Fairy Light

Summary:

Seeking greenlights

Fairy Light

Raaor 25 Oct 2020 03:38

Seeking Greenlights: Yes (0/2)

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre: I'm going for whimsical vibes

Elevator Pitch: A mysterious floating light is discovered by a group of fourth-grade girls among their hand-made fairy houses and recovered by the foundation. It can be perceived with physical senses, but does not appear in any sort of photograph or scan. It also has an emotional effect on anyone who looks at it for too long, causing them to feel whatever emotion they experience least often, otherwise it's harmless. Foundation personnel recount their emotional experiences as influenced by the SCP and remark that the SCP—though seemingly not sentient—responds positively to being touched as if it were a house pet.

The article includes an addendum about how the SCP was secured by the foundation in which the field agent dispatched states that collecting an anomaly like this one should have been relatively easy. The girls who found it already had it safely contained in a mason jar, and they were nine, so it wasn't like they posed a threat. Unfortunately, an unexpectedly competent agent from the UIU was also trying to get his hands on the anomaly which complicated things a bit, though ultimately he failed. The Foundation operative suggests investigating the new UIU Agent, but he isn't taken seriously as the UIU have never posed a genuine threat to how the foundation operates.

Central Narrative: Essentially none

Hook/Attention-Grabber: I don't expect the SCP is anything particularly outstanding in and of itself, but I thought it was kind of a sweet, whimsical idea—just a fluffy glowing thing that a bunch of girls found in their fairy houses which makes sad people happy and happy people sad. I did also want to introduce a new (potentially recurring) character in the UIU Agent (mentioned only in passing) that interferes with its capture, which I'm pretty sure qualifies as a hook.

Additional Notes: I'm planning to write a tale to go along with this (if this gets greelighted) of the capture from the UIU agent's perspective since I really wanted to explore the UIU as more than bumbling idiots which seems to be how they're usually portrayed.

This is the second idea I've posted, and the critters seemed to really like my other idea, but then disappeared before I got any greelights, so hopefully this one goes over a bit better. I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of feedback this gets : )

Last edited on 27 Oct 2020 08:36 by Raaor Show more

Re: Fairy Light

Naveil 26 Oct 2020 21:24

So I definitely would like this as smaller, cozier adventure. It appears that's what you're going for, which is good. On the other hand, there are some parts that I'd like elaborated.

One place of concern is how the narrative is presented. Is it done via logs? Of what kind? Beyond that, what actually happens in the narrative? You haven't given much of a description besides "UIU agent fails, Foundation wins" which isn't an overly impressive descriptor. Beyond that, how does it tie with the girls at the beginning? Through all of this, think about how you want to evoke the sense of whimsicality throughout the piece.

In regards to the proposed tale, you can do this, but I'd recommend you focus yourself onto this piece for now. You don't know how many elements of the story may change or may just be exempt from the final work entirely.

Overall though, this definitely has potential. Feel free to give me a poke¹ once you've expanded/made some changes, so I can take another look.

Footnotes

1. being Wikidot PM or through IRC, as replying to threads doesn't notify the author

Last edited on 26 Oct 2020 21:25 by Naveil Show more

Re: Fairy Light

Raaor 27 Oct 2020 08:48

Okie dokie. I think this was more an issue with me not being clear in my intentions than it is any actual issue with my intentions or the article themselves. It was a miscommunication on my part, and I've re-written parts of my pitch to make my intentions more clear.

+ I have too much to say about the narrative business so here, have a collapsible

The narrative I listed is not central to the article, and it's more or less a passing mention. As I said, it's only an addendum about how the anomaly was discovered. Putting too much focus on story aspects in an SCP article severely undercuts the professional and clinical feel in my opinion, and I really don't want to do that which is precisely the reason I would prefer to write a separate tale, rather than focusing on this and only this.

It doesn't feel right to me to explore all the details of what happened so what's included is only what's important: The circumstances under which the SCP was found, the most important findings of the investigation, and the results of the retrieval mission; the interference of the UIU Agent deserves a note in the margins, but anything more is extraneous. I could include in the article a mission report from the field agent that describes the case in more detail, but even that doesn't seem necessary. Things like that aren't generally included in SCP articles and I see no reason to make this the exception.

Suffice it to say, I do not like SCP articles with heavy narrative and especially ones based around simplistic ideas like this should be kept short and sweet (for more complex ideas, narrative adds another layer of interest and intrigue, but as you noticed I'm going for small and cozy). This article, which is already written in its entirety (because I'm pathologically incapable of sharing ideas that I feel are incomplete) comes out to about 750 words, and I'm quite confident in those 750 words doing what I intend for them to do.

I'm more inclined to remove the narrative aspect entirely rather than explore it more deeply, to be perfectly honest. The category was optional in the submission template, I only filled in what little narrative I had mentioned in my draft for the sake of completion. This article basically has the guidelines and leaves the rest up to the imagination, which is quite intentional because imagination is the heart of whimsy. Basically I've moved what little narrative I had into the elevator pitch and changed the narrative to "none" which is honestly more accurate, and probably what I should have done in the first place.

As for the genre, it really isn't so much a genre as it is a vibe, a general sense of whimsy infused throughout the text of the article, not just the decidedly vague narrative, everything from the description to even the containment measures and especially the personal accounts of interactions with the anomaly are, by design, somewhat whimsical.

Last edited on 27 Oct 2020 09:12 by Raaor Show more

Re: Fairy Light

Naveil 28 Oct 2020 23:02

+ I guess I have a lot to say also

I feel like there's a disparity here between what you think a narrative is vs. what a narrative actually is. It's the story that drives the article, much like many other forms of creative writing. Effectively every modern article has one nowadays, but they choose to express them in different ways. The clinicality and professionalism you mentioned is often a fence for a narrative, but is no means a restrictor. Think of it like this - a fence prevents you from walking through, but you can still go around, leap over it, and so on. That's what the clinical nature of an SCP article is to a narrative - it prevents you from writing a traditional story, but you can still express that story in different ways. The way you express it can vary from going around the fence to doing a triple-somersault over the fence, but it ultimately comes down to your capabilities as well as your vision for the article.

It's no fib when I say that every article needs a central narrative in order to survive. You could get away with a narrativeless article ten years ago (see: SCP-005), but there needs to be some form of narrative in yours. The scope and scale is relative to your ambitions, and the type of experience you want to create.

Moving onto your article, it's clear that you're trying to create a whimsical, campy story. Although that entails brevity, that isn't a necessity. You've got this part nailed down, but the "no narrative" part sticks out to me as… wrong. Your narrative is the Foundation/UIU plot.

Your elevator pitch, in of itself, wouldn't hold up. It's a whole bag of semantics that leaves me saying "so what?" It makes you feel odd and can't be photographed. I could read that and it wouldn't instill me with a sense of… whimsicality. It's as though I were to write about a flesh-eating necromancer, but only described it and what it could do. That wouldn't instill me with body horror as much as if, say, I were to actually write about it in action. The same principle could be applied here.

Although your (current) narrative feels disconnected from the actual narrative, I generally hold that that isn't inherently a bad thing. It ultimately depends on if you can play it right. I'll leave you to do a bit more theorycrafting for now, but just remember that the clinical tone of an article is not a restrictor. In many ways, it's an enabler.

Re: Fairy Light

Raaor 29 Oct 2020 07:42

+ You can ignore this ranty bit if you want, but I'm salty

Okay, well now I'm really just super frustrated because I've been putting an elevator pitch in the "Elevator Pitch" portion but it would seem that what you wanted was a regular pitch. Why not ask for a regular pitch in the first place? Why call the category synopsis if you want people to write a complete summary? Why ask for a longline if what you actually want from me is a formally submitted project proposal?

No wonder you feel like it's too bare bones. You asked for the bare bones even though you wanted the entire cadaver. That's like ordering a raw potato when you actually want potato-leek soup, no wonder it feels like we're talking about two completely different things, we literally are. I thought you just wanted the idea when I submitted an idea proposal but you were looking for a thorough outline.

In that case I'm just gonna have to re-write this entire thing from scratch.

tl;dr I thought you wanted what you were asking for, but I was mistaken. I'm still pretty sure the article I've written does have what you're actually looking for, I've just got to figure out how to describe what I have in a way that makes you want it. That's is the trick isn't it?

The article you linked did clear things up for me, and I can definitely say I have more narrative than that, but I just didn't think it was central or important so I minimized it in the elevator pitch in favor of telling you what the subject of the article was. I incorrectly believed that the subject of the article was the most important thing to include, seeing as its the subject of the article. How silly of me….

Give me a couple days to re-write my proposal and I'll see if I can clear this up.