Come Back to My Show!
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Come Back to My Show! |
| Creator: | Justine |
| Date(s): | October 4, 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | fiction writing, The Sentinel |
| External Links: | Come Back to My Show!/WayBack Machine |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Come Back to My Show! is an essay by Justine.
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
The subject is The Sentinel, the author's fear that the fans are abandoning writing for it due to a perception of a lack of new ideas. She includes excerpts from a number of stories she uses as examples of good writing, and suggests some story topics that, at the time, hadn't been used. The author disses Mary Sues and Mpreg, as well as other things.
Fiction Excerpted
- Edges by Meredith Lynne
- Dante: Inferno by Emily Brunson
- In the Eye of the Beholder: Keyhole by Francesca
- Fruit of the Vine by Aristide
- Territorial Imperative by Bone
- Those Who Can by Sihaya Black
Excerpts
Where have all the writers gone?Sentinel fiction seems to be more or less on hiatus -- perhaps the new syndication will bring it back into vogue after a summer of (Force preserve us) Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. The best writers of TS fandom seem to think that this fandom has been tapped out, that it's a 'newbie' show, that all the best ideas in TS have been written.
Bullshit.
Firstly -- and I've said this before -- just because somebody's used a good concept doesn't mean somebody else can't do it again.... preferably a better writer, this time.
I mean, please. We're in the business of stealing ideas. That's what we do. We take cultural offerings and we manipulate them, involve ourselves in them, shape them to our taste. Besides which, Shakespeare wasn't exactly Original Story Guy, either. He took stories people knew, and with a genius for characterization and dialogue, he made them better. And some of those original-concept stories out there Just Plain Suck. Don't let a sub-par writer be the only one to have explored a concept. If you like the idea, write your own version.
But let's look at some of the central themes of TS a little more. Let's not be afraid to tell a story where one of Jim's senses is lost (Blind Man's Bluff), where there's another individual with Sentinel senses (S2), where Something Dreadful happens to Blair's dissertation (TSbyBS), or where a government agent tries to blackmail Jim and Blair (Rogue). Those are central themes of the show, and they're themes you don't usually find in other buddy-cop shows. Let's not shy away from them.
I mean, heck, what if Jim suddenly lost his sense of touch, for example? There are eleven different things you could do with that -- and I ain't even breaking a sweat here.
There are basic themes in TS -- trust, control, observation, friendship, sensation, choice, belief, the unknown -- for which there really is room for more than one story. Trust me here.
I mean, shit. Some of these fluffer-nutters have had entire zines where Jim was pregnant, fer crying out loud. If fen can milk that much out of something that's just plain stupid, what can people do with an idea that's actually true to the spirit of the show, and to the characters that reside there?
Your mileage may vary, of course. Some people like that kind of thing. (And for them, there's Harlequin Romances; you can get them at library sales for about fifty cents.... much cheaper than zines.)
Let's make some noise, people. I'm tired of reading badly written serial Blairy Sue fiction with the polish of an eighth-grade term paper and the sexual tension of Strawberry Jello. (And I'm not talking about the stories with Jello, either -- some of those are pretty darned good.)
I want my tense, edgy, neurotic, passionate, eloquent, repressed, evocative TS fiction back. And I know there are people out there who can write it. Don't make me name names, although I have named a few. You know who you are. Let's not lose this fandom to a morass of pregnant Jims and childish, femmy Blairs. I love their story, our story, too much to let that happen.
A final note: all of the stories quoted here are first-time stories, only a couple of which have any concept beyond "Jim and Blair start a relationship." Yet they're as different as night and day, each one eloquent, memorable, and beloved.