Your style when writing Tolkienfic is way different from when you're doing B7. Assuming the voice in the former is, even if with variations, based on Tolkien, how about the B7 voice? Do you think the series had a "voice"; in fact can a TV series or a film have one?
I had to go away and think about this one for a bit. I thought about some of my favourite episodes or 'moments' in B&; 'Sarcophagus' has most of the stuff that made me fall in love with B7, but thinking about it, that isn't the B7 voice, it's more Tanith Lee's voice in the context of B7 (I still love it). But that means that there probably is a B7 voice (against which 'Sarcophagus' can be compared)... So - yes, I do think B7 has a voice, and if I were thinking of the quintessential B7 voice, I'd say it was in 'Death Watch'. And that's an ensemble voice: all the parts working as a whole. (And that works for many other TV shows of the kind I like: The West Wing, DS9, Firefly.)
The other thing I thought about in relation to 'voice' was that I think I use specific characters as voices to access and illustrate specific narratives within the source text. So the 'voices' of B7 (by which I mean the stories that are most important to me) are Anna's (private love vs. public duty) and perhaps Cally's (how far is someone willing to go for their beliefs). Blake's voice suits that latter narrative too, although he gives different answers from Cally.
Just one last thing, I don't think that the voice in my Tolkien fic is always based on Tolkien; one of the things I think the Tolkien fic has let me do has been to develop something approaching a style of my own. When I did consciously set out to write a Tolkien fic in the style of my B7 or DS9 fics (Proof, I ended up devising a thirteen-part TV adventure series called 'Rangers of Ithilien' in which that story could stand as an episode :-D
Oh, the other thing I would say is that the other shows I listed have particularly distinctive voices, whereas I think B7 in many ways has a very sparse one, and that's why it's so amenable to writers who have their own distinctive voice, starting with Tanith Lee and going on to Penny Dreadful, E'trix, etc. Each of these has a distinct voice and yet the end product still has the family resemblance to B7. Will think more about this throughout the day.
That's all really interesting. When I start thinking of eps I think I can see something running particularly through the Nation and Boucher ones. With Boucher especially, a habit of not seeing in black and white, of giving the opposition its voice too (Par, Grenlee) and a rather lovely line in irony. And with both of them, for want of a better word, a moral dimension; I don't think there was one of their eps that didn't have a moral question at the root of it. Which is one reason I can forgive most of the flaws in Allan Prior's; I think he was the same in that respect, especially in Horizon and Volcano.
Boucher's stories are often beautifully structured too: 'Shadow' is a two-parter, 'Trial' has those wonderful interlocking storylines that connect together at the end, and I think you've probably heard my spiel about 'Death Watch' many times!
And I think you're right - for all the jokes I make about Nation's hackery, and for all he reuses the same themes and plot devices across many of the series he wrote for, I think there is a moral dimension to many of his stories. Survivors was probably the show he cared most about, and where he writes his most thoughtful stuff. And 'The Way Back', too, of course. And on the subject of Allan Prior, can I note that 'Animals' has a moral question at its core? ;-D
Giving the opposition its voice is an interesting one: they're usually in double acts (Par and the other trooper, Bercol and Rontane, Forress and Grenlee). It's a device that Boucher most likely got from Robert Holmes and writing on Dr Who but Holmes's double acts perhaps aren't as problematizing: Egrorian and Pinder are grotesques, Bellfriar and Gambril evade the politics... perhaps Colonel Quute and the guy he's playing the game with. But even they're not there to give the opposition its voice - they're there for us to dislike.
And, thinking further about your original question, Holmes's scripts for B7 are probably much more in his own voice than in the B7 voice (like Tanith Lee's). Which, now I think a bit more about it, is consistent too with what I was saying about unique fanfic voices being able to find expression using B7.
I stumbled into it rather than breaking into it. It was the writer's dream, really: I got an email out of the blue from the editor of the books saying that someone had recommended my writing, and would I like to pitch a story for the Prophecy and Change anthology. I think you can probably imagine my response!
I'm adding you to my Flist. Hope you don't mind. Besides that I like your STrek stories, I noticed that you have "soulless minion" in your icon, and I have it in my journal title.
Well, since I just recced this story over on crack_van and thus am thinking about it at the moment... When you started writing "Wholesale," did you know how it was going to end, or did Garak surprise you the way he surprised me? :)
I usually have stories pretty much mapped out in my head before I start writing, and I must have known roughly where this one was going because of the first line. The, er, unfortunate outcome of the conversation with Avon was a bit of surprise, though!
E.W. produced him for me a long time ago, when I wistfully asked for a Faramir icon. I only have three, unlike the rest of you with your huge icon stables... He was not originally intended as Faramir, he was part of a portfolio she had worked up for a fantasy card job, but when I saw him, I said, "Yes! That's my Faramir!" And he really was. I would have cast Michael Praed as Faramir way back when, and I think he looks a bit like him.
Ooooh. If the Faramir in my head looked like that....! (Speaking as one who carried around a photo of MP in her wallet during her sixth-form years -- truly! -- & probably first got into non-classical music because of the Clannad music on RoS.)
What? She's stepping out on Tom? He'll ring a ding dong her dillo a good one if he finds out. But then, perhaps a little cross-pollination between old friends is no big deal.
That's something I suppose you'll have to decide for yourself. Barrurum.
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That's something I suppose you'll have to decide for yourself. Barrurum. <scrubbing eyes to remove images of Tom/Treebeard/Goldberry threesome, complete with halfling weed> You realize that, where I am, it is entirely too early in the morning for this conversation?
I get two types of writer's block; one is when I'm stuck on a plot point and can't move a story forward from that point, the other is when the words just aren't coming (usually when I'm trying to start a piece).
For the first, I usually end up turning the problem into the solution; e.g. I was writing something recently where I was fretting enormously about the time it would take some characters to travel from point A to point B, and how to make this consistent with action going on elsewhere in the story. I spent hours worrying at detail, how the journey would work and so on. Eventually I realized that what really mattered was to convey passage of time in some way, and so I made passage of time the subject of the (irritatingly few!) paragraphs which ended up getting this bit of the story across.
For the second, the only really useful technique is to sit down and try to put words on the page. Usually I set a wordcount-reward system ("I'll do 50 words now, then check email, then 50 words..."). Doesn't matter if the words are useless - they're there, and better ideas invariably start coming from that. So, the best cure for writer's block is... writing.
Usually when I start writing in a fandom, it's because a particular character has rugby-tackled me to the ground and demanded that I write about him or her. So I don't usually feel daunted about characterization when I enter a fandom... it's when I surface and look around at what other people have written that I feel daunted *g* And I do feel very nervous about taking on characters that are away from my usual turf, particularly if other people write them particularly well (Dwimordene's Aragorn, for example).
I asked somebody else this, but it 's something I'm curious about with fanfic writers in general. What's your personal history as a writer? Your career path seems pretty strongly writing-oriented.
An awful lot of academic prose across the years. Lots of production of research materials: questionnaires, etc. A period as the press and publications manager for a 'think tank', so a lot of press releases and back cover blurbs. So plenty of non-fiction material over the years, although I didn't start writing fiction until my early twenties.
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The other thing I thought about in relation to 'voice' was that I think I use specific characters as voices to access and illustrate specific narratives within the source text. So the 'voices' of B7 (by which I mean the stories that are most important to me) are Anna's (private love vs. public duty) and perhaps Cally's (how far is someone willing to go for their beliefs). Blake's voice suits that latter narrative too, although he gives different answers from Cally.
Just one last thing, I don't think that the voice in my Tolkien fic is always based on Tolkien; one of the things I think the Tolkien fic has let me do has been to develop something approaching a style of my own. When I did consciously set out to write a Tolkien fic in the style of my B7 or DS9 fics (Proof, I ended up devising a thirteen-part TV adventure series called 'Rangers of Ithilien' in which that story could stand as an episode :-D
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And I think you're right - for all the jokes I make about Nation's hackery, and for all he reuses the same themes and plot devices across many of the series he wrote for, I think there is a moral dimension to many of his stories. Survivors was probably the show he cared most about, and where he writes his most thoughtful stuff. And 'The Way Back', too, of course. And on the subject of Allan Prior, can I note that 'Animals' has a moral question at its core? ;-D
Giving the opposition its voice is an interesting one: they're usually in double acts (Par and the other trooper, Bercol and Rontane, Forress and Grenlee). It's a device that Boucher most likely got from Robert Holmes and writing on Dr Who but Holmes's double acts perhaps aren't as problematizing: Egrorian and Pinder are grotesques, Bellfriar and Gambril evade the politics... perhaps Colonel Quute and the guy he's playing the game with. But even they're not there to give the opposition its voice - they're there for us to dislike.
And, thinking further about your original question, Holmes's scripts for B7 are probably much more in his own voice than in the B7 voice (like Tanith Lee's). Which, now I think a bit more about it, is consistent too with what I was saying about unique fanfic voices being able to find expression using B7.
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I'm adding you to my Flist. Hope you don't mind. Besides that I like your STrek stories, I noticed that you have "soulless minion" in your icon, and I have it in my journal title.
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Please friend :-) I love that 'soulless minion of orthodoxy' line (in fact, I love that whole episode).
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(I hope that this counts as one question.)
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I'm not sure it's ever quite late enough in the day for that image. Ring a dol dillo.
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Just stay away from the tree and river metaphors, that's all I ask. :-)
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I don't think the trees and rivers count as metaphorical when it's an actual tree/river pairing. :-)
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For the first, I usually end up turning the problem into the solution; e.g. I was writing something recently where I was fretting enormously about the time it would take some characters to travel from point A to point B, and how to make this consistent with action going on elsewhere in the story. I spent hours worrying at detail, how the journey would work and so on. Eventually I realized that what really mattered was to convey passage of time in some way, and so I made passage of time the subject of the (irritatingly few!) paragraphs which ended up getting this bit of the story across.
For the second, the only really useful technique is to sit down and try to put words on the page. Usually I set a wordcount-reward system ("I'll do 50 words now, then check email, then 50 words..."). Doesn't matter if the words are useless - they're there, and better ideas invariably start coming from that. So, the best cure for writer's block is... writing.
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