The one that got away...

[katallison]

...or, Kat Attempts to Originate and Propagate the Self-Crit Meme.

Because I am fearsomely avoidant these days about actually writing, I've been doing some rereading and brooding over stuff I've already written, and it struck me that -- if the rest of you are anything like me, with every story you've finished and posted, there's always, glimmering somewhere in your mind, the Platonic Ideal of the story you wanted to write, and then there's the flawed and falling-short reality of what actually made it into prose. And you rub your face and sip Irish whisky and mourn to yourself about the emotion that you couldn't quite pull off, or the stuff you probably should've yanked out, or the thing that you just couldn't make work quite the way you'd envisioned.

So, my idea -- for one/some/any or all of your stories, let us know what that thing was, what you really wanted to do and couldn't quite achieve.


Heavy Bag: In my original conception of the story, there was not actually going to be any sex. For unrecalled reasons, I wrote the sex scene in at some point, and then I was going to take it out, because I decided that this was really going to be all about lack of resolution, and tentativeness, and uncertainty, and admitting you want something you might in fact never get, and this would all tie thematically into Ray's wanting to fit in with the black guys at the gym even though he so obviously doesn't, and thwartedness and blah blah. But in the interim I'd sent cesperanza a draft of the with-sex version, and then told her I was thinking of taking that part out, and as I recall she threatened me with mayhem if I did any such thing, and I was tired and uncertain and I tend to believe (with reason) that Ces is way smarter than me anyway, and so I left it in. But sometimes I wish I'd gone ahead and written that other story.

Xeriscape: Though there are various weaknesses in this story, the thing that drives me crazy about it in rereading is -- OK, the moment when John is completely decompensating, kneeling on the floor of the bathroom in the hotel, rolling his pills around in his hand and thinking about flushing them down the toilet, and then he looks up and sees Joe watching him -- that should have been so much more real. Joe should have been so much more real in that moment, really, it should have been an honest-to-god horror-movie making-your-flesh-creep moment, the story should have been a more authentic ghost story, and that didn't really, in my judgment, come off.

End of the Road: There's a big imbalance in this story, which is because when I first wrote it it was going to be a lot shorter (*hollow laughter*) and was going to end pretty soon after the end of the Quest, and so I wrote all this amazingly lengthy detailed stuff about the sled trip, and then realized that actually Ray and Fraser were going to spend quite a bit of time trying to live together in Canada, and then all the Quest stuff turned into a kind of a side issue, except I couldn't stand to throw it out, and so ... it's unbalanced, yeah. Plus I hate the first-morning-after scene, although I acknowledge that emotionally-ambivalent morning-after are a bitch to write, and so, whatever.

One for the Road: Do we ever provide any kind of an explanation for why Duncan here is so very unlike the Duncan we see in canon, and instead resembles a pouty teenager with a crush? No, we do not, and in retrospect I do so wish I'd done that. People sometimes (with reason) rag on my version of Methos, but the Duncan here is what's really off-key. I needed his drive to connection as a foil to Methos's drive to disconnection, but it's more a device than a thing adequately explained and justified. This criticism also applies to Strata, and if I'd been able to pull that off they would both be much stronger stories.

The Kindest Mortals and Deep End: These are the two weakest stories I've posted (IMO) and they both suffer from my effort to write against my inclinations and do some sort of a Happy Ending. I like the beginnings of both of them, and then they fizzle. (The Kindest Mortals I'm actually rewriting/recasting into the story I originally sort of wanted it to be---all about death and how differently that appears to mortals and immortals. Deep End should be rewritten, with Fraser's grandiosity and his belief that he's achieved happiness cut against in some significant way, but it pretty much has to stand as is...)

So, who's next? *g*

Comments

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

You are way too hard on yourself. I never read a story of your's that I didn't like and felt was head and shoulders over any other writers out there. Re: the not writing thingee. Well, don't you think that you've coped with a lot of shit in the last few months. Death and Job Mess and all that jazz? SO - no beating up of yourself.

Thus Sayeth Guru Nancy (HEY )__I have to have some wisdom to show for my 60.5 1/4 years.



namaste SF Nancy

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this would be a fascinating meme if people did it. It's all really interesting to see the difference between how authors talk about their stories and how they appear to readers, the different criticisms and strengths you see -- because they usually are quite different, though perhaps that's mostly because as the author we *can* see that other story shimmering in the difference and can't help comparing.

In this case, I find your comments on Heavy Bag the most interesting, because -- actually, I am kind of embarrassed because I can't remember now if I actually ever gave you feedback on it, but it was one of the first stories I remember reading when I started to get into the fandom, and it's still really really high up and close to my ideal due South story.

[destina.livejournal.com]

Are you crazy? Xeriscape is a perfect story. I'll punch anyone that says otherwise. Except you, of course. But to be on the safe side, you can take it back, and remove the temptation. *g*

[umbo.livejournal.com]

I second this. It seriously is the best fanfiction ever written.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Me three.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is a subject I hold near and dear to my heart. Every story is an agony of this very thing, for me. I'm very tempted to follow your lead, but I'm afraid that people will feel compelled to pet me and try to make me feel better about things. Maybe with comments disabled? Except I love to hear what other people think on this subject, because it makes me feel less alone in the world. Hmm. *ponders*

[taselby.livejournal.com]

I need to second this. I have a love-hate relationship with my fiction at the best of times. I love the idea of this, though. Some of the fiction I've gotten the best feedback on has been the fic I've been the least happy with overall.

And of course the stories that have most clearly adhered to the original vision of them in my head have been the ones met with silence. Ah, such is life.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Mayhem wouldn't ever really have begun to describe it. Just so you know, I have earthshaking resources of violence at my disposal. So in case you ever feel like you made the wrong choice? Don't. Because I could have Leon, Giavi and Lou over there to have a little conversation with you about that. I think they'd explain to you that no, actually, what your ouvre does not need is yet another bleak story about tentativeness, uncertainty, and the failure to connect. I could have that explained to you slowly, you know, with a canoli or something.

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

:giggles: You're very persuasive, even without Leon, Giavi or Lou.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

*cracks knuckles and winks at you!*

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

:giggles and runs away fast:

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

This is definitely an interesting meme idea. *thinks about it* I'll do it if I can. *g*

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

I hope it's okay if I respond to your self-critique here. I've been thinking about this since last night, both in general and the specific criticisms you gave yourself.

Do we ever provide any kind of an explanation for why Duncan here is so very unlike the Duncan we see in canon, and instead resembles a pouty teenager with a crush? No, we do not, and in retrospect I do so wish I'd done that. People sometimes (with reason) rag on my version of Methos, but the Duncan here is what's really off-key. I needed his drive to connection as a foil to Methos's drive to disconnection, but it's more a device than a thing adequately explained and justified. This criticism also applies to Strata, and if I'd been able to pull that off they would both be much stronger stories.

This is so interesting to me. Privately, I'd have agreed about "One for the Road." Of all your stories, this is the one that works least well for me (which still of course puts it in the "well worth reading" category), and I would not take issue with your analysis of the main problem I have with it. The Duncan in this story doesn't evoke the Duncan in my mind's eye, particularly. However, I never felt this with "Strata," at all, and in fact I think the characterizations in that story are some of the strongest and most memorable in HL fiction for me. I think that the themes of "Strata" are extremely well-integrated with the personalities and emotions of the characters, and for me, the story was more about Immortality than it was about a relationship. I think you also did a particularly good job of capturing the way Duncan and Methos would be in a new and different environment and situation.

I've got a pretty bad headache this morning, so I suspect I'm rambling and not making clear what I really want to say (heh - ironic, given this thread), but in any case. I don't equate these two stories, really. Except that perhaps my humble opinion is that "Strata" succeeds in convincing me of a lot of nuances in character that "One for the Road" didn't. Again IMO, it's a much more subtle story, and the writing is more evocative as well.

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

I don't even know where or how to begin. Everything I write falls so short of the vision in my head that it's a wonder I ever wrote it down and equally a wonder that I ever let another living being read it.

99.999% of the time, I am horrifed that I had the incredibel hubris to write and post, and I am standing on one foot getting ready to yank everything off the web/net/people's hard drives to prevent anyone from ever seeing the horror again.

I can't even address what I had in mind for each because they all fall down and fall short.

I apparently just can't stop in spite of that.