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okay, i'll give it a try
Ten Ways You Might Be Able To Tell You're Reading A Story I Wrote, by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darthfox.
10. There's at least one throwaway detail that's completely overresearched. No kidding, I looked up the position of the signs of the zodiac over Ottery St Mary on 2 November 1979, y'all. Can anyone tell us why I'd have done such a thing? No, thought not, because the moment in the finished product is utterly insignificant.
9. There's not a lot of fanon. I don't have the skill for turning fanon completely on its ear thatjacquez does (nor for seizing a bit of canon and making it absolutely literal; I very much liked her Ray Kowalski who really had a head injury, and I adored her Blair Sandburg who meant it when he said he'd flown Apaches in Desert Storm), but I'm more than happy to ignore things that aren't actually canon, and I'm pretty conservative about what counts.
8. That said, the characters are all probably a little ... better than they are in canon. Nicer, smarter, better-looking, more articulate; in some way, I probably miss the characterization by a point or so in the character's favor most of the time. Is it because I'm a preposterous romantic? Who knows.
7. Someone's going to have a day's worth or so of stubble, and someone else is going to like that a lot. So I project a little. Sue me.
6. Nobody talks much during sex. Or if they do, the dialogue is unreported. In fact the sex, though present, is probably less graphic than in a lot of other people's stuff -- though I could have that impression because nobody talks much. I don't know.
5. It does not contain the word blond (nor blonde). Men are blond and women are blonde, but I get so fermisht trying to decide if hair is masculine or feminine that I only ever describe it as fair.
4. But people (and things) are not described unless the description is relevant to the plot. Meaning the POV character mustn't have seen them before, either. (I had a Lucius Malfoy-POV narrator describe Molly Weasley thus: "She looked like Molly Weasley." Really not kidding.)
3. The narrator is normally pretty reliable. Or, failing that, hopefully sympathetic. This is not because I don't think unreliable narrators are worth writing; it's really mainly because I'm not very good at juggling.
2. Now that I think about it, someone is likely to be keeping a secret. That's not always the source of the story's central conflict, but it's usually at least a B-plot.
And the Number One way you might be able to tell you're reading a story I wrote:
1. You beta-read it.
darthfox.10. There's at least one throwaway detail that's completely overresearched. No kidding, I looked up the position of the signs of the zodiac over Ottery St Mary on 2 November 1979, y'all. Can anyone tell us why I'd have done such a thing? No, thought not, because the moment in the finished product is utterly insignificant.
9. There's not a lot of fanon. I don't have the skill for turning fanon completely on its ear that
jacquez does (nor for seizing a bit of canon and making it absolutely literal; I very much liked her Ray Kowalski who really had a head injury, and I adored her Blair Sandburg who meant it when he said he'd flown Apaches in Desert Storm), but I'm more than happy to ignore things that aren't actually canon, and I'm pretty conservative about what counts.8. That said, the characters are all probably a little ... better than they are in canon. Nicer, smarter, better-looking, more articulate; in some way, I probably miss the characterization by a point or so in the character's favor most of the time. Is it because I'm a preposterous romantic? Who knows.
7. Someone's going to have a day's worth or so of stubble, and someone else is going to like that a lot. So I project a little. Sue me.
6. Nobody talks much during sex. Or if they do, the dialogue is unreported. In fact the sex, though present, is probably less graphic than in a lot of other people's stuff -- though I could have that impression because nobody talks much. I don't know.
5. It does not contain the word blond (nor blonde). Men are blond and women are blonde, but I get so fermisht trying to decide if hair is masculine or feminine that I only ever describe it as fair.
4. But people (and things) are not described unless the description is relevant to the plot. Meaning the POV character mustn't have seen them before, either. (I had a Lucius Malfoy-POV narrator describe Molly Weasley thus: "She looked like Molly Weasley." Really not kidding.)
3. The narrator is normally pretty reliable. Or, failing that, hopefully sympathetic. This is not because I don't think unreliable narrators are worth writing; it's really mainly because I'm not very good at juggling.
2. Now that I think about it, someone is likely to be keeping a secret. That's not always the source of the story's central conflict, but it's usually at least a B-plot.
And the Number One way you might be able to tell you're reading a story I wrote:
1. You beta-read it.
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This is one of the reasons I go a little crazy every time someone posts to a community with something like "Who knows who the president of the US is?" Baby research? Do it on your own! :)