There has been so much amazing meta regarding EMP since S4 aired that I feel it should be somehow collected and catalogued for reference. If anyone else agrees, then I would love to set up a blog to house and tag those metas. (And with my recent health issues, I just have a lot of time on my hands)
I have reserved @sherlock-emp to store and house all meta anyone would like to submit. They will be tagged according to contributor and subject.
If you are at all interested in contributing- or know of anyone writing about EMP theory- my messenger is always open.
Okay, so let’s share a magic trick. I bet we all know it already, but some may don’t. I got the photoshoot in 1540×2000 which is not UHQ but still better resolution than what we get to see on the slideshow of Interview Magazine site.
Right click on the picture. Inspect code source (I hope it is how it’s call in english) and right-click on the picture link. Choose “open in new tab”. Now change the name of the picture. First one is called “opener2-769×1000.jpg” and of course it is only this size. Just remove the size to get this : “opener2.jpg” and you’ll get full size picture.
I’m interested in the kinds of fanwork that goes on in the production of fanfiction; there’s more than we usually articulate, and I’ve often felt like we haven’t got the language to differentiate between the different kinds of beta work that goes on behind the scenes. So I’ve given a shot at articulating and classifying the various kinds of beta reading I’m familiar with.
SPAG Beta. Spelling, punctuation and grammar. This is your basic line edit. This is the person who catches your typos and silly mistakes.
Dropped Words Beta. Some people might be both a SPAG and a dropped words beta, but I feel this one deserves pulling out. I don’t know about you, but I can’t write a damn sentence without dropping at least a word or two. I think the word is there, I can practically see it there, but it’s not there. Many (if not most) people will add the lost at or an or the in there for you in their minds and not notice, but the laser eyes of a dropped word beta will put you to rights again. To be a dropped words beta you need to be able to look at the text without getting drawn into the story, and that’s both a special skill and a sacrifice for someone who actually likes your story. So anyone who can do this: you are a treasure, a gift, and made of gold.
Plot Beta. This is work that happens at the very beginning, as well as throughout a story. A plot beta is the person you talk your story out with, she’s your sounding board in the creation process. She may not be into SPAG or dropped words, and might not be a britpicker or formatting genius, but that doesn’t matter. Your plot beta’s not really there to worry about your word choice. She’s there to help birth a story with you. I write very long stories, so plot betas come in early go through my outline with me as I construct it. A plot beta is one of the few who end up beta reading an outline, in my experience. Many betas I’ve worked with don’t want to know what’s going to happen next in a story. They don’t want to be spoiled. So you can keep the spoiling conversations between you and your plot beta, and keep surprising a SPAG and formatting beta.
Research beta. This person works with you to help you pin down the bizarre facts you need to get your story right. Like a plot beta, they can act as a sounding board and help you construct the fine details.
Character Beta. This is someone who will act as a north star for you on a particular character. This is helpful if you’re writing about a character you don’t feel entirely certain about, or you just want someone to argue with you about the actions of a particular character so you can feel confident that s/he is at least close to being in character. It’s actually hard to keep the canon core of a character in your mind as you morph and change him/her, so having someone around who isn’t off on your flights of fantasy with you can be helpful in that respect.
Emotional Flow Beta. This is someone who reads your story for its emotional flow. Is it working? Does it ring true? They’re not there to debate whether the characters are OOC, just to tell you if the actions you’re describing feels real. This is related to a plot beta, and can be related to a character beta, but is different than both. Your emotional flow beta might have no idea where you’re story is headed and is just reacting to what’s on the page right now, which is useful. (hiddenlacuna suggests: whump!beta.)
Settings and Location Beta. This is someone who is attuned to the places you’re setting your stories, works well with Google Maps, and is anal retentive enough to correct you if you say it takes forty minutes to walk to that Tesco when it actually takes about twenty-five. This person is often also your Britpicker, but this is a separate service, I’d say.
Britpicker. Everyone knows what a Britpicker is, right? The person who tells you you’ve used the word “gotten” again, and that “recognize” doesn’t have a z in it in the UK. Also it’s a lift for God’s sake, not an elevator! In other fandoms, you may need an Americanpicker or other. (I’ve yet to be asked to act as a Canuckpicker, much to my disappointment.)
*-picker. You can call in an expert on anything, really. If you have violins in your story, call in a violin expert! Cricket? The inner workings of the BBC? Find a picker for that! It never hurts to call in someone with specialist knowledge.
Smut Beta. The person who helps you sort out those insanely complicated sex scenes. This is someone you trust not to laugh their bums off at you as you stumble through this terrifying territory.
Canon Beta. Someone whose inner knowledge of the canon in question is exquisite, and who can make sure you haven’t made any egregious mistakes.
Formatting Beta. This is a person who makes sure your code is clear to be posted. In more complicated stories, this might be a bigger deal than usual.
One person can be many of these things; obviously they’re not mutually exclusive. I think you could merge a few of the pieces and end up with a sort of sounding board beta you talk to before and during the writing, and then the person with the laser eyes you call in once you have something to actually look at. But these are (at least some) of the work that is behind the scenes of a fanfiction story.
If you are someone who would like to be someone’s sounding board, but you don’t really want to be responsible for line editing, you can still offer to beta. It’s just a different kind of relationship, and different expectations on both sides! All kinds of betas are welcome, useful, and intensely valuable!
No problem! And sorry about not answering sooner, I was on vacation. To make it up to you, I’ve made one of my trademark Long Posts about it.
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE PAIN (FOR BOTH ORIGINAL CONTENT WRITERS AND FANFICTION WRITERS)
When I first started writing, about eight years ago, I had the same issue as @imjustafuckinggirl.
How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before???
The characters in my book suffer through all sorts of terrible shit, and in no way am I writing from experience, which is marginally easier to do than write about something that has never happened to you.
However, with time, I managed to gather up a few strategies on how to write pain.
1. Don’t Write Paragraphs About It
I know, it’s tempting. You want to convey to the reader just how much pain the character is in, and you think that the pain will be emphasized the more you write about it.
This, however, is a lie.
As a reader, when I’m reading a book or fanfiction where, whenever the writer uses agonizingly long paragraphs to describe when a character is hurt, I skip it.
Entirely.
It’s boring and, quite frankly, unnecessary, especially during a fight or huge battle, which are supposed to be fast-paced.
When it comes to writing about pain, it really is about quality and not quantity.
In my own writing, I stick to short, quick paragraphs, some of them which are barely a line long. This gives it a faster pace and sort of parallels with the scattered, spread out thoughts of the character as they suffer.
2. Describe it Right
Many times, usually in fanfiction, writers over-exaggerate certain injuries.
This partially has to do with the fact that they’ve never experienced that injury before and are just thinking about what it might feel like.
As a girl with two brothers and who often participated in rough play-fights, I can assure you that getting punched is not as painful as you think it is.
(However, it does depend on the area, as well as how hard the punch is, on top of the fact that you have to take into account whether or not the punch broke bones)
I’m reading a high school AU where a character gets punched by a bully (Idk where they got punched it wasn’t stated) and the author is describing it like they’d been shot.
It was to the point where I was like Did the bully have brass knuckles or something????
It was very clear that this author had never been punched before.
When describing the pain of an injury or the injury itself, you have to take into account:
– What object was used to harm the character
– Where the injury is
– How long the character has had the injury
– (For blades) How deep the cut is
– (For blunt force trauma) How hard the hit was
– Whether or not the wound triggers other things (Ex: Concussion, vomiting, dizziness, infection, internal/external bleeding).
There’s also the fact that when some authors described wounds caused by blades such as knives, daggers, and swords, they never take into account the anatomy of a person and which places cause the most blood flow.
Obviously, a cut on your cheek will have less of a blood flow than a cut on your wrist, depending on what the blade hits, and I hope that everyone consults a diagram of veins, capillaries, arteries, etc. when they’re describing blood flow from a certain place.
There’s also the fact that you have to take into account where the blood is coming from. Veins? Arteries?
The blood from arteries will be a brighter red, like vermilion, than the blood from veins, which is the dark crimson everyone likes to talk about.
Not all places gush bright red blood, people!
3. DIFFERENT INJURIES HAVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN
Here, let me explain.
A punch feels different from a slap.
A broken arm feels different from getting stabbed.
A fall feels different from a dog bite.
I’ll give you a list of all the kinds of things that can be described for the three most common kinds of injuries that happen in stories:
Punch/Blunt Force Trauma
How it feels:
– Aching
– Numbness (In the later stages)
– A single spike of pain before it fades into an ache
– Throbbing
Effects:
– Vomiting (If the character is punched in the gut)
– Swelling
– Bruising
– Broken bones
– Unconsciousness (Blow to the head)
– Dizziness (Blow to the head)
– Concussion (Also a blow to the head)
– Internal bleeding
– Death (In the case of concussions and internal bleeding and broken bones- ribs can pierce lungs)
Stab Wound/Cut
How it feels:
– Stinging (only shallow wounds have just stinging)
– Burning
– With stab wounds, I feel like describing the effects of it make it more powerfully felt by the reader
Effects:
– Bleeding (Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Unconsciousness
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Gunshot
How it feels:
– Depends on the caliber bullet, from how far away they were shot (point-blank range is nothing like being shot from a distance), and in what place. Do careful research and then make your decision.
Effects:
– Bleeding
(Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of
blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be. Also take into effect the above variables for blood flow as well.)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Some things that a character may do while they’re injured:
– Heavy/Harsh/Ragged breathing
– Panting
– Making noises of pain
gasping
grunting
hissing
groaning
whimpering
yelping (when the injury is inflicted)
screaming
shrieking
wailing
– Crying/ Weeping/Sobbing/Etc.
– Clenching their teeth
– Unable to speak
– Pressing their hands against a stab wound/cut to try and stem the bleeding
– Eyesight going out of whack (vision blurring and tilting, the room spinning, black spots consuming sight)
The root source is a site run by someone named Lee Thomson. That all-text site that has been linked elsewhere is the raw back end; their main site is https://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/, and this is apparently a fairly involved hobby done for the benefit of would-be screenwriters:
These scripts are here because the only way to learn how to write a
TV script is to read A LOT of other TV scripts, and there aren’t many
places you can do that.So here you can study scripts for existing shows, some of your old favourites, and many that never even made it to air.
I love running this site and sharing the scripts I obtain with other
writers and fans. However, scripts are not always easy to get hold of
(especially when you live five and a half thousand miles away from
L.A.). So I am asking; if you would like to contribute – anonymously or
otherwise – to a site that has been called “an absolute gold mine” (John
August) and “a great site” (Ellen Sandler) then please send any scripts
you may have for upcoming or classic shows to blog@leethomson.com.
I promise not to post scripts for upcoming pilots until the show has
aired, and anyone who sends me anything will of course have my undying
gratitude.
They don’t reveal the precise source of each submission; probably for source protection. They’re also on Twitter (@ljthomson) and used to keep a blog: http://leethomson.blogspot.com/
It’s definitely an invaluable source if you’re interested in screenwriting!
Another reference to it is here, from the Amazon Studios screenwriters’ forums.
I had a nonny ask me a question last night – how do you
write a good Omegaverse story, and I gave as good an off-the-cuff answer as I could.
It’s a good question, and one of course that applies to all writing, and I
think it deserves a longer answer. How do you write a good story?
I think good stories start by asking the question “what if .
. .” After watching S4, Sherlock fans might ask “What if Mary faked her death?”
or “What if all of TFP was really John hallucinating in a fever dream, and then
he wakes up?” I think some good Omegaverse questions might have started with “What
if men had to have babies?” or “What if men were considered the weaker sex?” Once
you’ve asked a question that challenges the status quo, you’re off and running
with a story.
Everything you write needs to rotate around your “what if”
question. What kind of people need to inhabit the world of this “what if?” Even
if you are using established characters from a fandom like John and Sherlock,
you have to ask yourself, what is THIS John and Sherlock like? How did this
world or scenario shape and crack them? If you are creating a new world, you
have to ask how is it different, and also the same to our world? Creating some
ground rules helps a lot. Some authors like
to keep a file on their world, a fact cheat sheet they can refer to. If you are
writing a SF or fantasy or Omegaverse fic, what are the basic rules that make
up this world? Jot them down for future reference.
Next, you need a good conflict. What is getting in the way
of your character’s finding peace and fulfillment? What is blocking them from getting
where they need to be and how do they get there? A popular way of writing
stories is in three acts, the set up, the crisis, and the wrap up. Often
writers will build the tension, having character face a few minor problems
before the biggie, and then they are on to the resolve and the ending. How did
the big problem or the crisis change things? Are the characters different? Is
the situation different? Each story will answer this their own way.
Then you need your details, the small things that make this
story come alive. When people give advice for writing and say “write what you
know” I don’t think they mean just write stories about your day job, and
waiting in traffic, and going to the grocery store. They mean bring your
thoughts, and feelings, and experiences to this story and breathe life into so
it feels like things happening to real people in the real world. If your
character is remembering their childhood, remember YOUR childhood. Put the
smell of your gran’s apple pie, or that mean kid who made you afraid to go to
lunch, or the realization that you were probably never going to actually BE a
famous rockstar one day into your story.
Also, it’s fine to write about things you know nothing about.
Learning weird new stuff for a fic is part of the fun in writing I think. I’m
old. There wasn’t even an internet when I was in school. Now we have so much
fabulous information at our fingertips. Some will say don’t use Wikipedia, it’s
often wrong, but I would hazard to say that for fanfic, close enough is close
enough. Put a note in your fic that this probably isn’t an accurate
representation of neurosurgery or the British law system. You can always update later if more accurate
info comes your way.
Don’t be afraid to write crap your first go around. When you
write, you have at least two hats you need to wear – the creator and the
editor, and they are very different jobs. Many talk about writing not a first
draft, but a zero draft when they first start a story. Write the worst thing
you possibly can that just gets you started. When you aren’t sure of a fact or
a name or whatever, leave brackets in your story (fancy breed of dog) or (city
in the south of Wales) to be filled in later when you start editing. Your beginning
draft doesn’t have to be or do anything beyond just existing. It’s a beginning.
You build from there.
Don’t give up, and keep going. No one runs a marathon their
first day. It takes days and days of stretching and training and smaller runs
before someone works up to big race. So it is with writing. Write your
drabbles, and your awkward poetry, and your half-baked ideas, and keep going. With
practice, it all gets easier and your writing gets better.
A Continuing Work In Progress – Most of this is relevant to S4, but it does go back into the previous seasons.
Related to Gatiss and Mycroft’s Love of Old Films (especially psych thrillers and film noir)
German Expressionism Modernized in Sherlock ( x ) (Includes some meta linked below).
Stay Explains Lighting, Editing, Twins, Flat Emotions, etc ( x ) The Original Meta ( x ) + Stay Review Explains Enough – Including the “Rug Pull” ( x ) (Also linked at bottom of this page)
The Lady From Shanghai & Swimming With Sharks ( x )
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Sherlock S2-S4 ( x )
The Ring, Inception, Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Orphan, Shutter Island,
Paranormal Activity 2, It, Morgan, Yellowbeard, Skyfall, Spectre,
Sinister, Neues Vom Wixxer ( x ) by @goodmythicalmail
Moffat 207 to 702 ( x ) (Two pre-existing metas about Moffat reusing these numbers.)
Miscellaneous
Why would Sherlock be close enough to hear John at the cemetery, yet not be visible to a Moriarty accomplice? ( x )
Meta Remaining…(May add to list, later)
AHS: Murder House, The
Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Amityville Horror (1979), The
Shining, Carriers, The Devils, Hammer House versions of Child’s Play (1984) and The Two
Faces of Evil, The Third Man (1949), The Stranger (1946)
Stay-The Naomi Watts Connection (goes with The Ring, Mulholland Drive, and Sleepwalkers metas)
If you want to see the whole flowchart in one image, download it here.
Creating this flowchart has required me choose what to include and what to leave out. If you think that I have missed something, I’d be happy to hear from you, but please read the comments first, in case I had excluded that information for a reason.
I have completely lost track of who is discussing what in the aftermath of s4, but I’ll tag a few people under the cut anyway, hoping that you are interested. Let me know if you don’t want to be tagged in the future!
Sherlock Fandom Archive 