More Rules of Writing

[kerravonsen]

I did my rules of writing post, but I realize (with some of the rules that others have posted) there were a few more, so here they are.

8. Infodumping is BAD. Only tell the readers what they need to know. And what they need to know is what is required for the plot -- the plot of this story. Oh, foreshadowing is okay, if you're planning on writing a sequel, but that, also, needs to be done as hints, not dumps.

9. "There's no such thing as an original idea, only an original treatment." (told me by one of my fannish gurus, and very helpful). This makes me unafraid to try story ideas that I like, even if other people have done the idea first. Because my version is going to be different to theirs. Just take, for example, when astrogirl2 and I both did the "Bad Cliches Made Good" ficathon, and we both did "The 9th Doctor gets amnesia" and our stories were enjoyably different.

10."Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." In other words, consider the probabilities of things that happen. This has a few corrollories.
(a) If you want something to appear commonplace, or you want readers to notice, repeat it three times (this is the Rule of Three)
(b) If something is supposed to be unlikely, then it should only happen once (this is the Rule of One). This also means that if something unlikely has happened in canon, that is not carte blanche to make it happen again in your story.
(c) None of your plots should rely on coincidence too much. If too many coincidences happen, then the reader is going to be looking for the "enemy action"; that is, the cause behind the coincidences. If you don't supply one, this is bad plotting.
(d) In Alternative Universe stories, only one "what-if" is allowed. That is, the basis of an AU story is usually "what if X had happened differently?" or "what if Person A had been born in Universe W?" or some other kind of what-if. You get one what-if for free. All other changes should be a consequence or extrapolation of this change, for several reasons.
1. You run into the "too many coincidences" problem, because you only get one change for free; additional changes are coincidences, and your readers will treat them as such.
2. If you make too many arbitrary (rather than extrapolative) changes, then your readers will wonder why you are making them. The words "undisciplined", "self-indulgent", "wish-fulfilment fantasy" and "why don't you create your own original universe?" spring to mind.
3. It's more fun to thoroughly extrapolate from one what-if. Well, I think so.

Comments

[jedibuttercup]

#10d is one I wish more people would follow. I see so many stories go up at archives like TtH with author's notes filled with "oh yeah, takes place in an AU season X where Y didn't happen and Z happened differently..." Holy wish fulfillment, Batman.

[kerravonsen]

I don't know why it seems so self-evident to me that only one change at a time is the best way of going about AUs. After all, what kind of argument can I really marshal against "It's AU, I can change what I want". Well, you can, but, undisciplined, too many coincidences, yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe one should be grateful that they actually say what they've changed, since that means that they've actually thought about it. Except that multiple changes, as you say, are a sign of wish-fulfillment. "I hated what canon did, so I'll just change it."

Except that I don't actually have anything against people writing fix-it AUs because they hate something that happened in canon -- heck, Blake's 7 is full of AUs where people are trying to alter the outcome of the last episode so that it isn't a massacre. But even so, the "one free change" rule still applies to those kind of stories.

I guess part of the self-indulgence factor is also indicated by what kind of changes the person makes. Say it was someone who hated the idea of Willow/Tara. Now, me, if I was trying to make that un-exist, I would probably write an AU which branched off at a point before Tara turned up, so that they never meet. But the self-indulgent way of going about it would be to just declare "and Willow isn't gay, they're just friends" as well as whatever else they're doing with that particular AU. That indicates bias and self-indulgence.

But, on the other hand, if someone wanted to make Willow not-gay and picked that as their sole what-if, then it would fit in the one-change rule. What would be different in the Buffyverse if Willow wasn't gay? Well, Oz might still be around. And other changes could flow on from that. That could be a legitimate exploration of another path in the Buffyverse, the kind of thing that good AUs are made of.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Your katspace links don't seem to load for some reason. I had to change my lyric wheel story post earlier this week to link to my site when a reader said that the previous link didn't work.

[kerravonsen]

Can you give me any details? Are they working for you? I've just now changed the site over to the new server; they might have caught the other one when it was down (it is still a bit like a yoyo).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They're working fine now, but they weren't when I commented. The query I got was a few days ago and I just gave him the link to the story on my site.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

#9 is very liberating, isn't it? That was pretty much my justification for writing "The Gray" even though neither the concept of the Sufferer nor the moral test hidden within a practical exam were very original ideas.

Speaking of which, I actually came over to thank you for the nice review of said fic on KatSpace! I may have done a small dance of glee when I got the notification e-mail. *grin*

[kerravonsen]

8-)