actually is sloppy? Or are we just so used to reading the single POV at a time that omniscient POV reads wrong?
For that matter, why do most fics go for tight-third-person? For an introspective fic, or a fic about, say, one character specifically reacting to another, the choice is an obvious one, but even in, say, ship-fic, if the thoughts and feelings of every character involved are included, they're included one at a time. Technically, you could include both of their thoughts in the same scene, and in some cases it might actually better serve the fic to do so. Of course, the switching POV also gives the author a convenient location for a scene break.
Do you find you usually write in limited-third-person POV? Any particular reason why? What affects your choice of POV when writing, or where you switch POV if at all? How would a POV switch within a scene read to you?
---
Oh my gracious it is so late. I really must go to bed, like two hours ago.
tired
(no subject)
POV switching within a scene can be an error (I see it a lot in fics by clearly unpracticed writers who don't seem to realize they're doing it), although it's not the same kind of error as, say, shifting verb tenses. I dislike it because I usually find it disorienting; I've got used to being in one character's thoughts and now I don't seem to be there anymore and it can take a minute to figure out where I am.
I wouldn't say POV shifts within scene are necessarily an error, although I can't think offhand of an author who does it well. Of course there's a long tradition of omniscient narrators who can drop into any character's thoughts, but to my mind that's a novelistic style rather than a short story style. Short stories, to my mind, need more focus. There's also something a bit old-fashioned about the godlike omniscient narrator who reveals Truth to us. On the other hand, an omniscient narration can be used with great effect to create irony, as in Jane Austen or some of Dickens' novels.
What I see often in fanfic, though, is not omniscient narration, it's switching between two or more tight third-person POVs. We're in A's thoughts, then B's, then back to A's, then C's, and there's nothing holding them together. As I said, I get confused.
(no subject)
I'm interested by your reading of the omniscient narrator as old-fashioned and authoritative, though. While I've read that, I've also read very journalistic omniscient POV, which doesn't have the same tinge of authority to me. Would that still read as old-fashioned?
(no subject)
Q is introduced in TNG's pilot episode, and makes several appearances after that and then is featured heavily in the finale in a kind of long, loose story arc. Along the way he does various amusing things, including and not limited to appearing on the bridge of the Enterprise stark naked and making lots of snarky comments about Worf being a primitive brute. Q also makes guest appearances on DS9 and Voyager, some of which are pretty excellent. (And Worf is pretty badass.)
Will actors have to start drafting such considerations in their wills, or will that be seen as presumptuous?
Some already kind of have. Fred Astaire stipulated that he did not want anyone portraying him on film after he died because he thought that would be tacky. Whether that would include using archive footage of him in the way you described would probably be at the discretion of his estate, or whoever owned the rights to the footage in question. Anything that is in the public domain would be fair game without asking permission (which is, I suspect, what may have happened with Olivier).
But you raise a good point, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more people setting conditions for that kind of thing. (For instance, there's been talk of a hologram being made of Michael Jackson that would perform at a tribute concert next June, allowing MJ's brother Jermaine to sing a duet with him. Talk about creepy.)
I'm curious; do you think that a POV switch within a scene actually is sloppy?
Depends on how it's done. If it's truly omniscient third-person, where we're getting insights into everybody all the time, then it's not such a big deal to switch within a scene, because we never stay with any one character long enough to make the change feel jarring.
I'm not a fan of omniscient third-person in most cases because it usually comes across as TMI. However, I've also read books where the author wrote nearly every important scene twice (and sometimes three times!) because they wanted to avoid that dreaded mid-scene POV switch. Then there's George R. R. Martin, who writes books with six or seven POV characters, and each POV gets its own chapter, but that works well because most of them are also in separate plotlines.
I use limited third person most of the time, because I can relate to that and it lets me have multiple POV characters if I need to, unlike first person. I don't use omniscient much anymore because it made me go overboard on detail and it was hard to use without being sloppy. As kindkit said, limited third is good for focusing a short work and omniscient is hard to do well. Plus, I think it's partly a matter of convention these days.
(no subject)
there's been talk of a hologram being made of Michael Jackson that would perform at a tribute concert next June, allowing MJ's brother Jermaine to sing a duet with him.
O___O There are some things from my skiffy that I just really don't want to become reality, and that's up there on the list. Not quite as high as "death rays" but still on the list.
I'm curious as to how much use can be made of archived footage, however, unless the technology emerged to use that archive footage and voice to simulate new movement based on extant patterns of motion. Astaire's clause in his will makes a bit more sense (preventing a biopic specifically), but it doesn't cover what happens if *he's* portraying himself in a film he did not agree to act in. I think, in that case, the "not agreeing to act in" is the crucial part; if someone else portrays him in a film, it's like him appearing in a film he might not have agreed to, which is the same thing happening with resuscitated archive footage.
I still find it unsettling, though.
If it's truly omniscient third-person...we never stay with any one character long enough to make the change feel jarring.
I hadn't thought of that, and I think that's one of the problems that multiple-POV fics have. Rather than just taking a quick peek into each character's head and going back out, a fic with a POV switch would spend a long time in one character's thoughts, so the change would feel more drastic and would impact the story more.
I almost never use first-person myself, now that I think about it; I wonder if it's technically correct or generally done to use multiple first-person POV, so long as they're clearly delineated? But I think that's also the province of longer fiction.
(no subject)
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I've no idea how the Q Collective works in-universe, but whatever it is I do hope someone's manage to technobabble it and the Whoniverse into compliance with each other and write that fanfic.
Shame about Worf, though; given the way Klingons were portrayed in TOS having a Klingon in Starfleet opens up a lot of possibilities (though I'm sure time has passed between TOS and TNG and I'd know that if I was bothered to look it up), not to mention I just have a weakness for the Proud Warrior Race Guy characters.
(no subject)
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I remember there's one DS9 episode where everyone plays baseball? It must have been DS9, because I remember Sisko being there. Anyway, Worf spends that episode standing around in a red pinstriped baseball uniform and matches everyone else's "Hey, batta batta batta" and the like with "Death to the opposition!". I do believe I should investigate DS9 as well. :D