At 07:30 PM 5/14/99 -0700, you wrote:

If you're not writing the story for anybody except yourself, don't give it
to anybody except yourself.  This will keep writers and readers from being
disappointed.

Of course, I doubt you could legislate this in anyway.  The author can
do whatever the hell he feels like doing.  That's not the issue, however.
We're talking about how heavily series consistency and unjustified
characterizations weigh in the general audiences mind.  I said that
any assertion that it matters significantly is utter bullshit.  The
other side has yet to produce the factual evidence to back their
claims.  Instead, they outline often ridiculous, unclever analogies
that really digress from the topic.  I, on the other hand, cited trends
in the entertainment market and emphasized that in some cases the 
general audience does not consist of even a large minority of devoted
fans.

-The Reverend Prez

*  *  *

+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+     Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic    +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion  |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|