Not familiar with the fandom

Requesting Permission by Ray Chell on 2011-09-18 04:44:00 UTC Reply

Hi there. I've been lurking for a few months and posting once in a while, and I am now requesting permission to begin sporking things.

My two agents are Ray Chell and Connor. I wish to place them in the Department of Mary Sues.

Ray Chell is a human female and escaped author avatar of about twenty years of age. She has some experience observing Sues from a safe distance but has never engaged a Sue before, preferring to quietly pass her reports along to other agents instead.

Connor is an impulsive human male who might be anywhere from eighteen to twenty-two, give or take a year; his foster family wasn't sure of his age, and he doesn't know it either. He displays wolfish mannerisms, but has learned to repress many of them and behave like a normal human when he can help it. Unfortunately, his desire to take down his enemy on sight often gets the better of him.

I have a sample of writing to show.

The Worst Passenger: A short Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks AU in which Link finds Ganondorf washed up on a beach and, with no idea who the man is, decides to take him as a passenger in his train. The story is told through letters he sends to Zelda.

The badfic I wish to kill is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6858954/1/Bloody_Tears

This particular badfic involves a girl who gets summoned from her college to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Link, who is normally capable of protecting himself and breaking out of jail quickly, gets captured easily and locked in a fortress so that the Goddesses have a reason to summon the young woman for help. It is then established that the girl is "a reaper...a God of Death" who even appears in Hyrulean mythology. And she can summon a scythe called Bloody Tears, which is a weapon and an extension of her soul, which means it is also her. After Link is rescued, he drops his mission to defeat Ganondorf in favor of escorting the girl around Hyrule.

Permission granted! by Neshomeh on 2011-09-20 17:06:00 UTC Reply

... I don't really have anything to add. This is weird for me. Um... read lots of different spin-offs?

Yes, that's good advice. Read lots of different spin-offs, including older ones. *nod*

Enjoy!

~Neshomeh
Have you seen Legund of Lik, or is that already taken? by Aeidhryn on 2011-09-20 01:23:00 UTC Reply

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwDeof1a_s

It is certainly... entertaining to behold.
Not familiar with the fandom by IndeMaat on 2011-09-18 08:24:00 UTC Reply

I like the idea of telling a story in letter format. Have been toying with that idea myself.

I'm not familiar with the fandom and I guess familiarity would help me to place the letters in context. Now it seems all rather disconnected. The main thing that bothers me is that there's no introduction. No "hey Zelda, how've you been? Well, they week I've had..." One letter even starts with "He made a huge sword" and my first question was "he who?" Would Zelda have been reading these letters with such close attention that she would immediately know which he was meant? Would Link assume Zelda would read his letters with such close attention?

Other than that, I think this writing sample looks good (though an ellipses is never followed by a full stop), so good luck on getting permission.

Re: Not familiar with the fandom by Ray Chell on 2011-09-18 09:06:00 UTC Reply

Thanks for reviewing. :)

This was a short writing exercise I gave myself last year. What I particularly liked about it was trying to get into the head of the character, who in this case is a twelve-year-old kid. I've been thinking about trying something like this with other characters in the near future.

A lack of familiarity can be a barrier, but that can be hard to avoid when writing fanfic.

This might be a disadvantage of using a letter format to tell a story; Link is honest, but his lack of knowledge combined with the story format make him a bit of an unreliable narrator to anyone who hasn't played The Wind Waker or Spirit Tracks.

That said, now that you mention it, Link's fifth letter does seem a bit unclear in the beginning. I should probably go back and edit that soon. :o