adorelo
CSI Level Two
TQ Winner - Week 14
Topic Question: When writing fanfictions related to the CSI franchise how do you come up with ideas for specific cases? When you come up with the ideas, how do you write them? How do you know what evidence to have the CSI's find? How do you present it?
Winnner: LLK (oh, come on, it had to be! That was the most detiled response I've seen in a long time!
TQ: When I’m writing fanfics I usually rely heavily on romance or on the dynamic of all of the characters. My CSI fics don’t live up to the name “CSI” too terribly well because I don’t focus on the cases as much as I should. My fics are a lot more like the CSI of Vegas’s season 8, I worry way too much about the characters. However I always do have at least one pretty significant case in the story I’m working on at the time.
Sometimes I present a bunch of smaller cases. In my fic “Elaborate Lives” I had them working on a new case in almost every chapter. It was as though the chapters came along as episodes. I’d have dialogue as the forefront of interest in the chapter, dialogue about one thing or another, but then in the background I’d slip in some detail about the case. In one chapter in particular I had the entire team, including my OC, called to a scene. It was the mass murder of an entire family. Well I slipped snippets of “Nick noticed a print on the door frame and leaned down to collect it.” and “Greg was about to step outside for some air and a little sanctuary from the massive blood bath he was working in when he noticed something strange, there was a key sitting on the window frame next to the front door.” But that was all mixed in to a very heavy romance scene between Warrick and Catherine. It was actually pretty cute the way I did it. Even if it was all mixed in to a crime scene.
The point is that I frequently don’t rely too heavily on the crime solving aspect of CSI because I’m not too good at writing a dramatic murder and then walking the investigators all the way through the solving process. That was actually part of my ulterior motive for selecting this as my TQ. I was hoping to learn a bit from everyone.
However from time to time I do write a fic or two that focus heavily on a certain crime. I’ll spend the entire time writing the fic dabbling and out of certain bits of evidence. Like I said I rely almost solely on the personal dynamic to tell my stories but I’d feel blasphemous if I didn’t include a little crime here or there. I rely on the personal aspect because I feel like I’m good at it. The decade I spent doing theatre taught me a lot about characterization and I am quite prone to believing that I have a pretty firm grasp on my characters, so I show it off a little.
Back to the point of a central case though. I’d start out with the idea, basically, that there was a case or something that they just couldn’t solve for whatever reason. I don’t know why I think I’m going to be so much better at writing a case that stumps the CSI’s than a run of the mill “trick roll” or something like that, but I guess I just live for a challenge, ya know? But I still do it to myself. In my current project fic, “Things Fall Apart” (I had it featured once long while back) I have most of the focus relying on discovering all of the details of a specific murder. This is one time, however, that I have a lot of the information that I’m going to deliver planned out. I think the two biggest things that helped me decide what to use (which I won’t reveal because the fic hasn’t been finished yet) were sitting down and having someone talk it through with me and having a good sense of back story.
Deciding who is going to sit down and talk it out with you can be hard though. I have a few CSI fanfic writing friends who have some very distinct qualities. One is very prone to empathy and tends to think through every detail of a fanfic from the emotional perception of the characters involved. That’s a great and helpful thing sometimes, but other times it takes me weeks to put out a chapter because we can’t agree on how mean I should or shouldn’t be. Another friend I have is absolutely cruel with her characters. The things she comes up with and the suggestions she makes sometimes make me marvel at her ability to think up scenarios for CSI. Honestly I often wish I could find a way to pitch one of her plots to the writers. She’s amazing, and very detailed. She’s the person I most enjoy going to for advice on how to work out cases and stuff like that.
As for the usefulness of back story. I was taught that you don’t just want to know what’s important “right now” in the character’s life, but all of the important things. What was their first kiss like? Do they have any brothers and/or sisters? Were they a happy child? Do they have a dog? Is there mother pretty? And though when I was 11 the first time I had to do a project involving “complex characterization and back story” I thought it was absurd, I can’t say that I still have the same sentiment. Anyone who has ever even thought about embarking on a co-authored fic with me realizes really quickly that I’m so sickeningly detail oriented with my characterization that it drives them a little nuts. That’s why I love writing with Bauerfreak so much (and because she’s an awesome author, read her stuff) because she puts up with my stopping every ten minutes to question the person’s “motive” for saying or doing what they did. This kind of attention to character can only help me when I’m writing a murder. I may not be good at dropping fibers, hairs, or fingerprints but I am a pro when it comes to the reason for the crime. That helps, knowing so much about the character, to figure out what kinds of things they might leave behind. As Grissom says “they always leave a part of them behind.”
I realize that I just wrote all of that and I haven’t even begun to address the other part of the question. How do I decide on the cases? Well I guess I covered it a bit in the above paragraph but I’ll go into it a little more. Usually the cases I choose are either generic run of the mill “cases” like the ones that you’ll see every day on CSI. Like a jealous wife, spurned lover, competitive college student, or uh... a bar fight gone wrong. However sometimes I like to be a little fun so I think of things, obscure sects of humanity, that obviously have their own share of casualties but may not get the front running on screen. The sort of communities like the “little people” of “A Little Murder” or the “Furries” of “Fur and Loathing.” So you’ll sometimes see some really abstract murders and motives.
Well I don’t think that you guys could possibly have any more stamina for reading this so I’m going to cut it out and move on to the critique part of this. Sorry for saying so much, I guess I had a lot more to say about the issue than I thought. Weird considering that I really chose this TQ in hopes that I would personally learn something. Not that I don’t do so frequently. (Yay for being in charge and using your powers for corrupt, albeit interesting, reasons.)
Topic Question: When writing fanfictions related to the CSI franchise how do you come up with ideas for specific cases? When you come up with the ideas, how do you write them? How do you know what evidence to have the CSI's find? How do you present it?
Winnner: LLK (oh, come on, it had to be! That was the most detiled response I've seen in a long time!
TQ: When I’m writing fanfics I usually rely heavily on romance or on the dynamic of all of the characters. My CSI fics don’t live up to the name “CSI” too terribly well because I don’t focus on the cases as much as I should. My fics are a lot more like the CSI of Vegas’s season 8, I worry way too much about the characters. However I always do have at least one pretty significant case in the story I’m working on at the time.
Sometimes I present a bunch of smaller cases. In my fic “Elaborate Lives” I had them working on a new case in almost every chapter. It was as though the chapters came along as episodes. I’d have dialogue as the forefront of interest in the chapter, dialogue about one thing or another, but then in the background I’d slip in some detail about the case. In one chapter in particular I had the entire team, including my OC, called to a scene. It was the mass murder of an entire family. Well I slipped snippets of “Nick noticed a print on the door frame and leaned down to collect it.” and “Greg was about to step outside for some air and a little sanctuary from the massive blood bath he was working in when he noticed something strange, there was a key sitting on the window frame next to the front door.” But that was all mixed in to a very heavy romance scene between Warrick and Catherine. It was actually pretty cute the way I did it. Even if it was all mixed in to a crime scene.
The point is that I frequently don’t rely too heavily on the crime solving aspect of CSI because I’m not too good at writing a dramatic murder and then walking the investigators all the way through the solving process. That was actually part of my ulterior motive for selecting this as my TQ. I was hoping to learn a bit from everyone.
However from time to time I do write a fic or two that focus heavily on a certain crime. I’ll spend the entire time writing the fic dabbling and out of certain bits of evidence. Like I said I rely almost solely on the personal dynamic to tell my stories but I’d feel blasphemous if I didn’t include a little crime here or there. I rely on the personal aspect because I feel like I’m good at it. The decade I spent doing theatre taught me a lot about characterization and I am quite prone to believing that I have a pretty firm grasp on my characters, so I show it off a little.
Back to the point of a central case though. I’d start out with the idea, basically, that there was a case or something that they just couldn’t solve for whatever reason. I don’t know why I think I’m going to be so much better at writing a case that stumps the CSI’s than a run of the mill “trick roll” or something like that, but I guess I just live for a challenge, ya know? But I still do it to myself. In my current project fic, “Things Fall Apart” (I had it featured once long while back) I have most of the focus relying on discovering all of the details of a specific murder. This is one time, however, that I have a lot of the information that I’m going to deliver planned out. I think the two biggest things that helped me decide what to use (which I won’t reveal because the fic hasn’t been finished yet) were sitting down and having someone talk it through with me and having a good sense of back story.
Deciding who is going to sit down and talk it out with you can be hard though. I have a few CSI fanfic writing friends who have some very distinct qualities. One is very prone to empathy and tends to think through every detail of a fanfic from the emotional perception of the characters involved. That’s a great and helpful thing sometimes, but other times it takes me weeks to put out a chapter because we can’t agree on how mean I should or shouldn’t be. Another friend I have is absolutely cruel with her characters. The things she comes up with and the suggestions she makes sometimes make me marvel at her ability to think up scenarios for CSI. Honestly I often wish I could find a way to pitch one of her plots to the writers. She’s amazing, and very detailed. She’s the person I most enjoy going to for advice on how to work out cases and stuff like that.
As for the usefulness of back story. I was taught that you don’t just want to know what’s important “right now” in the character’s life, but all of the important things. What was their first kiss like? Do they have any brothers and/or sisters? Were they a happy child? Do they have a dog? Is there mother pretty? And though when I was 11 the first time I had to do a project involving “complex characterization and back story” I thought it was absurd, I can’t say that I still have the same sentiment. Anyone who has ever even thought about embarking on a co-authored fic with me realizes really quickly that I’m so sickeningly detail oriented with my characterization that it drives them a little nuts. That’s why I love writing with Bauerfreak so much (and because she’s an awesome author, read her stuff) because she puts up with my stopping every ten minutes to question the person’s “motive” for saying or doing what they did. This kind of attention to character can only help me when I’m writing a murder. I may not be good at dropping fibers, hairs, or fingerprints but I am a pro when it comes to the reason for the crime. That helps, knowing so much about the character, to figure out what kinds of things they might leave behind. As Grissom says “they always leave a part of them behind.”
I realize that I just wrote all of that and I haven’t even begun to address the other part of the question. How do I decide on the cases? Well I guess I covered it a bit in the above paragraph but I’ll go into it a little more. Usually the cases I choose are either generic run of the mill “cases” like the ones that you’ll see every day on CSI. Like a jealous wife, spurned lover, competitive college student, or uh... a bar fight gone wrong. However sometimes I like to be a little fun so I think of things, obscure sects of humanity, that obviously have their own share of casualties but may not get the front running on screen. The sort of communities like the “little people” of “A Little Murder” or the “Furries” of “Fur and Loathing.” So you’ll sometimes see some really abstract murders and motives.
Well I don’t think that you guys could possibly have any more stamina for reading this so I’m going to cut it out and move on to the critique part of this. Sorry for saying so much, I guess I had a lot more to say about the issue than I thought. Weird considering that I really chose this TQ in hopes that I would personally learn something. Not that I don’t do so frequently. (Yay for being in charge and using your powers for corrupt, albeit interesting, reasons.)
