Okay, I'm going to break a lifelong vow here.

(Well, no, I'm not. But I'm going to depart from my usual free-form, white-knuckled ranting style for a moment to talk about torch's latest post.

I think the purpose of the "comments" function is so that I can agree or disagree with what she's saying right there on her site, but it's not really my place to be taking up space in her life with my bad attitude, is it?

I didn't think so, so I put a little response into a comment, even though I tend to stay out of other people's journals because I assume they'd rather the rest of the world didn't know that they know me, even slightly, and now it does occur to me that I was sort of inflammatory, what with calling some people's choices in fanfic evil and all and maybe I'd better go look for an edit button.)

Anybow.

I intend to babble endlessly on one of torch's topics, so I'll use up my own bandwidth.

I liked her point that a writer might hit their stride in their fifth fandom instead of their first. And I'd like to add the thought that because of a writer's style/voice/approach/whatever, she may write brilliant Sentinel fiction but the world's worst X-Files fiction or completely forgettable PM fiction.

Some of that is because the writer can "visualize" (for lack of a better word) the one fandom better—it fits better into her personal world-view and experiences, it's something she can relate to.

"Write what you know" doesn't necessarily mean write high school romance and bad grades stories just because you're seventeen. Think of it more as "write what you know" emotionally, instead of literally and maybe you'll understand what I'm trying to say.

Much as someone might love the idea of Mulder/Krycek, it's just possible that her intellectual understanding of the whole hate/love dynamic is simply insufficient to carry a story.

It's possible that you can't have to a real understanding of the emotional ambivalence of the M/K relationship just because you understand, intellectually, how such a relationship functions. If the author lacks that emotional connection to the action of the story, I'd argue that she's going to find it difficult if not impossible to write in a way that allows the reader to connect to the emotional heart of her story.

I'm not saying this well, I know.

Or, as t mentions, sometimes the person has learned enough about the craft of writing that by the time she hits her third or fourth or fifth fandom, she's putting out a better product.

See, I disagree with t about the HP story Lust over Pendle. I think it does capture the feel of the source material and better, really, than almost any other HP story I've read.

The charm of Lust over Pendle, as with the books, lies largely in the secondary characters for me. Neville's grandmother, Draco's mother, Harry's appalling family, all of these characters come alive in Lust over Pendle. They're three-dimensional with fully realized personalities and flaws. Draco is still the same jerk, but an older and slightly wiser jerk. Hermione is still a bossy, know-it-all, but mellowed by time and experience. Neville is still somewhat uncertain of himself, prone to dithering and making mistakes.

I don't find the adult versions of the book children hard to connect with the source material. They're not the exact same characters, but I think they're believable, convincing representations of who the book children might have become.

The plot of LoP is at least as well worked-out as the plots of the HP books and if the writing itself is more complex and mature, well, this story wasn't written for ten year-olds, was it?

But t sees a heavy influence by Terry Pratchett when she reads LoP. I can't tell if she's objecting to the humor or not, but surely not since the HP books themselves are pretty humorous.

Surely not the writing style since, while I'm very much a fan, I'd argue that Pratchett's characterization is fairly two-dimensional, plots simplistic, and writing style very straightforward. Nothing, in fact, like the way I perceive LoP.

As t makes clear, LoP doesn't work for her as a connection to what she perceives as the HP universe. Since it connects very solidly for me, I'm thinking that I wish I had the nerve to write to her and demand she produce a special essay, just for me, composed of what she thinks of as the essential identifying factors of the HP universe.

I should also mention, just to be fair, that I know of one other reader of the story who complained that it was "emotionally distant" to her. That's a different problem, I know, but I'm just saying. Not everyone who has read LoP has loved it although its fans appear to be numerous.

In a move that may be illegal, or at least in bad taste, let me quote t's words here:

The idea that it is desirable for fanfic to be compatible, in tone and/or subject matter, with the source material unfortunately made me explode through trying to agree and disagree at the same time. If you look at it one way, it's the whole more vs. different question--do you want more of the same, something as close to the source material as you can get, or do you want something different, something that goes places the source material never did? And my answer to that is usually a resounding and confusing yes, please. I like more, and I like different. I like a connection to the source material, yes, but I tend to think of that mostly in terms of believable characterization; I do think it's possible for a horror fandom to support a romantic comedy, and vice versa. But then again, there are times when tone is everything.

And I naturally agree with t that it all comes down to characterization. Because the behaviors and reactions of the characters in West Wing are nothing like the behaviors and reactions in characters in Law & Order. (Although I'm making some blind assumptions since I've never actually seen L&O.)

I'm still explaining myself badly, aren't I?

Let me try using well-worn clichés.

A romantic comedy set in the universe of a gritty cop drama is necessarily going to be different than a romantic comedy set in the universe of a political drama that, even in canon, has a certain screwball tone.

"Comedy" is likely to be darker in the L&O universe, even mean-spirited. If someone slips on a banana peel, his co-workers are going to gather around, laugh at him, and then tell, everyone else what happened. And he'll be finding banana peels in his locker and in his lunch sack for six months.

In the political world of WW, comedy is likely to be screwball, even with a touch of gentle slapstick and the same slipped on a banana peel is going to be met with a caustic remark and then not mentioned again until it's used as ammunition to throw the slippee (is too a word!), off-balance in a later argument.

"Romance" is going to differ between the two universes as well.

I'd assume that L&O characters might fall into each other's arm, in a convention beloved of fanfiction—the "ohmigod we almost died and now my sex-drive is in overdrive and by the way I love you," scenario.

In WW it would be more likely to be the result of verbal sparring that masks a very real attraction when, in some late-night bull-session, the characters find themselves grappling on a sofa with only an indistinct idea of what sparked the move.

I'm still explaining myself badly, aren't I?

What I mean to say is that any genre of story can be written for any fandom universe. But that has nothing with what I define as being faithful to the "tone" of the universe

I'm still not saying this well.

This is why I never responded to any of t's interesting thoughts before. She's so much more articulate than I am. Plus which, I suspect she takes the time to re-read and edit her livejournal entries instead of writing while at work and then posting on the sly, the way I do.