too busy to know that they're fools
Nov. 11th, 2022 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestThis is the downside of the fanfic community writing academy.
Being a fanfic writer has taught me a great deal about writing. I've been part of communities dedicated to improving, or practising, or helping one another. I've had awesome betas. I've learned a good deal about putting a story together well enough for people to enjoy reading it.
Which also means that when I'm presented with a story that has big crunchy holes in it, I'm likely to notice. And be cross.
Beast and I just finished watching Red Election. It's a thriller involving British intelligence, a Scottish independence referendum, Russians, all that.
Now, I have no problem with convoluted spy stuff. I don't seriously expect to follow all the ins and outs of who is loyal to whom, who can be trusted, etc. I'm happy to accept that the story will provide twists and turns and misdirections and reveals and all that stuff.
But I expect the foundations of the story to have some basis in reality. If it purports to be a serious story, I expect matters of fundamental fact, such as GEOGRAPHY, to be respected. It should not be Disney, with raccoons raiding London dustbins, or Thor, with a charmingly compressed Tube system that gets you to Greenwich in four stops. Scotland and London are not five minutes apart.
I expect also to be presented with something that looks plausible, in which plot is not so thinly spread that only gross incompetence makes it possible at all.
Let us suppose that the Prime Minister and his wife are visiting a counsellor. Therapist, psych-something, whatever. Naturally there is secret service protection. Who inexplicably fail to be even slightly competent to prevent someone getting into the building who intends to kill the PM.
If I, who have never been a bodyguard or security detail of any kind, can think, hmm, surely they ought to have checked that each and every car in the car park had an acceptable reason to be there, and that each and every car is empty of lurking people and/or explosive devices, before letting the PM onto the premises, then surely it's a pretty incompetent bunch of protection detail if they don't even manage that. Okay, I once wrote a story from the bodyguard's point of view, so I have perhaps a fraction more clue than... someone who didn't do that, but seriously? Seriously?
If someone picks up someone else's phone, in this day and age is it remotely believable that they would be able to do anything with the phone? My humble, middle-aged iPhone comes with fingerprint reader. Beast's has facial recognition. And both have six-digit passwords. If someone picks up my phone, they won't be able to use it. If someone picks up an MI5 agent's phone, or a government minister's phone, or a SPY's PHONE(!!!), they aren't going to be able to view the messages and listen to the voicemails. It's ludicrous. Everybody knows better.
If someone is imprisoned in a house at an easy distance from London, from which the owner commutes to his office in the middle of London, whither he invites people to dine who were five minutes beforehand IN LONDON, then (a) two people tasked with murdering this imprisoned person should take a few hours to get there from Scotland, and (b) two people returning to Scotland from this very house should not be able to stroll into a building in Scotland without taking a few more hours to get there. In a similar vein, nobody working in London should be able to take a few minutes off from work to murder someone hiding in the woods IN SCOTLAND. Now, if they had established right from the start that this society, which otherwise resembles present-day UK, had transporter technology, or else that each of these hyper-mobile individuals had access to a personal private supersonic plane, well, fine. But they didn't.
If Scotland votes to become independent (and who shall blame them?), nobody with a brain would expect them to be Independent!! (och aye) on the stroke of midnight after the votes are counted.
Oh, and how come the Prime Minister was too thick to notice that five minutes after he entrusted his dear old pal with a secret, that secret was leaked to the press. Every time. How are we supposed to take him seriously at all? (I mean, okay, yes, Jarvis, Jarvis gets my attention, but, no.)
I understand the urge not to weight down the plot of a TV show with unnecessary detail, but when the lack of geography and logic makes it ludicrous, the plot needs a bit of weight added. Non-UK viewers may not entirely appreciate the geographical issues (though they are presented with maps at intervals), but incompetent security detail? Instant independence? Et cetera? The show had plenty of good moments, plenty of tension, twisty-turny stuff and so forth. It caught my attention and I wanted to see what happened next—but, BUT, every so often the show slapped me in the face with its own stupidity and illogic.
A half-decent beta would have held up her hands in horror. Show needed a half-decent beta.
/rant
Being a fanfic writer has taught me a great deal about writing. I've been part of communities dedicated to improving, or practising, or helping one another. I've had awesome betas. I've learned a good deal about putting a story together well enough for people to enjoy reading it.
Which also means that when I'm presented with a story that has big crunchy holes in it, I'm likely to notice. And be cross.
Beast and I just finished watching Red Election. It's a thriller involving British intelligence, a Scottish independence referendum, Russians, all that.
Now, I have no problem with convoluted spy stuff. I don't seriously expect to follow all the ins and outs of who is loyal to whom, who can be trusted, etc. I'm happy to accept that the story will provide twists and turns and misdirections and reveals and all that stuff.
But I expect the foundations of the story to have some basis in reality. If it purports to be a serious story, I expect matters of fundamental fact, such as GEOGRAPHY, to be respected. It should not be Disney, with raccoons raiding London dustbins, or Thor, with a charmingly compressed Tube system that gets you to Greenwich in four stops. Scotland and London are not five minutes apart.
I expect also to be presented with something that looks plausible, in which plot is not so thinly spread that only gross incompetence makes it possible at all.
Let us suppose that the Prime Minister and his wife are visiting a counsellor. Therapist, psych-something, whatever. Naturally there is secret service protection. Who inexplicably fail to be even slightly competent to prevent someone getting into the building who intends to kill the PM.
If I, who have never been a bodyguard or security detail of any kind, can think, hmm, surely they ought to have checked that each and every car in the car park had an acceptable reason to be there, and that each and every car is empty of lurking people and/or explosive devices, before letting the PM onto the premises, then surely it's a pretty incompetent bunch of protection detail if they don't even manage that. Okay, I once wrote a story from the bodyguard's point of view, so I have perhaps a fraction more clue than... someone who didn't do that, but seriously? Seriously?
If someone picks up someone else's phone, in this day and age is it remotely believable that they would be able to do anything with the phone? My humble, middle-aged iPhone comes with fingerprint reader. Beast's has facial recognition. And both have six-digit passwords. If someone picks up my phone, they won't be able to use it. If someone picks up an MI5 agent's phone, or a government minister's phone, or a SPY's PHONE(!!!), they aren't going to be able to view the messages and listen to the voicemails. It's ludicrous. Everybody knows better.
If someone is imprisoned in a house at an easy distance from London, from which the owner commutes to his office in the middle of London, whither he invites people to dine who were five minutes beforehand IN LONDON, then (a) two people tasked with murdering this imprisoned person should take a few hours to get there from Scotland, and (b) two people returning to Scotland from this very house should not be able to stroll into a building in Scotland without taking a few more hours to get there. In a similar vein, nobody working in London should be able to take a few minutes off from work to murder someone hiding in the woods IN SCOTLAND. Now, if they had established right from the start that this society, which otherwise resembles present-day UK, had transporter technology, or else that each of these hyper-mobile individuals had access to a personal private supersonic plane, well, fine. But they didn't.
If Scotland votes to become independent (and who shall blame them?), nobody with a brain would expect them to be Independent!! (och aye) on the stroke of midnight after the votes are counted.
Oh, and how come the Prime Minister was too thick to notice that five minutes after he entrusted his dear old pal with a secret, that secret was leaked to the press. Every time. How are we supposed to take him seriously at all? (I mean, okay, yes, Jarvis, Jarvis gets my attention, but, no.)
I understand the urge not to weight down the plot of a TV show with unnecessary detail, but when the lack of geography and logic makes it ludicrous, the plot needs a bit of weight added. Non-UK viewers may not entirely appreciate the geographical issues (though they are presented with maps at intervals), but incompetent security detail? Instant independence? Et cetera? The show had plenty of good moments, plenty of tension, twisty-turny stuff and so forth. It caught my attention and I wanted to see what happened next—but, BUT, every so often the show slapped me in the face with its own stupidity and illogic.
A half-decent beta would have held up her hands in horror. Show needed a half-decent beta.
/rant
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Date: 2022-11-11 03:53 pm (UTC)That show sounds like it was lazily written though. It’s amazing how some things can make it into a professional production.
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Date: 2022-11-12 08:57 pm (UTC)I remember when I was writing in an American fandom, I used a very helpful beta and she had many a good laugh at my cultural mistakes.
Rather a beta has a good laugh then the final readers get thrown out of the story by cultural clangers
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Date: 2022-11-13 11:15 am (UTC)You're right though, decent betas should be used for everything. That would stop any glaring errors.
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Date: 2022-11-25 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2022-11-25 09:56 am (UTC)