(no subject)

[timepiececlock]

I was reading the sequel to "That's Why They Call It The Blues" by Nataku-chan, and it got me thinking about my own long-neglected Cowboy Bebop fic.

Basically my idea was to take all the cliches of post-series fic, and run with them--in reverse. And add a dose of Faye/Spike but leave it open-ended too. In fact I planned out about 20 chapters, and I know the basic plot from end to end. I designed it more like a short novel in layout than an episode. I even planned out how I want Spike's character to develop over the course of the story and how I could incorporate changes over time that were a direct result of how the anime ended. I have Edward and Jet there as themselves and not as plot devices. And my storyline was good too-- pretty damn original, but with touches of that CB style too.

The only problem is that I can't get off my damn butt to write the first chapter. I've done the prologue, but I can't seem to go any farther than that. I know what I want, but it's like I have no confidence that I'll get Spike to talk and act like Spike acts in the show.

And to top it all off-- jaina actually gave me the dub of Cowboy Bebop, so that I could a) make vids if I wanted to, or b) refamiliarize myself with canon if I wanted to write fic, since its been like a year and half since I've actually watched the show.

And I still can't make myself even WATCH the episodes. It's like my mind is trying to out-think itself: what if I rewatch it only to realize along the way that my Great Idea for a fanfic is not even plausible after all? What then? I shall be heartbroken. But on the other hand, how can I write fic if I can't even remember details of Spike's speech pattern, how he talks? How will I write convincing dialogue or inner thoughts?

Or, to sum all the above paragraphs up in one statement: I'm a chicken. Yup. This post deserves my indecisive Wembley icon.

Comments

[kenzier.livejournal.com]

::hugs and encouragement:: It sounds like a wicked plot.

[brigidforest.livejournal.com]

You really shouldn't worry about it. I just don't understand this obsession with canon. What's it matter? If it's good writing, then it's good. The character needs to be believeable not a clone of CB. That's kind of boring, and besides it's not really possible to do so. Do Spike as you see him. I don't want to read that asshole from the series that I only grew to like after a whole rewatching of the series. I want to know what the writer thinks of him. I want to see the writer oozing in the story through style, through attitudes, and through the characters.

Just own it and write it. Canon is a bad word. We should let go of it. I think that's why I'm done with fic after BP. I want my own characters. I like to think I own my Spike, and it's not Watanabe's Spike. I especially like to think I own my Faye, because if she's close to Watanabe's Faye then it would be an insult to my own sex.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I just don't understand this obsession with canon.

It comes from reading a lot of really really bad fic (of many fandoms) that make me want to go out and *buy* the source DVDs just so the person could make it sound a little more like the person it's supposed to be. Also, I'm insecure.

The character needs to be believeable not a clone of CB. That's kind of boring, and besides it's not really possible to do so. Do Spike as you see him.

That's actually part of why I'm worried about it-- the Spike I imagine after 7 years in a coma is very different from the series-- he's convinced himself to quit smoking because he thinks it proves something, he can't focus on anything for long which is making him almost totally unable to do his martial arts (no more inner calm water), and basically is having serious trouble putting any life (much less the one he used to have) back together. I start off with Spike in a pretty confused an un-Spike-like place, and eventually work him back to himself again. So I'm worried that while I can make the dialogue sound good or the storyline make sense, it won't be like reading about his character. I want to be sure it has just enough of Spike there for people to stick around until he gets his shit together, which will take basically the whole fic. Does that make sense?

Canon is a bad word. We should let go of it.

I believe in stretching canon, dancing around it, twisting it to near-total transformation, but with just enough still there to be believable to the character. I can't let go of canon. I mean except for the whole "not really dead" part of canon. But it's not even the events of the story that I think about-- when I write fic the characters have to "sound right" in my head. I mean, God knows my version of Usagi in my first fanfics is not the version I saw on Sailor Moon.

I'm a firm believer in the theory that if your character *sounds* like the canon character when he talks aloud or thinks to himself, then you can have him do anything, even things the character probably otherwise wouldn't do.

[brigidforest.livejournal.com]

That second paragraph, you had me. I wanted to read about a Spike that would quit smoking and be at a point in his life that's so dissheveled that he doesn't know what to do. I think it would bring him down from that gung-ho unattainable and perhaps not understandable attitude of his in the series to more of a human being.

The thing about canon is that often these series don't do an optimal job of characterization. So the characters are pieces of what they ought to be. However, what draws people(me at least) to a certain series is that there are possibilities to making these characters wholesome in your mind. The public fills in the blanks.

Brilliant television happens very seldom. When we have something we cling to it, and think it almost perfect. However, I think though that there's a flaw with the reasoning that hearing the character's voice in your head makes it that character you saw in the series. Number one because the dub is not that character. Not as it was intended, and not as it was written. Number two, writing and watching is a whole different arena. I hate reading anime. I like reading writing and anime fic, but I hate reading anime and people who decide to anime-ize their story, when it's supposed to be writing.

Cowboy Bebop is the only anime that I can succesfully read fic from, and that's because I read mainly two writers. I read these writers because they base off their characters mainly off real life, and not mainly from the series. That's brilliant writing.

That's my flaw with BP. At the beginning I tried to write it as close to canon as I could, but as I re-watched and re-watched the series the character flaws became so evident that on paper they were abominable. These characters weren't my own. This was meaningless writing.

You know why ssg is so succesful at what she does? She has real characters. They are not clones of CB, but based off people she knows, off things she knows and understands. I think at the beginning of "She Wanted to Die," she tried doing what the rest of us did. She tried to stick with canon. But she outgrew that and became the veteran she is now. Her writing is her own. Her characters are believeable not because it's close to Faye in the series or Spike in the series, but because it's damn compelling writing with real people.

Ed is one of those characters that is impossible to write, because for all purposes she is what makes Bebop an anime. "The Language of Silence" is a story that took Ed and made a woman out of that blob of a character. She was criticized for it. God forbid it doesn't follow canon.

We have taken the word canon, and basically violated it. We have changed its meaning completely. And in the fic world we do follow it like it was some kind of absolute law or code that everyone must abide by. But the canon we refer to, to base our writing off of (this is not including Harry Potter and other fics based off real canon, which is to say the actual literary works of a writer, such as The Harry Potter canon) is not literature. It is television.

I don't know. I think this idea of canon we have hinders a lot of our writers to a standard that is absurd. We cannot avoid bad writing by setting the standards of canon, especially because who the hell sets these standards. I can say my fic is in canon and make a very convincing argument for it.

eee, I ran my mouth really badly there. This is supposed to be more encouraging than a critique. I think the standars you're holding yourself to are hindering your ability to write. Being in canon won't make writing any better. It's writing if you mean it to be writing with or without Watanabe's Spike.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Number one because the dub is not that character. Not as it was intended, and not as it was written.

Well, in that I have to make a partially agreeing, partially disagreeing statement. No, the dub is not the original. But it is an entity unto itself, and that's the only canon I have to draw from. The dub isn't wrong so much as it is different. They had consultants from the Japanese production on board when they wrote he sript, and they watched the episodes over and over again too. They know what it was meant to be versus what they were able to or decided to make it. The dub isn't Japanese canon, but it is canon for the english version of the series.

Cowboy Bebop is the only anime that I can succesfully read fic from, and that's because I read mainly two writers.

Really? wow. Is that because you've seen limited anime series, or you've been exposed to limited amount of fic for other series? Becaus believe me, there' a lot of good fic out there you're missing. And believe me, the best writers can write the character so he or she seems to be like the one from the series, but ends up doing, perhaps, things the character would never have done if they hadn't been through the experiences suggested in the fic. SSG is the same way.

You know why ssg is so succesful at what she does? She has real characters. They are not clones of CB, but based off people she knows, off things she knows and understands. I think at the beginning of "She Wanted to Die," she tried doing what the rest of us did. She tried to stick with canon.

Yes, her Spike is quite different from the Spike on the show, as Faye, but it's taken a hell of a long time for them to get that way. In the beginning, the asshole from the series was the main character of her story. And the reason I'm so addicted to her fic (which reminds me I need to go read the new chapter...) is that we watched every step of the change. It's not dynamic characters I have a problem with or making your characters change, it's making them close enough to recognizable at the start, and to maintain a aspect of the original that eseentialy blinds the reader to realizing (or makes them not care about) all the other OOC things I've done with the character.

Ed is one of those characters that is impossible to write, because for all purposes she is what makes Bebop an anime.

Uh... I think you need to elaborate on that a little so I know exactly what you're saying.

We have taken the word canon, and basically violated it. We have changed its meaning completely.

How do you define canon? For me canon is a pretty short defintion: it means the collective series of actions and events and words that are done, expressed, experienced or said, by a character. It's like blueprints for the character.

I can say my fic is in canon and make a very convincing argument for it.

Uh....actually I think you just reversed your whole argument there. :)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

But the canon we refer to, to base our writing off of (this is not including Harry Potter and other fics based off real canon, which is to say the actual literary works of a writer, such as The Harry Potter canon) is not literature. It is television.

Actually there I have to really disagree. I don't know if you knew this, but a television show is written by screenwriter. The writer may change from episode to episode, but someone sat down and wrote the final draft of the script. My favorite writer for Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a guy named Drew Goddard. When I was watching that show with that fandom we used to pay attention to which of the writers on the team was writing whichever particular episode, because we knew they had their own styles that would reflect in the dialogue or actions. Of course, the hard events of an episode and general emotional arc of the main characters are plotted out before hand by the show's producer, but after that, it's left to the writer of that episode to make of it what she will.

Books enjoy a more iconially glamourous reputation than television or film, probably because the work load for a book is spread amongst much fewer feople during the creation process, often just one. But if you're going to argue that books have greater value (real canon) than television from the fan/entertainment perspective... I could introduce you to some pretty bad books. I've read good and bad books, and watched good and bad tv, and watched good and bad film. The words a character says on an episode is the same canon as a line of a dialogue from a chapter. The only difference is that with books you usually get a bigger amount of canon to draw from.

Do you consider plays to be real "literature"? A lot of famous plays weren't considered that at the time they were written and performed. They were the sitcoms of their era. Likewise, "dime novels" had about as glamourous a reputation as reality tv does now... but they would still be considered "more real" canon and thus worthy of greater respect according to what you said.

Ah. Don't take that rant there the wrong way. I don't mean to make a critique either. It's just... I honestly can't guess how much film, television, or books you've read. I can only say that I've read a lot and watched a lot, and for me there's no value difference. My ultimate preference is to read because it packs the most information possible of the three mediums, but I can't buy into the idea that somehow books are better than film or television by their very nature of being books. I reject that argument totally. And I know you didn't bring up film, but I did because you can't really talk about television v. books without bringing in film too.


Being in canon won't make writing any better. It's writing if you mean it to be writing with or without Watanabe's Spike.

That's the problem write there-- I'm not Shakespeare but I've always been happy with my writing abilities and style. I know I can make it good-- well good enough to satisfy me anyway (obviously I can't guess if others will like it). I want to make it resemble canon. I don't want my fic to be about a stranger, I want it to be about the Spike I see on tv, + a lot things resulting from my fic that didn't happen on tv.

I know you're trying to encourage me. Thank you. :)

[brigidforest.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, don't misunderstand me. I am in no way trying to be elitist about screen writing. (yes, I kind of knew that screen writing was involved in the television bit, but thanks for the clarification. I didn't know that anyone could even conceive shows just kind of being made up as they go, and if I gave that kind of ignorant impression, forgive me) That is absolutely genuine writing, and playwright to me is an amazing thing that I could probably never master. It's not television though. There's a scope of difference between the caliber of The Death of a Salesman (using a common classic, because that is what everybody knows), and a screen play from an episode of Buffy (Not directed at you--I'm just not really a fan of anything Buffy--at all).

This going to start to sound a bit offensive, but really it's just a difference of opinion. First of all, I definately agree with you that there are a lot of bad writers out there. Trying to sift borders for good literature and trying to find the Julia Alvarez's from the Carrie Fisher's (okay, her latest book wasn't that bad- it was pretty good read) or let's do a more dramatic comparison: trying to distinguish the Sylvia Plath's from the Jewel's (who decided to publish poetry because she thought it was trendy) is quite a feat.

What you are getting on television is not a written work though, and often lacks very much in characterization and overall fullness. I am guilty for misusing the word canon. In reality, it has developped a new meaning (the one you defined) and it should rightfully be added onto the dictionary. Usually though, canon is referred to as the accepted collected works of a writer, such as Shakespeare canon.

I have watched a lot of anime, and I am a television child just like everyone else in my generation. However, I strictly believe that television remains to be one of the lowest forms of entertainment out there. That being said, I think that fic writers (especially those who would like to branch out into the field) should not aim to please or immitate the "canon" of the series or film. I think they should write.

Writing fic helped me learn to distinguish that difference, which is why I'm quickly leaving the fic world after I'm done with BP. It really is a matter of opinion, and though I'm one of those bandwagoners (made up a word!) that kind of wrote a Michael Crichton plot for the Bebop characters, there's nothing I can do to take it back. I have to finish it now, and make the best of it. It taught me how not to use plot devices, and that writing chapter by chapter is insane. It was fun, and hopefully it'll end soon.

I read the fic of the two people I'm talking about, because I got to know them through it. I get to talk to them in depth about it, and I probably could not enjoy the fic as much as I do without that. Fan fiction is very amateur and at times very hard to follow, but it is excellent pratice and so much fun.

I feel like I have gotten to know these two writers on a level that I would have never been able to know them had I not read their writing.

Really, I didn't mean to start epic long replies, but umm, what I meant to say is that I think subscribing oneself to "canon" is crap, and the people who boast about it are the ones who probably write it the worst. I mean, it's one thing to make Faye a hooker, but it's another to complain about artistic liberties taken with the characters. Unfortunately, a lot of fic is written for the sake of popularity or as a continuation of the show.

Also, what I meant with my canon comment is that the word is so loosely used that I can contort anything to be canon in Bebop. You can argue for anything, I think.

I'm so sorry if this makes little if any sense. My brain has burnt to a crisp after the Attic Greek exam, and I have the wonderful pleasure of attending to my monthly visitor, Aunt flo. So, I'm pretty damn fried about now.

I am an anime fan. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock anime down or television for that matter. I just think that the distinction between writing and watching is a big one.

ack, no time to spell check, hubby is here. must go. :D

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Usually though, canon is referred to as the accepted collected works of a writer, such as Shakespeare canon

Ah. You were referring to that definition. I've heard that before. Yeah, that's the accurate definition I suppose, but as you said it deserves another entry in the dictionary, because the word use (at least within the fandom/internet community) has shifted in meaning-- well, for our purposes in conversation.

However, I strictly believe that television remains to be one of the lowest forms of entertainment out there.

See, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. :) I rate film and television the same with the only difference being budget size, and I don't think they're lower forms of entertainment than books. I think they're different forms of entertainment, and I can't conceive that one kind of entertainment that involves storytelling is somehow more or less valuable than any other by its nature of medium.

what I meant to say is that I think subscribing oneself to "canon" is crap, and the people who boast about it are the ones who probably write it the worst.

I tend to think little of people who boast about anything regarding fanfic trueness to the source. Discussion and analyzation (like we are doing I think) are fine, but boasting just leaves a bad taste in my mouth whether its canon or not. It's right up there with interrupting a story to write author's notes to the audience, and holding the next chapter hostage if you don't get more reviews. (and here's where I boast once just to say that I've actually gotten an author to stop doing the last by writing a long long review that asked basically "where's your self-respect, dude?"-- though I don't expect I'd ever be able to convince another person again)

It sounds like you really want to be writing original fiction. I think you should go for it; based on your comments you seem rather jaded to the whole idea of fanfic.

I write fanfic for three reasons: I want more of something that I love (which is why some shows, like Escaflowne, I can't even read fanfic for much less write it-- it already feels complete to me) because I feel that not all possible avenues have been explored; or I am hit with a plot bunny that I feel no one has done before or no one has done to my satisfaction in fanfiction I've already read, and it would be great to put these familiar characters in this situation and see what they do; or thirdly, when I start composing sentences in my head while doing mundane tasks like washing dishes, and I have to write it down or I'll go crazy.

I don't need to create original characters to do it though-- I'm happy to play with the ones in front of me, because they're the ones currently holding my interest.

Really, I didn't mean to start epic long replies

Doesn't bother me. I'm a talker. ;)

though I'm one of those bandwagoners (made up a word!) that kind of wrote a Michael Crichton plot for the Bebop characters, there's nothing I can do to take it back.

::laugh::

I know you didn't mean this as a discussion point but I can't resist trying out the thought...If I had to compare my mental plot bunny with an author's typical plot... let's see... probably Dean Koontz. Ish. Dean Koontz-ish and minus the supernatural undertones. But it's also very much a continuation of the CB storyline rather than a self-contained story... or, actually, sort of a bridge from the end of CB to a new ending/future.