Songfic: Ur Doing It Wrong

[redbrunja]

Dear Fanficcer,

I love the song "At Last." It's a great song. I have two separate versions on my iPod.

However, I have lost track of the times I have come across this exact scene for various pairings:

Some dance somewhere. One half of an OTP will be like, 'may I have this dance?'

Other half: *has feelings about this*

Annoying interspliced text: "At last, my love has come along...."

Other half of OTP: Yes, you may.

Annoying interspliced text: "My lonely days are over...."

This is the fanfic equivalent to getting hit in the face with a baseball bat.

Please knock if off.

If you want to have them dancing together, please pick a different song, and describe it more creatively than just shoving the lyrics in there.

Ask yourself 'is what is playing the MOST IMPORTANT thing about this scene?'

And if the answer is yes, don't fucking post it.

Bruised,
me

Comments

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Love Actually. ^^;

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've come across that long, long before 'Love Actually.'


...and I'm one of the few people who unironically liked that movie, I think.

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Dude, no, I loved it too. It's just the fangirl tendency to take things from essentially good movies and do them to death.

(Which was your favorite storyline? Or your top three, if you can't choose. XD)

Just In Cases

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Did that actually happen in Love Actually? Because I don't remember that scene at ALL.

Hmm, favorite plotlines?

I'd have to say the Colin Firth, almost silent one. That was just awesome.

Re: Just In Cases

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Huh. I could swear somebody was dancing to "At Last" at some point in Love Actually...but, come to think of it, I can't remember which characters. I think it was either Alan Rickman and his secretary, or Sarah and Karl...

(Blah, I probably got it mixed up with one of the sixty-three slow, jazzy Norah Jones songs they played for Sarah/Karl. X[ )

Heyyy, I love the Jamie and Aurelia story, too! That, and Liam Neeson and his stepson--there's something really charming about their weird, cockeyed semi-parental bond. I like practically all the threads, actually--though I can't figure why the "To Me, You Are Perfect" scene is the most popular in the movie. Jamie's proposal was much more outright romantic, not to mention funny; the signboard scene is just...incredibly bittersweet, though well acted. *is a dork*

Re: Just In Cases

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Probably because so many women imprinted on the 'I like you, just the way you are' scene in Bridget Jones' Diary?

[hazard-us.livejournal.com]

I would love to see this convention turned around to something more like this... (paraphrased from above)

Some dance somewhere. One half of an OTP will be like, 'May I have this dance?'

Other half: *has feelings about this*

Lyric: "If it hadn't been for cotton-eyed joe!"

Other half of OTP: *is so into this person, does not actually hear what is playing*

Lyric: "I'd been married a long time ago!"

Other half of OTP: Yes, you may.

Lyric: "Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from cotton eyed joe?

OTP: *slow dance off to the side of the line-dancers, blissful in their world of blissfullness*

The End

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

*dying*

Hello, you win the Intarweb! XD

(And in my head that's even funnier because it's the technofied Rednex (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddgyg_5FF_0) version...)

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Songfics of any type really annoy me. I get that music is powerful -some of my best stories were inspired by songs- but interrupting the middle of a story for a bout of lyrics just breaks the flow. You can't just paste in emotion like that. It's sloppy.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yes. I love it when people use fics as headers, but hate it when the lyrics randomly show up, until the author takes the time to acutally weave them into the story, and then you have one or two lines MAX.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Word.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is, as headers or enders, lyrics work fantastic. Splicing them in however, is what happens when you try to get the same effect as a song in a movie, and I feel writers pain, because I'm tried and failed to do it as well, but there is just no way to it in the way that tv or film can.

So, please STOP TRYING.

[Edited because I answered the wrong questions. Oops.]

And I feel your pain. Writers need to focus on the really important things, and minutiae, unless it's used as a metaphor, usually isn't that important.

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Incontinuity? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incontinence) O_o