Fic help.

[Whytewytch]

I think one other thing to remember...the show made distances be what the story needed them to be. Sam was 'several hours away' because they needed her to be.

Remember, these are the folks that moved Jack's cabin from Minnesota to silver springs colorado to facilitate a story. Who made a big deal about Jack's lack of an alibi in Smoke and Mirrors when the simple fact of driving from Minnesota to Colorado is in and of itself an alibi (as would be his credit card receipts from the 3-4 fillups he'd have had to make to make the drive, not to mention dozens of surveillance cameras and any toll booths he went through as well as any satellite navigation he might have had plus the towers his cell phone bounced off of as he drove)

if they can't research that, they sure won't lose sleep over star charts.

Research as much as you feel you need to,but you always have to remember, they quite often didn't let anything as pesky as the facts spoil the story they wanted to tell or plot device they needed to make something happen

Amen! We write fiction, why let the facts get in the way?

As for head-hopping, I used to do it all the time and my readers didn't seem to have any problem with it. I like getting inside the heads of all of my characters. Since I write romance, I find that style suits most of my stories. My beta, however, is not a fan of head-hopping and calls me to task on it every time, reining me in until I at least put a break between POVs. I've gotten better about it, but I still like to at least show my main characters' POVs, particularly in the actual sex scenes. And yes, I write romance--not harlequin--and I'm not afraid of the smut. Anymore.

Spoiler:

On a side note, I'm glad to be here and debating with y'all. We drove my teen to Navy Sea Cadet boot camp yesterday and today. It rained the entire time in the Panhandle. On our return trip, we were viciously attacked by a tree. In our brand new Outback. Hubby swerved in time to avoid the trunk, but we still have bits of branch in various places and a nice crack in the wind-screen. On the passenger side. Where I was at the time. Luckily no other traffic around at that moment, but if anything had been different--running a few seconds behind, traffic around us, after dark instead of in the daylight--it could've been a different story. I didn't get any writing done this week-end, but at least I'm still here to do some. O_O

[SF_and_Coffee]

Just for fun, some interesting further reading with regard to various POVs and ways to use them in writing.

Talk ToYouniverse: Juliette Wade on POV

Absolute Write Water Cooler discussion on Omniscient POV

Also, Janice Hardy has a LOT of great stuff on POV in general. Here's her post on Showing vs Telling, for example.

[Aragon101]

I think one other thing to remember...the show made distances be what the story needed them to be. Sam was 'several hours away' because they needed her to be.

Remember, these are the folks that moved Jack's cabin from Minnesota to silver springs colorado to facilitate a story. Who made a big deal about Jack's lack of an alibi in Smoke and Mirrors when the simple fact of driving from Minnesota to Colorado is in and of itself an alibi (as would be his credit card receipts from the 3-4 fillups he'd have had to make to make the drive, not to mention dozens of surveillance cameras and any toll booths he went through as well as any satellite navigation he might have had plus the towers his cell phone bounced off of as he drove)

if they can't research that, they sure won't lose sleep over star charts.

Research as much as you feel you need to,but you always have to remember, they quite often didn't let anything as pesky as the facts spoil the story they wanted to tell or plot device they needed to make something happen

Well that's just it, SG1 isn't exactly the greatest when it came to those kinds of pesky details, but that isn't an excuse for not doing that research. Small details like that shouldn't happen in writing because unlike the show, it's not as contained nor limited in budget/time constraints.

I'm the last person who gets deeply involved in that techy side of storytelling (thank god for betas) but i wholeheartedly acknowledge the importance of it. Look at Star Trek Generations. The whole plot about Picard going back with Kirk to stop whathisface made absolutely no sense. Why go back just enough to fight him on the planet (losing Kirk in the process) when Picard could have just gone back to when they had him on the ship and arrested him right then and there? There are YOUTUBE videos mocking this!

[fems]

Remember, these are the folks that moved Jack's cabin from Minnesota to silver springs colorado to facilitate a story. Who made a big deal about Jack's lack of an alibi in Smoke and Mirrors when the simple fact of driving from Minnesota to Colorado is in and of itself an alibi (as would be his credit card receipts from the 3-4 fillups he'd have had to make to make the drive, not to mention dozens of surveillance cameras and any toll booths he went through as well as any satellite navigation he might have had plus the towers his cell phone bounced off of as he drove)

I don’t recall if they gave any details about that in the ep, but isn’t it possible he caught a hop instead of driving all the way over there? The news about Kinsey had been on TV for three days, if Jack had taken the car he probably would have heard it over the radio. And it sounds like his team wasn’t aware that he was on vacation, so it’s possible he was only gone for three/four days (long weekend perhaps) and then it wouldn’t make much sense to drive all the way to Minnesota if he could just as easily take a hop. As for the alibi, Jack was special ops so I would assume he’d find a way to go to DC and kill Kinsey if he wanted to and I’m sure the brass knew that too. Not to mention that if he had gone on a longer vacation and took his truck, then I’d assume that whoever tried to frame him would have taken care of all the evidence you just listed.

I do have a Beta, but remember...I'm very new still (writing skills 19 years out of shape). Just getting it to a place where I'M comfortable enough to give it to my Beta is the problem. Getting it out of my head and onto paper in a realistic way is the daunting part for me.

I totally understand that, it’s one of the reasons I don’t have a beta. Well, that and the fact that I’m too impatient and prefer to upload once a chapter is done instead of completing an entire story. But for some reason I’m more comfortable uploading it for everyone to see than actually sending it to one person and go over everything with them. I do beta for someone else and once I’m done going over their stuff, they have a lot of editing or even rewriting to do – not that it’s necessary with the exception of grammar and spelling but just suggestions or questions of mine.
I’m working on a small sequel for one of my stories (5-7 chapters) and I’d decided to complete it before uploading since it’s not that long… But now that I go over everything that I’ve written so far I keep editing stuff! While I normally just upload my chapter if I’m happy with it, but having too much time to re-read it every time I open the document… Let’s just say I edit way too much.

As for head-hopping, I used to do it all the time and my readers didn't seem to have any problem with it. I like getting inside the heads of all of my characters. Since I write romance, I find that style suits most of my stories. My beta, however, is not a fan of head-hopping and calls me to task on it every time, reining me in until I at least put a break between POVs. I've gotten better about it, but I still like to at least show my main characters' POVs, particularly in the actual sex scenes. And yes, I write romance--not harlequin--and I'm not afraid of the smut. Anymore.

Definitely works for the smut too, I agree. Gets you more ‘involved’ opposed to the 3rd person limited narrative.

Well that's just it, SG1 isn't exactly the greatest when it came to those kinds of pesky details, but that isn't an excuse for not doing that research. Small details like that shouldn't happen in writing because unlike the show, it's not as contained nor limited in budget/time constraints.

I agree and often find myself ‘fixing’ plot holes I come across for certain situations I need in my fic. Like Fraiser’s anti-histamine explanation in The Broca Divide. Where was that medical advisor when they wrote that?

[Skydiver]

There's research and there's research.

There's the stuff that 'everyone' knows. Medical things, locations of places on Earth, little things like Sam not living in an apartment past when we canonly knew she had a house in season five. Siler being a sergeant.

And then there's stuff like the atmosphere on a planet, or the location of a planet in the galaxy, or reconciling messups that the show's writers made.

I'm just saying that sometimes I see folks talking about being lost in obscure little details for weeks, months and I wonder....umm....just write it. It's like I see folks getting so bogged down in the details that the story gets lost and dies because of a focus on some little detail that many will never know you guessed on.

There are some stories that demand intricacy. Like if you're weaving a saga like Game of Thrones and you need to create a whole massive world that everyone interacts within. for example, the Belgariad and Mallorian, a 10 book series that took place in a whole created mythical world. Eventually the authors published their volumes and volumes of notes they made when laying out the world.

There are other types of stories that focus less on teh nuts and bolts of a universe and more on the people and relationships and happenings, and they're short little bits of that world. They may not require months and months of research to create a 50 page fic about one short little adventure.

[mathpiglet]

The Belgariard and The Mallorean are some of my favourite books!

[WraithRichard]

The Belgariard and The Mallorean are some of my favourite books!

Explain these to me and why they are awesome, please.

[Skydiver]

Rich magical adventures. Well rounded characters.

[SF_and_Coffee]

I don’t recall if they gave any details about that in the ep, but isn’t it possible he caught a hop instead of driving all the way over there? The news about Kinsey had been on TV for three days, if Jack had taken the car he probably would have heard it over the radio. And it sounds like his team wasn’t aware that he was on vacation, so it’s possible he was only gone for three/four days (long weekend perhaps) and then it wouldn’t make much sense to drive all the way to Minnesota if he could just as easily take a hop. As for the alibi, Jack was special ops so I would assume he’d find a way to go to DC and kill Kinsey if he wanted to and I’m sure the brass knew that too. Not to mention that if he had gone on a longer vacation and took his truck, then I’d assume that whoever tried to frame him would have taken care of all the evidence you just listed.

You just described my personal theory as well. Nice to know I'm not the only one who thought about it that way.

I totally understand that, it’s one of the reasons I don’t have a beta. Well, that and the fact that I’m too impatient and prefer to upload once a chapter is done instead of completing an entire story. But for some reason I’m more comfortable uploading it for everyone to see than actually sending it to one person and go over everything with them. I do beta for someone else and once I’m done going over their stuff, they have a lot of editing or even rewriting to do – not that it’s necessary with the exception of grammar and spelling but just suggestions or questions of mine.

Lots of betas will work one chapter at a time with you. I have a very good beta who does precisely that. I finish a chapter, send it off to him, and unless either he's super-busy or I've made some spectacularly bad decisions in how I've structured that chapter or portrayed motivations, I'm usually able to get it online within 24 hours after sending it to him (since I'll sit down and do any necessary rewriting as soon as I get his notes back). I do self-edit before I send it to him -- I'm a pretty meticulous writer -- and that helps, of course. It also helps that he's seen the entire logical outline for my story already, but we had this system in place before I shared that with him and he was just working from what had been published and what I was sending him.

I’m working on a small sequel for one of my stories (5-7 chapters) and I’d decided to complete it before uploading since it’s not that long… But now that I go over everything that I’ve written so far I keep editing stuff! While I normally just upload my chapter if I’m happy with it, but having too much time to re-read it every time I open the document… Let’s just say I edit way too much.

If every edit is genuinely improving the material, then I don't know if it's "too much". I edit and re-edit quite a bit myself; it's almost an obsession with me.

[fems]

Lots of betas will work one chapter at a time with you. I have a very good beta who does precisely that. I finish a chapter, send it off to him, and unless either he's super-busy or I've made some spectacularly bad decisions in how I've structured that chapter or portrayed motivations, I'm usually able to get it online within 24 hours after sending it to him (since I'll sit down and do any necessary rewriting as soon as I get his notes back). I do self-edit before I send it to him -- I'm a pretty meticulous writer -- and that helps, of course. It also helps that he's seen the entire logical outline for my story already, but we had this system in place before I shared that with him and he was just working from what had been published and what I was sending him.

I actually beta per 10 chapters, make comments and raise some questions before sending it back. Then, we’ll go over all the comments (unless they’re grammar/spelling of course) together when we’re both online and discuss everything, and brainstorm over stuff. If the changes are major, I’ll get the chapters back and go over them again. It works, but it is time-consuming. And the different time zones can cause limitations. The only person I would consider as my beta, would probably be the one for whom I beta. I’ve seen too much stuff from other people on FFnet and other sites that has me cringing and thinking: how can you ever be a beta for someone when this is your work?!

But I don’t really work like that. Basically, I start out with a general (and very broad) plot. As in, I know how it starts, who the major players are and how it will end. Then I’ll just start writing and do some research for medical/technical/historical/mythological/canon stuff if necessary. When I have a handful of chapters I’ll start uploading, so I have a bit of a buffer. For the rest I just go with my muse and upload chapters as I go. I usually have an update schedule, so my readers will know when to expect something from me and it gives me a deadline (I work great under pressure). But by the time I’m done with my chapter, it’s usually late in the evening if not in the middle of the night/early morning for me, so if I were to send it to a beta, I probably wouldn’t be able to upload it within the next 40 hours. Not to mention that my smaller plot twist usually pop up in my head as I write. And, last but certainly not least, I don’t like giving away too much. For a good beta, full disclosure would probably be best and that just goes against my nature.

If every edit is genuinely improving the material, then I don't know if it's "too much". I edit and re-edit quite a bit myself; it's almost an obsession with me.

The edits are good, otherwise I wouldn’t make them but they’re small things. Like deleting a line here and there or rephrasing. In the bigger picture it’s just a waste of time, probably. And yeah, it’s starting to become obsessive with me which is a bad thing, because I end up editing instead of actually writing and finishing the chapter.


~

I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a floorplan of Samantha Carter's house? I couldn't find anything a while ago and started working on something myself (creepy stalker Orlin was good for something) by using screencaps from the show. But some things don't add up. I was thinking of starting a thread about it (although I'm not sure in which forum area it should go, SG-1 General discussion or is it more fanfic related?) but if someone knows of one that already exists...

[SF_and_Coffee]

I actually beta per 10 chapters, make comments and raise some questions before sending it back. Then, we’ll go over all the comments (unless they’re grammar/spelling of course) together when we’re both online and discuss everything, and brainstorm over stuff. If the changes are major, I’ll get the chapters back and go over them again. It works, but it is time-consuming. And the different time zones can cause limitations. The only person I would consider as my beta, would probably be the one for whom I beta. I’ve seen too much stuff from other people on FFnet and other sites that has me cringing and thinking: how can you ever be a beta for someone when this is your work?!

Oh, I know... I cringe over some of the stuff there. My beta is Sealurk, from here on GW. He has material on FF.net, and it's definitely some of the best stuff over there and I highly recommend it. The guy knows what he's doing. *waves at Sealurk, knowing he will eventually read this* We are in different time zones -- I'm in Cleveland, Ohio and he's in the UK, but since I do a lot of my writing at night, that works to our advantage, as I can finish something, send it off to him and then go to bed, and it's entirely possible that he will have read it and responded by the time I eat lunch the next day, if not by the time I get up. If he says it's good to go, then I post it.

But I don’t really work like that. Basically, I start out with a general (and very broad) plot. As in, I know how it starts, who the major players are and how it will end. Then I’ll just start writing and do some research for medical/technical/historical/mythological/canon stuff if necessary. When I have a handful of chapters I’ll start uploading, so I have a bit of a buffer. For the rest I just go with my muse and upload chapters as I go. I usually have an update schedule, so my readers will know when to expect something from me and it gives me a deadline (I work great under pressure). But by the time I’m done with my chapter, it’s usually late in the evening if not in the middle of the night/early morning for me, so if I were to send it to a beta, I probably wouldn’t be able to upload it within the next 40 hours. Not to mention that my smaller plot twist usually pop up in my head as I write. And, last but certainly not least, I don’t like giving away too much. For a good beta, full disclosure would probably be best and that just goes against my nature.

Heh. When I began writing ATWLB I wasn't even entirely certain how it would end, although I had two options in mind. By Chapter Three, I had chosen the ending but I was still working out the roadmap to get there. But by the time I published Chapter Ten, I'd committed a rough outline to my hard drive and written several vignettes that would later be expanded into chapters. I had a professional editor friend who lives here locally and who also helps with my original work go over the first several chapters before I posted them, but his life got crazy and he didn't have time, so for a while I worked without a beta. Sealurk came on board several chapters ago, somewhere in the twenties, and he's been working with me ever since.

I originally wasn't going to disclose the full story to him in advance, but eventually I decided that it might be helpful for him to know the shape of things to come, as it were, and asked if he minded doing it that way. He'd have been content being only a chapter ahead all the time, but my plot was getting convoluted enough that I wanted a second set of eyes checking for consistency errors I might miss or opportunities to make something better than I might just on my own, so he agreed to read the outline and the vignettes. Having him do so has been very helpful to me. As with so much, YMMV, but for me it's been great. Besides, there was something in me that was just dying to have someone know where all this was going.

For a while, I had a buffer, and I'll have one again soon as I get into territory where several chapters have already been written. But at the moment, I have to still write a bit more to get there. And I have a vacation coming up, and to prepare for. I shouldn't even be on GW right now, but my brain needed a break.

The edits are good, otherwise I wouldn’t make them but they’re small things. Like deleting a line here and there or rephrasing. In the bigger picture it’s just a waste of time, probably. And yeah, it’s starting to become obsessive with me which is a bad thing, because I end up editing instead of actually writing and finishing the chapter.

Story of my life, in virtually all aspects.

[mathpiglet]

Explain these to me and why they are awesome, please.

Rich magical adventures. Well rounded characters.

Good plot, great characters, immortality, a quest, magic and some of the funniest lines I have ever read. I read the five books of the Belgariard in one week while I had two preschoolers at home. I have no idea what they were doing, but I could not put the books down. I read the first one, "Pawn of Prophecy" to my boys when they were around 8 and 10. The older boy promptly read them all (by then all of the Mallorean were out). The younger boy read them all when he was 9. All of us reread them regularly. Many dinner times were spent deciding which actors should play the roles if it were ever made into a film or mini-series.

I think Patrick Stewart was our choice for Belgarath.

[WraithRichard]

Good plot, great characters, immortality, a quest, magic and some of the funniest lines I have ever read. I read the five books of the Belgariard in one week while I had two preschoolers at home. I have no idea what they were doing, but I could not put the books down. I read the first one, "Pawn of Prophecy" to my boys when they were around 8 and 10. The older boy promptly read them all (by then all of the Mallorean were out). The younger boy read them all when he was 9. All of us reread them regularly. Many dinner times were spent deciding which actors should play the roles if it were ever made into a film or mini-series.

I think Patrick Stewart was our choice for Belgarath.

To my amazon wishlist!

[Amann]

Never mind the humor. Silk was hilarious. The party was mostly family and friends too, you felt close to them, and they felt close to each other. Lots of witty remarks. It is a pity Eddings is dead.

[Skydiver]

its frustrating when hollywood remakes the remakes that they remade last year and good original stuff like this never gets used.

yes, it is yet another mythical adventure with monsters and wizards....but that genre sells.