Fanfic Writers of the Future.
Feb. 6th, 2004 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reddragdivaI was being dot_catty (in response to this), but it hasn't nearly enough aggrieved flames yet. So I thought I'd point you lot at it. Being as this journal is read by both fanfic writers and those who not only construct their own characters but are published writers in the non-vanity paper sense.
Some things are written to be read; others are written to be written. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the second — it's excellent training wheels for the first — but the two should not be conflated. Folk forms in general, and especially those where the creators are also the audience, are fatally susceptible to terminal anticriticality, wherein pointing out that shit stinks drives the afflicted into a blind rage. I don't have a problem with the existence of fanfiction itself; I do have a problem with those who not only take it far too seriously, but demand I do so as well.
Oh, and I'd just like to link to this again.
(I wonder what my friends-of list will look like tomorrow.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:18 am (UTC)of the uncreative.Re:
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Date: 2004-02-06 10:21 am (UTC)It's "DESTROYING THERE CRETIVITY!1one!bang2!1!two!!at"
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:28 am (UTC)...those where the creators are also the audience, are fatally susceptible to terminal anticriticality
I question the "fatally". God knows in places like fanfiction.net and the godforsaken hell that is the Celebrity archive there's a lot of undeserved mutual backslapping, but I for one am as likely to point out to a writer of fanfic where things suck (if they ask, obviously) as to a writer of original fiction. I know I'm not the only one. :)
~shrug~ I love writing fanfic. To me, when I write, it's really no different from writing original fiction (though this may largely be because the fanfic I tend to write is about real people. Or not. I don't know.) but then I've explained that. And I shall stop justifying myself now, because there isn't really any need to. :)
E.
x
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:30 am (UTC)The first couple of bits of fanfic were well-received, & gave me the confidence to write a couple of magazine articles one of which has already been published, the other due out next month, I believe.
Previously, I'd never been published outside of a private fan-magazine before, & hadn't written any prose in 10 years or thereabouts.
I think that fanfic can actually be pretty damn creative, as well as often entertaining. Many authors create their own (non-Mary-Sue!) characters to interact with the established ones.
I'm not saying it's a high art form: not many things are in the written form these days, IMHO, but I'd still say there are some GOOD WRITERS who happen to be writing fanfic.
Oh gods, yes, there's a metric shitload of APPALLING fanfic out there, but the internet is also filled with dreadful teenage poetry, frightful art & awful non-fanfic stories.
If nothing else, I've exercised my brain & amused some people, which is all I set out to do. Maybe some people are taking the whole thing too seriously?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 08:40 am (UTC)"Training Wheels"
Date: 2004-02-06 10:45 am (UTC)This helped me a lot in learning about various writing styles and techniques, in word choice, voice, etc. and helped me a lot in developing my own style. In fact, it's the sort of writing exercise that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone who's looking to sharpen their own writing skills.
However, at the same time, I was also working on a first (Never completed.) novel of my own, as well as short stories, with all of my own settings, characters, etc. and I don't think that I could have stood limiting myself to using *just* someone else's world.
Also, I don't think that you really *should* consider yourself fully a writer until you're able to create fiction of your own out of whole cloth. Until then, you haven't completed your whole skill set and put it to use. I think that failing to do so means you're short-changing yourself, and seriously limiting what you could accomplish.
Not that there's anything wrong with committing fanfic as a hobby, but if that's *all* you do, I think you really are short changing youself as a writer, and as a creative person.
Of course there are some professionals who never do, or who just barely manage it after filing off some serial numbers and painting over the original logos, but that's another topic, and the less said about these writers the better. ;)
(So, do you think that this'll get me hate-mail? ;)
Re: "Training Wheels"
Date: 2004-02-07 12:54 am (UTC)I think I'm a *kind* of writer. I'm just only producing fluff right now :)
Re: "Training Wheels"
Date: 2004-02-07 02:32 am (UTC)My excuse of course, was that Zelazny is just *such* a good writer that I was simply doing it as way to sharpen my own writing abilities, with nothing about the fact that he'd simply created such an entertaining playground that I couldn't resist playing in it. :)
Re: "Training Wheels"
Date: 2004-02-07 11:04 am (UTC)Re: "Training Wheels"
Date: 2004-02-08 02:36 am (UTC)you want an inflammatory comment? ok, lets go!
Date: 2004-02-06 08:40 am (UTC)Right go on have an argumenent then, although I must admit I couldn't give a toss about fan fic OR it's writers any more than I give a shit about music journos who can't shut up about their bloody latest promos :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 09:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 09:38 am (UTC)So uh
Date: 2004-02-06 09:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 10:44 am (UTC)Actually a problem I have, particularly but not exclusively with the trilogy-of-bricks style writing, is the shortage of memorable characters; which means that when you come onto volume III after a 6-12 month gap you're forever trying to cope with half-remembered characters who the author feels no need to introduce properly again, supposing they even did so the first time round.
(A number of webcomics have a somewhat related problem: large numbers of barely-distinguishable characters who I can't keep track of. Presumably the artist only knows how to draw one kind of person.)
The relevance of this of course is that fanfic evades this problem by using already-established characters. And all other things being equal (which they seldom are, but never mind that) I'd rather someone borrowed a good character for their story than made up a rubbish one who I forget the name, personality, species &c of from paragraph to paragraph.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 10:57 am (UTC)As far as I can tell, most (for Sturgeon Values of 'most') fanfic is complete arse that's just hand-rolled pr0n in a posh frock. (Based on as much of a sample as I could stand before having to turn the computer off and go for a long walk so as to burn away the feeling of being soiled. Cheapened and depraved? Oh, yes.)
There's that chippy line used by crap bands in interviews: "We just do it for ourselves, and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus." I read paraphrases of that every six or eight posts.
"But it's an exercise..." Right. So's walking to the shop for a cheeseburger. Won't get you anything like as fit as abandoning the bloody car entirely and biking it everywhere. Sure, you'll die on your arse the first couple of weeks, but once you get the hang of it...
[People I've met in the flesh excepted.]
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 04:22 pm (UTC)"Oh John, I've always wanted a good spanking!", Howard moaned as memories of Iowa made himn tingle...
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