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2021

The Coal Game

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I have a canon that mentions a song, and my idea is to structure the plot tightly around things the song mentions (and include quite a few of the lyrics as dialogue). This would amuse me, but I don't know if it would be annoying for others. So the question for coal is: do I go all in and follow the song, or do I just sprinkle a few Easter eggs from it into the fic?

I think that using the lyrics as dialogue might be a bit too obvious (then again I don't know the song you mean so I could be wrong) but the Easter egg idea sounds excelent because your readers will definitely have fun spotting them!

ayrt
Some of them would be super obvious, yeah. But I suppose I could disguise them a bit by rewording or paraphrasing.

As a fan of the old school song fic, I'd mostly go for it, with a caveat. If this is a canon where the characters know the song, then they know that they're quoting the song, right? They aren't just unironically directly quoting it without realizing what they're doing, right?

If the former, go for it! If the latter... that might toss me out of the moment.

ayrt
It can be assumed the song exists in this universe, and that this character might know it. But he wouldn't be explicitly acknowledging he was quoting it. There are some lyrics that are really recognizable, and others that are pretty mundane (like along the lines of "where am I going?").

Well your first post said that the canon mentioned the song, so I thought it was more prominent, I guess.

It does but in a weird meta kind of way.

NC

Like in a BSG "All Along the Watchtower" way?

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-06 22:14 (UTC) - Expand

Song fic was a very popular and very polarizing genre, back in the day. Any idea how old your recip is? If they are over 40, and have been in fandom for a long time, they probably have a strong opinion about it one way or another.

I would write to the mods to avoid accidental coal.

If they are younger than 40 or new to fandom, song fic would be fresh and fun.

Ok, this is helpful to think about because I am an old who did enjoy that kind of thing. Maybe I'll snoop around and see if I can discern this about my recip, because I have no idea.

+1 million
/old-ass coalie

+1

But I would add that 40 might be a slightly high cut-off. I was around when songfics were very much a thing, and I'm under 40.

I’m well under 40 and I remember the days of songfic, like 5-7 years ago

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 05:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 07:47 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 07:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 07:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

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Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 07:49 (UTC) - Expand

A quick ao3 search shows that the songfic is very much alive and well

+1 am 30 and have strong memories of songfic.

+1

I'm 40 and I swear I felt a RL shudder at the idea of songfic. I thought it was a mark of clichéd badfic back in the day, and people mostly stopped doing it.

I'm 42 and I wrote so many songfics as a teenager in the 90s. If you were in Trek, Babylon 5, or X-files fandoms... sorry.

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-06 23:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Brainstorm Help Thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-11-07 00:52 (UTC) - Expand

CYRT. I think 40s is a really high number. I'm mid 30s and I was there for all the songfic drama. I'd say 30 is your real cut off.

Agreed, I'm early/mid 30s and vividly remember song fic. When I see song lyrics in a fic now, I kind of freeze up and then immediately back button.

As someone who joined fandom at the height of songfic and hated it: if your fic would work for someone who didn't give a damn about the song, you're gold. If your fic relies on the reader caring about the song as much as you do - don't.

Note that AO3 basically killed old-fashioned songfic (it was a mercy kill) by making reposting complete lyrics of a song a TOS violation, so don't directly quotw more than a few lines unless it's public domain.

Wait... what? I archived my old song fics like all my other old fic.

cyrt I archived my one songfic too! They're not hunting it down, or anything. I think the only cases I heard of where stuff was actually pulled was like, vid posts where the text was just the complete lyrics, or someone just posted 'this song is so otp!' and didn't bother with the 'fic' part. But if you're using full lyrics and someone reports you to PAC for copyright violation, they'll ask you to significantly reduce the amount of direct quotation. So especially in a gift fic I'd be careful (I have no idea how Open Doors handles this.)

This all also highly depends on how exactly everyone is defining songfic

OP

Thanks for the reality check, everyone! You've potentially saved me from writing inadvertent coal. I think I'll go with just one or two veiled references to the song as "Easter eggs" and not full-on songfic.

I really hope I spot this in the collection!

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