White Ceiling
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| Sentinel Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | White Ceiling |
| Author(s): | Arduinna |
| Date(s): | December 12, 1997 |
| Length: | 8681 words |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Sentinel |
| External Links: | at Archive Of Our Own |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
White Ceiling is a Jim/Blair story by Arduinna.
It was written for the Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge.
This story was a 2004 Light My Fire Awards nominee.
Author's Summary: "Jim realizes the price of cowardice and self-absorption."
Essay Example
She used this story as the base for the essay The Idea Makes the Story... Not.
To illustrate the essay, the author wrote the story three ways.
- White Ceiling, Archived version
- White Ceiling (version 2), Archived version
- White Ceiling (version 3), Archived version
Excerpt from The Idea Makes the Story... Not
On various lists, the discussion turns to stories -- what makes them good, what makes them worth reading. At some point, usually starting early on in the discussion, there's a chorus of voices arguing that "grammar and spelling and usage and structure and syntax and attention to plot details don't matter; it's the author's *idea* that makes a good story, the author's *imagination*."That's an interesting concept, but... no. Sorry, but no. Not so. Yes, the idea is key to the story -- but the idea alone does not make the story a good one. Without a carefully crafted support structure, the idea is nothing.
People who think that don't believe me when I say "not so", of course -- so I decided to prove it. I've taken one of my own Sentinel stories, and reworked it, twice. All three versions are linked here; read them in order, and you'll see what I mean. Each version faithfully follows the same plot line -- the *idea* is precisely the same in each. To keep the playing field completely level, I even put each story on an identical page -- no different graphics to distract the reader. If you read these and honestly -- honestly -- believe that each of these stories is deserving of the same amount and kind of praise, criticism, or indifference, please tell me. Because I read these three versions very differently, and I'd really like someone to explain to me how they can be considered equivalent.