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I begun this essay as a way to get over my bitterness about missing Signal2Noise 2k5 when I was two stops down on the T because of soul-crushing work, and resulted in a catharsis on my problems and generally a good way to clear the headspace.
Thanks muchly to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lareinenoire, rosamund, & drglam for looking it over and helping me out when I was stuck.
A long time ago, I swore off writing fanfiction. It took a good three years before I would once more read a work of fanfiction and another two before I would touch my keyboard or pick up the pen to write it again.
It was certainly not because I somehow felt fanfiction to be inferior to the creation of original worlds. In fact, in that dark twilit interim, I spent a great deal of time playing with characters I had created in a role-play setting, developing and fleshing out original characters, but in an unoriginal world. When I went to write for my college classes, it was those characters that I turned to for inspiration. My best stories came from taking characters I knew well and putting them somewhere new.
All of which led to the realization that fanfiction is difficult. I stopped writing it because I did not feel I could do justice to the characters as they were presented in canon, and to write not at all seemed better a choice than to write badly.
There is an allure to fanfic, especially on the internet. There are whole communities of Very Cool (tm) people who write very well, who share their passion for this aspect of popular or literary culture, and if you can just get in, it's a wonderful sense of belonging. As your writing improves, your grasp of the characters and their situations widens and, best of all, it's like a permanent campfire night.
Writing original worlds is, by nature, a lonely exercise. Even collaboration is difficult because the characters are yours. You've thought of them, built up an image in your head. In your mind’s eye is a background far more detailed than will ever make it on the page. And there is always the danger that someone will take your beautiful creation and turn it into something you consider the absolute antithesis.
Fanfiction holds no such conundrum. The characters don't belong to you. You didn't create them, and you are not entitled to be their keeper. You borrow them for a while, play and share nicely, and put them back on the shelf for others when you're done. And best of all, there is that community present so that you can show people and say "look what I made them do!"
This aspect adds a second layer to that fanfiction community - constructive criticism. People already have an idea of the characters you are playing with. They know how the world works, and there is a base of canon to tell you and them what has made these characters what they are. If you feel that this one part of your piece just isn't working, odds are, someone else will spot it and tell you why that is. You don't have to explain to your audience "a Stargate wormhole only moves matter one way, but radio signals go in either direction” or "Aragorn fell in love with Arwen when they met about 60 years ago." They know. They've read the source material and watched the show. The exposition, unless you're heading off into the realms of AU (alternate universe), is blissfully unnecessary if the universe is shared. (That's not to say that it is completely absent from fanfic, just abridged.)
Constructive criticism (concrit) in original work is a dicey proposition. If you've got a complete and universal knowledge of how the plot of your work is going to go, and where each twist is delivered, where it makes sense, and how, what you write will make sense to you. But sitting your editors down and making them look through pages and pages of notes, some of which are still in your head, is a daunting task for the best of us.
Exposition and establishment of your world is probably the most difficult thing to do properly. The best stories aren't the ones where exposition is thrown on the reader in one lump sum, but rather doled out in action just as much as narrative. This method is hard to implement for experienced writers, beginners may find it almost impossible. Fanfiction eases the difficulty of establishment, while at the same time tightening the restrictions on character, another realm of difficulty for the author.
Characters in fanfiction are as predefined as the universe itself. We can take them in new directions, make them see new things and develop, because really, that's what all writing is, but we cannot alter the point-of-view they have going in or else we destroy that character. Some people find that restriction comforting; it helps to have a base to work from, and character development is much easier when you have a good idea of the character to begin with.
Working with an already-defined character can help a writer practice development, point-of-view, and narration without having to define a new persona. It also allows beginners to work on fleshing out a character with flaws, avoiding the impulse to create superhero characters that withstand and survive without scars to their psyche (or body).
The in the last fiction workshop of my undergraduate career, my professor constantly drilled the knowledge that a good story is not made up of plot filled with character or characters that vaguely interact with the plot. Rather, a good story interweaves the two, where flawed and three-dimensional characters advance the plot by their actions, and the motion of the plot causes the characters to react to their circumstances, further advancing the story.
The intricate dance of character development and forward motion is much easier to grasp when analyzing another person’s work. It is easy to see how Elizabeth Bennet’s prejudice prevents her from seeing past Mr. Darcy’s pride and thus prompts her belief in Wickham’s tale. It is much more difficult to craft a similar misunderstanding with original characters without making it come off contrived (Ms. Fielding in Bridget Jones’s Diary succeeds due to *ahem* heavy borrowing).
The paragraphs above seem to indicate I regard fanfiction as an easier genre, yet nothing could be further from the truth. To wade through fanfiction.net or any other such web repository is, without doubt, to come across much that is rough to find those few precious diamonds.
The same things that work to the writer’s benefit can be a great hindrance. Those flawed characters we love to read about or watch on the screen often inspire within us a desire to “fix” what is broken – grant Draco his just reward for calling Hermione a Mudblood, or prevent Boromir’s temptation by the ring and his eventual, tragic death. Those writers who take this route often fail to understand that each insult makes Hermione stronger, that Boromir’s fall produces the fracture the Fellowship requires to achieve its ends.
Other “crimes” of fanfiction include self-insertion, use of a deus ex machina, or, the worst offender that combines all three, a Mary Sue. They often result from the author’s inability to work within the source material, whether it’s through lack of understanding the character, the theme of the work, or the setting, these flaws often throw the reader out of the narrative into a state of “So-and-so would never do that!” Such offenses are often treated with much derision in the fandom community at large, with LJ communities such as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
deleterius existing solely for the purpose of mocking the fiction and its author.
I, however, do not believe that such mistakes arise from the desire to corrupt the established material – after all, the fundamental of fandom is love for the work. Love enough to obsessively search the internet for new contents, spoilers, iddy-biddy pieces of news, and love enough to write fiction about it. If the writer is inexperienced, odds are, it’ll be bad fiction. I still have notebooks full of “stories” from my real life at age of twelve, and quite honestly, I’m tempted to go visit my parents just to burn them so they may never see the light of day.
All of which brings me back to my original point. At the age of eighteen, before any intense creative writing course, I swore off writing fanfiction. My previous attempts have been saved in both hard copy and electronic formats, and whenever I start whining about my lack of skill, I need simply refer to those “works of art” to understand how far I’ve come. That’s not to say that I have matured as an author so far that I need never improve again, just that I am constantly improving my understanding of theme, character development, depth, and plot with every story I write, and every piece of dialogue that worms its way into my brain.
I’ve simply realized, over the past several years, that it doesn’t matter whether I write original fiction or fanfiction. Each has challenges unique unto itself. Both force me to improve as a writer, though in different ways. I don’t have to isolate myself from writing fanfiction because I consider my writing a poor shadow of the original, I need only improve on my writing until it reflects better on the source.
Up next (I hope): A Veronica Mars Primer
Thanks muchly to
lareinenoire, rosamund, & drglam for looking it over and helping me out when I was stuck.A long time ago, I swore off writing fanfiction. It took a good three years before I would once more read a work of fanfiction and another two before I would touch my keyboard or pick up the pen to write it again.
It was certainly not because I somehow felt fanfiction to be inferior to the creation of original worlds. In fact, in that dark twilit interim, I spent a great deal of time playing with characters I had created in a role-play setting, developing and fleshing out original characters, but in an unoriginal world. When I went to write for my college classes, it was those characters that I turned to for inspiration. My best stories came from taking characters I knew well and putting them somewhere new.
All of which led to the realization that fanfiction is difficult. I stopped writing it because I did not feel I could do justice to the characters as they were presented in canon, and to write not at all seemed better a choice than to write badly.
There is an allure to fanfic, especially on the internet. There are whole communities of Very Cool (tm) people who write very well, who share their passion for this aspect of popular or literary culture, and if you can just get in, it's a wonderful sense of belonging. As your writing improves, your grasp of the characters and their situations widens and, best of all, it's like a permanent campfire night.
Writing original worlds is, by nature, a lonely exercise. Even collaboration is difficult because the characters are yours. You've thought of them, built up an image in your head. In your mind’s eye is a background far more detailed than will ever make it on the page. And there is always the danger that someone will take your beautiful creation and turn it into something you consider the absolute antithesis.
Fanfiction holds no such conundrum. The characters don't belong to you. You didn't create them, and you are not entitled to be their keeper. You borrow them for a while, play and share nicely, and put them back on the shelf for others when you're done. And best of all, there is that community present so that you can show people and say "look what I made them do!"
This aspect adds a second layer to that fanfiction community - constructive criticism. People already have an idea of the characters you are playing with. They know how the world works, and there is a base of canon to tell you and them what has made these characters what they are. If you feel that this one part of your piece just isn't working, odds are, someone else will spot it and tell you why that is. You don't have to explain to your audience "a Stargate wormhole only moves matter one way, but radio signals go in either direction” or "Aragorn fell in love with Arwen when they met about 60 years ago." They know. They've read the source material and watched the show. The exposition, unless you're heading off into the realms of AU (alternate universe), is blissfully unnecessary if the universe is shared. (That's not to say that it is completely absent from fanfic, just abridged.)
Constructive criticism (concrit) in original work is a dicey proposition. If you've got a complete and universal knowledge of how the plot of your work is going to go, and where each twist is delivered, where it makes sense, and how, what you write will make sense to you. But sitting your editors down and making them look through pages and pages of notes, some of which are still in your head, is a daunting task for the best of us.
Exposition and establishment of your world is probably the most difficult thing to do properly. The best stories aren't the ones where exposition is thrown on the reader in one lump sum, but rather doled out in action just as much as narrative. This method is hard to implement for experienced writers, beginners may find it almost impossible. Fanfiction eases the difficulty of establishment, while at the same time tightening the restrictions on character, another realm of difficulty for the author.
Characters in fanfiction are as predefined as the universe itself. We can take them in new directions, make them see new things and develop, because really, that's what all writing is, but we cannot alter the point-of-view they have going in or else we destroy that character. Some people find that restriction comforting; it helps to have a base to work from, and character development is much easier when you have a good idea of the character to begin with.
Working with an already-defined character can help a writer practice development, point-of-view, and narration without having to define a new persona. It also allows beginners to work on fleshing out a character with flaws, avoiding the impulse to create superhero characters that withstand and survive without scars to their psyche (or body).
The in the last fiction workshop of my undergraduate career, my professor constantly drilled the knowledge that a good story is not made up of plot filled with character or characters that vaguely interact with the plot. Rather, a good story interweaves the two, where flawed and three-dimensional characters advance the plot by their actions, and the motion of the plot causes the characters to react to their circumstances, further advancing the story.
The intricate dance of character development and forward motion is much easier to grasp when analyzing another person’s work. It is easy to see how Elizabeth Bennet’s prejudice prevents her from seeing past Mr. Darcy’s pride and thus prompts her belief in Wickham’s tale. It is much more difficult to craft a similar misunderstanding with original characters without making it come off contrived (Ms. Fielding in Bridget Jones’s Diary succeeds due to *ahem* heavy borrowing).
The paragraphs above seem to indicate I regard fanfiction as an easier genre, yet nothing could be further from the truth. To wade through fanfiction.net or any other such web repository is, without doubt, to come across much that is rough to find those few precious diamonds.
The same things that work to the writer’s benefit can be a great hindrance. Those flawed characters we love to read about or watch on the screen often inspire within us a desire to “fix” what is broken – grant Draco his just reward for calling Hermione a Mudblood, or prevent Boromir’s temptation by the ring and his eventual, tragic death. Those writers who take this route often fail to understand that each insult makes Hermione stronger, that Boromir’s fall produces the fracture the Fellowship requires to achieve its ends.
Other “crimes” of fanfiction include self-insertion, use of a deus ex machina, or, the worst offender that combines all three, a Mary Sue. They often result from the author’s inability to work within the source material, whether it’s through lack of understanding the character, the theme of the work, or the setting, these flaws often throw the reader out of the narrative into a state of “So-and-so would never do that!” Such offenses are often treated with much derision in the fandom community at large, with LJ communities such as
deleterius existing solely for the purpose of mocking the fiction and its author. I, however, do not believe that such mistakes arise from the desire to corrupt the established material – after all, the fundamental of fandom is love for the work. Love enough to obsessively search the internet for new contents, spoilers, iddy-biddy pieces of news, and love enough to write fiction about it. If the writer is inexperienced, odds are, it’ll be bad fiction. I still have notebooks full of “stories” from my real life at age of twelve, and quite honestly, I’m tempted to go visit my parents just to burn them so they may never see the light of day.
All of which brings me back to my original point. At the age of eighteen, before any intense creative writing course, I swore off writing fanfiction. My previous attempts have been saved in both hard copy and electronic formats, and whenever I start whining about my lack of skill, I need simply refer to those “works of art” to understand how far I’ve come. That’s not to say that I have matured as an author so far that I need never improve again, just that I am constantly improving my understanding of theme, character development, depth, and plot with every story I write, and every piece of dialogue that worms its way into my brain.
I’ve simply realized, over the past several years, that it doesn’t matter whether I write original fiction or fanfiction. Each has challenges unique unto itself. Both force me to improve as a writer, though in different ways. I don’t have to isolate myself from writing fanfiction because I consider my writing a poor shadow of the original, I need only improve on my writing until it reflects better on the source.
Up next (I hope): A Veronica Mars Primer
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