One concerted reading period later...

[offsides]

---

I know what you mean -- I went back, dug up and reread the the Richard Lawson Nuku-Nuku fics from almost 10 years ago, which I thought were incredible when I first discovered them. They're still good, but the bar's been lifted since then -- my expectations are much higher now.

---

For me the quintessential example of this is Undocumented Features - I still re-read the early stories on occasion for fun and as a refresher, but it takes a lot not to cringe at the assorted problems they have (though, interestingly, spelling and grammar are not the biggest problems - which may be why I can still read them at all). And any time I see poor writing style I generally just don't bother...

---

That's my number one bad fic sign. If it's all one paragraph, forget it.

---

Agreed, unless it's supposed to be a 1-paragraph microfic.

---

Also bad: chapters that are five paragraphs long, with author's notes that say, "sorry I took six months to write this."
The only thing I can figure is that these people are trying to write without ever having read first.

---

No, to me it just means that they really don't care about the story that much - if they did, they'd either have written more of the story, or more explanation. And that's another sign of a bad fic - if the author doesn't care about it, why should I?
Offsides
Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large

[jpub]

Other spelling errors that tick me right off, and make me immediately stop reading:
Prologue - Prolouge
you're - your
lose - loose

[Bob Schroeck]

Nermia -- always a classic in Ranma fics.
In the same category: "Nibiki", "Nodaka" and the like -- if you can't be bothered to check the spelling of the characters' names, you shouldn't be writing fanfic.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Aleh]

Oh, yeah. Those sorts of things drive me *INSANE* at times. I went so far as to write a sort of FAQ on commonly made spelling and grammar errors in fanfiction, but I never quite finished.
Edit: Added two words.- "I suppose that, technically, the existance of the Association of Foul Sorcerers is my fault, but, damnit, I was joking when I told them that they should unionize!"

[Herr Bad Moon]

Hmm. This is starting to become a personal challenge. I recently (read: last 6 months) came across Michael McAnvoy's No Need For Sasami, which in latter parts has some interesting ideas on Tsunami.
www.angelfire.com/va3/shenandoah/fanfic/

---

2) I'm either getting way too picky, or way too spoiled by reading stuff the quality of Bob/Eyrie/Cat Tails, because I can't stand to read a lot of stuff I used to actually enjoy.

---

As others have mention, I'm this way as well. It is kinda a relief to know that I'm not the only one getting chrochety about my fanfiction.
---------------
Oh crap. I've got Destiny.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"

[classicdrogn]

---

Also bad: chapters that are five paragraphs long, with author's notes that say, "sorry I took six months to write this."
The only thing I can figure is that these people are trying to write without ever having read first.

---

---

No, to me it just means that they really don't care about the story that much - if they did, they'd either have written more of the story, or more explanation. And that's another sign of a bad fic - if the author doesn't care about it, why should I?

---

Speaking as one of those writers who releases something once every year and a half if I'm especially productive - though I'm more likelt to write a 105k chapter than a 5k one, because I never shut up - all I can say is that if anything I care about the story TOO MUCH, not the other way around. I probably scrap four paragraphs for every one that I keep, because they don't have the magic - I've written and dismissed about a half dozen different versions of the next scene in Bubblegum Disaster, and just can't carry it off... Last time that happened I ended up skipping it, but this isn't something I can do that with because it affects how the whole Sexaroid thing will work out and I can't get something that feels right. This makes it difficult to build any real momentum let alone maintain it, and hence the last chapter release was 6-23-2003. To put it another way... I have eight parts, from 40-100k, and have been working on the project in one form or another for ten years yesterday - Feb 22, 1994 was the day I discovered Twisted Path in the morning, finished it by the evening, and excreted a never-to-be released BGC SI with what would become Guardian 215 before going to bed the next morning. That version had essentially the same relationship with Priss but was essentially Marvel's Venom symbiote with the serial numbers filed off, and no adequate explanation for why it could operate solo as a humanoid, nor why it was my SI avatar. The beginning montage for Disaster 1 is not quite a cut and paste, but is a reconstruction of the beginning of that story. You can see that this was a significant event in my timeline... ;?) There are influences from story ideas I thought of as far back as 1992 when I first got online, but nothing as recognisably the same as Niichigo and Cyberman Guardian. Basically, I took CG, erased the SI bits, added a frame under the nanite goo, and turned it loose with just the stock OS that was my internal foil originally - basically an anti-T1000 "Guardinator." (It doesn't feel pain, it doesn't get tired, and it absolutely will not stop until you're completely safe!)
I keep wanting to have it interface with Sylvie after the DD battle (which will be absolutely nothing like the original, from beginning to end - and that's all I'm sayan right now) and get a personality imprint, but she's fought too hard to be her own person to be tied permanently to the wishes of a master like 215 is. I DON'T screw over characters that way, permanently denying their payoff just as it's within reach. That was what bothered me about the bodycount in the Genaros breakout, until I finally came up with a solution.
- CD, Ever noticed that 'solution' turns into something that's not a word, but looks really un-work-safe if you miss the first O?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Ebony]

www.geocities.com/talegiver/
Not as much fanfiction as general fiction, although the setting is based off the Nexus: The Infinite City RPG. The site is the archive for my writing group on Yahoogroups. Many of the stories have not been updated, sadly, and some of them peter out without ending. But, there is some good stuff there.
Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Jeanne Hedge]

---

To put it another way... I have eight parts, from 40-100k, and have been working on the project in one form or another for ten years yesterday

---

Ye gawds, and I thought I was bad. I've got about 120K worth of fic - I judge it to be roughly the first 1/3 to 1/2 of a completed whole - just sitting there because I don't have a clear idea of what comes next or how to end it. I've been fiddling around with this thing since 1998 - 6 years now. I've tried changing the plot, to no avail. I've even tried re-writing it into a crossover in hopes of something kicking loose, but two different attempts with 2 different series (one a Japanese terebi dorama) didn't help either.
That's what usually happens with me with longer stuff (long for me, just a chapter for some people). With True Love (BGC fic) the middle was written first, then the beginning, and both rather quickly. The last third, though, got scrapped and rewritten about 10 different times before I found something that worked for me. I had to get a co-writer (Andy Skuse) before Into the Shadows (BGC fic) even got moving. And then there's the stalled project. Short fics - once I get an idea worked out in my head I can usually get it out in a couple days. I have no idea how some people can spin out very good stories in very short periods of time.Jeanne

---

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia

[The Wanderer]

I actually know of one person who wrote a fic with a character who *was* named "Nibiki" - and I think the same fic also had a "Nabiki". It isn't an absolute evil... but it can get annoying sometimes.

[The Wanderer]

(Jim Robert Bader's "A Tale of Two Wallets")

---

It is still going strong: part 128 was
released 1/12/2004.

---

He's gone back to it?? Excellent! Last I'd heard he hadn't been working on much of anything for a while, and he certainly hadn't touched ATOTW for quite some time... my earliest record still extant is from October '01, and as of at least late '02 it was unchanged from that time (with 119 chapters, four lemon sidestories and one eleven-chapter lemon side arc, for a total of 11MB of text).
As to spelling, grammar, et cetera, his work does have problems - but the underlying Thing is easily good enough to make it worthwhile. In the interests of improving the cosmetics (what I refer to as "production values"), I had begun a project of going through and sending him corrections as best I could suggest them on one chapter at a time; that stalled with chapter 20 in late '02, and I never got back to it, but the project could theoretically resume at any point.
Am I starting to ramble? Maybe. Anyway, to those who can stand that type of content I do recommend Jim Robert Bader's work very highly (though there is much of it which I have not read myself); the man is amazingly prolific, at least in terms of byte-count, and while it's far from being high literature what I've read of his work tends towards the highly entertaining.
(The only things I had problems with, content-wise, were the non-consensual sex segments - most especially as applies to Madam Lao, though I understand she is not his own creation. Screwing with minds like that is just... gyaaarh. Violation of self is one of the closest things there is to an unforgivable offense in my book - and now I know I'm rambling.)

[jpub]

Re: Jim Bader
I'm sorry, I can't take a guy seriously when he has a picture like that up on his site.
Honestly, though, his works are brain fluff. The ORIGINAL Altered Destiny work, Most Unlikely of Friends (by Wade T, I believe) is far better than his works.
Re: Recommendations.
Okay, I give up. I set the bar WAY too high, in retrospect. I was really looking for this of the literary and creative _quality_ of Eyrie/Bob/Cat Tails.
Oh well.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Oh, yeah. Those sorts of things drive me *INSANE* at times.

---

Oh, and two more:
"Quite" for "quiet"
and
"Defiantly" for "definately"
Makes me want to find the moron and shove a dictionary down his throat.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

I recently (read: last 6 months) came across Michael McAnvoy's No Need For Sasami,

---

Is that still live? Last I knew, it had kinda petered out.
And yes, it's a good fic. Not one of the greats, in my opinion, but well up there close to them.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

I probably scrap four paragraphs for every one that I keep, because they don't have the magic

---

Believe me, I know how that goes. That's what delayed chapter 12 for so long -- it took forever just to write the arrival of the Warriors. I went through four different interations of the opening of a scene that's in chapter 15. And I'm currently stuck on how to transition from Doug settling all his unfinished business to his departure. (That part isn't in my notes and plot outline... I just sort of said "He does X, and then he moves on...")
It's not so much the six months that I was objecting to in my original comment, but the fact that some people seem to think that five paragraphs is a chapter, that it does enough for a story. It isn't, it doesn't. Unless you're an utter frickin' genius, or you're going for something indescribably arty.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

I keep wanting to have it interface with Sylvie after the DD battle (which will be absolutely nothing like the original, from beginning to end - and that's all I'm sayan right now) and get a personality imprint, but she's fought too hard to be her own person to be tied permanently to the wishes of a master like 215 is.

---

Now mind you, I haven't read Bubblegum Disaster, or if I have it's so long ago that I've forgotten that I have. But the thought occurs to me -- and I throw it out to you in utter ignorance of your long-term plans -- why does it have to be a master-slave relationship? Is there a plot reason why can't it be a negotiated symbiosis, a partnership?
Just something for you to muse on, either in the thread or privately...


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

I'm sorry, I can't take a guy seriously when he has a picture like that up on his site.

---

Well, yeah. I scroll past that pretty damned quickly; 'tain't an appetizing sight.

---

I was really looking for this of the literary and creative _quality_ of Eyrie/Bob/Cat Tails.

---

The problem is, there isn't much that you are not likely to have come across already. But I'm keeping my eyes open.
Hm. Susan Doemine's "Pastpresent", maybe? Primarily Ranma, but there are some clever and subtle crossover elements here and there...


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[nemonowan]

>Okay, I give up. I set the bar WAY too high, in
>retrospect. I was really looking for this of the
>literary and creative _quality_ of Eyrie/Bob/Cat
>Tails.
Well, you can find some good original fiction here:
homepages.ihug.co.nz/~how...ories.html
"Light on Shattered Water" is a very good SF novel,
"The Human Memoirs" is good too although less polished.
"Godsend" is a more straightforward adventure, but the
sequel is unfinished, and doesn't look to be done any time soon.
(Disclaimer: if you are one of those bigots who takes
up the torches and pitchforks at the sole mention of
the word "furry", then don't bother clicking on that
link)
NN

[classicdrogn]

---

Now mind you, I haven't read Bubblegum Disaster, or if I have it's so long ago that I've forgotten that I have. But the thought occurs to me -- and I throw it out to you in utter ignorance of your long-term plans -- why does it have to be a master-slave relationship? Is there a plot reason why can't it be a negotiated symbiosis, a partnership?
Just something for you to muse on, either in the thread or privately...

---

Hardwired imperatives - 215 is a pure robot, and while its software limits are mostly fragged at this point after getting litterally blown to the four winds and reforming, the requirement for a linked partner to be protected at all costs and obeyed as exactly as possible within the first directive is inherent in the way its neural net is physically laid out. Basiclaly, it's the Three Laws of Robotics as applied to one and precisely one person, anyone else is judged only by their value to that one person's wellbeing.
Actually, I suppose 215 could pick up some personality traits from Sylvie, and rcover some of Priss's mannerisms as it reconstructs damaged files, and end up being something of a devoted freind type - but still not truly self-determining.
- CD, who was it who said "This is the price of freedom: Your last gasp of breath, drop of blood, ounce of courage... paid in advance?" For the sexaroids, it's all too appropiate.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Logan Darklighter]

That's one of the opening-episode quotes from Andromeda, actually.
I've been using it as a .sig here and there for a while now.

[Ed Becerra]

---

3) My god, nothing turns me off more than bad spelling. Especially mistakes in the rogue/rouge line.

---

Unless, of course, you're a rogue wearing rouge...
Gaaah.. I have a sick, sick mind.
Ed.

[Ed Becerra]

---

Well, you can find some good original fiction here:
homepages.ihug.co.nz/~how...ories.html

---

I have to agree. I've been reading Howell's stories since early in 1998, and have enjoyed them immensely. My only complaint is simply that he doesn't write as fast as I'd prefer... a rather common complaint of mine, I'm afraid. Heh.
Ed Becerra

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Hum, wrong. It is still going strong: part 128 was
released 1/12/2004. The new address is: www.hostultra.com/~AngCob...atotw.html

---

Just went there right now while bookmarking all the links in this thread that I don't already have... All the chapters are 404.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

And another link:
members.fortunecity.com/x...omniverse/

---

Completely unreadable -- nothing but fortunecity images everywhere instead of whatever the designer intended...


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

[Jeanne Hedge]

---

www.hostultra.com/~AngCob...atotw.html
All the chapters are 404.

---

Are you sure? I was just there and there wasn't a 404 in sight.
Jeanne

---

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia

[Jeanne Hedge]

---

members.fortunecity.com/x...omniverse/
Completely unreadable -- nothing but fortunecity images everywhere instead of whatever the designer intended...

---

Bob, are you having browser trouble? I got right into content on this site too.
members.fortunecity.com/x...omniverse/Jeanne

---

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia