fanfic lesson of the day

[ciroccoj]

One of the things I try to do whenever I'm almost done a fic is to get the 'voices' right and try to picture the character saying the lines I've written for them. Eg, Lennie Briscoe could conceivably say something like "Well, you know, there's nothing like divorce to really cement a friendship." He'd be less likely, IMHO, to say, "My heart beats in passion only for you, o fairest Jack. Because you're my snuggly-wuggly."

In order to do this, I try to have whatever source I'm using for the fanfic playing in the background for a bit, while I check for spelling and punctuation, and then go over what I've written and see if I can hear the characters speaking the dialogue as written. I often end up tweaking a little here or there - dropping some final g's, taking out or putting in flowery language, whatever.

This was no problem whatsoever for the L&O fandom; I'm a self-respecting L&O fan and thus have about twelve shelves of VCR tapes with eps from season 1-14, as well as the DVDs for seasons 1&2.

It's a little tougher for Harry Potter. For one thing, it's sometimes hard to decide whether to be faithful to the voices in the books, or in the movies. For another thing, there's only three movies. We own them all, but it's a little disconcerting to have only about 6 hours of audio to work with, after the wealth of audio in L&O. It also gets a little boring. Movies have a lot less dialogue and more scenery shots than TV shows.

And today I discovered another downside to the HP fandom; when it comes to hearing the voices, I've really only got the last movie to work with for what I'm writing. Which was all I'd been using anyway so far. The characters as I'm writing them are 38 years old; I wasn't terribly worried about getting the voices right, since people change a great deal between adolescence and adulthood, but I'd figured it would probably be more helpful to have the voices of the characters at age thirteen than age eleven.

Um, yeah. Not only is it more helpful, though a little dull; it's actually detrimental to hear the 11-year old voices. Daniel and Justin wanted to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone tonight at dinner. I said OK and we watched about an hour. Then I put them to bed and went off to finish my fic. And discovered that it's completely disorienting, trying to figure out dialogue for two grown men, when there's high little piping eleven-year old voices in my head.

Arg. Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

::little voices still chatting away happily::

Shut up! Will you shut up!

...and somewhere a little tiny Harry-voice chirps, "Did you see her repressing me? That's just what I'm on about!"

Comments

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

Witness the violence inherent in the fanfic system!

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Bloody peasaaaants!!

::still swatting at the little voices, one of which is rather incensed at being called a peasant::

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! See, this is what I love about writing in POTC. There's only ONE film, so you can't get confused by the book/movie dichotomy. The only other "canon" besides the film are the cheesy "disney adventures" comics, which no one counts.

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

And the answer to the question you asked in my journal, btw? guede_mazaka, who is a very talented fanfic writer and a beautiful poet as well.

I'll miss her fic.

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

He'd be less likely, IMHO, to say, "My heart beats in passion only for you, o fairest Jack. Because you're my snuggly-wuggly."

Monitor wipe, please. (Someone should email this to Purplegreen. SNORK.)

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

I was wondering as I wrote it whether it was coming from my own seriously disturbed imagination, or was in fact a quote from one of her fics ;)

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she could have written that - and been totally serious about it.

::gag::

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

What does it say on that icon beneath 'Stone'? No matter how hard I squint...

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

I have no friggin' clue - I didn't make the icon. (I like to imagine that it says "Bestest and most squee prosecutor in the history of, like, ever.")

[jessebee.livejournal.com]

or was in fact a quote from one of her fics ;)

Oh, gods, please tell me you've not read her--ahem--"fic" closely enough to be quoting it!!! Are you feverish???

Medic!!!

[officerjudy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really - can that stuff even be *called* "fic"?

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

or was in fact a quote from one of her fics

That's my vote. I bet that could be dropped into any of 'em.

::retches quietly::

I don't know what the problem is

[animaltalker.livejournal.com]

men are still boys - no matter how old they get! Don't you know that from living with on?

There are some characters that are tough.
Lennie is a bit difficult if you've listened to Jerry Orbach as other characters recently or seen him in an interview. The actor has a much more refined vocabulary than the character and it's tempting to make Lennie as erudite as Jerry Orbach. I just keep trying to remind myself Lennie's smart, just a different kind of smart.

The one's that really get me are people writing Ed Green as though he grew up on the streets of Harlem (no check his back story he's much more an international sort of guy)