Goodfiction: Good Fanfiction (original) (raw)

12:25 pm
[jenny_islander]

Food for the Soul, Indeed! Once upon a time, there was a TV show called Forever Knight. It added a marvelous twist to the usual angsty-vampire story: In order to rise as undead, a victim had to be drained nearly to death by a vampire and then consent to come back as a heartless predator. The main character was Nick Knight, who had rediscovered his conscience after centuries of bloodlust. He was a devout Catholic, although convinced of his own damnation, and the show took Christianity for granted.

Oddly, for a main character, Nick didn't get a lot of respect in fanfic. The whole guilt and atonement thing--feh. He was really an emotional basket case who had to be rescued by means of healing sex with Mary Sue, another handsome vampire character, or his vampiric sister; or an idiot who refused to revel in his vampiric coolness and therefore deserved to slink away, friendless forever, while the other characters had a happy orgy; or selfish for refusing to turn the woman he loved into a monster like himself. He didn't really have a problem--so let's dismiss his centuries of homicide in a paragraph and fast forward to the fantasy sex!

I was about ready to give up on FK fanfic when I discovered the wonderful stories of Mary Combs. She has luminous prose and dialogue that just leaps off the page. She can set a scene with a few deft phrases. And she gives Nick's Catholicism the respect it deserves. If you never thought you would enjoy a story set in Purgatory, go to her fanfic page and click on "Detour." "Christmas: Shepherds" will transport you to the heart of a wonderful church and the people who unwittingly help Nick rediscover his soul. "Hallowe'en: Eve of All Saints" begins in the depths of Nick's worst nightmare and ends--well, read it. "Coming Home" is a bittersweet story about the hard work that comes after repentance. Everything Combs writes is at least enjoyable and some of it is unforgettable. Even if you don't grok Christianity, you can spend a long, gray winter afternoon at her site and come away refreshed. The site is here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~combsmfk/index.htm

7:05 pm
[jenny_islander]

The Best in Space: Above and Beyond Fanfic The empress of S:AAB fanfic is Sheryl Clay, whose Queen of Hearts series gives Colonel McQueen a believable, in-character shot at happiness. (I'm a sap. Sue me.) She also writes heart-wrenching vignettes about life as a young In Vitro. Her prose is beautiful. Go to the Fanfic Flightdeck at http://fanficflightdeck.space-readyroom.de/ and click on the Writers Database, then start with "Would You Have Loved Me if I Knew How to Dance?" and stay up all night finishing the rest.

While you're there, you should also check out Tom Bissett's poignant and memorable (said his beta reader modestly) "Yellow Ribbons" and "Daddy's Little Girl."

9:01 pm
[blueslipstream]

Welcome to goodfiction. If you find good examples of how to write fan- or original fiction, post them here, with reviews. Think of this as the flip side of places like deleterius, marysues, etc. While such sites are the great, we do need to be reminded that there IS good FF and OF out there.