Subject: Re: On long-term job effects and sanity...
Author:
Posted on: 2009-01-15 14:30:00 UTC
Ye gods someone needs to teach that author to use proper punctuation. That's actually painful to read.
In other news, I've discovered Mulhoon's pet peeve. Graphic squick he can take without turning a hair, but he's fiercely protective of the English language. Wanton abuse of common grammar on a similar scale to legolas is what sets him off.
I've put up a prologue to my agents' adventures. Concrit would be appreciated, and I'm also submitting this as my writing sample for Permission.
PPC: Irritations and Annoyances
Potential Sue discovered, Situation currently non-critical. Monitoring advised. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4749030/1/Hogswatch_Night
I've been looking for an hour or two now, and I can't find any Discworld badfic. Is it conceivable that Discworld fans just know better than that?
Trojie and Pads ended up with a horribly possessed Carrot and a dead Angua at one point. They're also banned from the Disc, so a) if you see them in there, don't tell Upstairs and b) if you find any mission-worthy Disc fics, claim while reporting.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4727966/1/Justanotherteendrama
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4734057/1/Stranded
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4749030/1/HogswatchNight">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4749030/1/HogswatchNight
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4785075/1/ThenewAlpha">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4785075/1/ThenewAlpha
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4153700/1/MagicNotsoSimplyPut">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4153700/1/MagicNotsoSimplyPut
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4687146/1/WeddingDaze">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4687146/1/Wedding_Daze
The New Alpha I've seen, but as it's only got the prologue up so far, not nearly enough for a mission, I contented myself with dumping a steaming pile of concrit into the reviews. Magic, Not So Simply Put I'm reading at the moment, and despite the classic self-insert premise, it actually seems to be fairly well written. I'll check the others.
I was just grabbing by summary though, so you know~
Fighting badfic, especially graphic badfic, has been described multiple times as being a very sanity-challenging job - see Agent Len's episode with the flamethrower. While it's certainly possible that an agent has been around for a very long time, and it's also possible that he's pretty much numb to the effects of graphic badfic, there's really no way he can manage to have both of those and still be a normal person. I would suggest that Agent Mulhoon should have some (or several) psychosises, neurosies, pet peeves that whip him into a killing frenzy, and so on, both to be more reasonable and to be more entertaining. It's a lot more fun to read a PPCing where the agents actually react to the fic, after all.
Either that or you could have him be a robot, but that should probably be stated explicitly.
Your writing is quite good, but Agent Mulhoon comes across as more than a bit of a Marty Stu - and that's not a good thing.
It's mainly meant to be a reflection of the fact that apparently I'm immune to the worse effects of badfic, having managed both Celebrian and Draco's Christmas Cuppa so far without a flinch. I'd try reading the other legendary badfics if I knew where to find them.
http://www.freewebs.com/bonsaimallorn4/Legolas.htm
This is more hilarious than bad. That Series is found on Yiffstar, and it wasn't me who told you.
Ye gods someone needs to teach that author to use proper punctuation. That's actually painful to read.
In other news, I've discovered Mulhoon's pet peeve. Graphic squick he can take without turning a hair, but he's fiercely protective of the English language. Wanton abuse of common grammar on a similar scale to legolas is what sets him off.
Certainly he's not meant to be perfect. He's as competant as any agent, and the fact that he's less prone to insanity or homicidal rage doesn't mean he has an easy job. It's not going to be "Mulhoon turns up, everything fixes itself" like it was with Jaycacia. He just copes by snarling at everyone and being generally grumpy, along with strong coffee, and probably cigarettes.
The first mission is easy, and the second usually fairly straightforward, but trust me when I say that if your agents don't have enough texture, it gets really hard to be creative when you've reached your third or fourth mission.
That said, am not a PG, so take this as friendly advice.
We had to knock my agent up to deal with that. Not for the faint-hearted, certainly.
... though considering what happened to one of the "borrowed" ones pre-recruitment, it's not so tragic in comparison. It gets better, though. Next mission, I'm going to take all four of my agents and temporarily swap their genders. I've been reading too much of El Goonish Shive, and the mission's what the Pottersues members refer to as a "taco show" (male characters turning into girls).
That... is actually a really good point, and one which I hadn't thought of. Do you have any suggestions for maintaining momentum?
Most of the time, characters need to grow and develop in order to be interesting. Personality quirks make them entertaining, which is also important for this kind of writing, but it's their development as people that makes readers care about them.
At least, that's the theory. And also the basis from which I'm working with my own pair of agents, though the growth only really applies to one of them (the other just has not-blatantly-touted secrets) and has only begun in earnest with the end of their third mission. So... take that for whatever it might be worth. {= )
~Neshomeh, who wonders if you're actually requesting Permission or not.
Render will definitely be undergoing character growth, at least if I'm a good enough writer to pull it off. I'm good with the technical use of the English language, but I'm no good at making plots. I figured PPC would be fairly easy to do because the basic plot's already tere - console goes off at importune time, go into badfic, suffer through bafic, deal with badfic, get home, deal with any minis, play with any collected shinies, console goes off again.
I'm not sure how much character development is possible for Mulhoon, as I'm pretty sure the reason for his personality is because he has the approximate emotional capacity of a teaspoon. He doesn't particularly do sadness, happiness, worry, disgust, just mild annoyance. While intellectually he understands the effect emotions have on other people, he doesn't get them himself. I'm a bit like that, though not nearly to the same extent, and I've spent the last ten years actively trying to learn emotions. He just doesn't care that much.
~Heliomance, who would be asking for Permission if he'd been here long enough, but is contenting himself with getting the formalities out of the way.
It's one thing to say and plan for a character to grow, and quite another to make it actually happen. That said, PPC misison plots can be somewhat differentiated from the character arcs of the agents, which span all of your writing. Let the necessities of each mission grow and let your agents do their own thing.
I think you're running a risk starting with a character who has "the emotional capacity of a teaspoon". It'll certainly be interesting and fun to have him be unknowingly harsh and cause spats by casual carelessness, but after a while, I imagine you're going to have to have him start developing emotional reactions, otherwise he will simply get dull. Ther could be a great deal of fun in having him struggle to deal with basic feelings.
That said, at the end of the day it all boils down to the writing. If you think you can pull it off, go right ahead.