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My Kingdom for a Plot....
Sep. 23rd, 2003 12:58 pmMini rant mode switched to "On":
What the hell?! Do people NOT know how to plot?! Plot is essential to good storytelling, people. Get over it and DEAL! I have NO problem with the major protagonists of a novel at Pan Historia getting laid. I applaud it, heartily in fact, but honestly, if I have to read any more story posts in "666 West End Avenue", "Limit of Art", and "Tombstone" of nothing more than gratuitous groping and rediculously long and drawn out bedroom scenes with NO OTHER SUBSTANCE whatsoever in the way of plot built around these "erotic" events, I am going to scream! And for the record, my use of the word "erotic" is rather loose. I prefer to see something truly sexy, erotic and steaming. Four or five pages of "Oh baby, Oh!" just on its own is NOT sexy! I don't care what you have been told. It really is not good writing. It certainly might work for some porn shop dime novels, but it is not even remotely entertaining if you are doing a profusion of sounds and 'oohs' and 'ah's' and "Mmmm's!" with no descriptives or built anticipation and heightened sensory awarenesses. Is your reader in the room with you> Or are they outside in the hallway with thier ear glued to the door, listening to the matresss springs squeak and trying to decide which is more shrill, the springs of the bed or your characters' ridiculous squeals? I think the reader would rather be in the room. So don't be a chicken and bring them inside! ;-) And in case you haven't sat down to think about it, other than that sexual event, none of this contains much of a plot or dialogue either. Come on! What was the absolute best pickup line you ever heard? Think about it! Write it down! What was the most smoldering thing that you ever heard an actress or actor on the big screen say that made your knees go weak? Write that one down! I will bet you a winning lottery ticket, it was not "Baby, oh, baby....OH!" People who cannot plot their way out of a storytelling paper bag make me crazy. Can you tell? Yeah, I thought so.
Goddamn it! Where is the blood and guts and gore? Where is the bloody PLOT!? Let's see some action, and I am not just talking about the old in-and -out thrust here! For crying out loud! Have a bunch of S.W.A.T. guys drop through the skylight with guns blazing because there is a money laundering drug dealer terrorists from Bolivia down the hallway and somehow these guys got the wrong apartment and interrupted our lovers! But wait! She is a Bolivian, too! Is she a terrorist? Does she know the guy down the hallway? Is this a set up? Do we care?! Make it interesting. After its over, I dont want it to be IT. Make me, the other readers want more!
"Gee honey, the strangest thing happened to me on the way to the bedroom. I don't know how to tell you this but...."
So here I am, writing this rant so that I don't have to focus on cleaning or writing that bloody airstrike that I am supposed to be writing for the story over in Tango Cattivo at PanHistoria. I have a "modern" Aisha over there. Her name in the storyline is actually Aisha Khatib, the daughter of a drug lord who gets caught up with a Cypriot money launderer by the name of Nikos Christodoulakis. Her family comes after them both - a sort of honor killing type of affair - and all before she has even slept with the guy! What is wrong with this picture?! What is wrong is that in the midst of the plot and the blowing up things in NYC and Amsterdam and the Ukraine that we have scarcely had time for the two of them to contemplate if they are even interested in sex with each other. Although I am assured that this is going to probably happen soon. *sigh* Balance, always balance.
I have seen some really good POTC fiction lately. I love the work of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
firesignwriter and d_r_o_n_e, elspethdixon, and lakenaiad to name just a few. Why do I think they are good? Well, they write very good and compelling fiction and best of all, each of them has demonstrated an ability to plot. I have seen all of them do this, both within the storyline set down in the movie and well outside of it. Each one shows versitility and imagination. This is decidedly something something that in fanfic especially, is unfortunately lacking in far too much of it that I have seen.
What the hell?! Do people NOT know how to plot?! Plot is essential to good storytelling, people. Get over it and DEAL! I have NO problem with the major protagonists of a novel at Pan Historia getting laid. I applaud it, heartily in fact, but honestly, if I have to read any more story posts in "666 West End Avenue", "Limit of Art", and "Tombstone" of nothing more than gratuitous groping and rediculously long and drawn out bedroom scenes with NO OTHER SUBSTANCE whatsoever in the way of plot built around these "erotic" events, I am going to scream! And for the record, my use of the word "erotic" is rather loose. I prefer to see something truly sexy, erotic and steaming. Four or five pages of "Oh baby, Oh!" just on its own is NOT sexy! I don't care what you have been told. It really is not good writing. It certainly might work for some porn shop dime novels, but it is not even remotely entertaining if you are doing a profusion of sounds and 'oohs' and 'ah's' and "Mmmm's!" with no descriptives or built anticipation and heightened sensory awarenesses. Is your reader in the room with you> Or are they outside in the hallway with thier ear glued to the door, listening to the matresss springs squeak and trying to decide which is more shrill, the springs of the bed or your characters' ridiculous squeals? I think the reader would rather be in the room. So don't be a chicken and bring them inside! ;-) And in case you haven't sat down to think about it, other than that sexual event, none of this contains much of a plot or dialogue either. Come on! What was the absolute best pickup line you ever heard? Think about it! Write it down! What was the most smoldering thing that you ever heard an actress or actor on the big screen say that made your knees go weak? Write that one down! I will bet you a winning lottery ticket, it was not "Baby, oh, baby....OH!" People who cannot plot their way out of a storytelling paper bag make me crazy. Can you tell? Yeah, I thought so.
Goddamn it! Where is the blood and guts and gore? Where is the bloody PLOT!? Let's see some action, and I am not just talking about the old in-and -out thrust here! For crying out loud! Have a bunch of S.W.A.T. guys drop through the skylight with guns blazing because there is a money laundering drug dealer terrorists from Bolivia down the hallway and somehow these guys got the wrong apartment and interrupted our lovers! But wait! She is a Bolivian, too! Is she a terrorist? Does she know the guy down the hallway? Is this a set up? Do we care?! Make it interesting. After its over, I dont want it to be IT. Make me, the other readers want more!
"Gee honey, the strangest thing happened to me on the way to the bedroom. I don't know how to tell you this but...."
So here I am, writing this rant so that I don't have to focus on cleaning or writing that bloody airstrike that I am supposed to be writing for the story over in Tango Cattivo at PanHistoria. I have a "modern" Aisha over there. Her name in the storyline is actually Aisha Khatib, the daughter of a drug lord who gets caught up with a Cypriot money launderer by the name of Nikos Christodoulakis. Her family comes after them both - a sort of honor killing type of affair - and all before she has even slept with the guy! What is wrong with this picture?! What is wrong is that in the midst of the plot and the blowing up things in NYC and Amsterdam and the Ukraine that we have scarcely had time for the two of them to contemplate if they are even interested in sex with each other. Although I am assured that this is going to probably happen soon. *sigh* Balance, always balance.
I have seen some really good POTC fiction lately. I love the work of
firesignwriter and d_r_o_n_e, elspethdixon, and lakenaiad to name just a few. Why do I think they are good? Well, they write very good and compelling fiction and best of all, each of them has demonstrated an ability to plot. I have seen all of them do this, both within the storyline set down in the movie and well outside of it. Each one shows versitility and imagination. This is decidedly something something that in fanfic especially, is unfortunately lacking in far too much of it that I have seen.
