Book Club Discussion Thread #2

[devogirl]

Welcome to the second meeting of the devo book club! Our selection this month is the Avatar fanfic, "Jake Sully: First Light."
www.fanfiction.net/s/6523068/1/Jake_Sully_First_Light

Please share your thoughts here.

There will be a live chat on Skype at 8 PM EST on Friday, Jan. 21. Any dev is welcome to participate. PM me your user ID if you didn't join in last time.

But first, let's get started here. You don't have to participate in the chat to post here, it's open to all devs.

Oh, and since this is a fan fiction, please do the author a favor and leave a review on fanfiction.net. If you enjoyed it, let her know!

[ruthmadison]

Jan 21, 2011 0:08:33 GMT -5 devogirl said:

Welcome to the second meeting of the devo book club! Our selection this month is the Avatar fanfic, "Jake Sully: First Light."
www.fanfiction.net/s/6523068/1/Jake_Sully_First_Light

Please share your thoughts here.

There will be a live chat on Skype at 8 PM EST on Friday, Jan. 21. Any dev is welcome to participate. PM me your user ID if you didn't join in last time.

But first, let's get started here. You don't have to participate in the chat to post here, it's open to all devs.

Oh, and since this is a fan fiction, please do the author a favor and leave a review on fanfiction.net. If you enjoyed it, let her know!

Oh gosh, I forgot that was tonight, I still haven't set up my Skype, but I'll get to it!

In terms of the story:

In general I don't care for newly injured stories, I prefer after the character has adjusted to being disabled. However, in this case, I found that part very well done.

I lost interest around the time Sully and his friend went skiing. It just wasn't feeling like Sully to me.

I know he had been through a lot, but the frequent sobbing bothered me, and was hard to believe.

[Emma]

I guess I'll throw my thoughts in here as well. I have to admit that I am having a very hard time getting through the story. I'm not a writer and was never good in literature classes so can't figure out how to convey what the issue for me seems to be. Maybe its that don't care about the characters. The story seems dry maybe, I don't know. I'll try again today but got to about the same part as Ruth.

I can't help but focus on what just doesn't seem right. It seems as if the writer knows a lot about the military and sci but there are some things that just don't sit right with me. For example: he says he had to give up his wheelchair at airport security and ride to the gate in a airport chair. That just doesn't happen and I don't understand where the writer got the idea that this happens. I always see guys in their regular chairs going through security.

[ruthmadison]

Another thing I've been thinking about, I think fanfic is particularly difficult to do and I've never managed it myself.

It's hard to take someone else's character and breath life into it. At least when you are writing your own characters, you know them inside and out and exactly how they would be in every situation.

I personally think that fanfic is harder to do well than regular writing, so kudos to the author for taking on an enormous challenge.

[devogirl]

Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it B-O-R-I-N-G. I selected this story because you all love Avatar so much, although I admit I am not really a fan myself. Also the first few chapters looked promising. So I thought I'd include it as a favor to you all, but in the end it was like punishment having to read it. I didn't get a devo tingle from it at all, which I thought at first was just my own preferences. But I'm glad you guys agree. It didn't resonate with the Jake in the movie at all, and the writing gets drier and drier as it goes along.

But maybe we're wrong. Did anyone enjoy it? Did it give you that devo thrill?

[Devoblue]

I have to agree with all the comments so far...although I haven't finished it. I started reading great guns for the first few chapters and made it to about chapter 7 but I haven't been that motivated to go back to it, it just didn't have the thrills I expected. Maybe it has something to do with having seen Avatar and thinking about it since, having it be a bit of fantasy fodder..the story couldn't live up to that. I'm not sure but I'll try to finish it in case it changes my mind.

[Be As You Are]

I finished it last night and I too had trouble getting through it. It held little dev factor for me, I don't know why. I'm an Avatar fan, but this particular character portrayal of Jake did nothing for me.
Ruth made a good point, I agree that fanfic is probably harder to write because we come to it with a preconceived notion of the character. Props to all the authors who take on the challenge!

[Emma]

Although we all agreed we did not like the Jake Sully story the 5 of us had a great discussion. Where were the rest of you? I guess maybe we should not pick a Friday night as dev discussion night again!

[devogirl]

Yes, where the hell was everyone? All you people who voted for this story disappeared
But as Emma said, we had a great conversation with a small group, big thanks to everyone who participated! I really enjoyed talking with you all.

In the end, we didn't talk about the story much because most of us didn't like it, but just to summarize my reactions in a little more detail, I think part of the reason this story was perhaps doomed to failure was because it is essentially a prequel, it has to get Jake to the moment the film starts. But the author wanted to tell a SCI recovery story with a romance, where Jake comes to accept himself post SCI, which is at odds with the character at the beginning of the film, who is angry and directionless. So the character arc and characterization just don't work. The author would have been better off just writing a completely original story.

The author seemed really knowledgeable about medical stuff, but some of the action didn't make sense, like the scene where Jake goes down the stairs on his stomach. WTF? I've seen SCI guys go up and down stairs, usually they sit on their butts and pull themselves with their arms. All I could think was if he slid on his stomach his pants would come off. Also there are a lot of scenes of Jake being carried around by his marine buddies. Again, WTF? I kept hoping it would go in a slashy direction, but no such luck. If you can't put slash in fanfic, what good is it?!

What really killed it for me was how unrealistic the dialog was, and how much of the character development was put directly in the characters' mouths: saying things like "Jake has learned blah blah blah" etc. rather than letting it come out through his actions. Rule #1 for fiction: SHOW rather than TELL.

Anyway if you did read the story or at least part of it, don't let my ranting discourage you from posting.

[Dee Dee]

Well, I voted for the Jake Sully fanfic, as I was quite pleased with the film, but I must admit I did not get to read it ... I found it VERY long and simply could not find the appropriate amount of time ...

I thought of participating in the Skype session nonetheless, but since 8 PM EST is 2 AM GMT+1 where I live, it is hard to keep oneself awake on a Friday night ... I´m sorry .

Can we read something shorter the next time?

[ruthmadison]

I agree, it was not Jake Sully, it didn't feel like him at all and that disappointed me because I love Jake Sully!

I never finished it, I got so bored and I just couldn't believe the dialog or the way the guys behaved with each other.

Nonetheless, it was an awesome chat and I had a great time!

[devogirl]

It seems the combination of a boring story and the Friday night made it hard for people to participate. There will never be one time that works for everyone, but I think we should go back to weeknights, that seems to work better.

[ruthmadison]

My copy of The Morning Side of Dawn just arrived. I think I will spend a nice quiet afternoon reading and napping.

[Emma]

I started mine yesterday but only got 2 pages into it before bedtime

[~Z28gal~]

My problem with dev books is that there never IS a bedtime until I'm done with them!