I have a commentary! EEEE!

[sholio]

leesa_perrie did a DVD-style commentary for my SGA/Knight Rider AU "Knights Errant"; commentary, with link to original story, can be read here.

What's really kind of cool here (well, besides "EEEEE! Commentary! On my story!") is that there's a lot about these external "DVD commentary"-type things that I'd never really gotten before seeing one of my own and reading through it in detail. The thing is, I'd never been that interested in doing DVD commentaries of my own fic (an occasional short "making of the fic" post is about the closest I want to come to it) and never read more than bits and pieces of others' commentaries. This is not because I don't like them -- actually, I find the whole idea very interesting, and more power to people for doing them -- but I just don't really seem to fan in that way, most of the time. (Every time I make a blanket statement like that, I keep finding exceptions. So now I put the disclaimer in there rather than looking like an idiot later on. *g*)

But the DVD commentaries by readers are different! They're like a review! And I love reviews! Heaven knows why, but I read them obsessively -- reviews of fic (mine, other people's), fic recs, reviews of movies and TV. And this is like the longest, most detailed review ever.

I never wanted to do one before! But now I do, and I'm browsing down the list of authors to see if there's anyone whose story I want to annotate. This is COOL. I really don't think I ever got why people do this before, but now I do -- or (editing my post to be more accurate here) I've found a toehold for me on a fannish practice that I'd never really participated in before. Of course I can't presume to speak for other people's motivations, but it's more meaningful to me, personally, now.

Comments

[perspi.livejournal.com]

I've done one commentary on my own fic, and it was a lot of fun. And yes, reading commentaries can be AWESOME, especially when the commenter is going beyond, "Hey cool phrasing, don'tcha think?" It's like real DVD commentary that way--sometimes they're boring, sometimes they're Bruce Campbell talking about Evil Dead (which I *highly* recommend, both Evil Dead I and II. Because his commentaries for those are better than the movies themselves.).

[sholio]

Yeah, I see what you mean. In general, I'm not all that interested in doing it for my own, but a lot of that is simply because I don't have enough to say -- at least not all that much that's actually interesting to say.

[rydra_wong]

They're like a review! And I love reviews! Heaven knows why, but I read them obsessively -- reviews of fic (mine, other people's), fic recs, reviews of movies and TV. And this is like the longest, most detailed review ever.

I knooooow. Isn't it glorious? This would be why there are already 13 pages of author permissions ...

But I do love reading DVD commentaries by the author too (even if I'm too lazy to write one -- I already know what I was thinking when I wrote the story! I wanna know what other people think! *g*).

[sholio]

I already know what I was thinking when I wrote the story! I wanna know what other people think!

I think that's it, really! Plus, there's a weird kind of ... reluctance, to talk about myself that much. I guess there's a part of me that can't really believe people would read it, and a part of me that feels I shouldn't talk about myself that much.

On the other hand, I do dearly love to watch ideas getting bounced back and forth. I love reading other people's interpretation of various stories and then comparing it and seeing if I agree. I had just never quite seen DVD commentaries in that light before, and now that I have ... eeeeee! *runs off to read some more*

[rydra_wong]

Plus, there's a weird kind of ... reluctance, to talk about myself that much. I guess there's a part of me that can't really believe people would read it, and a part of me that feels I shouldn't talk about myself that much.

Not to mention the deep fear that I will say, "See, in this bit here I cunningly imply blah-blah-blah, which sets up everything for the scene later where such-and-such!" and people will go, "... actually, we didn't get that at all. We thought you were doing something completely different and much cooler. Must have been an accident."

[sholio]

... which is, really, one of the reasons why I'm not sure if I even want to KNOW what the author was thinking. It's pretty cool if you turn out to be brain-sharing with the author, but kind of painful if you run headlong into the awareness that a whole lot of what you were getting out of the story, what made it personally meaningful, was something that the author hadn't even intended to put in. On a purely intellectual level, I'm aware that it doesn't really matter (if I found a deep life truth in a story, whether or not the author MEANT to put it there doesn't matter any more than if someone created last night's beautiful sunset just for me personally) but my emotions don't seem to have gotten that particular memo. *g*

[trystings.livejournal.com]

The concept of DVD commentaries was new to me, but I love them!

I myself find it very difficult to review (or rec) a story, i.e. putting in words what parts I enjoyed and why I did, but I think I could manage this, sharing my thoughts during the story. Plus, the 'real time' set-up is very practical, the reader doesn't have to go back and forth between the story and a separate review.

I may give it a try. At any rate I have more confidence in this than in my reccing abilities. :)

[sholio]

I think it would be fun to do! And I never realized that until seeing my own story done in commentary-form. I had always balked at doing my own DVD commentaries, for, well, several reasons, but one of them was stage fright about having to come up with something meaningful and insightful to say about every single line. Seeing it as, basically, a long review makes it easier.

[rydra_wong]

I did one for dvd_commentary last year, and can vouch for its being great fun.

[leesa_perrie]

I'm glad you liked it! I enjoyed writing the comments - as you say, it's like a long review and that was fun to do and much easier than trying to remember everything afterwards!

I don't think I'd like to do a commentary for my own stories...not sure I want to explain the processes involved in that detail, even if I can remember them! But I've learnt never to say never 'cos you never know what's going to happen!!

At the moment, I much prefer commenting on other people's fic and letting them know just what I loved and why. I've started with smaller fics, but I might do a longer one later...we have until October apparently!