Recently, I did a sweep of the web to see what other Slayers
fanfiction was out there, since there seems to have been a boom
in links to new fanfic on the Anime Web Turnpike. Pleased to see
my currently favorite anime series getting such popularity,
I cruised.
Actually, I've talked to a couple of those people who admitted they were
directly inspired by you to write their Slayers fics. Apparently SR and SC
have been an inspiration to at least a couple of the fifteen-odd thousand
folks who've hit your site.
Biggest problems :
! AUTHOR INDUCED ROMANCE - The author has paired up Lina with
someone, and assumes from word one that they're in total love with
each other. No explanation given.
WHY IT'S BAD : Fits like a round peg in a square hole. Changes
characters just because the author prefers this
particular match. If developed over the entire
run of a series, with satisfying explanation
given, it's acceptable.
Ah, but developed over the course of WHICH series? The fanfic or the anime?
There aren't, upon close inspection, that many GUYS who are part of the main
Slayers cast. You've got Gourry, Zelgadis, and Xelloss. No other regular
males.
For two of these (Gourry and Xelloss, the two most common Lina matchups that
I've seen) you don't really NEED to do a lot of fic-related backround. There's
already been established romantic tension between these people. You just need
a deus ex machina to get things going, and the lovefest can commence.
! SELF INSERTION - The author becomes a character in the series,
usually as the hero of the day with interesting powers. Usually
involves 'dimensional travel' and awareness of Slayers as an
anime series.
WHY IT'S BAD : Lessens the other characters. Looks like a wild
ego trip. Ranma fanfic community burned badly
by really horrible fic in this genre, because it's
considered very obnoxious... even when well written,
with the author downplayed, the stigma attached is
nasty.
I personally agree with you, but sometimes, somehow, through an extraordinary
bit of luck, someone writes an SI that becomes popular, well-liked, and dare I
say it, even a classic. "Sauce" comes to mind, as does "Bubblegum Zone,"
(although I still wonder how many goats Bert had to offer up as sacrifice to
make THAT piece of schlock accepted) and a couple others. Mark me, there'll be
a Slayers SI sometime soon that'll be considered a good piece of work.
! AUTHOR WISH FUFILLMENT - Dead characters (sometimes evil) are brought
back to life and made into heroes because the author liked them.
WHY IT'S BAD : Lessens the other characters. Looks like a wild
ego trip. Can range from truly blatant worship of
a character to simply a strange element that the
reader may not be as enthusiastic about.
Agreed. It's kind of like the obsession people have with resurrecting Largo in
BGC fics, except that Largo is never even REMOTELY a good guy.
It's also fun when the author has charachters that should be dead alive and
doesn't explain how. I've seen Zolf and Rodimus pop up once or twice with
absolutley no info given on just why they aren't black smears on the inside of
Rezo's tower.
! CONFUSING INTRO - No setup or establishment of where these people
are or what they're doing is present. Not explaining who Lina is
is forgivable; assuming we know an obscure character from two
episodes of Try or an original character isn't.
Agreed. It's not a big problem if your reader has done a lot of pre-fic
research (I've never so much as glimpsed an episode with Xelloss or Filia in
it, but after cruising the web for awhile and reading a lot of fics, I can
discuss both of them in hip, knowing ways) but otherwise it can throw readers
way the hell off. Just a few sentences explaining how the charachter is
suppposed to act is generally a life-saver.
WHY IT'S BAD : Slayers is a complex series, and a lot of it lies
in fansubs, which are NOT easy to get a hold of.
Anything not in the domestic releases needs some
kind of introduction. Anything. Even Xelloss.
I disagree with this one point. Xelloss is one of the "big six": Naga, Lina,
Gourry, Zelgadis, Amelia, and Xelloss. If you don't know at LEAST who these
people are, you've got no business reading a Slayers fic. I don't expect
people to have done the kind of intensive background searches I preform
regularly, but it's just plain irresponsible not to stop by a General Info
site before you dive into a story. Not knowing who Martina or Filia are is one
thing: not knowing who Naga or Xelloss are is another.
More basic problems :
? SHORT - Maybe 3-10k of text is included in each part. Sometimes
you can fit a whole 'chapter' on the screen at once.
WHY IT'S BAD : Looks more like an excuse than a story. Plot feels
truncated, characters are shallow. You don't need
to write War and Peace, but more than a page is a
good idea.
Some of us are men of few words. I personally have a lot of trouble filling up
enough space to be what I consider an adequate chapter, but towards the end I
find myself sticking in lots of flowery "filler" words just to lengthen the
thing, because I've done everything I needed to in that part.
? LACK OF ORIGINAL FLAVOR - The fic is a crossover, an elseworlds or
otherwise not pure Slayers. Usually Ranma 1/2 is used.
That's just plain foolishness. Ranma and Slayers do NOT mix well at all. It's
one of those things where people want to cross two series they love so badly
they're willling to do some incredibly ridiculous deus ex machina plot device
to force the two sets of charachters together.
WHY IT'S BAD : Right now, original flavored fanfic is in the
minority, with these genres dominating. As a result,
reading a Slayers fanfic has less chance of being
ABOUT Slayers alone, or IN the Slayers universe.
Instead, we get a percentage of Slayers, mixed in
with something else, as our standard fic formula.
How is this bad, exactly? So they're crossovers, and crossovers happen to be
dominating right now. Big deal. Just because something is in the majority and
is fast loosing it's uniqueness doesn't make it bad.
Besides, can you honestly say that Reflect and Chaos don't have VERY strong
Elseworlds (I love that word: "Barkeep, bring me another Elseworlds!") themes
going into them? ^_^
? UNUSUAL TONE - The mood and tone of Slayers is not a large part of
the fanfic; it's either absurdly silly or deathly serious without
being both.
WHY IT'S BAD : More a personal taste thing. Not too many attempts
have been made at mixing the serious and silly the
way original episodes of Slayers does. Darkfics
are usually solid, if overdramatic, but Sillyfics
can go way over the top and lose the reader if not
done carefully.
For some bizarre reason, people think the Slayers world is either like the
Lodoss War world or the Dragon Half world, instead of the funky combination of
both that makes it so damn endearing and popular. It's sometimes hard to go
right down the middle; human nature likes to head towards extremes. I
personally think it's because extremes are easier to quantify, and you don't
have to think as much with them.
Minor/Less Common Problems :
. THIN PROSE - It's written in prose format, but contains very little
narration, description, action, etc... mostly just dialogue.
Script would work better in those cases.
WHY IT'S BAD : Script allows you to be lax on the non-quoted prose,
and concentrate on your strengths. It's difficult
to establish a 'voice' for the narrator.
Ordinarily, I'd offer scathing retorts against script form at this jucture,
but that would risk blossoming into the always boisterous and never resolved
"script vs prose" arguement, and I don't want to bother the list with that.
That's why we have Fanfic Panels at conventions.
Watch your back at Otakon, Twoflower. ^_-
. PLAIN HTML - It's written in HTML, but doesn't do much to take
advantage of that fact. No tabs to make it feel like printed text;
sometimes difficult to read due to layout or arbitrary color
selections.
WHY IT'S BAD : Taste issue again - I feel that you should write
for the medium you choose. If you're writing straight
text, suitable for FFML/RAAC posting as well, that's
cool... if you're writing just for the web, it needs
to be a readable web page. And don't forget that
you can jazz it up with a few pictures, if you have
software/time to do it.
I take a little offense at this, actually. Not ALL of us know how to use HTML
very well; I personally can't even figure out the whole " " thing yet. We
just don't have anything else to put our story on.
We can't all be kickass programmers with our own servers and the ability to
create wonderfully artistic pages with cool dropcap images, you know. Some of
us are barely getting by on the scant knowledge that we've actually had to
work pretty hard to acquire. So cut us some slack, okay?
. JUST ZELGADIS - It's about Zel. And that's all. Any other
characters are original, obscure or authors self inserted.
WHY IT'S BAD : Fine for Zelworship, I suppose... but see the problem
with Crossovers above. There are only so many Zelfics
I can read before passing out.
Amen to that. If you're going to worship the rocky one, try to do it with a
little bit of class.
Right now, I'd hazard that Reflect and Chaos are guilty of Thin Prose
from time to time, and Author Wish Fufillment. I've tried to avoid
the others, though. Up to you folks to decide if I was successful.
Hell yes. Those stories rock, man. Although I still have issues with Zelgrey's
untimely demise..... but I won't bring that up just now. <g>
-2f
-Mercutio
"A plague 'a both your houses!"