The Eternal Lost Lurker wrote:

Allow me to attempt to explain, once again, a few of the finer points of
fanfiction, writing, and related issues.

Although all your points are valid, Lurker, I think you overlooked
a couple of things.

Kaydee, you have a lot of energy and imagination.  Unfortunately,
there's no sense of discipline to it.  Many of your short posts
are like the literary equivalent of a muscle spasm.  Just because
an idea occurs to you doesn't mean it should get slapped into a
file as fast as you can type it and then posted to the list.  Sit
on an idea for a while.  Nurture it, mull over it, think about
where it goes.  Someone else's complaint of "Luna's not gay!"
aside, this might be the seed of a good altiverse fic.  Note that
I said "seed" -- what you've got is an attempt at a joke that
falls flat.  But if you *start* with this as a "what if?", you
might find an interesting direction to take an otherwise canon
SM universe.

Second point:  Imagination and energy aren't enough.  You need
to understand better how language works.  Words and the rules
for using them are your tools, and you need a better handle on
how they work.  Otherwise you're like a beginning woodworker
trying to carve a statue and ending up with a misshapen lump of
wood and a pile of wood shavings.  There is a rhythm to well-
written prose, which your posts often lack.  You need to learn
that rhythm.  Do you have a favorite book?  Do you have a
favorite passage in that book?  Read it out loud to yourself.
Several times.  Read your fic or fics out loud right after.
Try and figure out what's different.  Not every possible
arrangement of words sounds good, either as narrative or as
dialogue.  If you can't hear a difference between your favorite
book and your fics, you may want to talk to an English teacher
or perhaps look into getting Strunk and White's "Elements of
Style".

[sm][spamfic][lame]
See how much neater and less complicated that is?

Lurker, you're breaking your own rules.  "Lame" is as much an
opinion as "funny".

4. The actual content itself...doesn't really do anything of interest. It's
just a punchline to the title, and it's not even that clever or funny of a
punchline. 

Kaydee, Lurker has a major point here.  A joke, or a good spamfic,
has a "hook" at the beginning -- something outrageous, or curious,
or mysterious, that's supposed to make the reader wonder or
speculate.  Even a joke has *tension* that the punchline has to
release or resolve, and the "how" of the resolution makes for a
lot of the humor.  There's no tension here, so there's no humor.

To reiterate:  learn your tools.  Understand how language works,
how sentences go together.  Read your favorite authors aloud
and try making your own writing sound like theirs.  (It's okay
to start by copying a style; once you get the hang of what
you're doing, your own style will emerge on its own.)

-- Bob

===============================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck          rms@eclipse.net         http://www.eclipse.net/~rms
===============================================================================
Please to remember
Eleven September --
Hijack, destruction and plot.
Our outraged reaction
To terrorist action
Should never be forgot.
===============================================================================


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'