Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sophie's Ten FanFic Reviews.

I decided to focus on One Tree Hill fanfics. Being in it's 8th season, there are numerous characters and plotlines that can be covered through ten different fanfics.



The first I came across was a nineteen chapter story based on the relationship between Haley
James and Nathan Scott that begins in the first season and carries through the series with many
ups and downs. Naley_The_rewrite is written in third person p.o.v. Beginning with a prologue allowed the author to provide the background of how the pair met before moving further along the timeline of their relationship in the first chapter. I found that it was a well written interpretation of the pair's relationship, however at times I felt that the voice of Nathan's thoughts was not quite as accurately interpreted as it could have been considering his character's personality and background. It was interesting to read in third person p.o.v as a large majority of the series episodes are narrated by one of the main characters in first person p.o.v. With 19 chapters, it's a tale of young love and the the many trials they face from young marriage, teen pregnancy and the numerous unsuccessful attempts of female admirers to tempt Nathan to cheat on Haley which leave him constantly having to explain himself to her. This is portrayed through the heavy use of dialogue which provides an insight into where each character is coming from and is an easy way to progress through the story. The language used fits in well with the youth of the characters. There is however a fair amount of spelling and grammar mistakes.


Brooke and Peyton is a different take on the school formal night in season four where the two
best friends face a psychotic stalker. This is a well written fanfic with extensive use of graphic descriptive language that pulls the reader into the story. The language used also allows the reader to get an insight into the strong friendship between the two, and how well they really know each other. It provides an effective window into the character of Brooke Davis. Written in third person p.o.v, the narration allows for the story to not be subjective of one characters p.o.v and therefore is more thrilling.





Win_in_Rome This piece appears not to be related to any actual plotlines of the television series,
and uses only three of the characters- Nathan, Lucas and Hayley. It seems to be a follow
on from another story the fanfic author created, however I was unable to find this. From what I picked up through the dialogue, a new character Angie has been introduced to the story and may be in a romantic relationship with Nathan- this hoewever is never clearly expressed. The
introduction of the story appears to be a re-cap of some sort of trip, however it then jumps to a dance contest. This jump in narration is abrupt, and leaves the reader confused, thinking "did I miss something, where did this come from?". There is also the introduction of Justin Timberlake as a new character, however it isn't until further into the story that you discover how he is related. Then there is the idea given that Nathan and his brother Lucas are living together, yet hate each other, which isn't quite in accordance to the television plotlines, and done so without giving any form of explanataion as to why the two dislike each other. Basically, what ensues is a trip for four to Italy, which is taken by Angie, Nathan, Lucas and a mystery guest who turns out to be good friend of the brothers, Hayley James. In Italy, the group happen to meet a 'music icon of Italy' - Jezzabella, while Angie in turn is a 'music icon of America'. From here I detected what may have been somewhat of a cross-over with the Lizzie Maguire movie which also was set in Italy. The crossover then strengthens where Jezzabella tells Angie that she is supposed to sing a duet at the International Music Awards, but that her partner pulled out, and then goes on to offer the part to Angie. I found the use of the phrase 'Music Icon' strange and would have used Popstar or Singer instead. There was then the introduction ofAngie's identical cousin Chloe, which I found odd considering that you don't hear of identical cousins. Through the majority of this fanfic, one major problem for me was the extent of poor grammar and spelling as well as the chopping between tenses and confusing timeline structure. Furthermore there was a lack of character development which meant character's were generally weak. Despite these problems however, I found the story an enjoyable one to read purely on the plotline which was decipherable.

Death_Row is a piece that focuses around the relationship Jamie Scott has with his mum Haley.
It opens with a flashback to happy times of Jamie's 5th birthday, where his parents are so proud of their son, yet can't believe how time has flown by. From there it skips to the present, where the setting of a prison scene is portrayed through simple descriptive language and a dialogue sequence. There are quite a number of spelling errors which are hard to pass by. The author keeps you reading to the third chapter by slowly introducing secondary characters in order to keep the plot-line moving towards the revelation of what actually occurred between the childhood flashback and the opening prison scene. Although you are kept wondering what actually led to Jamie being put into jail, due to the simple language and use of third person point of view the intensity of the suspense is low.

The_Phone_Call is a typically girly chick-lit fan-fiction narrated in third person. The setup is straight to the point, yet slightly boring as it gives a lot of in-depth background detail in straight, simple sentences. The setting is a girly sleepover. Each of the girls admit to liking a certain boy, where upon the girl closest to that particular boy takes it upon themselves to phone the boy and get it out of them that the girl's feelings were reciprocated without making it obvious that there is an audience to the phone call. The idea of the story is simple and clever, one which many a girl could relate to in some way, without it being overly cliche. Although clever in idea, the execution is somewhat childish in language use, with a few spelling errors.





Wonderwall This piece has a good, but somewhat confusing setup. The idea is good, but the paragraph structure in regards to sentence order is confusing. It uses a lot of short
sentences, which would be the authors attempt at creating tension, this could have been further aided with the addition of a few longer sentences. There was also a few sentence structure errors, and in one paragraph there was a fair bit of repetition of the pronouns 'He' and 'Her'. The piece itself focuses around a hospital scene as a spin-off from the school shooting/hostage scene in Season Three. It centers around Lucas' somewhat platonic, but deep and meaningful close friendship with Peyton who lies injured in the hospital while his girlfriend Brooke stands by providing her support. A large part of the story depicts the impact the shooting of his uncle/ surrogate father Keith has on Luke, plus the loss he is feeling. This is portrayed as the strong emotional link that draws Lucas to Peyton at this time.

Family_Unties is a story based around Sawyer, the teenage daughter or Peyton and Lucas who
married and moved to New York. The plot-line of the story follows Sawyer being sent back to Tree Hill to live with her aunt Haley and uncle Nathan and attend Tree Hill High. It focusses around her return to the area and her first day at high school, in particular her first class, which happens to be gym. The story is setup well introducing the situation, and providing the reason for her move. In the final chapter, there is some discussion on how the situation affected her parents. It is an interesting read with clear links back to the original show with regards to characters such as Coach Skills Taylor, and Brooke Davis as well as references to particularly recognisable 'Scott' or 'Peyton Sawyer' characteristics. However, once again the maturity of this piece is questionable due to some of the language used, and the sentence structure. This however could have been done to provide the 'stroppy teenager' tone of voice to the passage that is portrayed through the first-person narration by Sawyer Scott.

The brothership of Nathan and Lucas Scott and the relationship with their respective sons
forms the platform for the story Lucas_and_Nathans_Guide_to_Babysitting. In an interesting
and well-thought layout, the story is told through the use of rules, with each new part of the story being a new rule or lesson learnt.Lucas and Nathan are left to look after their sons while their wives go out for the night, but although confident everything will go well, the brothers soon learn that their evening is not going to go right at all. It's a light-hearted story lovingly showing the brotherly relationship as they act together to put the wrongs right, and their sons to bed. It's a typical boys story which is pushed through the language used and the events of the evening, which are typical male activities. Definitely was one of my favourites.


A heart-felt piece written on the relationship of Nathan and his son Jamie is Unlikely_Miracle
which focusses on a life lesson Nathan teaches Jamie. The life lesson is about calling people 'retard' and how although someone may not be as 'normal' as you or I, doesn't mean that they can't achieve amazing feats. This is personified through Nathan introducing Jamie to a young autistic man who as a teenager playing high school basketball was able to shot 20 points in 4 minutes, which was an act no one ever thought possible for him to achieve. It is an emotional piece written in third person point of view and making use of flashbacks to tell the story.


A piece which focuses on the friendship Nathan has with Brooke when he provides some comfort
and support is Goodbye_To_You. Brooke's relationship with Lucas has come to an end when he
chooses to break up with Brooke and date her now ex-best friend Peyton. Nathan has been left behind by Haley who decides to go on tour with a famous musician. Together the two of them decide to run away from Tree Hill and end up in California for the summer making a few new friends. Thrroughout their time away, Peyton and Lucas split up numerous times, each contacting Brooke over and over again trying to get her to go home so they can make it up to her individually. It's a tale of taking time for yourself, a bit of self-discovery and the strengthening of friendships which may have been placed on a low pedestal below other more significant relationships. Like most of the other fanfictions there were spelling and grammar errors. While having some good thoughts and somewhat interesting idea, the story is a bit flat, and feels slightly desperate and uninspirational.

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