Recently some friends and me have been discussing the effectiveness of "musical" or "song" fanfiction. Now i know there are a few out there but from the POV of the reader do they actually work? Do they help enhance the story or do they interrupt the flow of the story? Any thoughts?
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How I'd write out Jonas:
Jack: Danny, good to have you back.
*Jonas starts to walk toward event-horizon, teary-eyed*
*Daniel notices*
Daniel: Hey Jonas!
Jonas: Y..yes?
*Daniel hands him his glasses and a 'rock'*
Daniel: Here, if for any reason i cannot fully complete my duties as team archeoligist we'll dial you up and you can be the new 'Daniel'.
Jonas: (excitedly) Really? wow, has it ever happened before?
Daniel:Uh...no...
Jonas: Oh boy! I have a dream! -
I think a lot depends on the song and how it is used. If I know the song being used, it can make for a great story, if I don't, then the fic can lose a lot of it's meaning.
I also find that if there are just snippets of the song used once or twice it enhances a story but songs running all the way through broken by a few lines of narrative now and again breaks up a fic unecessarily and makes it harder to follow and I do tend to avoid those.
Anyway, that's only my opinion and I'm sure there are lots of people who like these kinds of fic.
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I agree with BizzyLizzy. I loathe song fic. But that's because most examples of this genre are just the lyrics of a song with a couple of paragraphs of story around them. I read one song fic where the lyrics and author's notes about the song and why she liked it were longer than the story! Most are just an excuse to post song lyrics and mostly the plot in song fic is just a thinly disguised excuse to get to the song. (In fact most of them just seem to be an excuse for an author to share their favourite song)I prefer a story.
I'm talking generally here - I have avoided song fic for years like the plague, so I'm not thinking of any examples here that are specific to the Stargate fandom. The ones I was unlucky to read, in fact, came from the Lois and Clark fandom and many, many years ago.
But, as with all things, there are exceptions. I've read terrific long stories where our heroes have danced together at a ball and the lyrics of the song have been interwoven into the plot and dialogue. There song fic works.
Too often though, it doesn't.
Albion
Listen, we had General Ryan come on and do a little cameo for us, and he's a real live four star, one of the big guys. And I had to ask him point blank, because there's a certain irreverence that I bring to the character, and denseness, but while we were doing this scene, I just looked at him and said, "Do you have guys like me in...?" and he stopped me and said, "Yes, and worse, and you're doing a fine job, son."
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