Triassic 3: The Misplaced World

[on:]

In the thread about plots we'd like to see on the general board, people seemed to like this idea, so I decided to write it up. I've never written any fanfic, and haven't read that much, but what the hell. I submitted it to CGEF; is that the best way to get it out there?

The story, in brief: It's a Jurassic Park parody. The crew delivers merchandise to Triassic 3, and takes a tour of the park just before it opens, when everything goes wrong.

[Reply #1 on:]

You can also put it up at FSAC; it'll be better if you convert it to HTML first...

[Reply #2 on:]

theres several sites to post you fanfics to.

i personally have mine published at FSAC, TLZ, CGEF and fanfiction.net
i used .doc format in my submissions, coz thats what i wrote it in and thats what Graham asked for when i emailed him at TLZ.

[Reply #3 on:]

Wow, all that work for something I wrote in two hours! Well, maybe.

If I do any more, I'll write them with a word processor, so I can use all the correct formatting and export Word, HTML, or text automatically....

[Reply #4 on:]

hey, just because it took only two hours doesnt mean its not worth posting. 

mine took alot longer though, a few days even  . then again, it was two separate parts with over 10k words each.

[Reply #5 on:]

OK, I uploaded Triassic 3 now and will advertise it later with other fan submitted stuff on CGEF.

From a webmaster point of view:
* .txt is perfectly fine, but make sure you don't add additional line wraps for the sake of "getting too long now". Just let lines go on till you really are done.
* I personally dislike it when people submit to more than 2 sites. 2 sites is nice for redundancy in case one site dies. More than 2 is unneeded and annoys the website visitors (meh, seen it elsewhere already). They go away without checking for original ones.
* If it isnt too much effort, try using pseudo-tags like [CHAR]Bender:[/CHAR] and and so on. Webmasters can easily use search/replace on them and make it fit into the site design.
* Please, add a 5-10 lines summary without spoilers... I seriously can't both have fics up fast *and* have read them. (In Triassic case, could still do so here I guess.)

On a personal note: I sort of think that people do not really appreciate stories longer than 10 pages or continuation stories. When I look at the number of votes Kryten's Amy Triology got, it goes straight down from 62 to 12 to 8.

[Reply #6 on:]

Thanks, both for putting it up, and for your comments.

All of the formatting issues come from the fact that I had no idea what format people wanted, so I went by the way I was taught to write scripts (over a decade ago, when I was probably the only person in my writing class who'd heard of the Internet...).

If I write any more fanfic in the future, I'll come up with an informal DTD similar to your pseudo-tags; it's a neat idea, and I can see how it'd be helpful for you.

The 2-site idea makes sense to me. Submitting to everywhere in the world may make it more likely that people will find my fanfic, but if everyone does it, people will expect to find the exact same stories everywhere, which makes the whole system pretty useless.

As for the length, I was thinking that an episode is about the right size; it's the length Futurama was designed for, after all. But I didn't do the work to figure out if what I wrote is anywhere near 22 minutes. So, how long is 10 "pages"? 60 lines of 72 characters, 1KB, the amount of text that fits in a maximized browser window at 640x480, or what?

None of my ideas are larger in scope than a single episode, so I don't think I'll need to do any continued stories. Also, I don't think any of them would make any major changes to Futurama continuity, so they wouldn't need to be read in any particular order.

Finally, the summary (let me know if it's any good):

The Planet Express crew makes a delivery to Triassic 3, the site of a new theme park filled with dinosaurs reconstructed from ancient DNA and modern scientific knowledge. Together with the owner of the theme park and two cute little children, they're given the opportunity to take a tour of the park before it's opened to the public. What could possibly go wrong?

[Reply #7 on:]

 

Originally posted by [-mArc-]:
From a webmaster point of view:
* .txt is perfectly fine, but make sure you don't add additional line wraps for the sake of "getting too long now". Just let lines go on till you really are done.
* I personally dislike it when people submit to more than 2 sites. 2 sites is nice for redundancy in case one site dies. More than 2 is unneeded and annoys the website visitors (meh, seen it elsewhere already). They go away without checking for original ones.
* If it isnt too much effort, try using pseudo-tags like [CHAR]Bender:[/CHAR] and and so on. Webmasters can easily use search/replace on them and make it fit into the site design.
* Please, add a 5-10 lines summary without spoilers... I seriously can't both have fics up fast *and* have read them. (In Triassic case, could still do so here I guess.)

On a personal note: I sort of think that people do not really appreciate stories longer than 10 pages or continuation stories. When I look at the number of votes Kryten's Amy Triology got, it goes straight down from 62 to 12 to 8.

hmmm, this is all well and good except for a few points:
I disagree with you opinion that people should dislike fics that are longer than 10 pages. i have recieved many emails from people saying that they indeed would want it longer but then again, this is a personal preference. When a fic exceeds 30 pages it turns into something of a short novel instead of merely a small fanfic and many people seem to agree with it. I could be worng, perhaps the majority of readers does prefer short ones but i personally have seen no indication that it would be so.

posting you fic to more than one (or two) website could become annoying for the readers, yes. but one should always remember that FAR from all readers visit the same sites. suppose for a moment that i had posted my fic to only FSAC and FFnet. how many do you think would've even noticed it?
After making it available on FFnet, i got ONE email giving feedback (and 1 review on the site). After posting it onto TLZ i got 4 more feedback emails, and after posting it to CGEF and FSAC i got 3 more.
Add onto this that i believe that not a fraction of the readers actually even bother to give feedback, and i think ive reached just the amount of audience that i was looking for.
just my 2 cents.

[Reply #8 on:]

 

Originally posted by [-mArc-]:
...snip...
On a personal note: I sort of think that people do not really appreciate stories longer than 10 pages or continuation stories. When I look at the number of votes Kryten's Amy Triology got, it goes straight down from 62 to 12 to 8.

So?
You think I write fics so fans can appreciate them? No way Bucko!
I write fics so I can appreciate them!
I post them online simply so I can share my fics.
If no-one appreciates my writing then thats they're own damn problem! 

[Reply #9 on:]

You go, girl/guy!

(After getting a look at Ben, I don't assume anything anymore.)

[Reply #10 on:]

Let me get back on this...
The length: that was just a personal thing. If I see the scrollbar turn into a tiny 2 pixel thingy due to the length of a page, frankly, I can't be bothered. This is nothing against any of you, but I myself expect fan ficts to be amateurish (well, they are by definition) and I myself can't be bothered to go through that in large volumes. I just think that many people think alike and would rather appriciate 15kb-ish stories. The three part story pretty much shows that few people are interested in large amounts of the same story.
Now, you may say you don't care about what people think. I doubt that though. While the writing might be fun, I think the feedbag (hopefully good) is more fun after all.
On the thing with the "more people" see it if it is put on more sites: That's only partly true really. It is true when you go for sites that belong to different "net-clusters", eg aren't closely related and don't share their visitors like FFnet and the Futurama sites. For related sites it's more important to get the entrance sites which have a high count of unique visitors. These will direct the interested people to other sites through buddying and so on. This also is an observation from before I started to help at CGEF. I was so annoyed about all sites having the same fan pictures that I stopped even looking at fan galleries on sites even though I probably missed a few back then through that.

Let me repeat that: I'm not out to hurt or stop anyone from writing fan fics. I appriciate that people go through that kind of work for the show. The thing in this post are all just personal opinions about what could benefit them. And yeah, for CGEFs sake I have to consider the visitors, too.

[Reply #11 on:]

As the fan fic webby at FSAC, and a fic writer myself, I dont mind reading a fic thats 150 Kb long as long as its a decent read, ok posting them can be a bit of a chore but ach what the hell most of my fics are like 20 - 30 pages long so I guess you reap what you sow   .

And I would have to agree with Graham at TLZ, .doc is the best format to send fics in, it retains the formatting you so lovingly give to it, eg italics, bold etc.

Also, I dont mind people sending their work to multiple sites (I know I do, FSAC First though    ), for one thing it gives them a better chance of being posted at atleast one site, plus I'm a real easy going guy    

Besides I re-read the fics I like anyway so it means I dont have to go to the same site, its a convienince thing in my opinion, I mean we all go to these sites so its not like were taking visitors away from them, I'm continually scouring the futurama fan sites for stuff.

But as Marc has already rightly said this is just my private opinion.   

[Reply #12 on:]

 

Originally posted by [-mArc-]:
...snip...
If I see the scrollbar turn into a tiny 2 pixel thingy due to the length of a page, frankly, I can't be bothered.
..snipper-oo...

so the fanfic-er should then split it up into multiple parts or pages... admitably I didn't do that with my first fic ... 

[Reply #13 on:]

Do what you want Erdrik, its your work

 

[Reply #14 on:]

indeed, it said in a thread right here at PEEL sime time back that you can only produce high quality material if you produce it for YOURSELF. If then other people like it, then so be it. If they dont, then thats that. simple.
Though i must admit i AM somewhat of a sucker for the praise ive been recieving in the feedback    more... MORE!  *manical laughter*

And yes, sure. Fanfics can be very amateurish sometimes but AFAIK most of those ARE only a few pages long (about 1000-3000 words). That a fic exceeds this amount have, IMHO, indicated that in 8 of of 10 cases the fic is actually not that amateurish at all! In fact, that the author even took the time to write all this material would be a sure fire way to know that he/she actually cared what it would look like!
i dont think ive ever seen a fic (well, cept one or two max) that exceeded 10k words that was inherently bad or mediocre, but then again this is just my personal experience, i may have missed a few, though i doubt it since ive DLed nearly every futurama fanfic in existance on the web  .

As a last statment i would just like to say that: I dont really WANT to have mindless half-interested futurama viewers read my work, because they wont appreciate it. The audience _im_ after are the true fans of the show, those that actually care what happens to it. Those that actually took the time to write letters/email to FOX imploring them to keep futurama alive! _Those_ are the people I care about.

Oh, btw. I _did_ actually produce the fic just for me, just like the two music videos i ramble on and on about. All of this stuff i produced for me and only me. Then i decided to share them with the audience specified above.

phrew, end rant. 
hope i didnt offend anyone 

[Reply #15 on:]

didn't offend me dude, and if you did then I'll cut their balls off cos they must deserve it. 

[Reply #16 on:]

I'll agree with static. If you write fanfics, constantly thinking; "will people like this? Is this what they want?" you're probably heading down that nice road called "Good Intentions" and we all know where that ends, right? 


The quote static (probably) spoke of:
 

Originally said by Gene Roddenberry:
"While I listen to the audience, one of the secrets of whatever success I've amounted to was that I never make shows for the audience. I listen to good advice, but the only person I make shows for is myself. I love any help you can give me, but I'll be damned if I'll make a show for you! I make it for myself, and if you happen to like it, I'm delighted that you do, and great; we've got the best of both possible worlds. Writers and producers and directors and so on that create a show for specific audiences do schlock work. They should do selfish work, proudly selfish work, and that happens to be true about painter and sculptors, too.

And fanfic writers too.

[Reply #17 on:]

i adore long fics. and as far as i have noticed its the better writers that post the longer fics. If i start reading a short fic and its badly written then i'll stop and go to something else. If the fic is done well then i will stick with it no longer how long it is. I loved Kryten's Amy series, but i happen to be one of those people who can't be bothered to vote :: guilty cringe :: sorry. I'm lazy, but i read as many fics as i can! Length non withstanding.

[Reply #18 on:]

 

Originally posted by Teral:

The quote static (probably) spoke of:
 

You are assuredly correct Teral.
damn.. you must be seriously bored to find all this reference material here on PEEL all the time...

i must also, like venus, admit that i vote for very few fanfics myself, yes im ashamed   
The downside of long fics (the _only_ downside IMHO) is that i 90% of the time simply DL the whole thing onto the HDD and then read it after i disconnect. After that i kinda forget to re-connect just to vote.
This is unfortunate but since im an unemployed modem user i must pay heed to my surfing behaviour, or the shock from seeing the bill might be too much.

/edit for spelunking

[Reply #19 on:]

 

Originally posted by static:
  You are assuredly correct Teral.
damn.. you must be seriously bored to find all this reference material here on PEEL all the time...

It just happened that I was the one to post that quote in the first place. 

and the search function takes care of everything else. There that should make it a little less pathetic.

[Reply #20 on:]

 

Originally posted by Teral:
and the search function takes care of everything else. There that should make it a little less pathetic.

"little" being the keyword here... 

[Reply #21 on:]

i read Triassic 3 and i voted like a good girl!

[Reply #22 on:]

I voted  Over all it was good but It wasn't jaw dropping or nuthin'... acourse I'm a avent L/F Shipper so if it isn't a L/F romance I'm usualy not impressed. lol 

[Reply #23 on:]

Wow, thanks for all that feedback (both on the mechanics of writing and publishing fanfic and on the story itself).

As for Erdrik's comments: I'd like to know what could have made it a "jaw-dropper," or at least better.

Personally, I think that the teleplay format probably hurt some of my jokes (hints to the director about how to hide things in the background probably don't play so well when the fan is reading them directly), and that may be why most fanfic is written much more informally.

If it really did have to advance the Fry/Leela romance to make you happy--well, first of all, Jurassic Park isn't a great setting for romance. But more importantly, I consciously wanted to avoid doing anything that would change the continuity. This story could have fit in almost anywhere in the four seasons so far (and probably in those to come in the future).

Partly this is just because I'm lazy and didn't want to have to worry about continuity details. But there's more to it than that.

If I read a News Radio fanfic that got Dave and Lisa together, I'd think, "Yeah, maybe the series should have gone there." But with Fry and Leela--the series still _could_ go there. I don't want to think in "If the show were still going" terms while it's still going for another year (and there's a chance it'll go beyond that).

But again, that's probably just me.

[Reply #24 on:]

ive just read the fanfic payn and im ready to bring open ye my wrath!  seriously though:

I thought it was pretty good, nothing exceptional or very original. I personally think you could've deviated a bit more from the original Jurassic park script but then again, thats probably because i thought that Jurassic park wasn't great, just merely above average.
The teleformat did hurt the fic i think. Part of the charm of reading a fic is to be able to picture the surroundings yourself without specific instructions from someone else. Doing it the other way is wrong too, like if you hardly give any description at all on how the scene is "filmed". It is, like with everything else, a balance that you have to keep, and its not easy. Believe me i know.
All in all though, i thought it was good (as i said, and voted it a 7) (actually a 7 is for "great" but heh)
Take heed to the feedback and you'll become a great(or even better) fanfic writer, But do never forget the words of Gene Roddenberry: Do SELFISH work! if you dont, it will probably turn out like crap.

[Reply #25 on:]

Static, thanks for the comments.

Personally, I hated Jurassic Park. When I read the book, my first reaction was that it was terrible science fiction. Then I tried to look at it as an adventure story instead--and immediately realized that it was a bad ripoff of Westworld. With kids thrown in for no reason whatsoever. I wouldn't have seen the movie if my then-girlfriend hadn't forced me to. (I"ll admit that the effects were cool, but the story was even dumber than in the book.)

So I had to follow the original story closely enough to make fun of everything that bothered me about it--from bringing along the kids to the idiotic computer security nonsense to the flying issue (although I did cut out the chaos theory nonsense, as that was just so stupid I didn't even know what to say--couldn't Crichton have at least read one pop-science article all the way through?).

Anyway, I don't know if I'll write any more fanfic, but if I do, I'm sure your advice (and the rest) will be helpful.

Also, reading more fanfic would probably be a good idea. For example, I've read a few of the stories on CGEF, and I'm now sure that, as you said, the best format (and style) for a real script is not the same thing as the best format (and style) for a fanfic. If I were a reader for a series, I'd reject any of Kryten's scripts as written without a second thought, but reading them as fanfic, they're a lot better than mine.

Making people first process the script as a director and then watch the result in their head just puts an extra layer in the way of their enjoyment. Flag pages actually work pretty well in fanfic; quick cuts that make for great timing in a TV show have no impact when you're reading the script; etc.

[Reply #26 on:]

One more thing:

 

Originally posted by static:
But do never forget the words of Gene Roddenberry: Do SELFISH work! if you dont, it will probably turn out like crap.

Actually, I'm not sure that's entirely true. As a musician, I've written some songs that were side-project "this is what I really want to do now, and screw everyone else" material; others that were deliberately engineered to get me signed to a particular label or included on a comp; even background music for PSAs and commercials. And while my favorite music at the time is always the stuff I write just for myself, it often doesn't hold up nearly as well later.

I'm not sure that's a universal--after all, I love synthpop (which is about as accessible a genre as you can get) and hate progrock (which is about as masturbatory a genre as I can imagine), and that probably says something about me; someone with opposite tastes may have a different reaction to their own past work.

But I think that, as with everything else, it's important to strike a balance--don't write anything unless it's something you'd really want to read, but keep the audience in mind at the same time.

[Reply #27 on:]

Well, im glad you've taken what little advice i could offer to heart. Reading other peoples works is however the best way to learn how to write good fics, i actually read more than 67 html files worth of fics before i even begun to think about my own work.

The production of "selfish work" is essential for the success of any material IMHO. However, i believe you might have misunderstood me.
You can produce works for other people too with material you could at most say "meh" for, but the core part is the _way_ you produce it. If someone for example wanted you to make a tune within a genre you didnt like, you could still do it good if you got free hands from there. Its when you start to blindly obey other peoples ideals when producing the stuff that things go terribly wrong.
understand what i mean? not sure i do...   

/edited for spelunking

[Reply #28 on:]

 

Snippets originally posted by payn:
...Jurassic Park. When I read the book, my first reaction was that it was terrible science fiction...realized that it was a bad ripoff of Westworld.

Indeed. And who made Westworld? Crichton. All the way back in 1976, there was constant rumor of a second Westworld sequel, Dinoworld, with stop-motion effects. Crud hangs around for decades waiting to be made.