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[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Fandom Clichés

I'm a longtime reader, novice writer, and I find that when I’m writing a story, my immersion in fanon affects almost every word I type into that Word document. I want to be fresh and entertaining, and yet still resonate with the reader. When you write in a fandom such as Due South, establishing your familiarity with canon can be a fine line: you want your readers to accept that the people you are writing about are in fact Benton Fraser, Ray Vecchio, Ray Kowalski, etc. And sometimes it seems the easiest way to do so is to use some fandom shorthand. After all, our characters are well-known for their quirks and traits.

So we write Fraser rubbing his eyebrow and cracking his neck, Vecchio complaining about wolf hair on his suits, Kowalski saying, "Pitter patter." Minor characters can be even harder: Frannie and her malapropisms; Thatcher as the Ice Queen, the Dragon Lady; Turnbull cooking; Dief constantly being bribed with donuts while Fraser bitches in the background; Dewey smelling like fish and bacon bits In moderation these can work - they can ping our sense of character. In excess, they’re ridiculous. But most importantly, characterisation can't depend on them. If all they are is their quirks, the characters have no depth, and become caricatures.

Knowing the cliché is not the same as knowing the character. On the one hand, you need to figure out where the cliché comes from - what does it mean when Fraser says "understood"? Who does he say it to, and under what circumstances - what's the context? What's the subtext? On the other hand, the characters are so much more than the sum of their clichés. The stories that really persuade me, the ones I find myself rereading, are ones where something about the characters I love has been dug out of canon and explored. It's not that clichés are bad, per se, but a good extrapolation of the behaviour behind the cliché can increase my enjoyment of a story.

After all, a lot of fandom clichés are straight out of canon - we're dealing with a show in which the hero and the hero sled off into the sunrise, which is a new (context appropriate) twist on a classic clichéd ending. However, some moments catch our imagination more than others.

Take a single incident which has become a focus of fanon: in "Eclipse", Ray makes a cup of coffee, into which he carefully counts half a dozen Smarties. Having Smarties, or M&Ms, in his coffee has become something of a signature for Ray in fanfiction. But why do we focus on that and not, say, the fact that moments later he turns his answering machine off by hitting it with a wooden spoon?

What does that scene tell us about Ray Kowalski's character? He's a nonconformist; he makes do with what he's got; he's a tough guy, but despite this he's got a sweet tooth (and from this we extrapolate an inner sweetness to his nature). In theory, all these traits can be invoked through reminding readers of this single instance. But it’s been used so often that now it just reads flatly, mechanically, one-dimensionally, like this is just what he does. It's become fandom shorthand for "this is Ray Kowalski we're talking about here, okay?"

So, when it sticks in my mind, it's moments where this shorthand is twisted, like the story (sorry, I’ve forgotten its name) in which Ray only used M&Ms that morning because he'd run out of sugar. In fact, it tasted pretty terrible, and there was a mess of candy shells in the bottom of the mug. Subtext: he's a poor housekeeper, he's got too much on his mind to go shopping. Result: I'm more keyed into his frame of mind. And this says something more about his character than, “isn’t he quirky!”

When does using a cliché work? When it's illuminating the character's state of mind, when the cliché is covering for another emotion. The character must be feeling something, not just going through the motions. Take Fraser's eyebrow rub: it's possibly even overused in canon, but it's a key to Fraser's mental state, and thus in fanfiction it needs to be justified by the context. Or perhaps, more powerfully, subverted: "Fraser's eyebrow itched, but he steeled himself not to rub it."

So, when I read over the last few hundred words I've just written in my story, I look for what makes me wince, what seems stale, and try something different. Maybe I can give Ray's coffee addiction a different twist. Maybe I should just delete the section in which Fraser is so lust-ridden he contemplates taking a knife to his bootlaces. Sometimes Fraser just wants to lick his lip and there's nothing I can do about it.

Or I can sit down with the source material, and look for entirely new ways in which my favourite characters express themselves. Anyone want to watch some Due South?

***
Huge, sparkly thanks to china_shop for encouragement, ideas and beta.

Comments

[riverlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay! Lots of good food for thought here... thanks!

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[laylee.livejournal.com]

See this is all just so true. All theses things that constantly crop up in fic, may have only occurred once ot twice in the show in total, yet they are now accepted as 'the thing that character does simply because they did it once.' The M&Ms (or Smarties) in RayK's coffee is a prime example. We only saw him add them to his coffee that one time, yet now, as far as fandom is concerned, he always puts them in his coffee. And we only saw him order pizza once, yet in every story we see him eat pizza. We become comfortable with our cliches and find it hard to write a character without them. But are we not all creatures of habit?

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed! And maybe Ray does always have Smarties in his coffee. *g* But it's the sort of detail that can get tiring very quickly. We're only given a few clues to the character, and it's so easy to just hang onto them. But if we work harder, we write better fic, I guess.

[joandarck.livejournal.com]

Oh, another classic example of that is Ray's grey boxer briefs. Granted, it's nice to have canon information about Ray's underwear... uh... for purely artistic purposes... but from fic you'd think he wears the same briefs every day of his life. (Fraser's identical white boxers, on the other hand, I believe in.)

[streetspirit18.livejournal.com]

And we only saw him order pizza once, yet in every story we see him eat pizza

*nodsnods* Couldn't agree with you more on the pizza/chinese take-out cliché. Most writers seem to extrapolate that he only eats junk food, yet in the opening scene of Seeing is Believing, he gets something to eat from the green food stand at the mall. That's a detail that has been overlooked. Maybe Ray has a healthy diet. We know he cares about his style/hair, who's to say he's not conscious about what he eats, too?

[laylee.livejournal.com]

I totally didn't notice that Ray was getting something from the green food stand. I must go and re-watch that episode now.

And on the opposite end of that, there seems to be a tendency to turn Fraser into some kind of health food nut who is often lecturing Ray about eating more vegetables, whereas we've seen him eat pizza and fries and not once do I remember him expounding the virtues of spinach!

[streetspirit18.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, Asylum and Eclipse get so much attention because of the slashy subtext that the quirks from those eps have been well studied/used.

Also, when a character quirk doesn't fit your idea of who the character is, what he/she behaves like, there's a tendency to discard that information. However, we all have contradictions. I'm glad some writers are able to see/use these and come up with a new view of the character. I like to be surprised. :)

And LOL for the virtues of spinach. The only one who's constantly lectured is Dief. Psst, Dief... here's a donut.

[china_shop]

not once do I remember him expounding the virtues of spinach!

No, although he does hassle Dief for eating lots of junkfood, particularly in seasons 1 & 2, I think.

[china_shop]

Oh, streetspirit18 already pointed that out. Sorry. *facepalm*

Note to self: Real all the comments before butting in.

[streetspirit18.livejournal.com]

Heehee. Poor Dief. It makes you wonder why he is the only one who gets lectured by Fraser, though.

Sometime ago, I read an interesting comment about Dief's role in the show, and how it was possible to consider him Fraser's id, his hedonistic, wild side. And how the bickering between them is really the two sides of Fraser's conscious mind fighting (control vs indulgence). I thought it was a really interesting point.

Oops, I'm totally OT now. *bg*

[joandarck.livejournal.com]

That is such a good way of looking at it - using the signifier only if you can give it some real motivation. And I've always hated the smarties-in-the-coffee bit because it does seem to exist only for quirk value. Whereas the run-out-of-sugar, failed-experiment makes perfect sense.

(Now I have to go cut half of my "character voices" post for next week! But I knew that was going to happen.)

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Oh, no - don't. Everyone has a different perspective, a different way of looking at things. And you've such a fresh voice, in this fandom - one of the things that inspired me to really look at how cliched my writing is.

[joandarck.livejournal.com]

brwha! <--strangled disbelieving noise. Now I must hunt down your fic. I refuse to believe that anybody who will always turn right when leaving a cave writes in cliches.

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

Very, very interesting. Thank you so much for posting this.

It is very hard to stay on the right side of the line between "This is my three word verbal cue that this is RayK I'm talking about" and "I'm going to fill the story with so many of the character's quirks that he seems like a cartoon character." Thanks for helping us all keep an eye out for that.

(And yeah, I'd love to watch some due South with you! I still haven't seen all the episodes yet--which is why I'm fighting against doing any writing (though RayK in my head is starting to make me a little nuts).)

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

[secret confession] I wrote my first fic before I'd seen an episode! Shameful, isn't it. *g* This is why I'm so super-conscious of fanon and cliches.

But I don't think it's bad to let the voices out on paper, play with them a little. Your feel for them will change and grow, sure, but sometimes that early innocence is wonderful.

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

I've been writing a few snippets, bits that may eventually wind out in a single coherent story. But nothing that I'd be ready to *show* anyone.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

*encourages you*

ds_writers is a great community for advice and support.

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement and for the rec of ds_writers!

It's really great to feel so welcomed into the fandom.

[vienna-waits.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful, thought-provoking post. Thank you! I will fess-up that "spiky-haired" is an overused RayK descriptor that seems to pop up a lot in my stuff. Ugh.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Thank you. They're not always bad, but yes, I find that it pays to have a hard think before using them.

[j-s-cavalcante.livejournal.com]

Excellent remarks on writing and character. Thanks! This is a keeper.

You're right about the Smarties! I love the scene, as I guess most of us do, but the Smarties bother me. Not because the coffee must be awful. I knew the coffee had to be awful because it's instant, made with hot tap water (!) and Ray makes a face when he drinks it, and also because I tried coffee (in my case, good coffee) with M&Ms in it just to see. And...it's gritty and muddy and awful! LOL

But the thing that really bothers me about it? Where'd he get the Smarties?? I have never seen them for sale in the US. M&M Mars probably has some kind of patent that prohibits Nestle from selling them here, or something. I imagine he got them from Fraser or from the Consulate, and that means they've seen each other between BDtH and Eclipse. And Fraser still ostensibly doesn't know Ray's real name. Oh, well. Actually I think it was probably just a mistake, but it's our fannish duty to justify those mistakes. :)

Some are tougher than others. How we're going to justify the 6-km speed-limit sign in Chicago (in Mojo Rising)...I haven't the faintest idea.

But back on topic...I'm guessing that if you actually watch the source material and let yourself wonder about these little things, you're not as likely to turn them into cliches. Because cliches, by definition, are things you don't think about. Once they're cliches, they're automatic.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm pleased that you liked it.

And the Smarties always get me! But as fans, we have to have fairly broad minds when it comes to interpretation at certain points, don't we. *g*

[j-s-cavalcante.livejournal.com]

And the Smarties always get me! But as fans, we have to have fairly broad minds when it comes to interpretation at certain points, don't we. *g*

Wha...? You mean the slashy bits? Some of those don't require much leeway in interpretation, do they?

I'm trying to think how else we could interpret a scene like the one where they climb over each other to switch drivers in the GTO. :)

Maybe I've missed your point totally, though, and you just meant we should overlook the fact that you can't typically get Smarties in Chicago? Sorry if I'm being thick! :)

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Maybe I've missed your point totally, though, and you just meant we should overlook the fact that you can't typically get Smarties in Chicago? Sorry if I'm being thick! :)

All of the above, except the you being thick! *g* There's certainly some bits where I get the urge to go and prod the continuity person with a sharp stick. *g*

[j-s-cavalcante.livejournal.com]

Oh, Okay, thanks. That is how I read it the first time, but then I got thinking. Thinking. Can be dangerous. Like Ray, I should have coffee before attempting it. :)