ciroccoj | Author Appreciation Week, last post

Twins of Hazzard: These two are flat-out insane. Their parodies are vivid proof that consuming large quantities of high quality crack need not be a deterrent to writing well - in fact, it can be inspiring.

Let's see if I can give a very brief sampling of their stories:

Footsie. Mentos (the fresh maker). Lenni!'s nipple. Sunset at 9:30am. Ruby red satin teddy, matching garter belt and fishnets. Handsome Ben. Born To Be Wild. The Schiff crumple-face. The censored strip show. Mr. T. "I'm really not Big. I mean, I'm large, but-I'm not Big. I'm definitely large, though. Let's just make that clear."

Unfortunately, they only wrote three Law & Order stories before either moving on to other fandoms or moving away from writing or going their separate ways, don't know which. And they never finished the last one, "Profaci Saves The Day", although it's still worth a read just for the semi-hallucinatory agglomeration of hysterical images, never mind the plot twists.

Go! Revel in the madness!
Karen Howard-Joly writes Jack, mainly. Almost exclusively. She treats Jack gently, not really going into his character flaws much, but still staying true to his character instead of turning him into some saintly fighter for peace, justice and the American way wholly divorced from the ambitious, driven, and often ruthless guy we see onscreen.

My two favourites of hers are

The Helper
There But For The Grace

The Helper answers the questions What would Jack, whose main character trait is brilliance and verbal prowess, do, if he didn't have either? What would happen to him? How would he cope? How would others see him?

There But For The Grace answers the question of how Jack ended up on the right side of the law despite his tough childhood. And what might have happened to him if things had gone just a little differently.

One thing I find really neat about both stories is that she's obviously done her research. This is a particular niggly sticking point for me, but I get really turned off by stories where the author very clearly has no idea what they're writing about.

Not that you have to be an authority on everything before putting pen to paper/fingers to keyboard. And sometimes you're gonna get it wrong, and sometimes you'll just take creative licence and say "I know sixty year old women can't have babies, but [insert deus ex machina here] so yes, in this story, Nora can and does." (And BTW, yuck).

But it really narks me when fanfic authors write about, say, heart attacks with no idea of what they are like. Or babies, and have six month-olds speaking. Or First Aid, and assume that if you whack a dead person on the chest a bunch of times, they'll eventually come back to life breathing and conscious, with no ill effects from being dead for several minutes and having been beaten into consciousness. Oops, sorry, that wasn't a fanfic - that was an episode of Lost.

Karen researched brain damage and recovery from same, extensively. She also must have researched abusive childhood, because her story was highly plausible. Both are serious topics, deserving authenticity, not quickie shoddy incorporation into a fic because hey, angst sells. I mean, it's intriguing to explore how characters would deal with certain difficult situations, but I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that real people deal with them too. Real people who deserve more respect than to see the events/issues that traumatize their lives treated as an easy angst-generators for some fictional character./end rant> ;)

Karen's website: Prosecutorial Discretion: A Law & Order FanFic Site
So, sugarkane_59. Hmm... I don't really have anything to add to what woffproff wrote.

Later Note: OK, maybe I do ;)

The thing I love the most is how much her writing has improved since her first posts. And damn, I have no idea how to say that without sounding like some snooty critic passing judgment on other's works as though they are the last word on Fine Literature. This is all just IMHO, my personal opinion, and not really indicative of anything.

OK, how's this: it's not 'improvement' so much as getting closer to my own personal preferences in terms of what I like to read.

I liked her early pieces. They were pretty good, and I usually read them and thought, "Yeah, that's nice." But I didn't immediately cheer when I saw her name on the lj fic communities.

Then I started to notice that with almost every story, she was putting more depth into the characters, making them sound more like themselves, getting the plot moving more evenly, etc. The endings were becoming more subtle and understated. Her descriptions were more I don't know what, but they gave off clearer images, for me at least.

Then she wrote about Ben thinking of Shambala. Hey!

Drowning

Then came an unexpectedly bitter POV from Claire. Oh.

Reflection

Then a story arc about Jack and Ben, that drew on personal experience, came out heartfelt and filled with small realistic details that added enormously to the overall plot and feel, yet stayed faithful to the characters and the show without a single hint of Mary Sueism.

A Promise Kept
When Darkness Falls

And then she wrote an unexpected pairing that was a really tough sell, but worked. Really worked. The characters and their choices and the aftermath, written so that instead of finishing up with "is this woman on crack?" it came out as "Well... that was unexpected. But yeah, I guess it could have happened..." And in less than 250 words, too. Wow!

Aftershock of a different kind

And around that time, I realized that I was cheering when I saw her name. And had been, for quite a while. And was hoping to do so, more and more. So that when this piece came out, its subject and plot were a surprise, but the fact that I loved it was not :)

Wreckage.

Write on!

sugarkane_59's ff.n fic index