Subject: Lemme bring you an example.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-06-22 21:16:00 UTC
Take the Notary. She's the Time Lord everybody loves to hate. In fact, she's one of the more memorable agents I've seen (and I've seen quite the amount in the four or so years I've been around). Did she do anything notable? No. She was in a WhatThe mission, a couple Chilli Con Council interludes, and that's about it.
So then.
I've been making Plans revolving my characters. The main reason for their existence is because I feel like the characters have to have something big in their history, or else they'll be forgotten.
However, SeaTurtle and Ix (both of whom are in-the-know about my Plans) say that's not quite the case.
And honestly, I'm confused. Most of the agents I remember have had big, attention-grabbing events in their careers and those events are how they stick in my mind. This means characters like Rina, Supernumerary, Dafydd, Suicide, Laburnum, and Cadmar.
A lot of other agents? They blend together in my mind, because they all follow the stock PPC formula. And this is exactly what I don't want to happen to my agents.
They're likable, well-written characters, but honestly? I personally feel like that doesn't matter if they don't accomplish anything, which they really haven't. Without accomplishments, they're generic PPC agents.
Without something dramatic to shake up the narrative, I don't know how I can further develop my characters, and to me the PPC is about the characters. Focusing on the badfic can lead to boring missions with talking-head syndrome. I see badfic as an opportunity to expand my characters, but if I just follow the same formula every time, there won't be much to develop.
The final problem I have is that I've been making these Plans for months. If I just scrap these ideas, I feel like all that time and effort was wasted.
All in all, I'm just confused about what to do here. My mind is telling me that drama and surprise is necessary, but my friends are saying they're not.
The plug has been pulled on my Plans. They're going to the same resurrection-proof section of the Idea Graveyard that I put Sigma.EXE.
For those not in the know, my Plans were to kill Valon, and transform him into a Victim Ghost from Silent Hill 4.
I ran the idea through five people, all of whom thought it was a great idea, or kept their reservations to themselves. The sixth PPCer to get the idea started raising all sorts of questions, that I just couldn't find good answers to. Then one of the first five admitted concerns she had, and got me to start seriously rethinking this. Another of the first five suggested I post this topic on the Board.
So, I guess you can all thank SeaTurtle, Iximaz and SkarmorySilver for knocking some sense into my skull, and saving Valon.
So I can't really comment on that. I think you should look more at your motivations for having big plans as opposed to focusing on the plans themselves.
First off, your motivations seem a little... off to me. You seem to be mostly concerned with what other people think about your agents. While I understand that it's good to get feedback on your characters and hear positive things about them, I think you should put creating a good story over being famous within the PPC. So if you think your Plans are going to make for an interesting story and you want to write it, then go ahead. But if your only motivation is because you feel like it's required in order to get them in some kind of nebulous Hall of Fame... then maybe you shouldn't. Poorly written Sue-fics get lots of favorites and comments, but that doesn't mean that's what you should aspire for.
Secondly, I think it's better to focus on personal drama than big, HQ-rocking drama. Some things, like what happened to Rina, are likely to have wide-spread effects; other things aren't likely to ever really be heard of outside their RA. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on the people it happened to. If your characters cross a line on one of their missions and end up in trouble, it might make the news or it might not. But that doesn't matter to the people it happens to. What matters is the way that it changes things for them. Even something little that might not seem significant at all to outsiders can have a major influence on the people it happened to. Look at Derik in Neshomeh's most recent mission. Even if he and Gall never tell anyone else about what happened, it's clearly shaken him a lot.
And on a final note, I feel like you're being a little unfair to some of the other PPC writers. Just because a character doesn't stick out to you doesn't mean that they're bad or unorignal, it's just a matter of personal taste. I'm not saying all PPC stories are perfect and it's wrong to criticize them, but it kind of comes off a little as "if I don't remember them, then they're worthless."
Big events? Don't accomplish anything.
Drama for the sake of drama? Is boring.
Shaking up the narrative just to say you did? Quite frankly, is trite.
For a long period of time as part of the PPC, I read every single findable and published mission. We're talking /years/ worths of spin-offs, and dozens and dozens.
The ones I can talk about in casual conversation or discussion and bring up easily with other boarders?
It isn't because they were attached to big attention-grabbing events. Quite frankly, I barely recall the whole list of agents that were volunteers for the Alumia emergency back in 2008- and that was quite a Sue!
As for the characters you listed: What do you really remember about them?
Unfortuantely I can't say anything about Rina, because I haven't read those spin-offs (My apologies!), but for the rest?
I remember Nume because Nesh's missions are clever, and she has interplay and continuing growth between Nume and Ilraen.
Dafydd? Thanks to hS' missions featuring Dafydd, I know way more than enough about Silmarillion and the Feanoreans than I would otherwise. hS builds history and background information into his missions without making it feel forced. It isn't just about the big events, it's about what leads up to it and what happens after- the causes and results.
Suicide? Let's start with the base stock- Suicide's creation and entry into being a PPC agent is truly unique, as far as any goes, and the fact he's stayed himself- rather than being adapted into acting like a modern age agent?- well worth remembering!
Laburnum? Oh, I certainly remember that spin-off, and not only because of those big attention grabing events you cite.
Cadmar? Shark teef. 'Nough said.
If you're taking the attitude that it is all about big events making waves and attention grabbing to make a character unique and not 'stock', you're dead wrong- and it's an attitude that won't serve you well as far as making your own characters develop. You don't have to focus only on the badfic; aside from that, the stock formula is stock for a reason- or are you suggesting that TOS is forgettable and generic, by these standards of yours? Besides, the main component of hS' mission based spinoffs and and Neshomeh's? Stock. It's not what happens that makes them memorable, it's the writing and care behind them. Quality, rather than quantity or explosiveness.
While my own spin-off's mostly faded into the distance with time, I still used the stock formula, and altered where I needed to do what I wanted with my own characters' personal story arcs. I mixed it up by using plenty of interludes between missions- in fact, I was one of the first to start that practice!- and by having a leadup and cooldown both before and after the mission itself in each story.
Sometimes you have to dump plans you've made for months- it's not a waste of time or effort. As a writer, your first and foremost goal is to write something that's enjoyable and works well as a whole. If you're crafting it to match some sort of formula for expected success, you might find it, but you'll not enjoy it as much as you will otherwise.
There's nothing wrong with stock, if you know what to do with it. It's just the broth. What you do with it and what you put into it results in an actual soup.
Namely this: As a writer, your first and foremost goal is to write something that's enjoyable and works well as a whole.
I think first and foremost as a writer your goal is to write something that you enjoy writing. If other people find it enjoyable, then I consider that gravy. If Voyd wants to write some big event that does not impact the PPC canon as a whole, I say give it a shot. Now if the reason for doing it is to be memorable, then I am inclined to agree with you. Because again, as I said, I firmly believe that one should write for themselves. If others remember it, fantastic, if not, so be it. Same with whether or not others enjoy it.
Now turning to the original concerns Voyd voiced, here is what I have to say. Do you like what plans you have made up to this point? Do you think that it needs some drama or surprise? Then write it out. Draft it. Then see how you feel about it. You should not bind yourself to what other people want, unless it is something technical (Sues, spelling, grammar, etc).
As far as plot is concerned your first and, in my opinion, only real concern is Do You Like It? Now that is my general opinion on writing. With something like the PPC, just like other forms of Fanfiction, there are conventions you have to follow, i.e., not disrupting canon. The only caveat goes to being part of a shared universe, it could theoretically be outvoted by the community at large, but I say write it, see if you like, and then submit it to the community and go from there.
That's what I said.
"As a writer, your first and foremost goal is to write something that's enjoyable and works well as a whole. If you're crafting it to match some sort of formula for expected success, you might find it, but you'll not enjoy it as much as you will otherwise."
It seemed to me that it was more about making it enjoyable for the reader. For me, it is the process itself that should be enjoyable. If I misunderstood your words, then forgive me.
I was mostly trying to get at the point, that you should write what you want first and foremost. If you want Drama, go for it. If you want a sappy love story, make it so. If you want to put your characters through a living hell, that is your right. So, what I am really trying to say is if Voyd has some long term arc planned, I say go for it, so long as it fits the medium. Fanfiction obviously has different rules than original fiction.
"If you're taking the attitude that it is all about big events making waves and attention grabbing to make a character unique and not 'stock', you're dead wrong- and it's an attitude that won't serve you well as far as making your own characters develop."
"It's not what happens that makes them memorable, it's the writing and care behind them. Quality, rather than quantity or explosiveness."
That was my point.
I had stopped keeping up with missions and new spin-offs so much around right when you got here, unfortunately.
...So I have a few years of spin-offs to catch up on, if I ever do.
(Ohhh dear.)
...um, thirty missions plus various interludes? So I totally understand if you've got better things to do. ^^;
Congratulations on breaking the TOS number- very few people actually manage that one. Despite the fact that there are really, well and truly hundreds and hundreds of spinoffs by now, the number that have surpassed TOS in number of missions is... I would say there are between 30 and 50? Highballing, really. Nesh, you got any more accurate estimates, there?
Also, you would be surprised at what I've got time for (at least if the pace is decently maintained and your missions are not actually novellas in and of themselves).
(Just not right,due to the fact that in the middle of the ocean is not the best of times to be trying to read a spin-off right off the computer.)
My shortest (and most recent, actually) is at eight pages; the longest (collectively) is the Rose Potter missions, and that condensed is 201 pages all together. So... yeah. ^^;
And I thought there were more like five or six people who have broken the TOS number?
Spreading the whole of Rose Potter out over 201 pages isn't all that bad, actually.
As for the number who've broken TOS, I'm fairly sure that last I recalled it was in the high teens or low twenties- I'm estimating that by now it might have broken past 30.
The people who broke TOS's 26 mission count are:
-Trojie and Pads (49)
-Allison and Tasmin (51) — I didn't even know about this spinoff; I must investigate!
-Tawaki et al (38)
-Rina Dives et al — only broke TOS's count if you count in-progress missions or count Rose Potter as more than one mission. Otherwise, she stands at 24 missions.
That's... not a lot. There are more people who broke the 10-mission mark:
-Cadmar, Sienna and Maria (20)
-July and Library (17)
-Anneli, Cindi and Xanathus (12)
-Cavan Shenn and Rilwen Shadowflame (12)
-Florestan and Eusabius (14)
-Nume and Ilraen (11)
-Cali and Miah (21)
-Foxglove and Laburnum (18)
-Eledhwen and Christianne (14)
-Ian Nahinu and Lee Keaton (13)
-Orken and Thomas (20)
-Emma Julia and Tasmin Haynes (17)
-Laura Dukes et al (12)
-Marah and Isaiah (19)
Things I might have missed:
-Multiple teams by the same author (like me — I've written 11 missions, not including interludes, but you'd have to dig a bit deeper than going through the page to figure that out)
-Interludes that get counted as missions (ie, some of those might have lower mission counts than what I have here; it's for the same reason of the above item)
-Stuff that wasn't updated in the page.
It really doesn't feel like I have that many.
And I could've sworn there were far more who've broken either number.
My methodology is far from perfect. I probably missed some.
Eight if you count the mission six diptych as two, though it's constructed as one story. The others are three interludes and Ilraen's intro story.
If you add in Derik's four missions and the one Agent Neshomeh went on, though, I've written or co-written twelve (or thirteen). Plus an additional two interludes, one FicPsych story, one Ten Years Hence story, and two AHAIRQL stories for a total of 22/23. Oh, and eight Fill the Plotholes, so 30/31.
I think that's everything. I'm not counting RPs.
~Neshomeh, averaging a truly stunning 2.5 stories per year since joining. Sheesh.
That's not a bad number, though I'm sure it would possibly go up if you allowed yourself to not count years where you did not write things?
(Also, would you be interested in doing a mission cowrite with me? We can both add it to our individual list of things that will take years to finish.)
I think I started writing FtPs in 2004, so that brings the average up to about 2.75 per year.
OTOH, I started writing my DIC spin-off in 2006 (though nothing actually got published until 2007). If we leave off the FtPs and just count the other stuff... we're right back to about 2.5/year. That number looks pretty solid. {= )
And, yes, that would be awesome! I have no idea when we'll find the time, but I guess we can keep our eyes open for promising badfics? ... You're into comics and superhero stuff, right? I'd like to do something in Marvel- or DC-verse for Gall, but I'm at the very most shallow end of the fandom, having only really gotten on board with the recent films and TV series. Most of what I know otherwise I learned from watching Atop the Fourth Wall. ^_^;
~Neshomeh
I don't even want to think what my average is, at this point in time.
And being on the very shallow end of the fandom isn't necessarily a bad thing; comics tend to be all-consuming. Most people tend to either focus more on either Marvel or DC, and even then they pick and choose which corners of said sides to even focus on, since otherwise is a complete pain. (I try very much to stick my fingers in my ears and look away from the X-Men corner of the Marvel universe, for example, because that is Just Too Much.)
Perhaps we should move this conversation to e-mail, to avoid giving too much away and to begin planning and such?
Rina Dives has 23 missions with Rose Potter counting as a single mission; however, I'm inclined to think that each 'fic in the series counts as its own mission, and therefore she has 28 missions under her belt.
Dafydd and Selene; the page lists them as the veterans of 18 missions.
Aright, looks like counting isn't my thing after all.
Dafydd and Selene have all of six recorded missions together (ie, the same number as Kaitlyn and Selene). Dafydd officially partnered with Selene has 18 stories, of which five are non-missions (the other seven are three each with Vemi and Constance, and one with Neshomeh and Alec).
The total count of missions written by me, including the two Intelligence reports, seems to be... 37? Maybe? Even that number is pretty uncertain; do we count the two DIO missions? What about the exorcisms performed by Sandra and Freckles? How about the one in Generic Surface? I've gone with 'missions in which an actual pre-existing fic is entered', since that's a nice, quantifiable number.
(And of course I'm not counting several ongoing missions... this is harder than I thought!)
hS
32 if you count the in-progress ones (one is unlisted because that's the next on the list).
I got to skip over chunks and chunks where it was basically copy/pasted from canon, albeit with the occasional weird typo (the wated comes to mind). So although it looked like a lot to spork, there was a lot that got left out thanks to the rampant plagiarism.
And huh, if that's the case, then the Wiki page needs to be updated, because that's definitely not even ten people listed.
Or Suicide, or Cadmar?
If you're thinking of "Subjugation," I must point out that the mission never actually got done, and Nume wasn't even originally supposed to be involved—he and Cameo were retconned in after Shae and Jo's author dropped out of the project. He's not even mentioned in the little bit that did get written. Furthermore, if it's such a big deal, why don't you name Rez, Flip, Gunny, and Wayne, who were actually involved from the beginning and also have fine and distinguished careers otherwise?
And Suicide doesn't have any other big events to his name, really. Unless you're counting Sakhmet or something, but her badfic isn't even Legendary, so you couldn't possibly be considering that...
As for Cadmar, unless I missed something (which is quite possible, since I can't read everything), the biggest thing to happen to him was that he got turned into a her and stuck with it. It was a big deal for Cadmar, sure, but genderbenders do happen occasionally. It's not precisely earth-shattering, y'know?
Perhaps you actually remember the things that happen to these characters for other reasons that might be worth noting?
~Neshomeh
To me, those are Blood Raining Night and Ring Child.
I happen to agree with you there. {= ) The question I'd pose to you, though, is why they stand out from the rest of the spin-off. BRN has the advantage of being a pretty well-known badfic (though my mission has yet to attract anyone to the PPC on that basis that I'm aware of, le sigh), but "Ring Child" doesn't, so let's look at that one to avoid distraction. More specifically, what choices did Tungsten and I make as writers that made that mission more than just your standard broth with the usual chicken, noodles, and maybe a few vegetables, to borrow July's analogy? What choices could we have made instead that would've made it just another mission?
~Neshomeh
First: The interactions between Suicide and Supernumerary. Seeing them bounce off of each other was an absolute riot.
Second: The consequences of some of Archir's actions, like putting on the One Ring to no effect (...and the canon be all like, "f**k this, I'm out").
Third: The completely awesome spelling errors. The Wall of Mazarbaaargh and the unspeakable acts in Moria. Methinks this speaks for itself.
Fourth and final: The introduction of the ficubus. Aside from the fact that I'm a fan of person-shaped cosmic horrors and the Fair Folk, that was generally a very cool scene and introduced a new idea to the PPC lore: the ficubus.
This is all my opinion, though, and I don't doubt that there are people who disagree with me.
Well that's kind of depressing. Oh, well.
hS
Plus, you know, being all-around cool. ;)
And for the record, Aster and Lore are also some of my favorite agents and they never did anything groundbreaking. I just loved their dynamic and characters.
Take the Notary. She's the Time Lord everybody loves to hate. In fact, she's one of the more memorable agents I've seen (and I've seen quite the amount in the four or so years I've been around). Did she do anything notable? No. She was in a WhatThe mission, a couple Chilli Con Council interludes, and that's about it.