Fic commentary meme
Jan. 26th, 2004 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaIf you're participating in this meme and I haven't asked you to do a story yet - well, I will. :P Perhaps when you least expect it! Hahahahaha.
Haru no Tsuki. One of those stories that all the time I was writing I was sort of wishing that I wasn't writing. ^^;Like all good things it started off with Oshima Nagisa, who makes his Okita Souji read Ugetsu Monogatari and use the (potentially if you're dodgy-minded) ghei-est story therein as an extended metaphor. Saints alone know what it's supposed to mean, by the way, 'cos I sure don't. Maybe Oshima was bored and wanted to see prettyboi in different-coloured kimonos for a change. Anyhow that's one of the probable inspirations for the dream visitation bit (I say probable because I wasn't consciously extrapolating from anything, but such was the flotsam bobbing on the surface of my mind that week).
Second probable inspiration was this gnomic Chinese puzzle-story that made the rounds some months ago. Here if you can read it - deceptively simple narrative in high-lit Chinese, that leaves the reader with an uneasy impression of "missing something important"; sort of like The Turn Of The Screw before one realises the governess might be mad. (The puzzle part's the series of questions at the end, assigned difficulty levels from easy to very hard. Like a reading comprehension test, except completely unanswerable. ex. "There is an immortal, a demon, a ghost and a human in the story. Which is which?" when all four characters are presented as human by the text. _O_) The influence here has to do with narrative strategy: I'll tell you the story, but you'll figure out for yourself what actually happens and what it all means. Furthermore, to do that you'd have to refer to text, subtext and extratext, because of course nothing in PMK canon to date tells you that Okita dies in the first year of Meiji, for instance. Furthermore, I don't even tell you that it's the first year of Meiji. Not in so many words. ...At some point I realised that I was so far beyond wanky I was out of naked-eye range, and set out to make it easier to comprehend. ^^; So now I guess it's obvious what happens, but everything else? I dunno. If you were doing a reading comprehension quiz, what would you say the dagger represented? The moon? Tetsu's dream of Suzu? (The question is rhetorical. I am not that stuck on Authorial Intent. XD)
The third probable inspiration was The Cure. Wish, Disintegration, most of The Head On The Door. The influence has nothing to do with story and everything to do with mood. It's not so much that I think PMK is goth, but then last I heard Robert Smith was expressing puzzlement at the fact that the Cure is considered goth, so... If I had to narrow it down to one song, it would be "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" - thus, ocean imagery! - but most of the lengthy tracks with darkly lulling basslines like "Fascination Street" or "Pictures Of You" would do. ("Pictures Of You" is in fact New Order's "Temptation" on Quaaludes, but that was such a massive digression it tells me I should be wrapping up this commentary. >_>)
I was pretty certain that this was going to be one of those stories that sink like a stone and draw no commentary whatsoever. Or else that people were going to hate it. I'm typically right about such things, but this time around I was pleasantly wrong.
The untitled thing that is to be Kristin's giftfic, and for which she (quite understandably ^^;) wants a preview. Well! How to do this without flattening something whose dimension status is still fluid around the edges... It's actually the first fic idea I had for PMK, and nothing I can summarise properly because it's one of those concepts that fundamentally have nothing to do with narrative. Aiming for snow, and sake, and a sort of woodblock print feel. I've read Kenshin fics that achieved this, come to think of it, so it's within the realm of possibility. Were I to answer truthfully to the question "What is it about?", I'd have to say, "It's about what a sexy creature Okita Souji is." Except sexy isn't the right word, because of course the loanword "sekkushii" didn't exist in 19th-century Japanese. That is how big a wanker I am right there. (That being said the manga itself toys with the language; Hijikata is described as having "Edo no iki", which is absolutely true. Nowadays in the right social circles you'd say he was a chill motherf*cker.)
Haru no Tsuki. One of those stories that all the time I was writing I was sort of wishing that I wasn't writing. ^^;
Second probable inspiration was this gnomic Chinese puzzle-story that made the rounds some months ago. Here if you can read it - deceptively simple narrative in high-lit Chinese, that leaves the reader with an uneasy impression of "missing something important"; sort of like The Turn Of The Screw before one realises the governess might be mad. (The puzzle part's the series of questions at the end, assigned difficulty levels from easy to very hard. Like a reading comprehension test, except completely unanswerable. ex. "There is an immortal, a demon, a ghost and a human in the story. Which is which?" when all four characters are presented as human by the text. _O_) The influence here has to do with narrative strategy: I'll tell you the story, but you'll figure out for yourself what actually happens and what it all means. Furthermore, to do that you'd have to refer to text, subtext and extratext, because of course nothing in PMK canon to date tells you that Okita dies in the first year of Meiji, for instance. Furthermore, I don't even tell you that it's the first year of Meiji. Not in so many words. ...At some point I realised that I was so far beyond wanky I was out of naked-eye range, and set out to make it easier to comprehend. ^^; So now I guess it's obvious what happens, but everything else? I dunno. If you were doing a reading comprehension quiz, what would you say the dagger represented? The moon? Tetsu's dream of Suzu? (The question is rhetorical. I am not that stuck on Authorial Intent. XD)
The third probable inspiration was The Cure. Wish, Disintegration, most of The Head On The Door. The influence has nothing to do with story and everything to do with mood. It's not so much that I think PMK is goth, but then last I heard Robert Smith was expressing puzzlement at the fact that the Cure is considered goth, so... If I had to narrow it down to one song, it would be "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" - thus, ocean imagery! - but most of the lengthy tracks with darkly lulling basslines like "Fascination Street" or "Pictures Of You" would do. ("Pictures Of You" is in fact New Order's "Temptation" on Quaaludes, but that was such a massive digression it tells me I should be wrapping up this commentary. >_>)
I was pretty certain that this was going to be one of those stories that sink like a stone and draw no commentary whatsoever. Or else that people were going to hate it. I'm typically right about such things, but this time around I was pleasantly wrong.
The untitled thing that is to be Kristin's giftfic, and for which she (quite understandably ^^;) wants a preview. Well! How to do this without flattening something whose dimension status is still fluid around the edges... It's actually the first fic idea I had for PMK, and nothing I can summarise properly because it's one of those concepts that fundamentally have nothing to do with narrative. Aiming for snow, and sake, and a sort of woodblock print feel. I've read Kenshin fics that achieved this, come to think of it, so it's within the realm of possibility. Were I to answer truthfully to the question "What is it about?", I'd have to say, "It's about what a sexy creature Okita Souji is." Except sexy isn't the right word, because of course the loanword "sekkushii" didn't exist in 19th-century Japanese. That is how big a wanker I am right there. (That being said the manga itself toys with the language; Hijikata is described as having "Edo no iki", which is absolutely true. Nowadays in the right social circles you'd say he was a chill motherf*cker.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 04:20 pm (UTC)I love hearing your sources of inspiration for that though. Very cool. Wish I could read that chinese puzzle story... Must... learn... how to read.. native language... *dies*
Thank you!!! *loves that story to death*
And I can't wait to see Kristen's giftfic! the atmosphere you're striving for sounds lovely, and I could definitely see you doing it well.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 07:53 am (UTC)Also from my unhumble perspective, your wordwank is completely understandable--no! It is righteous. This is akin to the reason why I was unable to endure the "okay" in PotC. -_-;