Author has written 8 stories for ER. INTRODUCTION When I was younger, I loved to write. Unfortunately, it has been several years since I have really felt compelled to put the stories in my head on paper (or in HTML format). Anyway, after being a silent consumer of many stories on fanfiction.net, I finally decided in August 2005 that I should contribute as well. I have never taken any formal writing classes so consider yourself forewarned. :) You should know that I enjoy being a positive, happy person and that I selected my pen name in the hopes of giving everyone a positive feeling about themselves. I hope that you love what you do and that you are doing what you love with your life, and I wish each of you the best in all of your endeavors. GENERAL INFORMATION I am currently focusing on ER fan fics, but I am trying to write them so that they can be enjoyed for both their literary style as well as their character development. Below are my thoughts on how I regard the different characters. Yes, these sections are LONG, but hopefully they explain the basis for why I write the characters they way I do. If you want to skip my explanation of why I write what I write, then you can use the “Search” (i.e., CTRL + F) function in your browser to skip to the “NEW STORIES” section. There, I give a brief description of my future plans. Please note that my opinions are just that: opinions. This is not intended to be the ER Gospel on Characters and Relationships. MY TAKE ON THE ER CHARACTERS Let me start by stating that I do not see one character as entirely evil or entirely good. I think that ER has done a wonderful job of guiding most of the characters into emotions that make the entire cast a well-rounded ensemble of the type of personalities that we see in real life. The only exception to that statement may be Dr. Romano’s character, which is written more like a caricature than like a real person. And I think that is what makes/made him so comical. PERSONALITY TRAITS Since I am new to writing, I find that it is easier for me to concentrate on a few characters in the beginning. Then, after I am comfortable with those characters, I hope to expand my stories to focus on more and more individuals. In general, I think of John as an eternal optimist and idealist. In other words, he sees and has experienced the flaws of this world, and he works against all odds to try to change those flaws. I think of Luka as a pragmatist. He has hope for the world and a kind spirit that tries to act on that hope, but when something bad happens, he has learned to accept the situation and go on to the next thing. Then there is the question of what is Abby? I think that she is a realist. I see her as someone who sees the world for what it is and doesn’t mind leaving it that way unless it directly enters her life and forces her to choose a side. I certainly don’t believe that Abby is an optimist and I think the writers have deliberately written her character that way. After all, everyone on the cast cannot be an idealist. Could she be described as a pragmatist? I think that’s debatable because it depends on whether you see pragmatism as a synonym for realism? I personally think that a pragmatist is someone who has an ideal vision of the world and even though they act on that ideal, they can also resign themselves to accept the negative things that happen in life. Whereas, I think that a realist does not waste time on an ideal vision. He/she lives life hoping that they can make it though the challenges that come and still remain in one piece. In the end, I think that Abby feels that she has experienced and suffered through so much in her life that a part of her has been trained to expect, and maybe even enjoy, the negative aspects of life because those things allow her to justify to herself why she is the way she is. RELATIONSHIPS THE BASICS For me, the most important aspect of developing a romantic relationship is personality. Do the characters share the same basic desires and goals? When they do, you have a successful happy relationship. In contrast, real life shows us that other considerations come into play. Like how often do 2 people see each other and meet? The more often that two people see each other and get to know each other, the greater the chances are that they will eventually become a couple, which is one reason why workplace romances are so common. But I think of workplace romances as the ultimate foe of successful relationships. It is easy to mistake familiarity for love, but the 2 are not the same. And sadly, the crash-and-burn rate of workplace romances in real life helps to confirm my observation. Therefore, when I look at the relationship that Carter has with Abby, I can see the initial attraction because they work with each other and therefore are curious about each other. However, their personalities are too dissimilar for it ever to be anything more than a fling. And I really liked the fact that the ER Writers made a point of developing John’s and Abby’s characters so that you could see how different the 2 of them are. NO CARBY FOR ME (At least not as anything more than an affair) Do John and Abby have a Yin and Yang aspect to their relationship that potentially allows them to fit each other? Yes, I think so. He likes to comfort people. She likes to be comforted. She lacks structure and commitment and is looking for someone to show her a direction. He is Mr. Structure, and Mr. Commitment, and he likes guiding people. However, Seasons 9 and 10 show us, that although John has those elements to his character, he is not looking for that in a relationship. He wants a partner not a student. Someone whose actions reaffirm his own idealistic beliefs and help him become an even better person -at least in his mind - than he is today. And in the end, it is difficult for a realist to bring those things out in an idealist. There is usually some diffusion that occurs. That person will bring down the idealist, and the idealist will help to improve the realist. That’s not bad, but I don’t think that John wants to be brought down. And, I think he admits that to Debbie in the Season 10 episode, “Makemba”. In contrast Kem, like John, is an eternal optimist and idealist. They both have experienced misery but they refuse to let those experiences make them define the world as a miserable place. In fact, I think that it is just the opposite in their cases. They use their negative experiences to define who they do not want to be. For example, John comes from a family where he has had a limited amount of love from those people who gave birth to him and who should have loved him most, yet he refuses to define his relationships according to the negative behavior of his parents towards each other and towards him. Instead, he sees what they did wrong and he hopes to use that knowledge to avoid the same mistakes in his life. Kem comes from a broken home. She tells us in the episode, “Makemba”, that her parents were divorced and that she was essentially raised on 2 continents. Plus, she has experienced the difficulties of prejudice and how that affected her parents’ relationship (reference the episode “Carter Est Ameroux”). However, instead of becoming bitter about love and harboring resentment and suspicion towards any particular race, she approaches her relationships with an open heart and mind. Her past boyfriends show us that despite the difficulties she knows that she could face, she is willing toevaluatueeach manon his character first and disregard the racial aspect. Another personality trait that John and Kem share is that they both love going out to change the world, even if it requires sacrifice on their part. John is willing to put his life on the line to rescue someone with whom he had a romantic rivalry. He is willing to spend thousand of dollars a year on a stranger so that he can save her from dying from AIDS. Similarly, Kem has had one of the most important people in her life murdered and yet she refuses to see the world or even the country in which he was murdered as a negative place. Instead, she devotes her life to helping it become the place that it has the potential to be by focusing on making the people there healthy and strong. CHALLENGES As I write stories for these characters, I am trying to keep the personalities of the characters as they are portrayed on the show in mind so that I write stories that match the concept of how those characters are written on the show. I think that the writers have done a good job in adding growth to each character’s development (with the possible exception of poor Dr. Romano) through the introduction of various tragedies and successes while still being careful to stay true to the core nature of each person. With that in mind, I think that Season 11 gave us an Abby whose personality had very little connection to the story line the writers had built for her in Seasons 6 – 10. It’s okay that she’s a doctor now, but what about her addictions, her tendency to set a goal and then regress, her worries about the mental illness in her family? Those aspects of her character seemed to change overnight. Yuck. I think those things helped make her interesting. Luckily, it sounds like there have been some Production changes at ER that will hopefully give us back the realistic and flawed Abby, instead of this I came out-of-nowhere, Super Abby. NEW STORIES 8/18/05 Entry: I am close to finishing the next story arc and it will, once again, focus on John and Kem. However, I am hoping to use this arc to lead back to the other characters in Chicago so that they can get more than just a passing mention in my story lines. I think that it would be interesting to write some stories that focus on how the characters respond to each other and how their different personalities and pasts both click and conflict. 8/27/05 Entry: MyCongo basedstory, "Complications"will probably be a 3-part arc that leads one or more of the characters back to Chicago. I hope to have all 3 parts completed before the end of September. 9/6/05 Entry: I had intended to write the 2nd part of Complications and post it last week, but I was distracted by the hurricane and my job. My heart and my prayers go out to all those who have loved ones in the hurricane ravaged areas, and good luck with everything. I will try to post the 2nd part of Complications by the end of this week or beginning of next week. 9/16/05 Entry: I apologize for being a bit behind in my posting, but real life intervened. :) Thank you for your patience. Ialsowanted to thank you for your reviews and Emails! They have been encouraging and informative.I am especially flattered when someone who is a Carby reviews, because I know that it's hard to read something that is essentially a rejection of what you want to see happen. I really love those reviews that focus on content and grammar because I would like to improve my writing style so that one can be entertained without being distracted by mistakes. So thanks! In terms of grammar and syntax, I am always torn between writing in past tense or present tense. My job has a heavy administrative component to it, so I am accustomed to writing in the present tense. However, I agree that novels and stories are usually written in past tense. That being said, I really have no idea which tense to use for these fanfics. Just when I think that I should use the past tense, I am sucked into the use of present tense and its ability to put the reader right in the middle of the action. Since this is a TV Series (i.e., something that is designed to make the audience feel like that are part of the story), I thought that present tense might make the stories more interesting. However, I might try past tense someday - just to see if it is more effective. :) I hope to have the Part 3 of Complications posted before the end of next week. Have a great day and thanks for taking the time to read the stories - I hope that you feel like it was time well spent. 12/24/05 Entry: Okay, so I didn't get around to updating this story when I thought I would. I truly apologize. However, I hope that the wait has been worth it, and I promise no more 3-month cliffhangers. :) I have the entire story written this time, and I will release it in Parts until the entire story has been posted. I hope that you enjoy it. Bye for now and Happy Holidays! |
Complications Part V reviews
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