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BSV Forum - General - Recommendations All Human stories Mar 09 2007 12:12 am #1slaymesoftly Here is my last (and probably most irritating) entry for tonight. Because the *cough, rant, cough* discussion of my feelings about all-human fics was getting waaaaay too long, I’m making it a separate thread which can be read as an addendum to the one about entering fics in the appropriate categories for judging. Let the stoning begin..... I am not a minion of Evil... I am upper management. Well, I certainly wasn't going to start this thread on this forum, because the divide seems pretty wide between those who like AH fic and those who don't. I agree that the characterization can be a problem - esp. in those ever popular high school fics where the characters hardly have any personalites, let alone appropriate ones. That being said, I am going to shamelessly plug a fic I've been posting, called Girl with Stars. The premise (AH) was to make the actual story line (and the characters) as close to the BtVS story as I could make it using an everyday all human setting. For example, Spike's past intersects with three young girls who all wound up dead - one in China, one in Romania and one in NYC. If I tried to post it as something other than a B/S fic, I think alot would be lost in translation, but I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The question is, what exactly happened in Spike's past, and even more pertinent - who is Spike in the here and now? Is he a good man, as Buffy sometimes thinks, or are her friends and co-workers right, and he is a con man and a killer? It's actually closer to a mystery story than a romance, cause there's lots of miscommunication and suspicion, and very little of that "missed the bed again" going on. I promise, you'll either love it or you'll hate it - and you'll know before you get too far into it, which is good, since it spans all 7 seasons (some in flashback or inference) and is getting really long. Read a scene or two and tell if you think I've hit the mark. Cas/ Anaunthe
Cas Mar 09 2007 03:05 am #3slaymesoftly It sounds very intriguing, Cas, but you didn't say where we could find it. Not here, obviously. Is it on Spuffy Realm? I am not a minion of Evil... I am upper management. Mar 09 2007 07:11 pm #4 Slaynesoftly you can find Cas fic at Spuffy Realm here's the linkhttp://spikeluver.com/SpuffyRealm/viewstory.php?sid=17692 Mar 09 2007 11:27 pm #5slaymesoftly Thanks, Spikes mrs.! I found it. Cas, I left you a review on SR. You can e mail me if you want to talk - I'll be home for another couple of hours, then I'm going out for the evening. Not going to be home much this weekend until sometime Sunday, but you can find me somewhere. :) I am not a minion of Evil... I am upper management. I pretty much agree with you on the all-human thing. I've never even
tried to write one. I do read them
sometimes, and often like them, but I definitely think of them more as
original stories that just happen to have characters with the same
names as the characters on my favorite TV show. Occasionally, I'll find
an author who does something creative with a relationship (Nautibitz's
Crash and Burn had an intriguing set-up where Angel was Buffy's
step-brother who she had secretly dated) but for the most part, I don't
even associate them with the characters from the show. I used to avoid all-human fics like the plague, for pretty much the reason you mentioned - if they don't have all the things that make them Spike and Buffy, they're NOT Spike and Buffy just because you name them that. I also kind of thought - this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, why would I want to read about characters that weren't vampires or slayers? I ended up reading my first all-human fic because I ran out of stories from a particular author that I liked. I wanted to read more, and the all-humans were all that were left. They can be great stories - like you said, possibly even more admirable because everything's original - but they're just not Spike and Buffy... I've often wondered why people hold on to the names and physical descriptions instead of writing original fiction. For those of you here who write all-human fics, I'd be curious to know. Is it that you think more people will read it because it's BtVS characters? Is it because you're uncomfortable creating characters from scratch? (I know I am, which is a big reason why I like fanfic.) Or something else entirely...? Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat. Mar 10 2007 01:34 am #7Guest I want to quoute Eowyn315's entire post because I completely agree. If I am drawn enough to an AH fic to read more than just the prologue or the first chapter, which rarely happens, I view them as original fic not BtVS. I especially detest AH high-school fics. I've never found any redeeming qualities in them, they all seem so cliched.
Rose Mar 10 2007 02:02 am #8Scarlet Ibis Eowyn and Rose- I must say first and foremost that writing and reading fan fic has improved my real fic. I enjoy reading well written fics, be it Fantasy or true to the Buffyverse. Actually, I don't know if you heard of it, but there's an extreme AUfic called "Beneath the Shadows of Evil," where Spike is still a vamp, and Buffy a Gypsy. The time period is the 1700s I think. It's working for me. I started an AH because, well, I read a few that I didn't like (though there were plenty that I did), and wanted to try my hand at it. I don't have hundreds of reviews, but people seem to like it. I think I nailed the Spike characterization, but I may have missed the mark on Buffy- I'm not sure. However, the pairings aren't true to that of the show. Spuffy, sure, but I made Spike a single parent with a little girl named Dawn, and so forth... Is there anyone interested in letting me know which characterizations I succeeded in and which ones I didn't? "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly." https://www.facebook.com/FangirlNovel Mar 10 2007 03:45 am #9Guest Scarlet, you didn't mention the title of your fic, but I knew your writing, so I looked you up on SR and found it - called Here and Now if anyone else is looking for it. I'm gonna go start reading, Thanks. Cas Mar 10 2007 07:05 am #10Scarlet Ibis Thanks Cas :D Please let me know what you think. "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly." https://www.facebook.com/FangirlNovel Mar 10 2007 09:50 am #11Guest I haven't branched into all human, yet, but I am working on my first outside-of-canon-world fic, where Buffy's not a Slayer. LOL, though "off canon" for me still means Spike's a vampire, and Dawn's the Key, and Anya's a Vengeance Demon, and Wes and Giles were both Watchers.....guess you could say different universe, but same possible events. ;) I've read several human fics that still make me click with the characters, though. It's not hard to maintain the core spirit of a character if you know them. Sure, there are plenty of superficial AH stories that are obviously written by teens, and yeah, the personalities are only superficially Buffy and Spike, or anyone else, but there are definitely plenty that have Spike and Buffy with their same hang-ups that just came from different or realistic circumstances. The setting isn't nearly so important as the *voices* of the characters. If you have that, it hardly matters what you put them in. Bittenandstaked has done some of the best for years. Unfortunately, most of her past AH fics have been changed into original fic now as she tries her hand at being a professional writer. CM | |||
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