Scifi's Two-Cents

[Alternate Charmed]

Scififantasychic--Scifi to us who know and love her--has written some of the best Charmed fanfics around...you can find all of them in our Vault. She's busy right now, in the midst of selling her first professional novel, but while a member of Es' LIBRARY of CHARMED, she came up with some of the best advice regarding writing that we've ever read. I'm sure she wouldn't mind if we share her advice with all of you.

Keep in mind that most of her advice is for people who want to share their fics with others. If you're just doing it for your own enjoyment, it doesn't really matter--just write what feels right to you. But if you're planning to share your fics either here or at other Charmed sites, her advice is definitely something to keep in mind.

So now without further ado...here's Scifi.

[Alternate Charmed]

On 8/25/05, Scifi posted the following to Es' LIBRARY of CHARMED:

Well, I did have a thought on some advice, or at least a truth that I tend to see in the good stories, both in fanfic and in traditional literature. That's the importance of character consistency.

Characters must remain true to themselves if they're going to be believable. Everything they say and do must adhere to the fundamentals of who they are, of how they've been established. In fanfic, generally this means that they act as they would on the show. But even if you're making the characters different than they would be on the show, they need to stay close to the way you've established them. This is not to say that characters should not change in the course of the story; that defeats the purpose of fiction, which I see as a way of showing how people grow -- or regress -- in relation to the events that are happening around them. What it does mean is that if characters are going to change, there has to be some build-up to indicate the reasons behind it.

An example of what not to do is Titan A.E., if anybody remembers that movie. The captain goes from a good guy to a bad guy really suddenly. That's not too hard to swallow, since it comes out that he has been a traitor all along. But at the end of the movie, he turns good again, without any motivation other than the main character needs a way out of a tense situation, and the captain having this sudden change of heart is a convenient way for the writers to do that. It is completely contrived and unbelievable. That's the kind of thing good writing should avoid.

In the Charmed universe, a good example of how a character can change and be believable is Bianca from "Chris-Crossed." There is a history between her and Chris, one that is not to be thrown away lightly. The audience understands this. We see how sweet she could be in the flashbacks, but there is also the indication of her toughness. The Bianca who comes to the past has seemingly embraced that cold side, and Chris acknowledges that there must have been something that, over the course of time, turned her back to evil. While we don't get to see those events, we get the indication that there was a reason. We can also see in the scene with her mother, that even in this assassin-mode, Bianca is conflicted. The internal conflict shown here and in her discussion with Chris just before she takes him back to the future makes it believable that she can do yet another turnaround and help Chris against Wyatt, even at the cost of her own life -- we get the indication that Chris's best interests were in her mind all along. Her actions are consistent with what we can glean of her internal motivations. She has been established as a conflicted character, and that follows her through until she finally puts an end to that conflict. That is what I mean by character consistency.

~~Scifi~~

[Alternate Charmed]

Scifi added this on 8/29/05

I've been thinking what else to add to this thing, and here's what I came up with. Overdone, I know, especially by English teachers, but necessary all the same.


English is something of a screwy language when you think about it. So many words sound the same, but are spelled differently, and mean totally different things. Who knew?

Seriously, here are the ones that have always plagued me. You'll see them occasionally in my writing when I've been less than attentive.

Your: possessive
You're: contraction for "you are"

Its: possessive
It's: contraction for "it is"

And yes, even...

There: a place
Their: possessive
They're: contraction for "they are"

If you find any others in my work, please let me know so I can add them to my list of "to-look-out-fors." In the meantime, here are a few other common offenders in spelling, particularly in student writing. I'm taking these from a grammar book, incidentally, which is a must-have for any writer.

are: plural of the verb "to be"
hour: measure of time
our: possessive

bare: nude or unadorned
bear: to carry, an animal

choose: to pick
chose: past tense of choose

hear: to sense sound by ear
here: a place

know: to comprehend
no: negative

loose: unbound, not tightly fastened (also a verb for unbinding something)
lose: to misplace

quiet: silent or calm in adjective form, silence in noun form
quite: very

than: in comparison with; besides
then: at that time; next; therefore

through: finished; into and out of
threw: past tense of throw
thorough: complete (I always have to look up how to spell this sucker)

to: toward
too: also; indicates degree (as in too much)
two: number

where: place
were: past tense of "be"

whose: possessive
who's contraction for "who is"

I guess that'll do for now.

Oh, speaking of grammar, I must recommend one book for its smallness of size, but greatness of content: Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Better still, it's cheap! Buy it, use it, love it if you are at all serious about writing.

~~Scifi~~

[Alternate Charmed]

Scifi added this on 2/10/06:

It's been a while since I've added to the pot. It's always been penny-ante, so this is going to be just a little -- maybe two bits.

Criticism is a tough game. It's hard to take it, and it's hard to give it, unless you're a cold-hearted so-and-so who can't be hurt and who doesn't care if you hurt others. If you are, then you probably won't get anything I'm saying in this post, so you can go take some candy from another baby.

Now that they're gone, we softies can converse.



On Giving It:

We all like to feel special, to be admired, and most of us know that. (Cold-hearted people, you're still reading? Be gone!) So when we go to criticize someone's writing, we're looking for ways to stroke their egos, or at least to keep from offending them so they go off and vow never to pick up a pen or type at a keyboard again. But really, what good does that fear of offense do the writer? How will he or she ever improve if we don't point out what needs improvement?

This is not to say that every reply should enumerate the grammatical mistakes, point out inconsistencies, and all but say, "This is crap." Yes, a writer wants to know when it's crap, but not in so many words. It is to say that we ought not say even when it's not. Correct grammar, point out inconsistencies, but then also let the writer know about that piece of dialogue that resonated, that description that had you there in the moment, that touch of humor or pathos that drew you in. In this way, you let writers know what they do well so they can hone that talent, and what they do not-so-well, so that can bring it up to par with the rest.



On Taking It:

Suck it up. Everything is perfect in your head, but when it gets to the page, it's never going to be quite what you envisioned. It's the pitfall of our species not having a telepathic connection. Wouldn't that be so cool, though, if you could transfer the pictures and sounds and events in your head to others' brains with the blink of an eye? But I digress.

For the most part, when people honestly criticize your work, they have your best interests, or at least the best interests of the story, in mind. Feel flattered that they think enough of your story to reply honestly. Get mad about it if you want, but fume in the privacy of your own mind where it can do you some good. After the fuming is over, think about what they said. Do you really need to get a beta reader if your grammar is stunting an otherwise brilliant imagination? Could you stand to listen to the ways people really talk to get your dialogue less stilted? Could your work use a tad fewer cliches -- would it really kill you to mull over the best way to describe the colors in a sunset just for the sake of seeing how well words really can paint? On the flip side, were you really as happy as you could have been with that bit of dialogue everyone said was so witty? Did you really have to try to get that breath-taking description out? Whatever praise you receive, take it in stride. You've done a good job, but never let yourself rest on your laurels. There is always, always room to improve.

And yes, there will be the occasional hater out there who will not only flat-out say, "This is crap," but will also say, "How dare you put your feeble little mind to such a topic. You can't possibly think people will like this ..." and so on, and so on. Ignore them. If you can't ignore them, report them to an administrator -- it's what they're there for. But ultimately, the haters are just those sad little creatures who are taking candy from babies at the moment. (If you're not taking candy, but are still reading, I warned you. Now you'll have to spend the next few hours composing a diatribe against me, my family, and everyone I've ever met. You could have been eating candy by now, you know.)

~scifi~~

[Alternate Charmed]

Scifi added this on 5/13/06

"Where do you get your ideas?" I think that might be the single most asked question a writer hears (aside from "Is there any money in that?") And it might be one of the hardest to answer. Sometimes, ideas really do just come to you, but how are you supposed to explain that to anyone without sounding glib? Each of us is inspired in different ways and by different things, and to follow the associative paths that lead from inspiration to full-fledged idea would become mind-numbingly complicated. However, I'll write here what works for me and what I've heard works for other people, and if anyone else wants to share, feel free.

Dreams: The genesis of my novel came to me, quite literally, in a dream. Now, the plot points and many of the qualities of the characters have become infinitely more fleshed-out and reality-based than they were in such an archetypal state, but I give full credit for the germ of the idea to my subconscious. Whenever I have such "story-dreams," I write them down as soon as possible. They don't even have to make a lot of sense at the time. I have about 3 books in the wings, all based on things that came to me in dreams.

Music: I write to music. I think it's kinda cool that I share this attribute with George Lucas, but that's beside the point. It may be that the TV/movie culture has too thoroughly saturated my brain, but when I hear pounding brass, I see a battle, and if I see the battle, I can describe it more clearly. I've done this for my novel, going so far as to buy a Civil War soundtrack (since it's set during the Civil War), supplementing that with some classical music that fits, for lack of a better term, cinematically. I did this for my Charmed stories, as well, and I still give the "soundtrack" for The Witch and the Assassin a whirl every once in a while because I picked out some pretty awesome songs for that one. The point is, music helps set the mood for whatever scenes you are writing, and if you're in the mood, it'll show in the scene.

Conversation: Listen to everything, particularly gossip. My grandmother told me a story about a senile relative. I used it as a basis for a short-short story and won 100 bucks for it. It pays to listen.

Observation: Along with listening to everything that goes on around you, watch it, smell it, get the details of life in your head. Pick a pretty day to sit out in nature -- or in the middle of a city. I'd say you could get the same effect anywhere if you tried. Let your mind drift among all the little things that go on around you. There's a story somewhere in there if you let it come.

Freewriting: This is one of those things they try to teach you in freshman composition classes. As much as I hate the classes, this exercise did help some people to brainstorm an idea. You could focus it if a blank sheet of paper intimidates you. One exercise I liked was to pick a word randomly from a dictionary and write associations about it until a story starts to take shape from among those associations.

READ!!!: You can do nothing better for yourself as a writer than read. And I don't mean just fiction -- that's useful more for honing your style than for getting ideas (you come dangerously close to plagiarism if you copy ideas!). Non-fiction is the ticket for ideas. The key to this is to wonder, wonder, and wonder some more. Why are things the way they are? What if they were different? What if.. how... why... These aren't just the questions of journalism. They are also the questions of fiction.


Or... you could always cheat and capture a Muse.

~~Scifi~~

[Esmeralda]

I see that Alternate Charmed has posted Scifi's wonderful advice. I've used a lot of it since I first read it, and I do think it has made me a much-better writer.

I've decided to copy over my own responses to Scifi's advice since I still feel pretty much the same way as I did then, although typical Es, I can't help but tweak it a bit.

Feel free to respond to anything that either of us said, or if you want to add your own advice, feel free to start your own thread.


Here's what I replied after Scifi posted her bit on "Character Consistency":

Personally, Scifi, I think that advice is worth a million bucks, because it's truly what I feel is what makes a story, any story, a good story or a bad one!!

This is especially true when reading fanfics. I don't mind if the character is different from the one on television IF the author gives the character a good reason for acting that way! I think some of the very best fanfics are ones that show how the character could've acted differently had something else happened. (Note: It's what we're hoping to do in Let's Rewrite Charmed.)

Of course, sometimes I don't like a fanfic because the main character(s) are *too* much like the character on TV! If Phoebe acts too much like Freebie on TV--making out with every cute guy she meets and then forgetting him the very next day--I'm probably not going to like the fanfic. Funny, but that part of Phoebe's character very seldom makes its way into fanfic, and the ones that do usually aren't very popular!! Wouldn't it have been nice if Alyssa or Brad Kern would've figured out the lesson behind that??

Then, of course, there's Chris. As a lot of people know, I didn't care for Chris-on-TV one bit for a ton of reasons that I'm not going to get into right now. Suffice it to say that he never did anything but annoy me or irritate me. I know that I'm in the minority of Charmed fans, but that's what is. So if Chris-in-fanfics acts too much like Chris-on-TV without being given a better reason than the ones given on the show--his daddy ignored him while trying to save the world, poor baby! (part of the reason why he annoyed me), then the fanfic annoys me! Again, as I said, I *know* I'm in the minority, but try as I might, I can't change that. So if your fanfic is about Chris and I don't reply, it probably means you're doing an absolutely totally fantastic job of following Scifi's advice and making him act just like he did on the show, and a whole lot of Charmed fans will probably *love* it--I just won't be one of them!

This is particularly true with St. Piper or St. Christopher stories (or even St. Prue, St. Phoebe or St. Paige ones, although St. Piper and St. Christopher ones are the most prevalent, especially once "The Perils of Piper" aka the last three seasons of Charmed were aired) where these two are icons who can't do anything wrong. With those fics, I roll my eyes and go on to the next. It's the fact that these characters have flaws that make them likable.

This is also true when the characters are given powers that they did not have or use their powers in ways that weren't used on the show. (Paige being able to TK something the way Prue or Chris could is one I see a lot and that bugs me a lot. She can ricochet stuff she calls for; she can't TK it. That turns her into Superwitch. Also when Prue is part of the story and both she and Paige can use TK. Especially if it's a fic where Prue never dies, Paige should never receive that or *any* power until one of the original Charmed Ones dies or gives up her powers. Paige should always have her whitelighter powers (like Chris), but not her Charmed ones. If a Charmed One besides Prue dies, then Paige's powers should reflect the one who died with whitelighter twist.) Even the professional novels do that once in awhile. As soon as they do, there's no way that fic can be a favorite of mine, because it doesn't seem real.

When a reviewer says your character sounds just like they did when they were on the show, there's no greater compliment.

Here's what I thought of Scifi's "Grammatical Downfalls":

Scifi, why doesn't it surprise me that you've read and followed that book! Now wonder your writing is so good! The main thing I learned from it was to watch out for nominalizations (sp?) in order to keep the story in the active mode rather than the passive one!!

All of those were great reminders, Scifi--all stuff that a spell-checker just doesn't catch! It's the problem with having a language that's based on so many different languages, and is why the worst thing that happened to good writing was Hookt on Fonix! My favorite example: What does GHOTI spell?

Pronounce it like this:

GH as in touGH
O as in wOmen
TI as in moTIon

It sounds just like FISH!!

Scifi, when we were discussing this a long time ago, you posted a poem that was absolutely hilarious! Please post it here!!

To that, Scifi replied:

No problem, Es. This poem came from my all-time favorite English professor. It's an object lesson on the dangers of over-reliance on spell check.


A Few Words on Spell Czech

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write;
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite;
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased too no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

--Sauce unknown

Here's what I wrote after Scifi posted "The Give and Take of Criticism":

A lot of people find it hard to say what they dislike about a fic. If anything they gush and gush and every one of their reviews say the same thing about how wonderful the review is. The author begins to wonder if the reviewer even read the fic or if they're just trying to suck up.

Now when they simply say, "This is crap! How could you write such sh*t"", well, that's not very helpful either. If you truly don't like a fic that badly, simply don't read or review it--that's what I tend to do.

I guess my way of looking at it is if I only tell what I like, then how does the author know that I truly mean it? Only if I tell what I don't like do I prove that I truly mean it when I say I love something. I tried doing that once--only being positive, and it drove me nuts, because I didn't feel like I was truly helping them or me!

I know my biggest problem is figuring out how to point stuff that I don't like nicely (subtleness has never been my strong point! I tend to be brutally honest and people who know me know that I say what I mean and I mean what I say) and that I've scared away a few people with it, which I later try to apologize for and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. I've also wondered/worried whether my complaints may stop a person who is enjoying a story from continuing to read it, or if they read my complaints and they prevent others from reading it. That's why I've stopped reading Chris-fics that make Chris seem too much like Chris-on-TV!

Here's what I posted after Scifi posted "On Inspiration":

Absolutely fantastically wonderfully done, Scifi!! *cheers wildly*

Funny, I always say that my Charmed muse is Phoebs Halliwell! So many people wonder why I so often write from Phoebe's point of view, and that's why. Something in the show makes me wonder what if something was different, or a website has a contest, or someone makes a suggestion. The next day, I'm out walking and I can hear Phoebs' voice in my head, telling me a story! I take dictation and those have been among my favorites of my own Charmed fanfics! I say my muse is Phoebs, not Phoebe, coz she always sounds more like she did in the early seasons and she's neither Freebie or PhoeME except in the Baby Sister sense that she was in the early seasons. This is how I wrote my first Charmed fic, "Charmed by Love".

I also like to take someone else's fic(s) (with their permission and giving them credit, of course) and change it into one of my own, usually by telling it from Phoebs' point of view.

Or I take something from real life and turn it into Charmed. That, of course, is how I wrote my "My Sister's Dying", taking my mom's last day and translating it into Charmed.

For me, it's a lot easier to take characters already drawn up and put them into other situations. I truly am in awe of people who can make up totally new characters and totally new worlds.

(Note: Both fics I mention in this reply are ones that are posted elsewhere but that may eventually find their way here.)

OK, members, your turn! What did you think of what Scifi and I had to say??

[StoryGirl83]

Okay. For now, and probably ever, my reply will not be near as long as Es'. Wow!

I love that poem. It is so very true. I "love" it when my spell checker informs me that something is spelled wrong, but none of the choices are right or, better still, it's actually spelled right, because it is someone's name. I keep meaning to tell my spell checked that yes, her name is spelled P-R-U-E. Sad, really.

I haven't seen the movie sci-fi mentioned, Titan A. E., but I certainly agree that the characters actions should make sense and stick to how they would react. If they are going to change sides, especially more than once, let us have clues, even if only ones we catch looking back, that they were not sure, that they might have decided to change sides. A recent example I saw of a character who seemed to flip sides and then flip back was on Numb3rs (eat that spell checker). The season finally, last year ended with one of the characters being found on a list of traitors and proceeding to act like he really was a traitor. Then, in the season opener this year, he broke out of prison with another guy and contacted his former boss, telling him to trust him and that he needed help. They did a really good job with that. I don't know if there were any clues prior to that as to him being up to something, because I haven't seen those episodes. More recently I watched this years season finale of a favorite show and one of the characters was revealed to have murdered someone. Many things made some sense about the sitution, even this characters involvement, but when it all came down to it, I just can't see this character killing someone, especially in cold blood. I don't think that is was done well, but maybe that's because this character just never seemed the type. My dad thinks the actor wanted off the show and they manufactured this.

Oh, but I do hate all those grammer things. Our language is aweful. I've heard that it is one of the worst languages to learn as a second language and I believe it. If I didn't speak it, I would be so confused trying to learn it.

Hmmm . . . Candy . . . As if I would ever fall under that catagory. I am aweful about not wanting to give criticism. There have been time though when something needs them, when it's good, but there is that one or two things that just take it down.

Inspiration. I like that section. I have gotten inspiration from dreams. I had one dream that played every night for several nights until I wrote it down. I never had it again. I had another that was the inspiration for a story I started about six years ago (and still haven't finished, it got really complicated and I lost half the story). There have been several more.
I have more than once written a story around a name:
Xanthe. It means "Yellow hair". I begun a series of stories based off that name.
Dara. A baby name book insulted it as weak, so I decided to write a character to prove them wrong. I'm working on that one currently.
Getting ideas from the stories of others . . . trust me, by the time I am done with them, you won't have a clue where the idea originated from. It might start there, but it keeps almost nothing, sometimes not even what sparked the idea in the first place.
Most of my ideas are of that weird, undefinable sort. They just came to me. I have no explanation, but that's just what happened. One moment nothing, the next a story starts forming.
Sometimes I will start talking and the dialogue will turn into a story, one that I want to keep. I'm not sure if I recomend this around others though. I do get funny looks from them.

[StoryGirl83]

I have a couple of word pairs to add to the gramatic downfalls:

Witch ~ Which - I mess this one up so often when writing Charmed fics.
Pear(s) ~ Pair(s) ~ Pare(s) - Are there only three of these?
Ate ~ Eight - Don't know if these two get messed up, but they sound alike, so I thought I would add them.

[Esmeralda]

Jun 22, 2008 1:12:48 GMT -4 StoryGirl83 said:

I have a couple of word pairs to add to the gramatic downfalls:

Witch ~ Which - I mess this one up so often when writing Charmed fics.
Pear(s) ~ Pair(s) ~ Pare(s) - Are there only three of these?
Ate ~ Eight - Don't know if these two get messed up, but they sound alike, so I thought I would add them.

LOL, you're right about these, too, Marlena!

I'll do what Scfi did and look up the definitions, and add them to my "list of things to look out for". These are from MSN Encarta's Dictionary which I use whenever I'm not sure of the spelling of a word.

witch = somebody with alleged magic powers:
which = asks question

pear = a fruit
pair = two similar things used together
pare = remove outer layer

ate = past tense of eat
eight = the number 8

Thanks, Marlena!

[Assassin Witch]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. I'm reading it one at a time, and I'll probably comment on each separately.

character consistency

One of my pet peeves as a reader/writer is when characters are OOC - out of character. I choose to read a story based on characters I love, and I want them similar to themselves. I totally understand change, but like SciFi stated, as long as it's a progression throughout the story, it works. As long as we can see/read/understand the change in a character, it works. Convenience is a COP OUT. Do not do it!

And, I must say, I LOVE her example of Bianca as a good way to have character development. hehe.

[Assassin Witch]

GRAMMAR!

I want to start off my saying I want to be an Editor as my profession.

i4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/MusicGoddess/grammared9.gif

Spell Check is not the only answer, people. It does NOT catch grammar. ALWAYS proofread your own work. OR, better yet, get someone else to read it -- those are called BETAs. They'll be your best friend.

[Assassin Witch]

Criticism

I'm bad at giving improvements, for the most part. I know that. I try to focus on the good and let the author know what I love - usually with *action*. A lot of time when I review Gossip Girl stories, if I squeal, I will tell them that I *SQUEAL* so they can read the emotions that the piece of work really got me into it. And I try never to write I LIKE IT. UPDATE SOON. Well, I do do that, but not ONLY that. I'll put it at the end after my *squeal*ing stops.

Gotta say, one of the things, as a writer, I hate most in reivews are the short ones that saw: I love it. Please update soon. Nothing else. Just that. WHAT did you like about it? *sighs*


Okay..and RECEIVING. I NEED criticism. I NEED someone to tell me how it is. I can't turn things in unless someone reads it over - my mommy is my best friend. I need to be pointed out my mistakes. I need to know where I was lacking in detail. I need to know when someone doesn't understand. I need to know when things are worded confusedly(is that a word?). Does it mean I'll change everything? No. When my mom was reading over a Gossip Girl fic, she said something didn't sound right. I read it over - five thousand times - and I couldn't understand where she was coming from. It's MY STYLE of writing. So, I didn't change it. But, I APPRECIATE that she pointed it out to me. Take everything in, but keep your work, your own.

BTW, I am my own worst critic. I cannot read something I've written and be happy with it. Any advice on that? Please. Because I currently have three pieces of fiction that have been written, but I need to edit them, and I can't seem to like what I'm reading. (And, my Charmed Song Fic truly does need to be edited. I think I'm gonna rewrite it actually.)

[kernsux]

there was lotz of very good advice in here almost too much im going to have to go back and reread it at a different time

[jediya]

All very good advice, love it I'm actually working on writing a few bits of advice myself, on writing (or rather how I write.) I've said to Es I may very well post it here, so when I've written it up I'll be sure to

Just like to add something to the grammatical downfalls bit :

Weather - the state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc.
Whether - Used in indirect questions to introduce one alternative: We should find out whether the museum is open. Or alternate possibilities: Whether she wins or whether she loses, this is her last tournament.

It truly bugs me how often these two words are used wrong (usually the former being used in place of the latter.)

[StoryGirl83]

Yeah, I have fun trying to do those two right. I think I finally am able to get them most of the time, but it can be annoying at times when I realize I wrote the wrong one.