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October 10, 2016 4:08 pm  #1


Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

**This was originally posted in General Discussion, but a kind user suggested I put it here. I don't know where to put anything, forgive me.**

So I'm writing a fanfiction ( and it's going to be the death of me.) And I'm trying so so hard to keep it realistic and reasonable and I"M JUST TRYING SO HARD. But as I'm writing and plotting, I'm finding SO MANY obstacles and questions that I don't feel confident enough to solve myself. I need more Sherlock brains that are smarter than mine.  So I'm just going to list some questions/problems I've encountered and maybe someone will take pity on me and share their advice.  

1.How could I fit three bedrooms into 221 B Baker St? I need a bedroom for John, Sherlock, and an additional child. It would be optimal for all three bedrooms to be in the same complex.

2. Could you own a vehicle and live in 221 B? I don't know much about how city life works, but I know that Sherlock and John commute purely by cabs in the series. How could I incorporate owning a car? Where could they park it? 

2 1/2. Do you think owning a car is necessary to raising a child in London? Or could I avoid it all together?

3. Do you think Sherlock can deduct children? This is an interesting question to me because children are so different from adults, their motives are completely different.

4....I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Anywho, any opinion is welcome. (I hope I put this in the right topic...probably not. Oh well!!!)


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My name is Sky.  

"I may not know where my life is going, but at least I know where my Sherlock fanfiction's going."

     
 
 

October 29, 2016 6:17 am  #2


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Hi there, welcome to the forum, the fandom and writing Sherlock fanfiction Have you done any writing before? I agree, it's hard!

You asked these questions a couple of weeks ago, and you had some answers on the other thread, but I thought I'd add my comments anyway.

1. I always imagined that the top floor of 221 Baker Street was quite small, consisting of John's bedroom and perhaps a small bathroom, but there's no reason there couldn't be another room, perhaps stuffed with boxes and junk that Mrs Hudson has stored up there and forgotten about. I can envision a scene where Sherlock and John clear it all out for a small child to move into when she's old enough.

I found some interesting images when I googled "london victorian terrace plan layout" for my own story a while ago. There's also a great floor plan of the main level of 221B that someone created that was helpful to me http://spiceinthecoffee.tumblr.com/post/28316664217/221b-baker-street

2. Others have answered this, but I thought it worth pointing out that heaps of people living in London have kids and don't own cars. I'm not sure how practical or fun it is, as I didn't have kids when I lived there, but people must manage to do it somehow. Sherlock and John use taxis a lot anyway, so you could keep them doing that, although John does use the tube at least once in the series (when he's travelling to Baker St to see Mrs Hudson in TEH). There's also Uncle Mycroft to help out with emergency transport. If John did need to get a car, he would have to get a resident parking permit, you can read more about this at the Westminster City Council website https://www.westminster.gov.uk/where-you-can-park-resident-permit

3. I just feel in my gut that Sherlock would do brilliantly with children but they would occasionally stump/surprise him.

4. Ask away, I'm happy to try to help

Last edited by ukaunz (October 29, 2016 8:03 am)


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October 29, 2016 11:49 am  #3


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Thanks a lot, ukaunz, for posting the link to the floor plans! I never could make sense of the flat (though the drawn plans fit with what I saw), so it's nice to see that there is none (because the kitchen window looks out to Baker street, so Sherlock's bedroom and bathroom would jut out over the street)...

 

October 29, 2016 11:54 am  #4


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

I think the kitchen window looks out over the back garden or yard or whatever, not Baker Street, doesn't it? I still get muddled, basically 


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October 30, 2016 10:53 am  #5


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Don't they (and we) see the flashing lights of the police cars out of the kitchen window in ASIP? Also the cabby walks up the stairs from Baker Street. It's just Sherlock's bedroom and bath room that don't make sense. I'd prefer them to be upstairs - because only John's bedroom being upstairs doesn't make sense either - from what we see the house is the same width from top to bottom, there's no reason to have lots of space on the first floor and a single bedroom on the second. (And "There's a second bedroom upstairs, in case you should need one" does not necessarily mean that the first bedroom is downstairs, even though that was my first thought.)

But of course, if bedrooms and bathroom were upstairs we couldn't hear Janine splash into the bathtub with Sherlock...

Last edited by Kittyhawk (October 30, 2016 11:01 am)

 

October 30, 2016 11:57 am  #6


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

I'm going to have to watch the episode again in case I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the lights are flashing through the living room windows. The ones near the desk with the bison skull hung between them definitely face Baker Street. They are the windows that are blown inward from the explosion across the road in TGG. Isn't that where Sherlock is standing when the police cars pull up, not the kitchen? And yes, the cabby walks up the stairs from the street, but the stairs don't go straight up from the front door, they make a 180 degree turn with a little landing half way up. He emerges through the doorway into the living room. Sherlock is sitting at the desk with his back to the door, so he would be facing the street. The kitchen would also be behind him, and beyond that, the short hallway with the bathroom, and then Sherlock's bedroom (watch the scene with Janine in the flat again, or the scene where Sherlock is choosing what to wear to meet Irene for the first time). If the kitchen is where I think it is, there is a narrow shaft between the hallway and the next building, where the window would be. Just the way it looks on that floor plan I linked to. I can't actually remember getting a view out of the kitchen window, so please let me know if I'm wrong 

As for the second floor with John's bedroom, it does make sense for it to be as wide as the rest of the flat at the front, but it isn't necessarily as deep as the lower floors. Sometimes terraces are sort of cut away at the back. I did a google street view search to find an example, and just around the corner from the North Gower Street location you can see what I mean.


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October 30, 2016 9:39 pm  #7


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Hmm, going back and watching the scene with Sherlock choosing his costume for meeting Irene, it doesn't show as much of the flat as I remembered. But you can tell that John is sitting at the kitchen table and the camera shows the foreshortened hallway and then Sherlock's bedroom, so it's all on the main floor.

The 221B kitchen window is frosted, so you never see much out that way. Maybe you're thinking of Mrs Hudson's kitchen window, when the CIA man is dropped from the floor above and lands on her bins?

One thing that doesn't quite make sense is the little window in the stairwell, if the bathroom is behind that wall. The person who made the floorplan above solves this by having a weird little shaft between the stairs and the bathroom. Sherlock's bedroom appears to be too big to make sense as well. I don't think Arwell and co. thought the whole thing out beforehand and have had to shoehorn some rooms in 


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October 31, 2016 1:04 pm  #8


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Actually, I don't remember what I've seen and what I've read (in various stories) about the flat layout, so I may be wrong about the kitchen window. But I don't have time to re-watch the episodes... In any case, the house you found pictures of seems modern, whereas 221 Baker Street seems rather old, so it doesn't prove a lot about the stacking of floors in Mrs. Hudson's house (Of course one could say that it doesn't matte, as there is no 221 in Baker Street, so who cares. And my visual imagination is lousy, so I don't care all that much about descriptions in stories...)

 

October 31, 2016 4:54 pm  #9


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

ukaunz wrote:

Hi there, welcome to the forum, the fandom and writing Sherlock fanfiction Have you done any writing before? I agree, it's hard!

You asked these questions a couple of weeks ago, and you had some answers on the other thread, but I thought I'd add my comments anyway.

1. I always imagined that the top floor of 221 Baker Street was quite small, consisting of John's bedroom and perhaps a small bathroom, but there's no reason there couldn't be another room, perhaps stuffed with boxes and junk that Mrs Hudson has stored up there and forgotten about. I can envision a scene where Sherlock and John clear it all out for a small child to move into when she's old enough.

I found some interesting images when I googled "london victorian terrace plan layout" for my own story a while ago. There's also a great floor plan of the main level of 221B that someone created that was helpful to me http://spiceinthecoffee.tumblr.com/post/28316664217/221b-baker-street

2. Others have answered this, but I thought it worth pointing out that heaps of people living in London have kids and don't own cars. I'm not sure how practical or fun it is, as I didn't have kids when I lived there, but people must manage to do it somehow. Sherlock and John use taxis a lot anyway, so you could keep them doing that, although John does use the tube at least once in the series (when he's travelling to Baker St to see Mrs Hudson in TEH). There's also Uncle Mycroft to help out with emergency transport. If John did need to get a car, he would have to get a resident parking permit, you can read more about this at the Westminster City Council website https://www.westminster.gov.uk/where-you-can-park-resident-permit

3. I just feel in my gut that Sherlock would do brilliantly with children but they would occasionally stump/surprise him.

4. Ask away, I'm happy to try to help

Hello, ukaunz! Bless your soul for posting all the incredibly helpful information. I am so very grateful. I have done writing before! I absolutely love writing (although I am not very talented with the more technical parts of language and structure.) I also love Sherlock, so this is a match made in heaven. It's incredibly hard, and I am constantly resisting the urge to simply light myself on fire and trash everything. But it's so very rewarding.  

I absolutely ADORE the extra room full of junk idea. I think I could really work with that. Brilliant.
Oh my gracious, thank for you for the floor plan! I will definitely use that for reference. 

Thank you so much for this, it eases my nervous heart. I've struggled so much with the vehicle problem. You've gone above and beyond the call of duty, thank you, thank you. I feel so much better now. 

I so so SO appreciate all the time you took to gather these links and layouts. You've brightened my day and probably prevented me from lighting myself on fire. Kudos to you.

Since you ASKED...I might just throw in a few of my pondering as you seemed to have a marvelous mind. I hope you don't mind.


4. How do you feel that Sherlock would react to John and Mary getting a divorce? John would obviously be in tremendous grief, and I wonder if Sherlock would try to comfort him or if he would be his usual, cold-ish 'I don't care but I really do I just pretend not to" way?

5. Sherlock pretends (in my opinion) not to really care about people or sentiment. But we know he cares about John, Mrs.Hudson, Mary...etc. How do you think Sherlock would react when directly confronted by an affectionate emotion towards someone? Like say he felt love...which is something that goes against what he stands for. Would he push it away? Would he try to distance himself?

Theses are both fairly hypothetical and abstract and also subject to individual opinion, I realize. But I'd love to hear you thoughts, or anyone else's. Character analysis is fascinating.

Ta! --Sky  


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My name is Sky.  

"I may not know where my life is going, but at least I know where my Sherlock fanfiction's going."

     
 
     Thread Starter
 

November 2, 2016 6:36 am  #10


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Kittyhawk wrote:

In any case, the house you found pictures of seems modern, whereas 221 Baker Street seems rather old, so it doesn't prove a lot about the stacking of floors in Mrs. Hudson's house

 
Well now you're just being picky
I don't have time to search Google maps for the back view of an old Victorian terrace house to prove it, but I've seen plenty of them with my own eyes when I lived in London. Here's the plans for Victorian Terrace renovation that shows what I mean:



The ground floor has the biggest area, then the first floor is a bit smaller, and the second floor is merely a bedroom and a small bathroom.

Last edited by ukaunz (November 2, 2016 6:39 am)


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November 2, 2016 7:02 am  #11


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Hello again Sky,

My marvellous mind, lol. Thanks though

4. I think Sherlock would be quietly sympathetic and comforting in his own way, and then try to take John's mind off his problems with a good case.

5. Sherlock is very restrained in his expressions of affections, but he does try to show them, just not in conventional ways. I'm thinking of the way he is with John and Mrs Hudson in the show. He doesn't push these feelings away exactly, but he doesn't make a big deal out of them. I don't really know... I wasn't able to write much emotion into my one fanfic story because I didn't feel like I could get into the characters' heads. Maybe I lack imagination. There are plenty of others on this forum who have done a great job of it in their fics, hopefully you'll get some more answers!


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November 2, 2016 12:53 pm  #12


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

ukaunz... wrote:

.
 
Well now you're just being picky

Of course I'm being picky - otherwise I wouldn't worry about the layout of a non-existent flat  at all! In any case, you were right, the police car lights in ASIP shine into the living room window, I had it turned around in my head.

Unfortunately I then continued to listen to the show, and without the distraction of the visuals I realized that for a supposed genius Sherlock is painfully slow on the uptake in the aired episode (the pilot was much better in that respect). So now I've decided that the best thing is to leave the DVDs on the shelves and read fanfic instead.

 

November 2, 2016 10:44 pm  #13


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

I feel really sad when I read comments like this here, on the BBC Sherlock Fan Forum. So you've become more of a BBC Sherlock Fanfic fan? (I'm not judging you, I just personally find it sad that you've lost respect for the show itself).

Last edited by ukaunz (November 2, 2016 11:52 pm)


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November 3, 2016 10:13 am  #14


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

ukaunz wrote:

...So you've become more of a BBC Sherlock Fanfic fan?...

Yes, that puts it in a nutshell!

 

November 3, 2016 5:20 pm  #15


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Thank you Ukaunz! I appreciate it so much. I am having similar problems with the emotional aspects. Minds are hard...especially ones like Sherlock's.

The thing about the fanfiction vs the tv show is really interesting, Kittyhawk. Fanfiction is a wondrous world.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------///----
My name is Sky.  

"I may not know where my life is going, but at least I know where my Sherlock fanfiction's going."

     
 
     Thread Starter
 

November 3, 2016 11:26 pm  #16


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Is he painfully slow, or did your knowledge from having watched the pilot first give you all the clues to the mystery ahead of time? It's a bit difficult to be surprised/impressed when you already know what's going to happen.


Doomsteady on AO3 & Tumblr
 

November 4, 2016 5:54 am  #17


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

Concerning affection, didn't Moffat or someone say that Sherlock doesn't have a problem with physical affection, he just doesn't have many he's that close to. He easily hugs and kisses Mrs Hudson, for instance.


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November 4, 2016 1:10 pm  #18


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

I agree with you Vhanja. We see Sherlock kiss and hug Mrs. Hudson and Molly without it being an issue for him. I think it is rather that John is a bit uncomfortable with physical contact. It seems like for him it is a big deal to hug Sherlock at the wedding.


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We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.    
 

November 4, 2016 2:28 pm  #19


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

I agree. I think Sherlock has developed more over the show compared to John. John is still very much the one who does not allow physical contact or at least does not actively seek it, who cannot speak about his feelings. There is not much physical contact even with Mary which surely is deliberate.  


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"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

November 5, 2016 4:38 pm  #20


Re: Fan Fiction questions that I can't answer but you probably can.

5. I am just going to give my opinion from my perspective, and my experiences... I think Sherlock struggles a bit with affection because perhaps he isn't accustomed to it, and wasn't exactly exposed to it through his childhood. 

Maybe there is even an issue with trust. 

I see those sides from myself, and maybe Freud would have a field day with this, and say I'm reading way too much of myself into a fictional character... but here goes. For me physical contact is something I am VERY selective about. I even get awkward seeing other people being close and affectionate. It's slowly getting better for me but I'll always have a degree of it. 
I grew up without affection. And hugs and kisses seem pretty alien for me even now. I have to trust a person a lot to let them hug me, and if I hug first then they are really, really special. My best friend has broken through that barrier though; because I trust her. 
It's a bit awkward at parties when saying goodbye and there's people I've reached the 'awkward hug' stage with and some that I can barely handle a handshake with... 

Basically for me it takes a lot to trust another person, it takes time too, and commitment from both them and especially me. 

Maybe Sherlock is like that too? 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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