The Unbearable Lightness of Detail

My sinuses no longer feel like I've been eating grenades all night, so I should stop reading blogs. Blogs keep me from doing real work, because they tickle my brain and then I'll just have to write some shit about a subject because I like to hear myself talk, especially in an empty room. Seriously, enter a single person and I'll shut up.

The current spark comes from MCN's blog: on tie-ins, so there, I'll ramble a bit and pretend I'm alone in this room.

I've never read a tie-in, or fanfic, or whatever. They have intrigued me over decades, but I never got round to picking one up, and not always because there was a snooty friend with snooty remarks standing right next to me. The thing withholding me from reading tie-ins is twofold:
1) it's a series, and when I read A, I know I'll just have to read B no matter what the quality of writing/storytelling/worldbuilding/yadda. Or, more wearying, if I read K, I'll want to read L *and* A. Choices! [sigh] I'm not good with choices. And no, even if it are separate stories strung out through time and produced in no specific order I must have some sort of order (no order equals more choices!), either chronological in written time or chronological in write time.
2) most of my series-quota goes to television series. Not that I watch tremendously much television, but I do have some series I follow. And when there's not enough television series, I'll go on a DVD binge and say watch all of BSG in a long weekend or some such. Because A=> B => C until my brain shuts down. It's sort of like giving me a box of delicious cookies and I'll just have one. Ha. And another. And then another to unlearn the bad habit. And well, that one just looks lonely now...

Both points together make that: to go on a binge I need to have everything on hand and in order. Believe me, you did not want to see me after my BSG-thon where I realized I had to wait for Season 4! Like, a whole summer!
So before I open the tie-in can of worms, I think, I should read Pratchett. Yes, he's one of my gaps. And since I put the library in order yesterday, I know exactly how big a gap it is.

As to writing tie-ins: when I was young I made up fanfic for Les Chevaliers du Zodiaques (Saint Seya for ye English types). I invented new characters, made sure every little detail matched up or was accounted for. It was fun and immensely gratifying, even if I never wrote down more than three sentences (all the rest is still stocked somewhere in a dark recess of my brain).
And when ST:TNG and more came along, Cow Watcher started churning out cool story lines, even if I would not hear of it because I was into *serious* literature then. No, no tie-ins! By the time I thought like it might be fun to try anyway, there were already walls filled with ST:TNG tie-ins and the idea became too daunting.

Daunting because we're talking fans as a reader base. And we all know where the word fan comes from. Add to that: fans are alien creatures to me, because I completely lack the gene for fanaticism. Sure, the dude knows how to make music and I'll probably buy every CD he cranks out, but why would that make me interested in his favorite food or make me want to have his babies? Simply incomprehensible.
Daunting in no lesser way because it must be a tremendous job to write a tie-in, with all the little details you have to take into account. Unless it's your particular geek-world, I'm thinking lots of hours of studying, and editing and re-editing. And then editing some more. Somebody out there might go "The Death Star's thermal exhaust port's above the main port, numb-nuts" and the core of your superb action finale comes crashing down.

But then, looking around on the web, you even get crazy fanatics like that if its your own original fiction, and not only in the hard SF section of readership. I fear it. It scares me, how do you deal with stuff like that?

And then I take a big gulp of air and realize that whatever hairsplitting nitpickers might throw at me (once I do get published, and do get readers that might harbor one of those creeps), it's my party and I do what I want to. The thermal exhaust port's above the main port, you say? Well, *I* am using the Empire's revised designs from Return of the Jedi, nana nana naa naah! (Every time I see that Buffy scene it makes me cringe with fear and cry with joy at the same time).
It is the sort of problem solving that's inherent to the writer's toolbox, I guess, and it makes excellent subplots (well, sure, you'd think it's impossible for this guy to survive, but what you don't know, dear reader, is that he's part Frugnithal, and those aliens have yadda yadda...). Or changes to the basic plot (which is usually somewhat more annoying a problem than weeding out a splurge of subplots).
You solve the problem by giving the reader something to help suspend belief. Okay, the real die-hard nitpickers might not be so easily swayed, but they can and will be challenged to a saber fight.

See, back at the time I was watching reruns of reruns of Les Chevaliers (and Goldorak, Albator, Capitaine Flam, Dragonball) I also watched the one soap that will not die. Yes, I used to be a closet The Bold & the Beautiful watcher. I exhausted the excuse that I was a serious couch potato and simply could not help myself staring at the box with the little people in it, that I was waiting for Dragonball to come on, or whatever. Not only was I ashamed to admit I enjoyed watching this ... pulp ... people scorned me (gently) for it.

Only years later I realized that a lot of what I know about storytelling (especially concerning emotional yanking of chains and cliffhangers) I learned from watching B&B. They perfected the Art of Belief-Suspension. Studying how they fooled and lured me as a watcher was a great school. When done well, suspension of belief is a magic trick, because, seriously, how many times can she miraculously return from the dead to seek revenge on Stephanie Forrester? You make sure your reader is "in" your story, i.e. emotional involved *and* invested, and the reader will go and instantly forgive&forget whatever needs to be f&f'ed.
But then, also, suspension of belief only works as long as your audience is immersed and emotionally invested. When the TV goes off, and your audience goes: not her, not again? Where's Buffy when you need her? you might want to consider that particular horse dead and flogged.

Alright, end ramble. Need food.