Bwah?

[piplover]

Have you ever been reading a really good fic, good plot, well written, when all the sudden it goes off into WTF-land?  Yeah, that's where I'm at now.  I can't even stop reading it because it sucked me in and now I have to find out how it ends.  But - where did that great story go? 

Comments

[dreamflower]

Oh yes, many times! You suddenly wonder if maybe someone else took over the story!

It's very annoying, to say the least. It's horrid to see a good story go wrong. Especially if you've invested a lot of time reading it!

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Yes! And this story is huge, the first 50 or so pages awesome! And then - out of nowhere, it just - went crazy! I'm left scratching my head, wondering where in the world they thought they were going with the plot twist, and why in the world they thought that an extra 40 pages of the twist was a good idea. So disappointing!

[dreamflower]

Was it an LOTR fic? I might know it.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

No, a Star Wars one. I just found this author today and was so happy to be delving into such a long story. Now I'm literally shaking with how crazy it went, you know you get when you really get into a story. Luckily it's left the total crazy aside for a moment, though I'm wary of this author now. Sigh.

[dreamflower]

I just wondered. I remember an AU I read, where Merry and Pippin are not rescued from the Orcs, and Boromir lived and was with the other three going to rescue them.

And then, just before they get there, the author killed off Pippin--*snap* Just like that! At first I didn't believe it, and thought Saruman was just playing mind games on Merry, so I kept reading and waiting for Pippin to show up alive and well.

I was wrong. I still wish I'd never even started that story.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

GAH! That's horrible! How could someone do that? Why? Egads, that would have had me shaking and wanting to throw something! This story isn't quite that bad, though for a while it looked like it was heading that way. Thank goodness I had Marigold to talk me out of any insane plot points. *Shudder* They just killed him?

[dreamflower]

Even worse. Saruman tricked Merry into killing him!

Of course the whole idea was just to give Merry maximum angst. As if poor Merry could ever remain sane after something like that!

It literally made me want to throw up when I realized it wasn't just another trick on Saruman's part.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Ick! That's horrible. I'm so glad I missed that one. Sometimes, I think authors just don't get it. Less really can be more. You're right, I don't think Merry could have remained sane after doing something like that. The only reason Merry and Pippin managed to get through their ordeal, during and after, was because they had each other. Sheesh.

[dreamflower]

I know. I recently totally went off another WIP I'd been following because of an unwarned character death, and even though it was an OC, it still really upset me. So far as I could tell there was no good reason except to make the canon character suffer.

There has to be more reason to it than that. The first time I killed off a character, I agonized over it for months, before I finally realized it was necessary. And I went out of my way to warn people. I telegraphed it in every way imaginable, so no one would be shocked. And I put it in a side story, and not in my main WIP at the time, so readers who did not want to read about it would not have to.