This is an interesting post, and it does bring up some good points. I am rather oblivious as to when I (even when co-writing) am doing too much, or too little of something, which is why I LOVE Betas.

As for the first point, I can see how lots of blocks of pasted fic can bo both annoying and drag the mission to a crawl. Just recently I had to edit one heavily because I had been using fic bits to help steer where the agents were going, because they were busy with other stuff. a lot of them could have been summarized (and were after some editing).

Having only certain examples of the fic displayed, to show off bad things, and sillyness is a good way of doing it, even if I sometimes like to add in more (Sues and OCs can have really cool dialogue sometimes).

For the second point, (Which Miah already replied to(MIAH! Hi! :D)) I have been having one of those cartoony things where you slip from one extreme to another. I am certainly guilty of having that happen, but I feel that talking about charges can be interesting to the agents themselves. Say a Sue makes up a completely uncanon history, but it honestly sounds kind of cool, if silly. I think it is great grounds for a discussian.

As Miah said, we are trying to balance out our agents doing charges, and the internal plot going on with them. We don't want the missions hum drum experiences and their own problems and issues overshadow it. We are having trouble in that regard a bit, making sure the agents acknowledge the fic and the badness, while having time for their own stuff.

As for the charge lists, yeah, they could be shortened down to the most grievous or annoying/funny ones. I usually have them all typed out, then split it up between a couple of different agents. Having them shorter could be a bit easier to handle.

I'm glad you brought this up. I feel like my stuff has been slacking a bit lately. The copypasta is definitely something I've noticed that that I am sliding toward in the bad habit region. And long charge lists...well, I use to break the charge lists up a lot--the Sue struggles or interrupts, the other agent interrupts, the agent interrupts him or herself, etc. I've been slacking in that, too.

As for the second point of agents that only talk about charges, I've been rather worried lately that *we're getting into problems the other direction. As long as we are reflecting on missions, is there a point where you are not going to want to read the mission because of the plot going on with the agents, and are we getting too close to that point?

I have to admit that I really like writing things with my agents. I enjoy seeing what they are up to, and what is going on in their lives. The agents are really what make me want to read the missions, especially for fandoms that I don't know. The PPC is a fascinating canon all on its own.



(*We being Caddy and me)

A couple of people have said that it would be OOC for their agents not to have very thorough charge lists and to want to read them out as such. That's fine, but it still doesn't mean it all has to end up in a block at the end of the mission. Several reasons:

1. They have partners, who can goad them to speed things up, or interrupt, or otherwise break up blocks of charges into smaller, more manageable bits.

2. There's the Sue/possessed canon/whatever to consider. Is the culprit you're charging really just going to sit still and listen patiently while the agents explain why they've been given a death sentence? Maybe the Sue breaks her restraints, or the wraith possesses one of the agents, or the canon characters attack, or something happens to cut the agents short.

3. Related to the above, there's no reason the meticulous agent can't be thorough in writing, but sum up as they're reading aloud. Best of both worlds, there.

4. Ultimately, it's still up to you, the writer, to make your story fun to read. If your meticulous agent's charge list is bogging down the mission, your readers aren't likely to care very much for how well you're keeping your agent in-character.

My personal rule for writing charge lists is to do it on the fly. If I don't remember a charge while I'm writing the list at the end, it probably wasn't that big a deal, and can go without being mentioned explicitly.

I have one agent who remembers everything and another one who's concerned with getting the Duty right. In the first case, it's pretty easy: remembering everything does not equal saying everything. Only the most important/personally aggravating things get expounded upon.

In the second case, I once wrote an insanely long, multi-paragraph, itemized charge list for him, because he's just anal enough to do it. In the end, though, I axed it and cut it down to one paragraph, because by that point he was just too angry to read something that long. (Plus a dragon might have eaten him if he'd really done it.) I included it as an extra at the end of the mission, though, so if you want to know how bad an overly long charge list can get, just scroll down to the bottom. I will never do this again.

So, to sum up, you should never have to sacrifice storytelling for characterization. As we seem to agree down in the "What makes a good OC?" thread, if the character isn't serving the story, something is probably wrong.

~Neshomeh

I'm probably guilty on your third point. Arthur Briggs is former-military, and he would be very precise when charging. Five sentences and open fire isn't his style. And since he's training Lynn Gillies, she's going to follow that pattern, at least to start.

Personally, I think it's more important to be detailed on canon violations. "Multiple cases of bad spelling" is perfectly fine as a charge; but in my opinion "Completely trashing the canon" is too vague/general.

However, I was planning to do something a little different for my next mission (once I pick a target) -- I'll give a shorter charge list a try and see how it works.

As someone who is still writing out her first mission, I should probably keep some of that in mind...

I don't think all these are recent things. At least not the first point. I remember as far back as 2007 someone being told not to copy-paste large chunks of badfic. I guess that's one of those things that requires "getting the hang of". It takes some learning before you know exactly what the point is you wish to make.

A while back I did some calculations of how much I directly quote from badfic and how many words I spend describing/paraphrasing what's going on. I don't have the numbers handy, but I believe quotes were usually less than 5% of the original fic. If more information from the fic was needed I would go with paraphrasing. Sometimes, for quick summary, I'd have one of the agents do a short recap. This does not amount to "'Look! Holy smokes, batman, X, Y, Z happened!' ". Far from it. My agents have a sense of humour (not saying that Aster's don't, just saying they weren't using it when they did the boring recap.); when they recap, they make fun of the X, Y and Z in their choice of words.

I'm probably guilty of the other two in some respects.

I do write the long charge lists in the end, because my agents are meticulous like that. It would be out of character for them not to charge everything and mention why it is a charge. That said, I don't charge for every individual spelling error. Spelling, grammar and punctuation issues is one charge on the list. The charge of OOC behaviour is, however, substantiated.

Besides, long charge lists give the Sue the opportunity to argue her point, which is a fun part of writing the climax.

Leaving the point of agents only talking about charges. Well, my agents have been together for so long, they've run out of things to say to each other that are not mission related. That leaves talking about the merits of a fic and struggling their way through it.

Less with the third point than the first two, but with everything in general. I can't say I've read enough missions recently to say how often these problems prop up, but none of them are things I'd want to see while reading.

Copy/paste: If I wanted to read the badfic, I would read the badfic. I am here to see your agents being put through the ringer by temporal distortions, shifting tenses, ambiguous pronouns, and whatever else you can come up with.

Agents who become walking charge lists: The agents should not lose their character when they step through a portal. We want to see them try to hold it together while bad things go on around them. Also, we have the most fun in a mission when the agents are being directly affected by the badfic. There has been a shift, of late, toward agents becoming completely outside observers. I once read a mission where the agents read the fic and talked about the charges in their RC before going into the fic at just the right moment to kill the Sue. This is where the shift is leading and it is not an interesting place.

Overly long charge lists: I have a couple of notes on this one. I believe this is a symptom of two different diseases. 1) Thinking you have to spork the entire 700 chapter badfic. 2) Thinking you have to charge for everything.

To issue number one, I would say, you only have to spork a badfic as far as a major break in canon. If that happens too early, then keep going until you reach a good point to exterminate/exorcise the problem.

For issue number two, just try to keep it to only the really egregious charges. I don't really want to hear about every single time the author makes a minor spelling mistake, if the whole point of the mission is that Severus Snape and James Potter have become lovers and Potter is pregnant.

So, PoorCynic, you are not alone in this. I have been saying the same things to Neshomeh for a while. Thanks for bringing it up.

I totally agree with you on these points, but for the sake of discussion... let me expound on copypasta badfic excerpts. I find copypasta'd badfic is most powerful in two situations:

1) setting the tone of the badfic, showing people exactly what they're dealing with. Some things do need context.

2) Short, snappy excerpts to punctuate a moment of supreme badness. Sometimes, the phrasing speaks for itself.

On one hand, I don't really like agents paraphrasing a badfic. I've tried it, and it becomes 'Look! Holy smokes, batman, X, Y, Z happened!'

But when there's too MUCH badfic copypasta, the mission becomes a MST.

Quick Solution: Show, don't tell. Spelling errors don't have to be shown in block quotation form. Besides, showing the effects of badfic is often funnier (bring on that slapstick!) than being shown the badfic unless the writing in that particular excerpt is SO BAD it's hilarious. If not, then badfic really isn't that funny. It's just sad. I actually like to use that pathetic feeling to set the tone at the beginning.

Less Quick Solution: My opinion is that copypasta should bear in mind the mission's pacing. Badfic is arduous to read. Unless it's something SO DUMB that even if it's horrid, the reader can't stop reading, don't include it unless you're setting the scene. Include descriptions of the Sue, excerpts that show her mindset, and other things like that in the rising action.

But closer to the climax, multi-paragraph blobs should be gone, leaving only periodic BLAM badness moments.

The climax of the badness should either have the ONE QUOTATION that the agents cannot forgive, or it shouldn't be copypasta at all, but demonstrated. We speed up reading the more exciting the mission gets, and bogging it down there is sort of bad.

So yeah. Story structure, copypasta, and missions. Blah blah blah, look at Aster's mouth go. This isn't instructional, or me telling others how to write missions. It's just what I think and what I try to do.

Can you give some examples of how you think it should be done please? How much of the badfic should be included in the mission so it isn't too much?