jjpor | Meme!

I like your theory/opinion! You should have them more often! XD. Yeah, the Doctor/companion thing really is special, isn't it, and NuWho has never really captured it just so (although as you say, the early signs for Eleven and Amy are kind of hopeful), and multi-Doctor anniversary stories notwithstanding, living in the past is never an attractive thing. I mean, I'll admit I'm very taken with Doctors/Romana (it's just the way I roll), but I don't think I'd like to see him obsessing over past companions all the time on the telly. As you say, Ten/Rose...

Well, no, I agree that they really started to overdo the Seven darkness in the spin-off media. The NAs weren't actually that bad to begin with, but as they grew further and further away from the TV stories, you got some very grim stories indeed and Seven became something of a grim character. Which isn't right; even when he is at his scariest and most manipulative in the TV stories, he maintains that quirky humour and whimsy, and the closeness between him and Ace always shines through. So, while I liked most of the story ideas in the NAs, I think the later ones were definitely the poorer for not having that.

Although, as you say, Benny did play a positive role; I think Seven always needed someone he could be more open with, in between the adventures, someone who understood him a bit too well, someone he couldn't fool. A friend, basically, and that's what Benny was to him. I like The Dying Days, too, the jokey little epilogue bit notwithstanding; it's like the bestest fanfic ever written, and I just wish they'd have the Ice Warriors in NuWho and portray them exactly the way Lord Szaal, or whatever his name is, and his followers are portrayed in that book, because they were great. :D

I want...I want to write a fic about Seven and Ace as seen from the POV of some redshirt guard or secret policeman or something in some empire they're toppling - how they would be just about the most terrifying thing some part-of-the-problem lowgrade scumbag like that could possibly encounter, but also staying true to the qualities I mention above. I wanted to do it for that Big Finish thing, but I found myself pressed for time in the end and kind of forgot my first idea, and for some reason ended up doing something slightly different and Ace-POV instead. I kind of wish I hadn't now... *sighs*

But yeah, Seven/Beatrix Potter...I don't know where that came from either - it was a flash of inspiration, or a moment of madness. It's not a bad idea, though, is it? I like the idea of them just bumping into each other on some lakeside path on a rainy day in the Lake District, and just having a little whimsical, melancholy sort of conversation about talking animals and William Wordsworth (because Four or someone totally used to go hellraising with those Romantic poets, I'm sure). In the rain. Under the brolly, looking out across the grey, hazy lake...yeah... And then he wanders off because Ace is waiting for him, and they never see each other again...

Awww... :)

Awwwwwww indeed. I want to go write fic now - will reply to things another time, but even if I wasn't, I would be too distratced by the Beatrix Potter thing to say something sensible. Exactly! Exactly. I mean, keep writing The Black Bore, but if you did really, really need a change of pace... *cough*

*slaps self*

I love it, tho'

Thanks! It will go on the list, you can be assured, ahead of all the other fanfic I'm masterfully avoiding writing at the moment while trying to knuckle down to the "real stuff"...

I've been trying to do some research re length; it's a bit strange, but on the one hand the smart money seems to say that first-time authors can forget trying to sell anything that's 100,000+ words long. Fair enough. But on the other hand, it seems that in today's market, "fantasy" novels (at least, ones of the swords and horses and wizardy types variety) are expected to be LOOONNNG. So, does about 90,000 words sound like a decent length? That sounds like a lot, but the ridiculously involved story in my head might not fit into that... O.o

(Personally, I think most fantasy novels are much too long, probably out of some misguided effort to ape Lord of the Rings, which at least has enough going on to justify its epic length. I seem to be alone in this opinion; most fantasy readers seem to think that if it's less than about three inches thick, they're not getting value for money... And of course, most of them these days tend not to stop at just one doorstop...they multiply...)

I think, by and large, that you shouldn't worry too much about 'rules' on things like that - as you say the standard for fantasy is doorstop fiction that comes in trilogies, anyway. Plus, usually it's synopsis + first 1-3 chapters you send off, not the whole thing, so nobody's going to be put off by the weight.

I'm not entirely sure how long 90,000 words is! :lol: To be honest, the only thing I would advise, is to plan it out (as far as you can, if you do that) and write it - and then, as I read somewhere "get rid of everything that isn't an elephant". (Except you substitute 'the actual story' for 'elephant' in this case...)

Of course, if what you have left is either unnaturally short or long, you might want to review that, for the reasons you state. But write the story that wants to be written! I'm fed up with reading things that feel either padded out or way too short. (I'm not demanding at all, am I? :lol:)

Trilogies / series sell better - publishers can 'brand' the author. One of those things. Somehow, given your tendency to grow stories, sequels and overal productiveness, that probably won't tell against you! ;-)

Glad to hear you're still pegging away there.

I thought that thing with Four, Romana and singing Sontarans was top of your list now you'd got TW out of the way?

Hmmm, yes...Singing Sontarans - well reminded! ;D Okay, so currently the list goes - Black Bore (priority!)...Sontarans Up the Jungle!...Seven/Beatrix Potter...at least six or seven additional retro-TWood stories I will almost certainly never do now...and the what-the-hell-was-going-on-in-EoT fic I started when I was a bit, well, drunk on New Year's Day and never finished... ;D

Well, somewhat predictably, I was thinking in terms of a trilogy... (Tentative titles: Midwinter, Equinox and Midsummer...although on second thoughts those sound a bit too much like those bloody Twilight novels...). Well, the current story is more or less self-contained, I think, but the historical events it sets in train have to play out somehow, and at least one of the current viewpoint characters is going to live long enough to see at least some of them come to pass... I'm sort of coming to the conclusion that you suggest above, that instead of trying to second-guess "the market", I should just write the thing and then let it live or die on its own merits...in the current form I'm envisaging, it doesn't seem too "fandom friendly" - the current crop of fantasy series seem to have whole casts of suitably likeable/hateable goodies and baddies who seem just designed for people to dress up at at conventions, whereas I've got precisely two "main characters", one of whom is a religious prophet who may or may not be just imagining all of the portents and omens they claim to see, and the other is a slightly clueless knight who ends up involved in high treason without really realising it...

Don't worry; you're titles don't sound Twilight-ish in the extreme. Besides they seem to have sold rather well. Are you dead set against become a world bestseller or something? (There's not all that much blood in them, I'm afraid. And, btw, unless you've read them, no automatic sneering at ahytthing please, because if there's one thing that makes me glare, it's that sort of automatic assumption about stuff. Yes, they are, um, well... special, I agree. If you've read them, I forgive you, otherwise, please be warned. I will glare. You can't see it, but it's scary. Honest. :lol:)

Well, your dscription of yours makes me want to read it, and I really haven't felt moved to want to read fantasy for ages. I made a deliberate decision to only read children's fantasy, because adult was so trammelled by cliches, and children's wasn't. Of course, that came with the job description at the time, too.

You know you're going to write what you want to write anyway; you keep saying as much! The 'market' as you're looking at it is last year's trends, if not two-three years' trends ago. The publishers will be looking for the next thing by now. And in fantasy that yours fits naturally into a trilogy in your head is only a bonus.

Hmm... Maybe you should save the retro TW for when you run off with the ieda and turn it into original fic? :lol: Sontarans up the jungle you can't, so you had better finish it. I think

akashasheiress would say so!

I haven't read them, I'll admit, but I have had them described to me in detail by someone who has read them (and really liked them!), but despite their enthusiasm, I just got a bit of a sinking feeling as I listened... You're still glaring at me, aren't you?

Yeah, as you've said to me before, the idea is to be the next big thing, not copy the last big thing, because by the time it gets published (if ever!), things will have moved on anyway, so...yeah, I'll just go with the crazy pictures inside my head I guess, the way I usually do. ;D

Yes I better had finish that, actually...there were some good things I'd thought of for the later parts...and a bit of Four and Romana will no doubt cheer me up if I end up beating my head in frustration against the Black Bore.

No torture, really, but a bit of human sacrifice, both hinted-at and shown (and one of our viewpoint characters is one of the ones doing the sacrificing, so...yeah...)

No, I can't keep the glaring up for very long. :lol: You have aperfect right to slag anything off you want on your own LJ. But if you haven't read/watched it yourself, I will glare. Just so's you know. :-p (Btw, if you have a chance, you should, because they're kind of, erm, well, indescribably awful? The sort of book that's so bad you have to read the next one to see if it was actually as bad as you thought... And it is... :lol: But I'm careful not to say that aloud too much, because it's never nice to tread on the dreams of 13 yr olds. You take things hard at that age.)

Well, there's nothing wrong to starting off a novel with a canny eye to the market, but, yes, I'd suggest looking for the things that are just showing signs of growth, and anything nobody seems to be doing. I'd have confidence in your ability to do that. And that's not an insult, either, which I realise it could sound like!

:-D No matter what it ends up being called, I'll probably always think of it as The Black Bore. And snigger to myself, cos you know how childish I am about bores. ;-D

Oh, only human sacrifice? Well, THAT's okay then. :loL:

See, now you're making me want to read them... And as I say, I know someone who has copies... Hmmm...

But yeah, I'm sure some of the things I used to love when I was thirteen fall into the category of "indescribably awful", so I probably should be more tolerant (this is the main Lesson What I Have Learned This Week... ;D)

Yeah, well human sacrifice as part of their indigenous belief system - who are we to judge? ;D I've been reading up on pagan religious practices (including some hippy trippy neo-pagan stuff about horned gods and lunar goddesses etc which is utter tosh from a historical/anthropological viewpoint (there WAS NO "witch-cult", people - that's by way of being the moral of the whole sorry story, if history ever has morals!), but there's material there to be used, I think, provided you don't go unwittingly trashing anybody's RL belief systems). And I was reminded about that Arab slave-trader's description of the Viking-age pagan shrine at (I think!) Uppsaala in Sweden...and the very specially-decorated sacred tree they allegedly had there...which is an absolutely horrific sort of mental image I _have_ to get into the story somehow! Er, because, you know...well, just because...

You know, I'm sure this demonstrates my narrow-mindedness, but I'm just kind of intolerant of human sacrifice as a part of someone else's belief system. :lol:

And if my careless words leads you to Twilight, then I can only apologise. With the rider that you would be able to slag them off freely, and I wouldn't glare. (Of course, if you actually really liked them, I wough laugh a lot. A lot. But nicely. After all, I haven't read the last two, so what can I say?)

Although apparently, there have been attempts at Twilight/DW crossovers where Bella is the daughter of Ten and Rose. You can't help but feel that this would explain a lot. (I've made myself laugh again remembering it.)

That's probably like cultural chauvinism or something. XD Well, no, acually, some of the other characters share your sentiments on this issue! It's one of several reasons why this particular culture is regarded as the in-universe equivalent of Mordor or something (although the truth is a bit more complex and shades-of-greyey, or at least I hope that's how the story turns out...)

That is kind of the danger, isn't it? To be honest, I read quite a bit of vampire fic in my misspent youth, but I don't know how much of it I actually _liked_ with hindsight. I think I have the same attitude to vampirism you do to human sacrifice! ;D

Apart from the Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman which are extremely enjoyable (to me!) and a little bit mad, taking place as they do in an alternate-history version of Victorian Britain (and carry on well into the 20th Century) where the novel Dracula ended differently and the Count (who is portrayed very much as the undead version of his historical namesake Vlad the Impaler) married Queen Victoria and became Prince Consort...and then it just gets madder from there...

(plus just about all of the supporting characters are cameos from other works of fiction, so if you don't like the admittedly quite bloody storyline, which involves Jack the Ripper and lots of other such shenanigans, you can at least play spot the sometimes-obscure reference...)

Hah. I know Kim Newman! It's one of the things I've learnt randomly through my LJ flist - that was the really odd guy who'd published some book was who presented us with our GCSE certs because he was the only half-way famous person my school had managed. :lol: I expect he hadn't written that then (1993), because I think he'd had about 1 short story published. We were all sooo unimpressed...

Mr Newman does indeed come across as a bit of a strange character - I've seen him on TV, as a talking head on BBC4-type-programmes (you know what I mean!) about cult TV and/or SF literature, and he does present the image of a great British eccentric, I'll agree. Nevertheless, he has written a lot of very cool stuff, both under his own name and under his pseudonym "Jack Yeovil". He wrote some tie-in novels for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay RPG which, believe it or not, really transcend the boundaries of RPG tie-in fiction (no, really! I'm not kidding - they're really good!). ;D I'm kind of overwhelmed that you've met him, because I've for years thought of him as a pretty cool dude (you know what they say about never meeting your heroes)!

I'll see your Kim Newman and raise you a Cherie Blair! Yes, the former Mrs-PM is indeed the most famous living pupil of my former alma mater (from the days when it was a posh convent school back in the 60s, before it became a slightly disreputable comprehensive - her father was an actor in Til Death Us Do Part, so presumably could afford it!). I've shaken her hand and had a certificate off her! ;D It was her or our second-most-famous living pupil, Anne Robinson... O.o

It was 1993, though.
He had't written much.
Anne Robinson? 8-o
(We've killed the thread again!)

Yes...Anne @#?!ing Robinson, who will be forever dead to me for a) what she said in the Daily Mirror about Hillsborough and b) her suggestion that the part of Liverpool I grew up in used to be a nice area before people like my parents moved in there from less-posh adjoining areas in the 70s. So, really, Cherie was much the better choice. :D

I am sold on Eleven and Amy so far (I saw your review for last week - depsite having issues with plot holes that could sink a passing space whale, I loved all their interaction, even, and especially the bit you hated - just when I was all 'No, NewWho angst strikes, blah, help, aargh!' it caught me all off guard with Amy turning things around, and all because she'd seen something special in the Doctor. For the first time ever in New Who, I was the one with something in my eye. :-p (Damn them!! *cough* And I knew people would be slagging it off, because that plot was like some kind of entertaining trainwreck between a Moffat creepy story and a RTD crazy one. Strange.)

Of course, if it offends you still, I think you could easily - and this would be dark enough for you - read it the whole thing as a test for Amy, which she passed. I don't think it was, but it would be very easy to read it that way. You can have that reading if you like it. Because there's stuff there to support it. :-D) They already have a bit of that magic and the twisted-up-ness you get - with Seven and Ace, (also with Eight and Charley. I won't spoiler, but they start with having fun, and the Doctor finds his matching companion for that incarnation, to finding they're trapped in a tangled up relationship where Charley has no one else, and the Doctor's done something very bad, and it gets all twisted up, though their characters are even more different from 11 and Amy, than Seven and Ace.) I am getting Seven and Two vibes all over the place, and I'm loving it. Hope next week is fun, too. :-)

Erm. That wasn't much about your post, but I think we've come round to that bit where we nod and find we agree with each other after all. :lol:

BTW, I'm now thinking on that Seven/Beatrix Potter fic - awww - and "The bastard!" :lol:

I'm glad you liked my theory. (Something very funny is I got paid in 2008 twice for writing an opinion column, despite not having an opinion. It's amazing what happens, isn't it?) I'll have another one next year maybe? And Doctor/Romana is a lovely, logical ship - that was why I was questioning what exactly was my quite violent objection to it continuing beyond Four, especially with the 80s Doctors, and that was my conclusion. I don't want to see Tegan, Peri, Evelyn and Ace belitted by that sort of thing - and it's hard for it not to -neither Mel or Nyssa, even if I don't mind about Adric. :loL:

But us all being different is what keeps life interesting. And, um, starts wars, but you know, also saves boredom. ;-)

I've responded to your other post on the Beast Below, but you know, I think I'm taking some of your thinking on board and coming to the conclusion that some of the things I didn't like about it say more about my strange relationship with NuWho and the whole Ten vs Eleven thing than they do about the actual story. Yes, I've calmed down a lot after my ranty ranting last night... ;D

I think the Seven and Two vibes are definitely there, though. And as I said before, I really liked his little snappy, grumpy moments with Amy; maybe not really Oneish, but they're doing something interesting with the characterisation and the relationship at least.

I don't mind about Adric really, either. I mean, he killed the dinosaurs, the little hooligan!

Yes, difference is good! And the Doctor would agree!

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