Fringe Reaction - 4.02 - One Night in October

So....what did everybody think of the episode???  My first reaction now is that I am completely and totally in love with everything that happened, but I may need a rewatch or five to really absorb the awesomeness of Doublemint Olivias.

Peter?  Peter who?

Let me know what you thought about the episode in the comments.  Make sure to leave a spoiler alert if you're going to mention things that haven't happened on the show yet!!!

Frea

mxpw's Scribe Theater Three Thousand

So it seemed like the first part of my two-part introspective on Frea was a fair success. Awesome. I wasn’t sure how it’d go over, but people seemed to like it and find some merit to my analysis. And that’s good, because Frea has ordered me to do the second part, and well, I’d like to avoid the lash, so here it is.

The point of this column is world building: what it is, how you do it, and how do you do it well? These are all tricky questions to answer, as quality world building is fundamental to quality writing, and without it, your story will almost certainly fall apart.

mxpw's Scribe Theater Three Thousand

I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that most of you reading this right now are Chuck fans. We all know the very basic plot of the show, right? Underachieving nerd suddenly downloads a massive computer database full of the United States’ most important secrets into his brain. It’s like Johnny Mnemonic meets The Matrix meets James Bond meets Get Smart meets Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show meets West Side Story meets, etc… You get the point.

mxpw's Scribe Theater Three Thousand

So earlier I wrote about suspending your disbelief while watching TV or reading a book. I talked about how important it is to immerse your audience in the world you've created for them because if you don't, they'll no longer be your audience. Well, I touched on that briefly, but now I'm going to go more in-depth with the whole idea.

I am going to discuss how you get your audience to suspend their belief and then I'm going to cover what happens when you don't.

How to make your readers/audience suspsend their disbelief

There is a lot that goes into this, as it's such a broad range of ideas, but ultimately, it all comes down to one thing: you must committ. Frea and I have discussed this what seems ad nauseum on this blog but it really is one of the single most important tenets a writer should follow. Commit. No matter what you do, commit to it. Not committing to your plan of action is the fastest way to breaking your audience's interest in your product or ruining their suspension of disbelief.

Typically there are two ways most shows go about convincing their audience to suspend their disbelief (this applies primarily to premises that are fantastical or full of science fiction elements): they either play it completely straight and serious or they introduce satirical elements into their presentation and present it as a

Fringe Benefits Incorporated - 4.01 - Neither Here Nor There

So every week during the Fringe season, I make it a point to arrive late so that I can hear Old Darth's teeth click together right before we launch our epic podcast for the night. We had some technical difficulties, a sugar-high Frea, a new term coined, and a blast this week.  If you liked the people, check out Jan and Old Darth (or mxpw and me) on Twitter!
What'd you think of the podcast and/or the episode?  I'll have a post ready to go next Friday when the show airs on East Coast time so that people can chime in.  Why?  
Because Fringe is AWESOME!!!
- Frea

Inane Chatter — Castle 4.02 - Heroes and Villains

Yeah, the title says that. I realized the other day that we have a lot of Castle fans in our midst (and a lot more now that I've pointed people toward Of Finding Innocence, which is good escapist fun). So why not set up a "Let's talk about the episode!" thread for Chuck fans?

And hell, our blog title is Castle Inanity.  It seems fitting we should talk about Castle at least once.

Spoilers after the break.

The Art of Summary

So it’s Saturday morning, and I don’t want to write Fates or rewatch Fringe until I’m done fully digesting all of the AWESOME that happened the night before, which means...either I’m going to read a book or I’m going to read a fanfic. So, yay, a plan. I hop on over to fanfiction.net and the decisions begin: what should I read? Is it time for an epic reread of Double Agent? Do I want to reread Fortune Favors Fools because Sarah’s voice is going to be harder to nail than usual in Fates 52*?

No, I want something new today, but I’ve read all recommendations from Wepdiggy. Time to search for something new...time to check out the summaries.

And here’s where the crapshoot begins.

Happy Birthday, Chuck!

Yes, yes, I know Chuck's birthday is actually the same as my nephew's. NOT IN FATES, though. Speaking of Fates...

Here's quite a substantial chunk of the fiftieth chapter of What Fates Impose. I do ask that you limit yourself to commenting about it only this blog post and not give any spoilers away on Twitter or other places. Some people may want to wait to read the chapter in total. But I won't keep you any longer! ENJOY! And Happy Birthday, Fates Chuck!!!

Lazy Summer Serial: Curtain Call #11

Maximus here. So it's not exactly two-a-week, but here's an update to everyone's favorite story about a computer nerd pretending to be a bodyguard with a crush on a Hollywood actress that might possibly be masquerading as an international superspy (or is it the other way around?). Because, you know, there's so many of those around.

- mxpw (and Frea)

Anticipation...Building...

It's almost here! It's almost here! It's almost here!!!

September 23rd is a HUGE day! Ginormous. Monstrous. Mondonormous, which I think is a word I once used to describe the wonderful mxpw. It also describes September 23rd just as well!

Things happening on September 23rd:

1) I may or may not become an honorary aunt (I'm most excited about that one, despite the exclamation points you are about to see)
2) The Killer Elite!!!!!
3) FRINGE!!!!!!!!

In honor of the show coming back, mxpw and I joined up with Old Darth of ODonTV and Jan from ChuckTV.net for our usual Fringe Benefits Incorporate podcast.

Annnnnd you can listen after the break! We talk about Jan's experience at Comic Con, our thoughts on S3, our expectations for S4. There's spoilers up to Season Three for those newbies among us, but I promise, we're pretty entertaining.

Lazy Summer Serial: Curtain Call #10

Here at Castle Inanity, we like to do things in a big way.  If we go away, the blog goes silent in a big way.  And when we come back, we like to flood the blog.  Which is why we're back to our two-in-a-week rotation of Curtain Call.

I've started putting the chapters on ff.net, but obviously the blog gets the first entry.  Property claims and all, you know.

I don't think we've been saying thank you very much with this story, so I'll talk that opportunity here, just to thank each and every one of you for your tweets and feedback and comments.  And to those people that even wandered over to ff.net and left reviews.  To those of you that found the blog through Curtain Call, consider this an official welcome.  I promise we'll try and be a little more active in the future; I've got a post on perspective coming, I think, and Curtain Call and Romeo and Juliet have some exciting things coming up.

But I know you're here for one thing: Ellie!  So I'll let you get on with that!

— Frea (and mpxw)