Writing for Fandom (Plot is a Four Letter Word)
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| Title: | Writing for Fandom (Plot is a Four Letter Word) |
| Creator: | Marian Kelly |
| Date(s): | October 1982 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Starsky & Hutch |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Writing for Fandom (Plot is a Four Letter Word) is a 1982 essay by Marian Kelly.
It was printed in S and H, a Starsky & Hutch letterzine, issue #36.
The author discusses and quotes the zine Decorated for Death.
One clue that this part of "Starsky & Hutch" fandom was very insular, is that the author assumes everyone knows what fics she is talking about. For instance, she refers to "DFD" (Decorated for Death) but never spells out the full title of it. She also cites the story that Decorated for Death was based on but never names it in this essay; Kelly assumes that all her readers know it is A Brother Helped is a Strong City.
Excerpts from the Essay
Next, and this shouldn't be too hard, reread your favorite stories. What did the author do with her plotting that kept you interested? Can you spot the 'hooks' she used, the little things that surprised and intrigued you so much? Did the dialogue move the story line along? Did you see where they were in every scene, could you feel the emotions being expressed?
After that pleasant task, take in a hand a story that really bothered you. Here, let me hasten to say, not the worst-written one you ever read, but one that told its story, had recognizable characters, fairly interesting situations, but for some reason left you dissatisfied. Look for the places the author goofed (in your eyes), try to spot weaknesses in the plotting, the behavior of the characters. Does she store up to some very dramatic confrontation and then back away? Does her main character act like a jackass right up to the bitter end. and then by wiggling his nose, solve the case? How would you have written that story to improve it? Did you write to the author and ask her why she did such and such? Most writers are so grateful that anyone even bothers to drop them a line, that chances are, if you're reasonably polite, you'll get a reply. If you don't, shame on them.
Okay, you're all set. You have this wonderful idea that all your friends love, and you think you know how to tell it. You have the characters, the setting, the time line... The what?
Time line, folks. That's the part where the writer sits down and decides when her story takes place. Oh, not just—'in October'—not that simple. How many hours, days, weeks, from opening scene until the ending? Believe it or not, the author is under an obligation to keep events and their occurrences under tight rein. It takes only a few sentences to develop a scene that may cover a week or two of time, but without the proper unfolding, or the realistic accounting for, of the events involved, the reader loses her sense of time. If the story is to be told about something that happened within a few hours, then even the minutes in those hours are of the upmost importance. The timeline many seen to be simple to explain, but go back to one of your favorite stories again and search for the places where the author was careful to let you know how time was unfolding. A good, tight time line is vital, no matter how short the tale.
I was made aware that some of you took my comment about the 'canon' to mean that an author could never deviate from the things we saw on the screen. So here I want to elucidate before some kind of war begins. Starsky has blue eyes, dark curly hair and several moles in places we all know. Hutch is blond, blue-eyed, and has Iooooong legs. What are the givens in those two sentences? A clever writer could bleach Starsky's curls and try to straighten them (never!) or could dye Hutch's crowning glory bright red. But, their eye color cannot be changed except by contact lenses. Hutch's thunder thighs are there, and what's a poor writer to do about them? Seriously, if you want to change their physical attributes, then give your reader plausible reasons. If you feel that Hutch would look unrecognizable with a crew cut, then do it, but your reasons must have to do with your story, AND those physical changes take place during the timeline of the aired episodes. Starsky's hair didn't turn white during Coffin, but a shrewd writer sight want to point out that the few silver strands we saw later were a result of that traumatic experience. Imagination. That's what it takes, and I would like to remind fans that: IMAGINATlON IS THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT THE WRITERS BRING TO FANDOM.
It really distresses me (and I know many others as well) when a story that is 'different', where the characters are made to act out events that were not within the 'cop-show' formula, where the reader may be pressed to suspend her disbelief even more than usual, is held up to scorn and ridicule. We who write try to develop fairly thick skins, but it still stings when our work is treated as if the wain reason we wrote the story was to destroy fandom. The debate raging over a certain story is a good case in point, and I would like to deal with a few basics concerning plotlines and that story.
The story upon which DFD was based, dealt with a Los Angeles caught up in a multitude of problems, a city wherein the inhabitants killed for food and fuel. Outside of a few of us Angelenos who felt our fair city had been trashed unfairly (what's wrong with Petaluma, for heaven's sake?), the readers were exceptionally pleased. The authors had used their imaginations and forced us to do the sage. DFD took that premise and carried it even further, creating a hell-city, a place where man and nature had both gone mad. I'm not going to deal with the writing style, nor am I attempting to defend the author from criticism, what I want to discuss is the plotline. Incidentally, this is a story that caught me by surprise, I was not ready for my own reactions to it.
What is the basic plot? In DFD, all three of the basic plotlines are used, and used well. MAN VS MAN...every hand was turned against Starsky and Hutch. MAN VS NATURE...thanks to the nuclear holocaust breathing the air was hazardous, drinking water a risk, the ground no longer stable. MAN VS HIMSELF...The Champion, one of the most powerful studies of Hutch I have ever read, and at the end of the story the author has convincingly wrought the miracle of change. The Other, Starsky as a man of metal—who would believe it?—the author makes him ashamed of his deformities, makes him struggle to remember those happier days, and allow him the triumph of surmounting all obstacles in the name of dimly-recalled friendship. He becomes almost whole, almost real to himself, risking everything to be free.
Before you all assume that there were not flaws in the plotting let me name one or two: There were times when a scene is too long, when something that had been started earlier was talked about again. I found transitions were too abrupt, confusing we as to tiwe, but on the whole the author did a very good job of keeping her characters and events fairly well sequenced. In a novel of this length, it is not unusual for the plot to simply wear thin after the climax. In this case we were just as interested in what happened next as in the excitement in the city itself. The fact that DFD cries for a sequel is not because the author left so many questions unanswered, it is because we, the readers, want to know the answers to our questions...a far different cup of tea. The author used her imagination, and since this took place long after the aired series, stepped on no toes as to time. There should be no quibbles with the fact, and she was wise to set it in the future, as we have seen how man's inhumanity to man takes shape in our own time. Before I move on, I would like to quote a couple of lines from Page 46 in DFD. Hutch, the drugged killer, and Champion of his sector, is experiencing a moment of caring that he has not experienced since Starsky disappeared. He wonders about the feeling and this is how the author wrote that sentence:
- "Then, like an escaping catch upon a thread of time, he reeled in the alien sensation and examined it."
A fancy way to say he wondered why he felt that way...and isn't it nice to think that a fan writer can take the same words we all us[e], and express a sentiment so beautifully? Don't be afraid of words! Don't be afraid that everyone out in fanland is going to write that you should have said this or that that they hate 'airs'. There is a time for blunt expression, there is time for the gentle phrase, and there has to be a place in this world for those who watch the clouds for dragons. I hope in the near future that we can lure some of the authors of these fan masterpieces to tell how they went about the actual writing. We all have so much to learn from one another.