Month: January 2012

Fannish opinion

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 30 Comments

I’m not a big fan of “breaking the fourth wall” in fiction. Sometimes it can be used effectively, when it’s subtle, but most of the time it is done tongue-in-cheek, as a joke by the writers to say, “Hey, it’s only a TV show, hee hee!”, which totally throws the viewer out of the suspension of disbelief that gives fiction its magic.

I think there is a difference between breaking the fourth wall and a show (or other extended work of fiction) satirizing/parodying itself. “The Zeppo” is an effective example of a show satirizing itself without breaking the fourth wall. It’s a subtler form of what most cases of actually breaking the fourth wall are trying to achieve and end up failing at.

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Legalities

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 28 Comments

So what I’d like to know is what the legal definition of “an original series” is. Syfy Network in the U.S. has the audacity to call shows like Merlin and Lost Girl “original series”, and we all know Syfy didn’t commission these shows to be produced in the first place.

Not to mention they don’t air on Syfy until long after the rest of the world has seen them. Reminds me of Cordelia to Harmony back in the day: “You do what everyone else does just so you can say you did it first!”

In other news: All Things Philosophical has gone black today in protest of SOPA.

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Original Fiction: Dis/inhibition – character illustrations

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 15 Comments

Among the things I want to accomplish in 2012 is finally, FINALLY, getting my old novel, Dis/inhibition, out the door and into the world. I decided to go the self-publishing route, which is a lot of work (for me). In addition to formatting the manuscript/book itself and getting to to places that can sell it, I need to do all the promotional/marketing work as well, or at least arrange for it to be done.

One of the things I hope to do is a website. I hired an illustrator last year to do some images of my characters. The plan is to put these on the site, along with some quotes from the story, either by the character in question, or about the character in question by another character, along with information about me and about how to buy the book.

What sort of people do you imagine these are?

Character Illustrations