On Tue, 5 May 1998, Nicholas Leifker wrote:
(sigh) Might as well put in my two cents in.
And I'll slap you if you point to 'that other' piece of work by the
name of 'How to Write Good Fanfiction.'
All over the place I see loads of praise for stuff like Hearts of Ice
or DnR; is the time precedent working here? Is the number of pre-readers
proportional to the success of the story?
To put it bluntly, DnR and HoI raised the standards. As such, they're
remembered. Personally, I think that going to prose was the best thing
that DnR could do, as I find the script format for that kind of
storytelling (sentimental comedy, for the most part) to be a waste.
I don't agree :) I think script format works quite well for comedy,
better than prose in some cases.
My recommendation if you want to get well-known: Start with some good
one-shots. Last night was good, though it probably could have been
Yeah. Fairly short stories that people can easily hook into are a good
way to get people to start reading your work. (Not that I obeyed my own
advice :))
When I started writing in late 1995, I used two works as major influences
on my writing: John Biles' 'Putting Your Heart in the Right Place' and
Shannon Richmeyer's 'Nightshadow'. I had two story ideas, one which was
sentimental comedy, and another which was more serious. I tried to borrow
elements of Biles' style for 'Contagion' and borrowed elements of
Richmeyer's style for 'Sunrise'. In the end, I found that my own writing
style was better suited to more serious works. I'm not very good at comedy
(though I do get the occasional rave over Contagion). I had a lot of dark
Contagion was a fun story!
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
rhea@tass.org http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/
Rei: I'm sorry, Artemis, we're too busy to take care of you.
Artemis: If I stay here any longer, I'll go mad!
Luna: [in the background] As if we'd notice.
--Symphony of the Planets: Mars