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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction and Writing Resource' started by alienyouthct, Jul 30, 2002.

  1. Juliet316

    Juliet316 Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 27, 2005
    Been there, done that. Way too many times to count.
     
  2. EmeraldJediFire

    EmeraldJediFire Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 23, 2012

    Why do you think I have as many stories as I do?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  3. Skywalker_T-65

    Skywalker_T-65 Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2009
    *raises hand*

    Guilty. :p


    I have only ever finished one fic, and that was because I forced myself into writing several chapters for it before anything else. Not even really fair to say I have a 'main fic' these days.
     
  4. EmeraldJediFire

    EmeraldJediFire Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 23, 2012
    I have two myself. One is more of a main story than the other though


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  5. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    Block text stories. They are hard to read.
     
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  6. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    I have a few finished fics, and about twenty unfinished fics for each finished one. Most of those unfinished stories never see the light of day, and many of the finished ones are simple vignettes. Only a very select few are actually full-fledged short stories or novellas.

    Fanfic pet peeve: Draco in Leather Pants. When one downplays an evil character's bad points and emphasizes or outright makes up good points to the point that the character is unrecognizable from their source characterization. It's one thing to have a sympathetic villain. It's another to have them romanticized to the point that they lose what made them cool in the first place.
     
  7. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    I agree with you TrakNar to a point. Yet, some of us do strive mighty hard to show a character can know love or be redeemed and strive to make it credible. Also sometimes we want to strive and consider a history for a character when it's not given. That very often happens with baddies precisely because most people don't want you to care about them which I consider wrong.

    Likewise a character has more than one source including the performer that plays him which most here seem to dismiss very hastily.
     
  8. Skywalker_T-65

    Skywalker_T-65 Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Personally, I dislike the counterpart to that trope, 'Ron the Death Eater' far and away more. Nothing annoys me quite as much in fanfic as taking a good character (especially if I like the character) and making them downright evil for no good reason.
     
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  9. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    I don't like that either. Yet it does seem many ficcers are one extreme or the other which can be unfortunate.
     
  10. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    Indeed, Ron the Deatheater is far more infuriating, though both can be equally frustrating. It's a blatant distortion of a character's core values which irks me; the same reason why I really don't care for Superman's portrayal in Man of Steel.
     
  11. Goodwood

    Goodwood Jedi Master star 5

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    May 11, 2011
    Would you believe that I have more completed stories than unfinished ones? I actually don't have any unfinished Star Wars stories at all.

    Except the diary, but that's just begun... ;)
     
  12. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    I agree with you TrakNar. I think writers should respect the core of a character if doing fan fic yet I do still thing AU or redemption tales can have much merit if handled carefully and well. After all, isn't growth what characters are supposed to do? Anakin was redeemed and he was the bull dog of the Emperor. If he can be why do you disapprove of me suggesting Tarkin isn't as terribly black as most here think?
     
  13. SiouxFan

    SiouxFan Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Mar 6, 2012
    ^^^Good point, that. Viqi Shesh could be put in the same category…some people do things for political expediency and then find themselves in a hole…a hole that most can't get themselves out of.
     
  14. Goodwood

    Goodwood Jedi Master star 5

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    May 11, 2011
    I'm sorry, but now you're putting Tarkin in a leather dress. Yes, he was always a political creature, but he was an authoritarian who believed that, above all, the ends justified the means. Viqi Shesh was a political mischief-maker who prioritized her own survival, but she was more of a Neville Chamberlain-type and didn't cross the Moral Event Horizon to become a Complete Monster like Tarkin. Tarkin never wanted to get out of that hole, he felt that he was fully-justified in everything he did, and though it is implied rather than stated in any source, he no doubt harbored a secret desire to someday rule the Empire itself.
     
  15. Ewok_Slayer

    Ewok_Slayer Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2004
    Goodwood now has Tarkin in a leather dress. I would love to see some fan art of that. Maybe have Daala with a shock whip and a gimp mask. If you are going to do leather you might as well do it right.

    Edit: Don't forget the safe word is: Fluggaenkdechioebolsen.
     
  16. Space_Wolf

    Space_Wolf Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 13, 2007
    That's why I don't like the more recent EU books. I just cannot see Jacen Solo being evil, so it can happen in profic too. I just don't understand why the writers have to do it.

    At the moment, I am writing a Middle-Earth story based on the Dwarves from the Hobbit. There are some really strange pairings (I could possibly cross this over with the worst ships thread too....) just based on the fact that there aren't many female dwarves. (some of it is on An Archive of Our Own as well) One of the reasons why I am writing it is for people who wanted to read something different to that does not stray into that territory, as well as something for myself. It bothers me that people can come up with such things because I consider it disrespectful to Tolkien and to the literature which Tolkien got much of his inspiration from.
     
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  17. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    Well said, Space Wolf. Yes, I agree. I consider it extremely disrespectful when people change orientations of the originator's characters.

    Indeed it can in profic. I lament both the mishandling of Jacen and Luke and hearing what happened to them and my fave Imperial Gilad basically made me give up the EU. All I cared about were either dead or distorted beyond recognition.
     
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  18. Grade

    Grade Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2013
    I see no problem in changing the character's canon, as long it is stipulated in the fiction I'm going to read is the original timeline or not.

    In case of the original timeline, yes, I'm with some of the people. I want the characters behave like as they were original intended.

    However, if the story I'm going to read, is a "What if", meaning an Alternative Universe from the original timeline, I'm open to various changes in characters, including personality and fate. Of course if the movies are considered canon in this Alternative Universe, I would like the characters that appear in the movies behave like in the movies. But for Eu characters, someone like Daala, for example, to become a rebel operative needs to have a consistent background why she is a rebel. In this example for to be believable, is having Daala, meet a man (which she doesn't on the original timeline). Both of them fall in love, to the point Daala is considering retiring from her military life to focus on her family life. She gets married and all of that. Coming from their honeymoon they landed on Coruscant, during the celebrations of the death of Emperor (the ones that appear RotJ). There is massive Imperial crackdown on the celebrations and Daala's husband is killed during the Imperial crackdown. That for me is clear reason for why Daala becomes a Rebel Agent or even join the Rebel Alliance, since the Empire had killed her husband.

    So I don't mind changing characters in Alternative Universes, because it is something different from original timeline, as long as it explains in a 2+2=4 kind of way, why some characters behave so differently. In some cases these characters grow to be much more depth, then the original.
     
  19. Skywalker_T-65

    Skywalker_T-65 Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2009
    You see, that's my problem with most alternate-character stories. They don't justify changing the characters, AU or not. Often times, it is just because the author either hates the character, or hates that they get in the way of TRUE LOVETM

    That is what annoys me.
     
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  20. Grade

    Grade Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2013
    I do see what you mean. It is peeve of my aswell.

    One of characters I wrote in short story, recently tells a tale of woman, that OT she is bad as she could get and in my AU, she is one of the good guys, by simply changing one thing that personaly feel changed her entire personality.

    Instead of growing up with her absence and bad influence of father, she was raised of always present grandfather and taught her well. So she has grown to have different personality and moral standing.
     
  21. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2006
    I agree with both Grade and T-65's points. I don't mind a well done and detailed AU if it's explained why the character is different believably. It's super annoying that many seem to fic simply to whitewash or blacklist characters according to personal taste. IF I did a Tarkin redeption fic I would not whitewash him I would show he was a conflicted, grey man that did make horrible choices and had to live the the scars of it but I would also show he is a *man*.
     
  22. Admiral Volshe

    Admiral Volshe Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    A recent pet peeve I have figured out (that includes profic!), is authors pushing themselves to use language that they would not usually use. It really only applies if either they do it in excess (it starts to get choppy and far too complex), it doesn't make sense (using words incorrectly or using words in a technically-accurate-but-awkward way*), and their vocabulary/descriptions vary greatly from their usual voice.

    *This can work well for emphasis or if used to characterise. Most of the time, it's not used in a way that adds to the story.

    It's quite obvious to me and usually will turn me off of a book or fic. It makes it unbelievable or jolts me from the story. I only just put my finger on it today.
     
  23. Cushing's Admirer

    Cushing's Admirer Chosen One star 7

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    Jun 8, 2006
    Is that due to my style by any chance?
     
  24. Ewok_Slayer

    Ewok_Slayer Jedi Master star 2

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    Nov 24, 2004
    There are a some SW authors who obviously have a tremendous vocabulary. I know I look up a lot of confusing words in Michael Reaves books. Words like sobriquet, portmanteau, promulgated, or rictus are words I've ever used and I had to look up the first two. I really think Reaves uses those words naturally though. He just has a much better grasp of the English language than I do.

    The worst offender is the political writer Ann Coulter. I picked up one of her books in the library and tried to read a few pages. It was like she went through every sentence that she wrote and said, "Hmmm…I wonder if there is a more highbrow and confusing way to word this?"
     
  25. Goodwood

    Goodwood Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2011
    Ewok_Slayer: The first two words in your list are French.

    As for Ann Coulter, she is not to be considered an "author" in any sense of the word. Like Rush Limbaugh, I would be very surprised to learn that she penned them herself (Rush used a ghostwriter, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, for his first two books). Plus, her "works" are nonfiction "opinion-based" drivel that is just...words fail me.