Post by girlatmash on Oct 4, 2008 15:19:51 GMT -5
Okay, so for Computation class, I had to write a narrative about something that has kinda sorta changed my life and, being the M*A*S*H obsessed person I am, I decided to write about what happened with 'Stuck in the Cove'. So, if you're interested, here you go.
[glow=red,2,300]'Stuck in the Cove'[/glow]
My first M*A*S*H fan-fiction stories were not the best. They were about a girl who stowed away to Korea during the war. I worked so hard on them a few years ago, but never did anything with them. When I found a site to post fan-fiction on, I was excited but disappointed when no one read my work. I finally received a review a month later from a woman in London that read the whole 'series'. I could hear her saying “It was unlikely to have happened, but very sweet anyway,” in her British accent. I was excited to have heard this, thinking that people actually enjoyed my writing. That inspired me to write more.
One day, about five months ago, I was watching M*A*S*H in my basement after school on one of those rare days that I didn’t have homework. It was my favorite episode that was playing that day on the Hallmark Channel, so I was in a very good mood. My cousin, Emma, and I were talking back and forth on MSN while I was watching it as well. The episode was called ‘Comrades In Arms’ and when BJ Hunnicutt (Mike Farrel) got to his line, “Are you afraid of her, or of you?” to Hawkeye (Alan Alda), I was struck by a pretty good idea for a new ‘fan-fic’.
“Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!” I typed to my cousin.
“What?! What?! What?!” She typed back.
I quickly wrote a small summery of the idea for my story to Emma. She’s not a M*A*S*H fan by any means, but I did ‘force’ her to watch ‘Comrades in Arms’ via my DVD one night when she spent the weekend at my house. She thought the idea for my story was pretty good and said it sounded really interesting.
“WRITE IT DOWN!” She replied in all capital letters when I told her that I wasn’t sure I’d even write it. After my ‘Help From a Teenager’ series failed, I was hesitant to write anymore, but knew there had to be someone who would read it. I wrote, re-wrote, read, and re-read the first chapter to what I thought would be a little one-shot story. When I was finally done writing the first chapter, I sent it to my cousin to read. She had been bugging me to read it all that week, but I kept telling her that it wasn’t done yet. Honestly though, it had been done…about three times. I wanted it to be perfect and kept re-writing it, thinking it would just flop like my other stories had. I was very relieved however, when she wrote, “You’re kidding right? You’re worried about this?”
“Duh,” I replied. “My writing sucks…”
“Uh, no it doesn’t! This is brilliant!”
“You’re my cousin, you’re supposed to say that.” As always, I was truly doubting myself. That seems to be my specialty.
“Okay, biologically I’m not even that!” she was adopted by my aunt and uncle when we were both babies, “You’re writing is truly amazing. I love this story and I HATE M*A*S*H, and me liking it is REALLY saying something considering that’s what this story is pretty much all about!” I was thrilled with her response, but still hesitant to post the beginning of my story.
I called the short writing ‘Stuck in the Cove’ and posted it to FanFiction.net. It was about a fourteen year old girl with black hair and bright blue eyes. She lived in Boston, a little under fourteen years and about eight months after the Korean War ended and her mother was Margaret Houlihan. The teenager’s name was Beatrice Jane but, she was mostly called BJ, because of the stories she heard about one of her mom’s friends from the MASH unit she worked at during the war and wanted to be like him.
During the first chapter a lot of things happened. BJ and her best friend, Janie, went to the New England wrestling championships in Crabapple Cove, Maine and were left there when the pep-bus went back without them. (Crabapple Cove is a fictional town that was said to be Hawkeye’s hometown on M*A*S*H.) The two girls tried everything to get in touch with BJ’s mother and Janie’s brother, but were having no luck. Finally a tall, black-haired, blue-eyed man walked by and headed into the small diner. They asked him for a couple dimes for the pay phone since the story was set long before cell phones. He gladly gave the girls a few dimes, thinking that the one looked strangely familiar. When he came back out of the shiny, metal-plated, diner he heard the girl with the black hair ask for Margaret Houlihan. When she was done on the phone, he asked her about it and, when learning that it really was the Margaret he was thinking of, introduced himself as Hawkeye Pierce. He then had the owner of the diner let the girls use the phone inside for free and treated them to Grape Nehi soda and french-fries while they waited for their rides to come pick them up.
As the chapter went on BJ asked the man why he was doing all of that for her and her friend. “Well,” he sighed, looking down the neck of the glass bottle in his hands, “I’ve always had a soft spot for your mother.”
Thoughts started racing through BJ’s mind. “Half of her heart was left on the lips of a man in Korea…” she thought about her mother’s words. When Margaret arrived at the diner a few hours later, she was shocked by what she saw. After Janie and her brother headed back for Boston, she ended up confessing that Hawkeye had been looking after his daughter for the duration of the girls’ wait in the tiny town.
The chapter ended after BJ’s and Hawkeye’s reactions and I didn’t know if I would continue with the story. People were frantically reviewing, asking if I was going to write anymore and were pretty much begging me too. I replied to everyone, saying that I would keep the story going. I was amazed by what I had started. Every day I would check my emails and would have tons of reviews. It made me think that maybe I was good at something. That was a feeling that I didn’t, and still don’t, get often.
I had started writing the story a few weeks before school got out for the summer, and it was killing me to not be able to write all the time. Thankfully, my ‘fans’ were patient and when summer finally arrived, I wrote a LOT in my free time. When my dad was at work and my mom at school, I would go out to my ‘writing studio’ in the backyard with my laptop and write. When my parents came home, I’d do something fun with them, but at night I’d stay up until two o’clock or later. I started updating my story almost every other day and my readers loved it.
Before I went to Camp Foster at the beginning of August, I decided I needed to end ‘Stuck in the Cove’. It had run it’s course and, like the show it was based on, needed to end on a high note. So, the week before camp, I started writing the Goodbye Farewell and Amen of ‘Stuck in the Cove’, as I called it. Goodbye Farewell and Amen was the final movie that ended the M*A*S*H series and it was five times longer than any of the episodes. That’s also what I did for my story. The final chapter was much longer than any of the other chapters, and the average chapter was pretty long. People were worried about me not updating right away though, and I must have received about twenty personal messages that week. I told them that if they wanted an amazing ending to a story they had all loved, they’d have to wait. The reviews that I got for that final chapter really showed that they were glad they waited.
When all was said and done, my story had 36 chapters, 178 reviews, 14 people added it to their favorites, and 20 added it to their subscription list. (The subscriptions are where the reader receives an e-mail when the author of the story has updated.) It had well over 10,000 hits and had been read by people in ten different countries. The people I ‘met’ writing my story were also very nice, and I still talk to quite a few of them today, close to three months after I ended ‘Stuck in the Cove’. Every time I feel like I’m not good at anything, I just think about that story and all of those reviews I received. Then I think that maybe, just maybe, I am good at something. Even if it is really dorky!
I just hope that Mr. Stevens thinks this is okay.....
[glow=red,2,300]'Stuck in the Cove'[/glow]
My first M*A*S*H fan-fiction stories were not the best. They were about a girl who stowed away to Korea during the war. I worked so hard on them a few years ago, but never did anything with them. When I found a site to post fan-fiction on, I was excited but disappointed when no one read my work. I finally received a review a month later from a woman in London that read the whole 'series'. I could hear her saying “It was unlikely to have happened, but very sweet anyway,” in her British accent. I was excited to have heard this, thinking that people actually enjoyed my writing. That inspired me to write more.
One day, about five months ago, I was watching M*A*S*H in my basement after school on one of those rare days that I didn’t have homework. It was my favorite episode that was playing that day on the Hallmark Channel, so I was in a very good mood. My cousin, Emma, and I were talking back and forth on MSN while I was watching it as well. The episode was called ‘Comrades In Arms’ and when BJ Hunnicutt (Mike Farrel) got to his line, “Are you afraid of her, or of you?” to Hawkeye (Alan Alda), I was struck by a pretty good idea for a new ‘fan-fic’.
“Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!” I typed to my cousin.
“What?! What?! What?!” She typed back.
I quickly wrote a small summery of the idea for my story to Emma. She’s not a M*A*S*H fan by any means, but I did ‘force’ her to watch ‘Comrades in Arms’ via my DVD one night when she spent the weekend at my house. She thought the idea for my story was pretty good and said it sounded really interesting.
“WRITE IT DOWN!” She replied in all capital letters when I told her that I wasn’t sure I’d even write it. After my ‘Help From a Teenager’ series failed, I was hesitant to write anymore, but knew there had to be someone who would read it. I wrote, re-wrote, read, and re-read the first chapter to what I thought would be a little one-shot story. When I was finally done writing the first chapter, I sent it to my cousin to read. She had been bugging me to read it all that week, but I kept telling her that it wasn’t done yet. Honestly though, it had been done…about three times. I wanted it to be perfect and kept re-writing it, thinking it would just flop like my other stories had. I was very relieved however, when she wrote, “You’re kidding right? You’re worried about this?”
“Duh,” I replied. “My writing sucks…”
“Uh, no it doesn’t! This is brilliant!”
“You’re my cousin, you’re supposed to say that.” As always, I was truly doubting myself. That seems to be my specialty.
“Okay, biologically I’m not even that!” she was adopted by my aunt and uncle when we were both babies, “You’re writing is truly amazing. I love this story and I HATE M*A*S*H, and me liking it is REALLY saying something considering that’s what this story is pretty much all about!” I was thrilled with her response, but still hesitant to post the beginning of my story.
I called the short writing ‘Stuck in the Cove’ and posted it to FanFiction.net. It was about a fourteen year old girl with black hair and bright blue eyes. She lived in Boston, a little under fourteen years and about eight months after the Korean War ended and her mother was Margaret Houlihan. The teenager’s name was Beatrice Jane but, she was mostly called BJ, because of the stories she heard about one of her mom’s friends from the MASH unit she worked at during the war and wanted to be like him.
During the first chapter a lot of things happened. BJ and her best friend, Janie, went to the New England wrestling championships in Crabapple Cove, Maine and were left there when the pep-bus went back without them. (Crabapple Cove is a fictional town that was said to be Hawkeye’s hometown on M*A*S*H.) The two girls tried everything to get in touch with BJ’s mother and Janie’s brother, but were having no luck. Finally a tall, black-haired, blue-eyed man walked by and headed into the small diner. They asked him for a couple dimes for the pay phone since the story was set long before cell phones. He gladly gave the girls a few dimes, thinking that the one looked strangely familiar. When he came back out of the shiny, metal-plated, diner he heard the girl with the black hair ask for Margaret Houlihan. When she was done on the phone, he asked her about it and, when learning that it really was the Margaret he was thinking of, introduced himself as Hawkeye Pierce. He then had the owner of the diner let the girls use the phone inside for free and treated them to Grape Nehi soda and french-fries while they waited for their rides to come pick them up.
As the chapter went on BJ asked the man why he was doing all of that for her and her friend. “Well,” he sighed, looking down the neck of the glass bottle in his hands, “I’ve always had a soft spot for your mother.”
Thoughts started racing through BJ’s mind. “Half of her heart was left on the lips of a man in Korea…” she thought about her mother’s words. When Margaret arrived at the diner a few hours later, she was shocked by what she saw. After Janie and her brother headed back for Boston, she ended up confessing that Hawkeye had been looking after his daughter for the duration of the girls’ wait in the tiny town.
The chapter ended after BJ’s and Hawkeye’s reactions and I didn’t know if I would continue with the story. People were frantically reviewing, asking if I was going to write anymore and were pretty much begging me too. I replied to everyone, saying that I would keep the story going. I was amazed by what I had started. Every day I would check my emails and would have tons of reviews. It made me think that maybe I was good at something. That was a feeling that I didn’t, and still don’t, get often.
I had started writing the story a few weeks before school got out for the summer, and it was killing me to not be able to write all the time. Thankfully, my ‘fans’ were patient and when summer finally arrived, I wrote a LOT in my free time. When my dad was at work and my mom at school, I would go out to my ‘writing studio’ in the backyard with my laptop and write. When my parents came home, I’d do something fun with them, but at night I’d stay up until two o’clock or later. I started updating my story almost every other day and my readers loved it.
Before I went to Camp Foster at the beginning of August, I decided I needed to end ‘Stuck in the Cove’. It had run it’s course and, like the show it was based on, needed to end on a high note. So, the week before camp, I started writing the Goodbye Farewell and Amen of ‘Stuck in the Cove’, as I called it. Goodbye Farewell and Amen was the final movie that ended the M*A*S*H series and it was five times longer than any of the episodes. That’s also what I did for my story. The final chapter was much longer than any of the other chapters, and the average chapter was pretty long. People were worried about me not updating right away though, and I must have received about twenty personal messages that week. I told them that if they wanted an amazing ending to a story they had all loved, they’d have to wait. The reviews that I got for that final chapter really showed that they were glad they waited.
When all was said and done, my story had 36 chapters, 178 reviews, 14 people added it to their favorites, and 20 added it to their subscription list. (The subscriptions are where the reader receives an e-mail when the author of the story has updated.) It had well over 10,000 hits and had been read by people in ten different countries. The people I ‘met’ writing my story were also very nice, and I still talk to quite a few of them today, close to three months after I ended ‘Stuck in the Cove’. Every time I feel like I’m not good at anything, I just think about that story and all of those reviews I received. Then I think that maybe, just maybe, I am good at something. Even if it is really dorky!
I just hope that Mr. Stevens thinks this is okay.....