Kalloway (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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onedeadplotbunny2013-02-10 07:05 am
kalloway) wrote in onedeadplotbunny2013-02-10 07:05 am
Entry tags:
One Dead Vocabulary
Over the years, other authors and myself have managed to define a few of our writer-ly problems with snappy new terminology. ^_^
Premise Bunny: a true curse, these. While a plot bunny is something like 'I should write a fic about Wendy and Ronnie having grand adventures in space fighting giant robots built by Emperor von Alphabet while mending their broken relationship which fixes that mess in Episode 38...', a premise bunny is closer to 'I should write a fic about Wendy and Ronnie having an adventure...' Even worse is when that fic gets started and has nowhere to go because it was just a premise and there isn't really anything else to go on.
Sometimes, plot bunnies and premise bunnies are very difficult to tell apart!
Binog: A story that was written as fanfiction but would have been a thousand times better written as original fiction, either because of characterization, situation, or a hundred other elements that just made the whole thing feel like reading about characters with the same names as the fandom characters even though it was obviously an original story. Different from 'cardboard cut-outs' in that the general story is fairly good - it's just Not Really Fanfic.
These can and often should be re-purposed as original fiction if caught early enough in the process.
Diaglog: When a story gets bogged down at some point because characters either won't shut up or the action has run into a rut with no current hope of getting out of it. Often located several months after a story is shuffled silently into the WiP folder and subsequently ignored. Characterized by a sudden realization of 'if you'd just say/do this, you could go over there and this fic/chapter would be over!' and speedy editing/writing to make it so.
With practice, diaglog becomes apparent as it's being written and can be excised immediately.
Diaglog can also manifest as 'oh, this actually only needed a couple of paragraphs added and it's done! how did this escape me before?'
Premise Bunny: a true curse, these. While a plot bunny is something like 'I should write a fic about Wendy and Ronnie having grand adventures in space fighting giant robots built by Emperor von Alphabet while mending their broken relationship which fixes that mess in Episode 38...', a premise bunny is closer to 'I should write a fic about Wendy and Ronnie having an adventure...' Even worse is when that fic gets started and has nowhere to go because it was just a premise and there isn't really anything else to go on.
Sometimes, plot bunnies and premise bunnies are very difficult to tell apart!
Binog: A story that was written as fanfiction but would have been a thousand times better written as original fiction, either because of characterization, situation, or a hundred other elements that just made the whole thing feel like reading about characters with the same names as the fandom characters even though it was obviously an original story. Different from 'cardboard cut-outs' in that the general story is fairly good - it's just Not Really Fanfic.
These can and often should be re-purposed as original fiction if caught early enough in the process.
Diaglog: When a story gets bogged down at some point because characters either won't shut up or the action has run into a rut with no current hope of getting out of it. Often located several months after a story is shuffled silently into the WiP folder and subsequently ignored. Characterized by a sudden realization of 'if you'd just say/do this, you could go over there and this fic/chapter would be over!' and speedy editing/writing to make it so.
With practice, diaglog becomes apparent as it's being written and can be excised immediately.
Diaglog can also manifest as 'oh, this actually only needed a couple of paragraphs added and it's done! how did this escape me before?'