(no subject)

[kippurbird]

More fun with Miss Formulaic. She just uploaded the next part of her story. Here's some choice bits.



Everyone else bustled about, fulfilling the Captain’s orders. It seemed Ruben was the only one not energized by Kent’s dog and pony show.
“Where do you think he went?”
Glick shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Then how is she going to find him?”
The Captain turned his gaze to Ruben. A look of sympathy crossed his face as he spoke. “She’ll know.”
Torres wanted to argue, but knew there was no point. Glick was right. Harbinger could be in the Antarctic, and Nicole would find him. For Ruben, she couldn’t even remember his street number half the time.

She just knows where Profiler will be. Yes. Because they have that speshul connection and it's twu lub, thought they deny it. *gack*

Profiler goes to the DMV to find out who the Serial Killer's next victim is. Why the DMV would let him do this is unanswered. Nor why he didn't just look in one of the databases that the police should have on people. And he does it without a "time wasting warrant". There's this lovely line:

While he didn’t move any closer to her, Kent leaned forward. Just enough to stir the air between them. Just enough to let the pheromones waft from his body to her nostrils.

That's just a weird image. Really, it is. Who thinks in terms of Pheromones? Yes, I got that girl because I was exuding pheromones. Mmhmm. Right.

Profiler is a comic book junkie. Police woman goes to Comic book store and finds out that Profiler has a comic book on special order.

Nicole turned to walk out, but thought better of it. If she had any hope of keeping tabs on Kent, she would need some leverage. She turned back to Sebastian. “Let me have the book.”
Alarmed, the clerk pulled the comic to his chest. “Whoa woman, you may have a badge, but there is a limit.”
Pulling back her jacket, Nicole showed off her gun.
“Okay, okay. Don’t go all Nazi Maus on me.”
“Just hand it over.”


She just THREATENED the guy with a gun to get a stupid comic book! Instead of BUYING IT! She threatened and then stole this comic book. And she's supposed to be the good guy. Uh-huh. Or perhaps this scene is supposed to be humorous. I don't know.

Oh, and apparently Policewoman fits the Serial Killer's profile. I Kinda guessed that.

More later. It's getting to me.

Comments

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Wow... that sucks so much more than I expected. Miss F is so clueless about how life works.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter how real life would work, because she's writing to formula so it will automatically work. At least that's how I think she's working.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

You know... in a way, she's making the same mistake Paolini does. The formula isn't everything.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I know. There are a lot of striking similarities to his work in this. The writing style is better but the logic process is not.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

I hope the publishers she sends this to kick her ass.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

I live in dread that she has guaged her chosen genre correctly, and the publisher she sends it to is as mush-headed as she is.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

From what others have said, she has. Apparently she's studied this stuff.

[behyper.livejournal.com]

She just THREATENED the guy with a gun to get a stupid comic book! Instead of BUYING IT!

That's stealing, and stealing is a crime--oh yeah, she's a policewoman. And police are totally above the law.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Apparently in this universe they are.

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

>>>Kent’s dog and pony show.
Miss Formulaic seems to be unaware of the naughty meaning of "dog and pony show". Or maybe it's just me and my filthy mind that find this mental image so amusing.

>>>Harbinger
She seriously named the bad guy Harbinger? As in "something or somebody that froeshadows a future event"? As in "harbinger of doom"?! This is almost as funny as Serious Ass.

>>>pheromones waft from his body to her nostrils.
The hero character is now officially creepier than the serial killer.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Harbringer is the name of the Profiler.

The serial killer is known as "Plane Jane" for the type of victims he choses.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

'Harbinger' as a good guy is still pretty screwed.

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

She just THREATENED the guy with a gun to get a stupid comic book!

... No. Just, no. By the gods that keep us sane while reading Paolini, no. Being a police officer does not give you the right to steal a book. If it is being used in an investigation, you need a warrent. If it is not, you buy it like any sane person. There are no special discounts unless the person who runs the stores has decided to let the cops get discount comics or whatever the hell.

I am irked by this. I think cops might get a tax deduction where I am. That's about it. My uncle, who works in a prison, was almost sued because he'd been working the same floor as a prisoner who attempted to attack the other guards and had to be restrained. If a convicted child rapist and murderer who was posing a very real threat can get away with that, does she honestly think that a randomly threatened clerk couldn't get her kicked off the force for armed robbery?

*peeved* Gotterdamn, Miss F, you fail at basic knowledge of the police force.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I am so mentioning that in my notes to her.

[thelittlebudgie.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of assistance. Of course, she'll probably pull out the "It's only fiction" card after that...

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Harbinger could be in the Antarctic, and Nicole would find him.

Hang on, I'm confuzzled. Who's Harbinger, again? The profiler is Kent, and the woman is Nicole, and Ruben's her partner... is Harbinger the serial killer? But if that's the case, and she can find him anywhere, then why did he get to kill anyone in the first place? And if Harbinger is her twu wuv, the profiler Kent, why is he always referred to as Kent but here it's 'Harbinger'?

And he does it without a "time wasting warrant".

Ah. So Miss Formula is a Republican, then. *nods*

As for the ridiculous exchange between the woman and the clerk, for starters he's way too alarmed when she first asks for the book. I mean, clutching it to his chest because she says 'let me have it'? Even Comic Book Guy wouldn't overplay it that badly. As for 'Don't go all Nazi Maus on me', what the hell does that even mean? That he thinks she's one of Art Spiegelman's anthropomorphic cats? It's a remarkably strained attempt to drop a pop culture reference into the exchange, and one that's largely defeated by its own niche vagueness.

And yes. Stealing is wrong, and I hope the comic book guy got a good look at her badge and phones in on her.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Harbringer is the Profiler. She has this annoying habit of never referring to the same person by the same name twice in a row. It's very confusing.

The entire incident in the comic book store was just wrong. On so many levels.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Definitely point out to her that switching between first and last names tends to confuse the reader. It's fine to refer to him as Harbinger and her as Nicole, just so long as they're always referred to that way. Though I suppose it might not be as bad reading the whole thing; he's introduced as Kent Harbinger at one point, I assume?

As for the comic thing, couldn't she have just asked him to let her flip through it there in the store? And why does she need it so badly, anyway?

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Eh, "Nazi Maus" might be an attempt to show "hey, here's a typical comic geek who can't phrase anything without using comics as a reference".

'Nazi Maus' is a stupid way of phrasing it, even for a geek.

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Which she did very poorly. I'm a comic geek and I barely smiled. If nothing ELSE, the scene made me angry. Not only because it's inaccurate but I would want to throttle anyone who tried to steal my damned books, be they comics or otherwise.

And she's stealing from a STORE. Real smart, bitch.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Even then, it's not really a great reference; you could just as easily drop 'Maus' from the sentence and it would make perfect sense. And half my comments to my buddies are pop culture references, so I know what I'm talking about. There're the lines that are clever, and there're the lines you have to spend five minutes explaining afterwards. This is not one of the former.

Better still might be a more generic reference to Punisher and his love of guns, or perhaps comparing her unfavourably with Commissioner Gordon who'd even arrest Batman he was so dedicated to law and order, or accusing her of being as big a fascist as Tony 'Fifty States Initiative' Stark. Or he could take the other route and make a self-deprecating comment about himself; y'know, "Well, looks like I have about as much choice as Jubilee in a room full of Sentinels" or something. Just... argh, just anything but this awful 'Nazi Maus' line!

Bah unto her

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

You should tell her to read this book and then mention how it recently became a TV series. (And I've read the book. The idea sounds a bit cheesy and contrived but it's so well written that I sincerely adore it.)

http://www.amazon.com/Darkly-Dreaming-Dexter-Jeff-Lindsay/dp/038551123X

The character of Rubin

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

Btw, this is something I meant to write sooner but I had to run off to work just as I thought of it.

She needs to drop the Rubin character entirely. For starters, most romance and thrillers don't actually add in a 'rival' for love. Secondly, he does nothing. If the heroine doesn't care about him, why should the reader care? She's not writing him well enough for anyone to give a damn, so tell her to drop him. The pathetic denial is really all the conflict that she clearly wants her characters to have, so Rubin is just a waste of words.

Tell her it will give her more room to concentrate on the awesomeness of the two main characters. If she argues that he needs to be in there, ask her if he's going to actually do anything IMPORTANT later on in the story. If he isn't, then he truly is just eating up her word-count.

Or hey, recommend he be the heroine's friend! *GASP* What a concept that is! She needs FRIENDS to be viewed as sympathetic in Miss Formula's 'formula for a heroine', right? Make him just a good work buddy (who may or may not envy Mr. Kent for having had her in the past) and voila. Slightly better garbage all around. :D

[emily-goddess.livejournal.com]

Oh, and apparently Policewoman fits the Serial Killer's profile

I'm psychic. What, you didn't know? I can see the future. Watch. I'll predict the ending of this book:

Serial Killer (SK) kidnaps her, Creepy Kent gets there just in time to rescue her (and kills SK, because it makes him more badass there was no other way, and then Creepy Hero and the girl make up and have hot sex. The End.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I'll let you know if it turns out like that. I'm betting it will.