People, followers, readers, friends. I need to ask... · 10:46pm Apr 17th, 2015
... what did I do in Stay???
And I really meant it. What did i do in Stay?
[Warning, Wave's about to rant. Save yourselves and just jump to the last two lines. Really, everything else is just filling.]
Today, one of the mods of The GodFic Bin group took their time to see which ones of my stories are, well, good fics. The first two to be reviewed were, for better or worse, exactly the ones I wrote with nothing of a care about form and jut had my fun with the written word. I'm talking about Showdown!... and Once upon a time... Both stories had a structurally superfluous new behind teared by reviewers... as most of my stories whenever I dare to ask for a review.
Expect for Stay.
Whether I like it or not, every time a reviewer gets even close to Stay, it will end in praises. I'm not kidding, 100% of feedback I've had so far, requested and voluntary, about that story is so positive that I can't look at that story anymore.
Why? May you guys ask. Because Stay is so far and so different from everything I like to write that I can't even understand how I managed to do it.
In fact, the first thing I admit about that story is that it's me playing against type. I look back at it and try to do it again, but I can't. The closest I've come is Show MUST Go On!, and even that one is not even close to being as good as Stay and, even if it were, it gets easily overshadowed by Stay.
What I'm trying to say here is that, so far, my best achievement in writing FiMFiction comes from me doing everything I either don't understand, or don't like about FiMFiction.
Does it means I've come to hate my own creation? Hell no! Stay is, for better or worse, my work. People now how protective I can be around my fics, and I'm not making any difference.
But I still want to ask, for those who know my other works, what did I do in Stay that makes it so good at everyone's eyes? Does any other of my stories, any of them, have that same potential?
Or I'm just cursed to be like M. Night Shyamalan? One good creation and a myriad of average works.
Hard to say, but my to bits are rather basic ideas:
A good fic isn't the same as a fun story.
Sometimes authors write something they can never match again. (Seriously, I wrote an opening for a story about the last celestial in a world were all the gods of good have been killed. It's three paragraphs long and perfect, but anything I attempt to write to expand on that simply falls apart on me.)
In the end, I'd say, write what's fun first. People are obsessed with fame. Don't worry about fame. Have fun instead.
Go home Wave you're drunk
come on again about this ?
you got a lot of success with Stay because of how nice it is, you wrote it for fun and just like your other fics, by that, you made your characters likable.
the human isn't just here to bang Twilight or Chrysalis, and you present us the Changelings in a new light with a whole culture and a new lore, how could we not like this ?
Well, given I've only read three of your stories, I couldn't say for sure if it was unique to Stay or not, but the reason I accepted Stay was for its atmosphere, believably realistic conflict, and how it showed that not everything has a right or wrong answer, which made it seem a lot deeper than most fanfics I've seen, which gave me ample reason to include it, despite the grammar. And I'm sorry for my Once Upon a Time review, which only focused on the negatives, even though there was quite a bit to like too. (By the way, thanks for the new group name. I'll go ask Biker if we can change our name to 'Godfic Bin'. Cheers
)
Although I haven't really read many of your other stories, I have noticed some trends in there descriptions, and in your blogs. Firstly they are mostly crossovers. Now I personally tend to avoid crossovers for several reasons. Firstly a suspicion that if a person is bringing in a character from somewhere else rather then making there own, they aren't very good a characterization. Now OCs may have a bad reputation, because there are some bad ones out there, I genially think it is better then taking a character from anther story and putting that in. Next I have to question why they are writing this? Is there reason has simple has "I like A I like B if I put them together it must be great!" There are only two crossover fics I read Last of the first and Stardust a Bioshock and X-com cross over respectively. Both focuses on OCs, and expanding the games universe then anything that can be considered fan service.
Next most of your stories are very action oriented. Action is very hard to convey in words. There are very few examples of action being done well in a written medium, and even when it is it's best left to a small portion. Action in writing is most often vague, and focusing on what the characters are experiencing, rather then what they are actually doing.
Now why is Stay great. It is very emotional. The entire story is jest an emotional exercise, and when it is this well done that's a good thing. The conflict comes from competing needs of two different people. Both sides are relatable, and the question is valid. Not jest kill one to save many, but should one be bound by the needs of the many? lastly, an ambiguous ending. I know many demanded and probably still do want more for Stay (myself included) but that is not nesecarally a bad thing. Stay is a question without an answer, and when you do that, the audience pretty much write the story for you.
Okay people, first of all, a disclaimer here; believe it or not, I’m not undergoing another identity crisis/heroic BSOD. I repeat it again. I’m NOT undergoing another of my, apparently infamous, wangst moments. Yeah, I’m surprised too.
All of this was just plain and simple curiosity that was burning my skull as its usual when I don’t know something. Provably I shouldn’t have hammed it up that much.
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Oh, I always try to have fun. But I’m also an artist (or at least I try to be one), regardless of fame, I would like to know if Stay was just a happy accident or if it’s within the extent of my abilities as a writer to do something like that.
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Hmm, that reminds me of an actual Deadshot quote: “Stick to what you're good”.
I suppose that, what really make Stay different from the others is that every trope played there was straight and for drama, instead of defied, lampshaded or other subversions I like to do.
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Read the disclaimer above. Now about the characters, I think there’s another point were Stay stands out; the characters. Instead of loas and loads of characters, I stay (see what I did there?) with a minimalistic cast, which gives a way more lot of space for characterization.
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And atmosphere, another pont that Stay has and other my fics don’t. Don’t apologize for the review. The negative ones are usually more useful because the reviewer not only says ‘good or bad’, but also goes out of his way to explain ‘why’, which is really what helps author like me to improve.
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Actually, I prefer crossing over a character rather than making up a new one, because I believe that every character and idea deserves a second consideration. Also, because the idea of mixing two settings really fascinates me, how two similar, or radically different, concepts would interact.
*hides the ‘Action Fanfics’ project under the carpet*
And the emotionality. That one I deduced, but it felt too manipulative. Still, that didn’t stop me from trying the same stunt wit Show MUST Go On!