This post was probably intended for the Lyst:

Return-Path: Ashton7@aol.com From: Ashton7@aol.com Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:37:18 EST Subject: Re: [B7L] liking 'character' To: tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu

In a message dated 2/13/01 7:40:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu writes:

<< This is actually the author trying to explain to us the psychological motivation of characters in her story, and she is doing it in a very clumsy way. She also shows great disrespect for us as the readers, because she thinks that we wouldn't be able to figure out by some more subtle signs how Blake feels about Avon or how Vila feels about Blake or whatever. >>

Yes, but this is the way written fiction has to work. In a play or a tv show or a movie, so much more can be said with an *expression* or body language that *cannot* be conveyed in any other way than with words in written fiction. Ask any professional writer who has written both forms. A writer on the Highlander tv series wrote a novel about the show and she mentioned in her afterword that she couldn't *believe* how unbelievably different and difficult it was to write the novel as opposed to a script. She pointed out the fact that she had to be so much more wordy and that she couldn't rely on the actor's being able to get the feeling and the meaning of the words across. She had to *explain* everything.

If an author, be they pro or fannish, doesn't include enough description, explanation, dialogue, etc., you end up with a very sterile story that might as well be a script with little to no stage direction. I've seen many fan stories like that and, believe me, once read they are usually quickly forgotten. There's nothing there to involve the reader in what's happening. As a professor of literature once told me in college: "Character is everything." A movie/tv show can focus on action/adventure to the exclusive of character (I, personally, might not enjoy that all that much, but it can work), but if a book does that, it's just boring.

Annie