Sunday, June 24, 2012

Casey vs The Janitors Chapter 4: St Crispin, a chuck fanfic - FanFiction.Net

Casey vs The Janitors Chapter 4: St Crispin, a chuck fanfic - FanFiction.Net

This one was pretty difficult, for a variety of reasons. Mainly because I have little experience writing fight scenes. I don't like them much, mainly because I don't have any interest in following individual swordstrokes, or punches, or whatever. That sort of stuff belongs in the 'descriptive prose' section of the stuff that I don't like.
In a similar vein, I don't want to write stuff that I don't know much about. Since I have no training in any of the martial arts and no desire to research them just so I can fake it, I'd rather not write about them. Which makes writing a scene primarily about combat rather difficult.
What I'm much more interested in is the character's reaction to the combat, his feelings about it. Which, since most combat training is intended to make these actions as reflexive and thought-free as possible, is rather difficult.
Then came the Shakespeare. I had no intention to make a Casey a Shakespeare-o-phile, but it seems perfectly natural to me that he be so, especially of the St. Crispin's Day speech. But is that any reason to use that speech as the motif of a story that I already couldn't write, thus ramping up the difficulty level a few more notches?
Well, yes. I like to challenge myself. Most of my fanfic writing is a challenge to myself, a challenge to write in different forms and modes than I would normally use, such as the purely narrative chapters of Not This Time. I enjoy writing contests for the same reason. Some of my best stories come from a simple request, a challenge to write a story that combines elements I would never have combined on my own. And if you want a motif to pattern your story on, you can certainly do worse than Shakespeare. Some people learn by reading. I learn by doing.
This is me doing.