BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Fan Fiction Addicts General Round Table Discusion

ancientsgate · November 22, 2014 7:09 pm

Schmiezi wrote:
I have already written this down in another thread, but it fits here as well, I think.
When it comes to fix-it fics for S3, I think that letting Mary die in an accident is a rather unsatisfying way out. I want more fics that show John sending Mary packing.

And as we've talked about recently on the Mary's Death thread, the baby, the baby! What's to be done with the baby? Short of relying heavily on parentlock, which has been done to death already, or sending the baby, who perhaps conveniently turns out not to be John's, to her real father's or something, whatever is there to do with the baby? I don't think anyone wants to see the wee tyke dead.

Harriet · November 22, 2014 7:14 pm

I want. No offence meant, just - I would think keeping it somewhere else rather unsatisfying.
I'd be happier though with a fake pregnancy.

ancientsgate · November 22, 2014 7:41 pm

Harriet wrote:
I want. No offence meant, just - I would think keeping it somewhere else rather unsatisfying.
I'd be happier though with a fake pregnancy.

Hmm, well, a fake pregnancy would take a sharp left turn into fantasyland, IMO. If a pregnant woman is regularly sleeping with her mate, he WILL know if she's pregnant or not, especially if he's a doctor. No way could a woman fake it past maybe 4 months along, unless she sleeps in another room or something. I'd be 100% satisfied if the baby is someone else's, even though it would cause John much heartbreak.

tonnaree · November 22, 2014 9:34 pm

I totally agree Schmiezi. No matter how of if she dies I want John to be 100% DONE with her before it happens.

silverblaze · November 23, 2014 1:54 pm

Well, at least evil Mary is a bit more interesting than the standard Mary fix it that goes as follows:
1. Mary dies (for some reason cancer is really popular)
2. John and Sherlock fall in love.
Meh.

But I think the best Mary fics are when she's a more morally grey character and the writer leaves you guessing whether she's good or evil until the very end.

ancientsgate · November 23, 2014 6:09 pm

silverblaze wrote:
Well, at least evil Mary is a bit more interesting than the standard Mary fix it that goes as follows:
1. Mary dies (for some reason cancer is really popular)
2. John and Sherlock fall in love.
Meh.

But I think the best Mary fics are when she's a more morally grey character and the writer leaves you guessing whether she's good or evil until the very end.

1. Fan fic authors usually write what they know, and cancer has touched so many many people and their families and friends, maybe it's easier to "go there" than to something else.
2. John and Sherlock have been in love since, "Here, use mine." Just sayin'.
I don't care if she dies, catches the first manned flight to Mars, or goes up in a puff of smoke. I just want her to go away.

Vhanja · December 11, 2014 8:57 pm

I have just started dabbling in reading Johnlock fanfic, so I am not "into" what is out there, what is good and what is not.

Is there a thread here where we can post what we are looking for, and people can reply with suggestions to suitable reads?

Ivy · December 11, 2014 9:15 pm

Welcome Vhanja Have you tried archiveofourown.org? They have a lot Johnlock stories and you can use tags so you can specify what you would like to read.

I'm sure it would be OK to open a thread for fic searches, if there isn't already one.

Harriet · December 11, 2014 9:30 pm

I think the Fic Recommendation thread might also be a good choice. There is even a master list with our favourites. And I guess it's ok to ask for recommendations there as well.

Fic Rec thread:
http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1551

Master list
http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=2213

Fics by forum members:
http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1551

Schmiezi · December 11, 2014 9:45 pm

If you need to be invited to AO3, you can send me a PM. I still got some spare invitation codes left. :-)

Harriet · December 21, 2014 10:31 am

Learn from the best - Punctuating Dialogue in English: A Fanfiction How-To by ivyblossom

http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/105738247150/punctuating-dialogue-in-english-a-fanfiction

"Punctuation in fiction can be tricky. There are some things we pick up really easily from reading, but who pays attention to how dialogue is punctuated? Not me! It’s one of those things you don’t think about until you find yourself constructing dialogue of your own, and you just do what seems rightish at the time."

ancientsgate · December 21, 2014 11:06 am

Harriet wrote:
Learn from the best - Punctuating Dialogue in English: A Fanfiction How-To by ivyblossom

http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/105738247150/punctuating-dialogue-in-english-a-fanfiction

"Punctuation in fiction can be tricky. There are some things we pick up really easily from reading, but who pays attention to how dialogue is punctuated? Not me! It’s one of those things you don’t think about until you find yourself constructing dialogue of your own, and you just do what seems rightish at the time."

Well, we all learned dialogue punctuation back in school. Unfortunately, I think most elementary school curriculums have more or less given up teaching spelling and grammar-- the "spelling doesn't matter" lie has been circulating pretty aggressively, even in schools, for probably 30+ years here in the US, and IMO it's been devastating to the overall literacy of our young people. So anyway, dialogue punctuation is taught in early education, but undoubtedly not reviewed very much, and people just don't retain the "how to do it right" thing. Later on in life, however, if we want to call ourselves writers, it's easy enough to review the rules and techniques, and then also use a good beta reader-- it's not brain surgery, after all, lol. No reason to settle for "rightish".

Schmiezi · December 21, 2014 11:16 am

My wonderful new beta is Canadian, and she explained some of the punctuation rules to me. General rules, not just about dialogue. She also pointed out that some of the rules contradict each other. It left me more confused than before.

Harriet · December 21, 2014 11:18 am

Ancientsgate, do you think my post wasn't helpful or necessary? Do you think it's of no interest for people here?

Last edited by Harriet (December 21, 2014 11:19 am)

silverblaze · December 21, 2014 12:01 pm

Well, it's helpful for me. AG might just not be aware of the fact that interpunction is different across languages and often quite counterintuitive. I remember learning to write letters in German at school; at first I thought it'd be easy, our languages have a simiar structure etcetera. Turned out I had pretty much all the commas wrong. You Germans, you just love your commas, don't you?

Funny, I had just finished my secret santa fic when I realised I didn't really know whether to use single quotes or double quotes (I'd seen both). Really happy to see that single quotes are also ok, I wasn't going to redo all the quotation marks!

The em dash is new for me, though. I don't even think it's on my computer and I can't think of ever reading it in a book. Is it perhaps an American thing? Maybe I just read over it without ever seeing it, interpunction tends to work that way.

Harriet · December 21, 2014 12:04 pm

Of course we do

(Only I also lost track a bit after the umpteenth reform )

Schmiezi · December 21, 2014 3:41 pm

Actually, there are only ten rules left in German. That's why I like teaching them. They are easy to understand and there are really no exceptions to the rules.

But your link for British punctuation was helpful, Harriet. Thank you.

silverblaze · December 21, 2014 7:19 pm

I don't think I ever got as far as to learn the ten comma rules (ten only for commas? That's a lot.). I think I was still struggling getting the articles right. That's not difficult to understand but to apply it IRL, it's suddenly a lot trickier. I think in spoken German, I kinda swallowed the der, die, das, den and dem, and just used 'de', the Dutch version. Saved a lot of brain power. For commas, I think I ended up with a rule of thumb: just put them everywhere! Especially where they don't make sense.

Schmiezi · December 21, 2014 7:34 pm

Are there dutch commas that don't make sense?

Last edited by Schmiezi (December 21, 2014 7:34 pm)

silverblaze · December 21, 2014 7:43 pm

If German commas don't make sense to Dutch people, my suspicion is that Dutch commas also make no sense to Germans. It's been a while since I used German, it's not very good anymore, but I remember I used too few commas, so a German learning Dutch would probably use too many.