Vhanja wrote:

I don't know if you have come across this, but sometimes I come across just a sentence or two in a fic that is so amazingly good, so incredibly well written that it manages to sum up a whole character or theme.

This was a sentence that stood out to me first time I read it:

"John seems to struggle with himself for a bit. Sherlock wonders if John Watson has ever been in a state of not-struggling with himself."

It blew my mind a bit, it just summed up a lot about John so effeciently and so well.

 

What fic is this from??

There is also a thread for favourite fan fic quotes 

Good news!

I wouldn't know that one, can you provide a link, dear? 

Thanks

lol The AU and genderswap ones are so real.  The jumpers, too.

I agree. I have learnt that it is bad writing when you switch perspectives that often. I am always very careful not to do it and hence get annoyed when someone else does it in fanfics. ;-)

I think it has to do with playing the scene out in your head, being aware of the thoughts and processes of both of them in that scene. And then you try to get all of that across at once.

You are horrible! It's all your fault that I spent yesterday lunchtime trying to focus on the screen through tears on my glasses! (Alone on the Water, what else?)

I very much hope that was the last major character death story I read. At least here I went into the story knowing what to expect - not so long ago I read one with the tag "minor character death" and then the author killed Mary... It took me pages and pages to understand that she really was dead.

So, I don't like favorite characters dying (probably wouldn't shed a tear for Anderson, though...), I don't read Omegaverse, Mpreg, tentacles, werewolves, fluffy animals (exception made for "Courting behaviour" linked several pages previously, because a) I know and like the author and b) it was short enough. And so ridiculous it actually made me laugh... I much prefer stories that make me laugh (or at least grin) - life is sad enough. )

I don't much like AU, but it depends on how far "off" it is. If Sherlock is still a London-based detective, I'm okay with him and John meeting as elves in Santa's Grotto... (http://archiveofourown.org/works/609765/chapters/1098620) I'd also be okay with Captain Watson having to protect Sherlock who is doing some detecting in Afghanistan, but frankly, the too frequent sex puts me off that one. I've marked the ballet story, but I'm not sure that I'll ever get around to it... Probably I'd rather read a story where the London detective turns out to be a vampire, if it's well enough written, than about Sherlock the event rider.

Because to my surprise I've discovered that the quality of the writing is more important to me than the content of the story. Much more important... Actually, I still don't quite understand how I could read over 500 pages of baby story (I hate babies. I hate baby stories. I hate baby films. I hate absolutely everything about babies, never had any and never will have any.) with nothing much happening (except baby's first tooth, baby's first word, etc...) (If anybody is reading this who doesn't know yet: This is the story: http://archiveofourown.org/works/729134/chapters/1354275)

By good writing I mean that grammar and spelling are (mostly) correct (typos do happen) , but also that the story is not "overwritten", i. e. not too many adjectives (I've seen Benedicts hands - I don't need to read about his "long fingers" every time Sherlock picks something up), no unnecessary descriptions (I don't need to read about dust particles floating in the flat's air...) - I want a story to move on fairly snappily (life is short, and the story list is long...)

The less I like the content (i. e. babies), the better the writing needs to be. In a good Irene/Sherlock love story I put up with a few misconstructed sentences... (life is all about compromise...)

I've a few things to say about crossovers, but I think this thread is already too long by far (took me thwo days to get through) and I'll start a new one if none exists.

(It just occurs to me: Vampire Sherlock would solve so many problems! How he survived the fall, how he sees, hears and above all smells things nobody else notices, the author for once would be justified in Sherlock not eating - and not sleeping at night. AND it's actually suggested by Moftiss - remember the rooftop scene in the unaired pilot?)
 

Last edited by Kittyhawk (June 11, 2015 7:50 pm)

Kittyhawk wrote:

I very much hope that was the last major character death story I read. At least here I went into the story knowing what to expect - not so long ago I read one with the tag "minor character death" and then the author killed Mary... It took me pages and pages to understand that she really was
 

I must admit that I didn’t tag my fic in which Mary dies with "major character death". To me, only John and Sherlock are "mayor characters". And to be perfectly honest, I tagged it so that readers who love her surely won't read it anyway.

See here:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1527377

But

Mycroft's

death gave me more of a headache. I felt like "minor character death" was not enough for this person. So in the end I simply tagged it "character death".

(I am posting this from my smartphone. Hope the spoiler thingy works. )