Avoiding Rants, Flames, and Other Things That
Drive Fishy (and others) Insane.
This article is supposed to help newer writers avoid things that may cause people to rant, flame, or be turned off of reading a story of yours. First I must point out that I do not mean to offend anyone in anyway, but I may anyways. This isn't targeted at anyone really, just some things I thought I'd point out in regards to writing fiction.
First I must stress that if you are going to write in any fandom... take some time and learn some of the basic facts. Sure, you've just caught onto a wonderful show and you want to jump right in, well my advice is to take a little time... if you love a show and/or its fandom - do it some justice - get the simple things right.
For Clarification Purposes
Gil - Not Gill, no double "l". Got that? Good... moving on...
Grissom - Not GrissAm, or Grisom, or Grishom, or Grissham - though I think that he sometimes is a big ham... TWO s's - om, G-R-I-S-S-O-M.
Sara - No "h", remember that... Sarah is a lovely name, but not Miss Sidle's.
Sidle - Not Sidel, again - remember that. It has been noted that many people do not spell Sidle correctly. Sidle is what is in the scripts...
Catherine Willows - Once in awhile I come across a fic with it spelt Katherine - no K, C - I'm sure she would be in a twist if you spelt her name wrong =P
Warrick Brown - Say it with me kids - war-ick, and no its not Warwick... two r's, one w.
Nick Stokes - For those of you who would like to use his "full" name it is Nicholas, a.k.a Nicky Stokes.
Greg Sanders - I must admit I used to spell Sanders, "Saunders," but alas I was not writing or... Greg wasn't in the fic... anyways Sand as in sandle, not Saun as in sauna - got it?
Jim Brass - Although I don't see his name misspelt - for the record it's Jim Brass, and he's a Captain thank you very much.
Sofia Curtis - Though many people dislike this character, you should still spell her name right. And yes, I used to (and still do a lot) spell it Sophia, but alas it is Sofia. Excuse me while I go carve this into my central CSI information lobe...
Ecklie - Though it should be Icklie... it is in fact Ecklie, not "ley," or "Ick," but E-C-K-L-I-E, and yes for some reason unknown to me - this irks me when spelt wrong. Oh, his first name is Conrad, for those of you who were wondering ;)
Dr. Albert Robbins - Also known as Al, or Doc Robbins. In one scene Catherine/Marg oopsies and calls him David, whether calling Doc Robbins by the actors name (Robert David Hall) or talking to an O.S. (Off-screen) super-emergency-back-up-coroner David Phillips.
David Phillips - SuperDave! I just mentioned him above, and though I called him the emergency back-up coroner he's actually the assistant coroner.
I might as well list some other characters...
Mia Dickerson - New (or relatively so,) DNA tech.
Archie Johnson - A/V lab tech.
David Hodges - Trace. We rarely hear him called by his first name. (Grissom did call him "David" in Compulsion).
Detective Chris Cavalier - Leave it to me to state the obvious - he's a detective. First appeared in "Getting Off," I believe - Season 4.
Detective ? Vartan (Vartann) - This one I don't care either way... in the first few scripts it was Vartan, but it they apparently changed it to Vartann (double n), and I spell it Vartaan, so... somewhere along the lines of Vartan =P
Ronnie Litre - QD tech, Question Documents.
Jacqui Franco - The fingerprint tech.
Bobby Dawson - The ballistics tech.
Detective Ray O' Reiley - He's the sweaty detective...
There are other random techs that appear now and again, or have disappeared since season one or two, and if you want to know their names... I suggest you search around ;) All in all... learn to spell at least the main characters names right, and/or if you feature another character prominently in your story - do make sure their name is spelt correctly.
Moving on...
Spelling and GrammAr
I'll be the first to admit that I have horrible spelling habits and awful grammer... er grammar skills, but this is where a lovely spellchecking program comes in handy. I usually use Microsoft word, but I don't let it correct whatever it wants. Also something that can be very handy is if you find a great beta, someone you jive with and can get feedback on your story. (This actually would fall under Rouchie's fanfic tips,) But sometimes there is a big bloody hole in a plotline of a story... this happens to everyone. You need someone who can look at your story and say "Hey, this doesn't make sense," and so-on.
My point here is that as a writer you should take pride in your work... maybe you don't care whether there are 17 billion mistakes in your story, and that is fine too - but! (And this is a big but,) keep in mind that a lot of readers don't want to put a lot of effort into deciphering every single sentence. You may not care about spelling and grammar and all that stuff but if you don't want to put in the effort to make it aethestically pleasing and easy on the reader... you may find that a lot of readers are turned off by this.
On the topic of a story being easy-ish to read... (I don't mean write your story so a four year-old could read it, just make it... flow.) This brings me to a sub-point:
Netspeak/Chatspeak
Sure its all good and dandy in a chat room, but... you aren't in one - write properly, or relatively so... There is nothing worse than trying to read a story that is constantly liek tis if u no wat I meen. What gets me is half the time you aren't saving any letters, cool - kewl/kool, hate to break it to some of you habitual netspeakers but... it's not vry kewl.
"Grism adn sra went 2 teh crim seen, adn they wer procesin teh evdence" - Don't make me bust out my trout, because dammit I will. I just wrote that and I can't even friggin' understand it!!!!
*cough* Onward and outward...
So, in summing this bit up, I'd say... make sure your sentences aren't sloppy, with tons of spelling/grammar mistakes, and please please please refrain from chatspeak.
Remember that there is a big difference between:
Dog eating chicken - a dog eating chicken and,
Dog-eating chicken - a chicken that eats dogs =\
I do realize there are bound to be mistakes, and I expect it, but... all things in moderation, right?
Timeline Blunders
If you say something will take an hour, after ten minutes of conversation I don't expect the 'something' to be done. Perhaps write your character to say "We should get the results within the hour," or after saying the test results will be done in an hour (or whatever) have them go do something to pass the time... check on other evidence, eat lunch, poke Grissom for information... trash Ecklie's office *cough* What I'm trying to say is that... timeline mistakes may seem simple but they leave holes in your story and can make it seem sloppy.
Bigger example of timeline mistakes... Grissom (or whoever) is in an accident
of some sort. You've written it so he has had major surgery or has been severely
injured... he shouldn't be getting out of the hospital in the next sentence
or paragraph, unless you somehow communicate to your viewers that a fair bit
of time has elapsed it makes your story looks holy... er hole-y.
Warnings
(...maybe I should have had one at the start of this) This gets to me now and again, especially if a fic is character death, but I'll save that rant for a little bit later. If you are writing a story that is OoC (Out of Character (not country)), au (alternate universe,) or chardeath (character death,) you should consider (I encourage you to) add a WARNING! CAUTION STEEP SLOPE AHEAD!! Attention! Caution haut! It's really bad reading a fic that has a potentially good plot and then... it's severely OoC, or a character dies (well if one of the main character dies for me.) I cannot handle fics where a character dies and there was no real warning, its just... ARGH! I consciously try to stay away from character death fics, because I don't like seeing them die... the point is, if you have something in your fic that is potentially upsetting... violence, harsh/foul language, OoC-ness, etc. I suggest you put a nice clear warning at the top... Half the time I don't actually look at the rating of a story, so perhaps a lot of others don't either... imaging: There they are happily reading along and they stumble upon a disturbing rape scene or description of a violent crime - not good. While I refrain from ever really berating an author (flaming,) there are others who won't hesitate to.
Ooh! The Drama! The Angst!
Am I reading a CSI fic, or a story written for the daytime soaps. In the words of the wise - "silly - unrealistic," and it's just that. There is a reason they have soaps on TV (generally) in the daytime (not exactly sure what it is,) but there is a reason I don't watch them. Over-the-top drama/angst/everything - it's not for CSI, at least in my mind. Everything in CSI is very subtle - subtle hints, clues, connections, interactions, reactions, etc. (Catherine is generally the exception to this rule, but I believe her character is sponsored by a soap manufacturing company *g*)
Not much more to say here other than... CSI: Soap Opera - No, period.
Sara Sidle - suddenly carnevorus
The catalyst for Sara becoming a veggie (vegetarian,) is the episode Sex, Lies & Larvae. The dead pig experiment was probably the final push in her turning veggie, but I do believe that there are moral issues attached to it. People become vegetarians for a reason, whether it be health, diet, lifestyle change, animal rights, etc. and if you have paid attention to her character at all you'll find she is very empathetic towards animals and such. Exhibit A: The skinned gorilla torso from Evaluation Day, and in Burden of Proof she tells Grissom that it pains her to see dead meat. Conclusion: there is some morality attached to her vegetarianism, and she wouldn't just suddenly give it up without a very good reason. I'm told that a lot of vegetarians crave meat when they're pregnant, which you know... is *to me* a fairly good reason. Reason being... there better be damned good one... or if Sara suddenly decides she wants to eat meat again I better have seen an OoC warning at the top!
Over-the-top and out of Control!
Well let me start by saying what I did before, "All things in moderation"
!! What on earth am I talking about?! This!!! Overuse of really anything in
a fic!! Escpecially the exclamation point! I think I've reached my daily allotted
limit for the exclamation point, but do you get my point? Since the dictionary
is usually better at explaning than I am:
ex·cla·ma·tion
1. An abrupt, forceful utterance: an exclamation of delight.
2. An outcry, as of protest.
3. Grammar. An interjection. (Interjection - The part of speech that usually
expresses emotion and is capable of standing alone. Any of the words belonging
to this part of speech, such as Ugh! or Wow! )
!!!!!! Is not for using in place of the period. It loses its...purpose, it
begans to seem like the "." and "!" were switched, or that
a character is hyperactive, has to go pee or is going one of the above defined.
Have you ever heard that saying, "There's a place for everything,"
well, you know, it's true. There are times when certain things (such as an exclamation
point,) are appropriate... and then there's what people do.
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Excuse my CSI brain for a ranting moment --> For those of us CSI obsessed
fans who know probably far too much about the show (too much? nah...), there
are some things that just irk us, and the following might be one of them.
Sara Sidle only actually calls Grissom, "Griss/Gris," once... you
heard me... once. Grissom actually only is called "Griss/Gris," 16
times (including one pager message,) and yes, someone did count. My rant? Fics
where Sara continually calls Grissom, "Griss/Gris," the fact is ingrained
in my head, and I guess it's more of a nitpick, but it is now almost OoC for
Sara to call him Griss/Gris so much. When she calls his name (say while finding
some nifty evidence,) she'll go "Hey, Griss-om". For those of you
reading this... take note. Sure it's written, but half of the time they don't
call his name... we just know who is talking to who. Narrative... calling Grissom,
Griss/Gris is fine, but actually having Sara call him that all the time is...
well... it's like having one of the characters who are americans spell colour,
outloud C-O-L-O-U-R, which isn't the american spelling. ColoUr will be seen
in any of my fics but it would be COLOR if they were ever to spell it aloud.
Significance noted? Good, Tally Ho!
The goo factor
This could probably fit under "Over-the-top" or the soap opera part,
but I felt the need to address this all by its lonesome. Wimpy Grissom or Sara
(since I'm GSR,) or really I guess any of the other (main,) characters. All
of them are established as strong, not-turn-into-goo-everytime-something-happens
characters. Sure they all have their weaknesses and lapses, but they stay stable
through most of it. They don't disintegrate everytime a breeze blows their way,
too much of the goo factor = not good. Sara and Grissom have defences, figuratively,
built around them, which are let down occassionally - more like very rarely,
at least around other people. Once you have these "walls" built around
yourself, it's very hard to turn into a pile of crumbs.
The be all end all... wimpy Grissom, Sara, or any other CSI is just OoC. They
have their fragile moments, but... they aren't brittle. That and gooey Grissom
or Sara (etc.,) gets old.
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That's all - for now *g*
Thanks to omaetoy (Jos,) for making sure my sh... stuff was in order =D
- Fish