Dogs don't know it's not bacon

[califmole]

Finally picked up a copy of DARK AND STORMY KNIGHTS over the weekend and read EVEN HAND, which so many had raved about. The Marcone POV was brilliant, but reading it felt like reading fanfic, even though Butcher's name was on the title page. If it had been online, I'd have been looking for a button to send feedback on how well the Marcone portrayal matched my own inner vision :-)

Comments

[harpijka]

Yes, exactly - it read like fanfic :)

I had more or less the same vision of Marcone while reading the books, confirmed during this book marathon and afterwards by oh so many fanfic stories.
Some of the authors must have seen already in the books Marcone they wrote about in their stories - like you. Or did you not?
If possible, would you mind answering this question for me: is your Marcone rather from the books or from the fanfiction? Or rather, when you wrote your recent stories, were you thinking about the canonical character or his fannish incarnation?

[califmole]

A little of both. My Marcone was drawn from the books, but also influenced by the fanfic reading binge I'd been on, courtesy of the kink meme. I've always found him to be a fascinating character in the books--he's Dresden's opposite in many ways, and yet in other ways they are very much alike.

The dynamic between them screamed slash to me, and I remember looking for good Marcone/Dresden stories a few years ago, but they were few and far between. Then, one day I stumble across the kink meme and realize that the pool is open and lots of people have jumped in to play. So I dove in as well :-)

[harpijka]

"he's Dresden's opposite in many ways, and yet in other ways they are very much alike."

Yes, yes, exactly! Thank you - it's always interesting to know what pushed a writer in one direction or another :)
I always wonder whether some of the secondary characters in some books seem to us fascinating because the characterization the author present gives the reader a sufficiently rich image of, say, Marcone or whether it's our interpretation of motivations of these admittedly already interesting characters and all the layers we add to the character while reading - that make these characters so appealing. And all we build up on these characters not necessarily stems logically from their image in the book they come from. 'Even Hand' convinced me that most of authors in this fandom have made very 'true to the letter' conclusions from the small amount of information about Marcone we were given in the novels.
And sorry for my rambling; English is not my first (nor second, nor third...) language, I tend to overwhelm myself while using it in writing.