fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2773 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2773 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Maplestory]

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(Ted and Ralph, The Fast Show)

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[Big Hero 6]

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[Law & Order: Criminal Intent]

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06.

[Arashi no Yoru ni]

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07. http://i.imgur.com/QnC2dWq.jpg
[Hannibal, linked for nudity and gore]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #396.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, I'll bite. What's so terrible about first person or present tense?

They are just crap to read, and mostly just rife with poor writing. They are also a sure sign that the author thinks they are cleverer than they are (or just gives zero fucks about actual writing styles, its one of those sins that occurs at both ends of the spectrum). The standard for writing is third person, past tense. Until an author has mastered that, they really should not even be considering breaking from it.

Writing in the first person and/or in the present tense pose different challenges, but don't automatically equal crap. Poor writing is just poor writing.

Personally, I use the present tense when the characters and/or the scenario call for terse, hard-edged prose, and -- though I don't do it very often -- I find writing in the first person an absolute joy, because it involves 'becoming' the character, using his or her voice, limiting the focus to whatever he or she sees, knows, or believes, and constructing the plot accordingly.

Fine if you actually manage to capture a character's actual voice, but I've never seen that maintained for more than a couple of paragraphs before wandering off into the author's own mindset. It is hard enough to capture a character's voice in third person limited, 1st person for a fanfic is nigh on impossible. It may work for original fic, but not in fanfic. Fantasizing about becoming the character is pure self-insert territory no matter how you slice it.

As for terse, hard-edged prose. Going present tense makes it less urgent and more hilarious.

You're reading the wrong fics.

*it's

It's okay to not be a fan of a particular writing style, in this case 1st person. It's even okay to irrationally dislike it, as you seem to do - as long as you acknowledge that. Like, there really isn't any problem with that at all.

But for all the hilarity that ensues when people claim to be English majors in fandom and therefore are the highest arbiter of quality in literature, from your ideas about writing styles it's painfully obvious that you are not one. Or even particularly well read, presumably, if you're going to make a claim that there is a 'standard' for writing. And that is where what you run into problems.

It's entirely possible to be an English major and have misinformed or malformed ideas about what makes writing good, though.

SA

That is definitely true. I guess the crux of what I was saying is that skippydelicious is so very, incredibly, ignorantly wrong that it would be hilarious if so many other people weren't taking them at face value.

Present tense is hard to do well because while it can work for dialogue and action, it's terrible for description and awkward for alluding to events from the past.

First person is difficult because you have to very accurately convey the character's internal experience and perception of events, which is subjective, especially in a work that isn't told 1st person POV. And many people think OC first person stories are a cop-out because the OC is "obviously" just relating their own POV; ie, a self-insert.

And damn it pains me to be agreeing with skippydelicious. :\

And damn it pains me to be agreeing with skippydelicious. :\

The first time is always the hardest.

DA

First person POV, and limited third for that matter, are easier to do if you pick a POV character with a strong 'voice', I think? I've written fics that essentially end up with accents, actually, including a reasonably well-regarded 1st person in a Southern accent and a tight 3rd person POV in an Aussie accent. I mean, on the downside it's also probably too easy to go overboard and end up with something excruciating, but generally a strong, identifiable voice that stands out from the rest of the canon makes close POVs easier to grab hold of.

That said, I don't tend to use 1st Person much unless prompted to it or doing a noir pastiche. Or a monologue, in one case, but I don't think that really counts. However, I do do almost everything in limited 3rd, and I've never gotten the hang of omniscient 3rd at all.

[ SECRET POST #2773 ]

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