Yuletide recs: fanfic for people who don't do fanfic
Sunday, December 30th, 2007 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthYuletide is a 'rare fandoms' fanfiction exchange that has taken place every year since 2003. This year there are over 2000 stories in the exchange, exemplifying the sheer variety of fanfiction. No, it is not all about sex. No, it is not all about writing the ending you wanted. No, it is not all unoriginal / smutty / badly-spelt / insulting to the original creators / silly.
Though obviously some of it is. Sturgeon's Law applies.
I'm recommending three works, for the sake of variety. There are quite a few others that I think are masterful: stories based on classics such as Dracula and We Have Always Lived in the Castle; on myths and fairy tales; on Casablanca and Singin' in the Rain; on, literally, hundreds of TV series and films that I have never heard of.
What these three works have in common, for me, is an obvious love of the original text; a sense of playfulness; a creative element that means they're not simple pastiche. Book-based fanfiction is different to fanfiction based on TV / film / music, in that there's an original voice, a canon prose style, to emulate. Not all book-based fanfiction does this: some does it so accurately that the stories read like works by the original author. (I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not.) The two text-based works here do imitate the original pretty closely, but not slavishly.
Another thing they have in common: they sent me back to the original sources. As did quite a few others ...
Molesworth Rides Agane -- Molesworthbooks (Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle).
it is time for the XMAS PLAY. This is an entertanement wot is put on at xmas (there is a klue in the name for clot heads) so all weedy parents can cry in the audiance saing "look at our ickle wickle peter as the forth sheep on the left, olivier himself would not be a better sheep and hasnt he grown"
Clambering Uphill -- The Lady's Not For Burning (Christopher Fry)
CAPTAIN.
Well done, you kit; but now I will to the fight:
Better die with arms and rule, than fail the right. [Exit.]
THOMAS.
You would, you sodden lump of clay.
JENNET. [rising]
But I
Don't quite understand the point, I fear.
Unless it was to tell me that you were
An utterly insufferable, swotty boy
...
Surely you don't expect me to believe
He ended on a couplet.
THOMAS.
Woman, I swear,
If ever man consummated in rhyme,
That man was he.
The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with cameos from more 2D toons and 3D animations than you can shake a stick at.
Roger turned and saw someone who had "Chief of Police" written all over him. (Roger guessed he'd run into Huey, Dewey and Louie on his way over. They'd been vandalizing a lot lately. It'd be permanent marker, too.) "The lady was caught red-handed."
Roger grabbed Jessica's hands, and sure enough, she was wearing crimson gloves today.
"But I told you, Officer. The director told me to go look for [Lara] and I found the computer already smashed."
"Computer?" asked Roger.
"Yeah," said the policeman. "Only was to kill a digi: smash the hard drive."
Though obviously some of it is. Sturgeon's Law applies.
I'm recommending three works, for the sake of variety. There are quite a few others that I think are masterful: stories based on classics such as Dracula and We Have Always Lived in the Castle; on myths and fairy tales; on Casablanca and Singin' in the Rain; on, literally, hundreds of TV series and films that I have never heard of.
What these three works have in common, for me, is an obvious love of the original text; a sense of playfulness; a creative element that means they're not simple pastiche. Book-based fanfiction is different to fanfiction based on TV / film / music, in that there's an original voice, a canon prose style, to emulate. Not all book-based fanfiction does this: some does it so accurately that the stories read like works by the original author. (I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not.) The two text-based works here do imitate the original pretty closely, but not slavishly.
Another thing they have in common: they sent me back to the original sources. As did quite a few others ...
Molesworth Rides Agane -- Molesworthbooks (Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle).
it is time for the XMAS PLAY. This is an entertanement wot is put on at xmas (there is a klue in the name for clot heads) so all weedy parents can cry in the audiance saing "look at our ickle wickle peter as the forth sheep on the left, olivier himself would not be a better sheep and hasnt he grown"
Clambering Uphill -- The Lady's Not For Burning (Christopher Fry)
CAPTAIN.
Well done, you kit; but now I will to the fight:
Better die with arms and rule, than fail the right. [Exit.]
THOMAS.
You would, you sodden lump of clay.
JENNET. [rising]
But I
Don't quite understand the point, I fear.
Unless it was to tell me that you were
An utterly insufferable, swotty boy
...
Surely you don't expect me to believe
He ended on a couplet.
THOMAS.
Woman, I swear,
If ever man consummated in rhyme,
That man was he.
The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with cameos from more 2D toons and 3D animations than you can shake a stick at.
Roger turned and saw someone who had "Chief of Police" written all over him. (Roger guessed he'd run into Huey, Dewey and Louie on his way over. They'd been vandalizing a lot lately. It'd be permanent marker, too.) "The lady was caught red-handed."
Roger grabbed Jessica's hands, and sure enough, she was wearing crimson gloves today.
"But I told you, Officer. The director told me to go look for [Lara] and I found the computer already smashed."
"Computer?" asked Roger.
"Yeah," said the policeman. "Only was to kill a digi: smash the hard drive."
