About fanfiction in a general sense, and also, GoT season 2 first thoughts
Thursday, April 19th, 2012 12:09 pmSo, I use DW primarily, but I still have to log in to LJ to check out about 80% of my FList's posts and comments-- you stubborn bunch! *impotent fistshake*-- so I see various things that are on the LJ log in page when I do. Recently, this included a link to a post going over the various standpoints of certain popular-by-modern-standards authors on the subject of fanfiction.
This is nothing new; a lot of authors dislike fanfiction when they actually see it. I feel all sorts of ways on the subject, but I think the biggest problem with fanfiction is that it is largely reviled by everyone else.
So, here's why I do (and don't) write fanfiction anyway.
1. Fanfiction is a great way to keep yourself interested in something you might otherwise lose interest in.
Take note, published and famous authors! That's right-- people stop giving a shit about things if they don't think of them every waking moment.
I basically consider myself to be stunningly normal when it comes to liking something. I do not, actually, identify as a 'fan'. I can get excited about stuff I like, but I can also zone out and not, in fact, be thinking about anything fannish in particular. I'm more likely to be thinking about my life: bills, work, friends, family, projects, whether I can take fencing lessons with my bad knee, that sort of thing.
This is not so with fans.
Do you know why Harry Potter got seven movies, J.K. Rowling? It is not because you wrote seven books. C.S. Lewis wrote seven books, and at most got three (barely) movies. Mercedes Lackey has written more books than seven and a lot of them would be great movies, but she doesn't have any. Anne McCaffrey wrote a slew of books that would be great movies, but still none.
Why is that?
Well, I'll tell you why. It's because for the duration of the time it took for you, J.K. Rowling, to finish writing your books (books I personally don't have any strong feelings for, to be honest), your fans were obsessed. They managed to keep up that frantic obsession by writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, making fan-parodies, having Harry-Potter-themed-weddings (oh, I wish I was kidding) and doing all sorts of things that meant living, breathing, eating, and sleeping Harry Potter.
So, you can thank your fans-- not yourself-- for your wild and insane success. Oh, and your marketing department, probably.
So why write it?: To keep my focus on a fandom for longer. I have a very short lifespan as a fan of something who's willing to put the kind of effort and love into a fan project needed for fanfiction. Like many fanartists, I at most am likely to write one, maybe two fanfics for something I really liked, with the rare exception of fandoms I get really into. Writing that fanfic or drawing that fanart reminds me of all the reasons why I loved the source material, and even leads me to look for sequels or new merchandise, sometimes.
So why NOT write it? To let me live my damn life! I don't like it when fandom takes up more of my time than my own personal endeavors. I used to roleplay with online crowds exclusively, lacking pals in real life to hang out with (I know, forever alone sad nerd times, right): the problem with this was, nobody wanted to DO original characters. So even if I was in the mood to write me some original fiction, I often didn't because of the peer pressure from my friends who insist that they are NOT creative, who wanted me to waste every waking hour roleplaying, fanficcing or drawing a character that belonged to someone else, instead. If "I have a life, god damn it!" isn't a good enough reason to say NO to fanfic, I don't know what is. It's the most compelling one I can think of by far.
2. Fanfiction is free marketing!
Here's another funny story. You know the Final Fantasy games? I'm sure most people played them because they were already into the idea of video games and whatnot, but I'm not quite the same, here. You see, we didn't have the newest, greatest game systems, and no one in my family knew of RPGs, so it wasn't like we could get FFIII (that is to say, VI) for the SNES while everyone else was playing FF9 brand-new.
Well, thanks to fanfiction of a show called Ronin Warriors, I became deeply enamored of certain fanfic authors, and wanted to read more of their stuff. Even if I didn't know the source material! So I read everything they had on this one site, even fanfic for Final Fantasy VII, and VIII, games I'd seen displays for but never dreamed of playing.
Because of those fanfictions, when we later finally GOT a PS1, I urged my brother to give those games a shot. I was so damn curious what they were really like! Would they be as funny and sweet and sad as the fanfictions I'd read online? Only one way to find out. (Shelling out money!)
Thanks to those games, I ended up buying almost every FF game that would play on that system. I bought FFX, and even Kingdom Hearts because it'd have those same FF characters I loved in it. It didn't take much to hook me, but I needed that little push to even know that the possibility for such games was there at all. Fanfiction led me to buy the real product. I am sure I'm not the only person that this has ever happened to.
So why write it?: I like this thing! So I want other people to like it too. Fandom's a great way to share what I like!
So why NOT write it?: Sometimes, sharing is bad. Especially if it turns out that the people you shared it with want to inject porn into your kid-friendly cartoon; or gore into your paradise; or religious debate into your neato fantasy setting.
3. Fanfiction helps authors to practice, just as any writing exercise does.
This is the most important by far. Fanfiction is NOT an acceptable substitute for writing practice if you're seriously interested in becoming an author someday, but it definitely provides a lot of the same challenges writing a real book does. Can you make something interesting happen in the course of your story? Can you keep people's interest, even if they don't know who these characters are, necessarily? Can you make sure that the story has a clear setting, an understandable PLACE where things are happening?
Can you actually finish your story?
These are all legitimate challenges, and they're tough to get past even with all the help that fanfiction provides. You're being spared the necessity of coming up with your world from scratch, your characters, even your plot, in some cases. You can use fanfiction to practice your prose, or to hone your wit with short stories. You can use fanfiction to shamelessly do all the TERRIBLE things you know you should never do in a real book-- like have everybody fall in love with your Mary Sue self-insert and make your favorite pairings happen, and whatnot. This is no substitute for writing your own, original works, but it still helps improve any original works that you might put out afterward, as long as you're actually striving for improvement.
Also, confidence is a tricky thing. It's important that you feel confident you can finish something you start, and sometimes finishing even a short story fanfiction is a big step on that walk to self-confidence. The value of fanfiction as an original production, something that you can publish in print or sell, is very low*. But the value of fanfiction as a tool for self-development is very high.
So why write it?: To improve! And also, to destress. Everybody has their hobbies. Not everyone wants to write professionally, either, so it's pretty unfair to rag on people who write fanfiction by claiming that they should quit it and write original stuff. I am an aspiring author, but not every potential fanfiction author out there feels the same way. Not everybody wants the same thing out of life, so it's not a reasonable scale to compare people on.
So why NOT write it?: Here's the most dangerous one, I feel. It's very, very easy to spend months, or years, writing nothing but fanfiction. The trouble with fandom is, it's composed of people who are VERY EXCITED about the thing you are currently writing about. They want to see more because they have a shared interest with you. Never mind that they could someday find themselves fans of your awesome, original idea that is now manifest as a book series-- right now they're excited that you're here, writing fanfiction about something that they love. Fandom is a dangerous environment for any creative person, artist, author, whatever, because it's very easy to get wrapped up in fanworks to the exclusion of other projects. The amount of improvement in one's work can be matched or even outstripped by the amount of atrophy that occurs in the other creative muscles, and that's bad for later productivity if you DO want to be an author, or artist, or whatever.
* - I think it's really important to note, here, the distinction made in societal consciousness between fanart and fanfiction. It's been my experience that fanart is generally more well-received by creators than fanfiction; further, I've known multiple fanartists who make their own products using copyrighted intellectual property, and sell those products. (Doujinshi; commissioned fanart; buttons; statuettes; clothes; toys; handmade jewelry; there are a LOT of examples.) A fan-novel could probably be sold in the same way, but it seems that fan-novels are both less common and more openly protested against by authors and whatnot, and I'm really not sure why this is.
What it all comes down to is this: I don't like writing fanfiction, but I also enjoy writing fanfiction. I don't like feeling like my friends are judging, laughing at, or mocking me when I write fiction of ANY kind, but I feel the most like that when I try to write fanfiction or fanfiction-like things (such as "fandom" roleplay). By contrast, I love sharing my fanfiction with people online, and am always happy when people like, or are emotionally affected by, works that I have written, and since I'm still getting my feet wet in the realm of "published original fiction", most of the response I've gotten in the past from people who liked my work was response to fanfiction.
It has value. But it definitely isn't everything.
Now, Game of Thrones Season 2, Episode 1:
I am still really impressed by all the ladies in the show. Generally, I don't really have any interest in reading these books because the setting is unrepentantly sexist in a way that so severely limits women's rights that, for example, it drove Circe insane. That's pretty messed up! But the ladies in the show are cooler than their book counterparts, from what I did read.
I still hate Bran, and wish he'd go away.
They are now green-screening the direwolves. IT IS HILARIOUS.
This is nothing new; a lot of authors dislike fanfiction when they actually see it. I feel all sorts of ways on the subject, but I think the biggest problem with fanfiction is that it is largely reviled by everyone else.
So, here's why I do (and don't) write fanfiction anyway.
1. Fanfiction is a great way to keep yourself interested in something you might otherwise lose interest in.
Take note, published and famous authors! That's right-- people stop giving a shit about things if they don't think of them every waking moment.
I basically consider myself to be stunningly normal when it comes to liking something. I do not, actually, identify as a 'fan'. I can get excited about stuff I like, but I can also zone out and not, in fact, be thinking about anything fannish in particular. I'm more likely to be thinking about my life: bills, work, friends, family, projects, whether I can take fencing lessons with my bad knee, that sort of thing.
This is not so with fans.
Do you know why Harry Potter got seven movies, J.K. Rowling? It is not because you wrote seven books. C.S. Lewis wrote seven books, and at most got three (barely) movies. Mercedes Lackey has written more books than seven and a lot of them would be great movies, but she doesn't have any. Anne McCaffrey wrote a slew of books that would be great movies, but still none.
Why is that?
Well, I'll tell you why. It's because for the duration of the time it took for you, J.K. Rowling, to finish writing your books (books I personally don't have any strong feelings for, to be honest), your fans were obsessed. They managed to keep up that frantic obsession by writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, making fan-parodies, having Harry-Potter-themed-weddings (oh, I wish I was kidding) and doing all sorts of things that meant living, breathing, eating, and sleeping Harry Potter.
So, you can thank your fans-- not yourself-- for your wild and insane success. Oh, and your marketing department, probably.
So why write it?: To keep my focus on a fandom for longer. I have a very short lifespan as a fan of something who's willing to put the kind of effort and love into a fan project needed for fanfiction. Like many fanartists, I at most am likely to write one, maybe two fanfics for something I really liked, with the rare exception of fandoms I get really into. Writing that fanfic or drawing that fanart reminds me of all the reasons why I loved the source material, and even leads me to look for sequels or new merchandise, sometimes.
So why NOT write it? To let me live my damn life! I don't like it when fandom takes up more of my time than my own personal endeavors. I used to roleplay with online crowds exclusively, lacking pals in real life to hang out with (I know, forever alone sad nerd times, right): the problem with this was, nobody wanted to DO original characters. So even if I was in the mood to write me some original fiction, I often didn't because of the peer pressure from my friends who insist that they are NOT creative, who wanted me to waste every waking hour roleplaying, fanficcing or drawing a character that belonged to someone else, instead. If "I have a life, god damn it!" isn't a good enough reason to say NO to fanfic, I don't know what is. It's the most compelling one I can think of by far.
2. Fanfiction is free marketing!
Here's another funny story. You know the Final Fantasy games? I'm sure most people played them because they were already into the idea of video games and whatnot, but I'm not quite the same, here. You see, we didn't have the newest, greatest game systems, and no one in my family knew of RPGs, so it wasn't like we could get FFIII (that is to say, VI) for the SNES while everyone else was playing FF9 brand-new.
Well, thanks to fanfiction of a show called Ronin Warriors, I became deeply enamored of certain fanfic authors, and wanted to read more of their stuff. Even if I didn't know the source material! So I read everything they had on this one site, even fanfic for Final Fantasy VII, and VIII, games I'd seen displays for but never dreamed of playing.
Because of those fanfictions, when we later finally GOT a PS1, I urged my brother to give those games a shot. I was so damn curious what they were really like! Would they be as funny and sweet and sad as the fanfictions I'd read online? Only one way to find out. (Shelling out money!)
Thanks to those games, I ended up buying almost every FF game that would play on that system. I bought FFX, and even Kingdom Hearts because it'd have those same FF characters I loved in it. It didn't take much to hook me, but I needed that little push to even know that the possibility for such games was there at all. Fanfiction led me to buy the real product. I am sure I'm not the only person that this has ever happened to.
So why write it?: I like this thing! So I want other people to like it too. Fandom's a great way to share what I like!
So why NOT write it?: Sometimes, sharing is bad. Especially if it turns out that the people you shared it with want to inject porn into your kid-friendly cartoon; or gore into your paradise; or religious debate into your neato fantasy setting.
3. Fanfiction helps authors to practice, just as any writing exercise does.
This is the most important by far. Fanfiction is NOT an acceptable substitute for writing practice if you're seriously interested in becoming an author someday, but it definitely provides a lot of the same challenges writing a real book does. Can you make something interesting happen in the course of your story? Can you keep people's interest, even if they don't know who these characters are, necessarily? Can you make sure that the story has a clear setting, an understandable PLACE where things are happening?
Can you actually finish your story?
These are all legitimate challenges, and they're tough to get past even with all the help that fanfiction provides. You're being spared the necessity of coming up with your world from scratch, your characters, even your plot, in some cases. You can use fanfiction to practice your prose, or to hone your wit with short stories. You can use fanfiction to shamelessly do all the TERRIBLE things you know you should never do in a real book-- like have everybody fall in love with your Mary Sue self-insert and make your favorite pairings happen, and whatnot. This is no substitute for writing your own, original works, but it still helps improve any original works that you might put out afterward, as long as you're actually striving for improvement.
Also, confidence is a tricky thing. It's important that you feel confident you can finish something you start, and sometimes finishing even a short story fanfiction is a big step on that walk to self-confidence. The value of fanfiction as an original production, something that you can publish in print or sell, is very low*. But the value of fanfiction as a tool for self-development is very high.
So why write it?: To improve! And also, to destress. Everybody has their hobbies. Not everyone wants to write professionally, either, so it's pretty unfair to rag on people who write fanfiction by claiming that they should quit it and write original stuff. I am an aspiring author, but not every potential fanfiction author out there feels the same way. Not everybody wants the same thing out of life, so it's not a reasonable scale to compare people on.
So why NOT write it?: Here's the most dangerous one, I feel. It's very, very easy to spend months, or years, writing nothing but fanfiction. The trouble with fandom is, it's composed of people who are VERY EXCITED about the thing you are currently writing about. They want to see more because they have a shared interest with you. Never mind that they could someday find themselves fans of your awesome, original idea that is now manifest as a book series-- right now they're excited that you're here, writing fanfiction about something that they love. Fandom is a dangerous environment for any creative person, artist, author, whatever, because it's very easy to get wrapped up in fanworks to the exclusion of other projects. The amount of improvement in one's work can be matched or even outstripped by the amount of atrophy that occurs in the other creative muscles, and that's bad for later productivity if you DO want to be an author, or artist, or whatever.
* - I think it's really important to note, here, the distinction made in societal consciousness between fanart and fanfiction. It's been my experience that fanart is generally more well-received by creators than fanfiction; further, I've known multiple fanartists who make their own products using copyrighted intellectual property, and sell those products. (Doujinshi; commissioned fanart; buttons; statuettes; clothes; toys; handmade jewelry; there are a LOT of examples.) A fan-novel could probably be sold in the same way, but it seems that fan-novels are both less common and more openly protested against by authors and whatnot, and I'm really not sure why this is.
What it all comes down to is this: I don't like writing fanfiction, but I also enjoy writing fanfiction. I don't like feeling like my friends are judging, laughing at, or mocking me when I write fiction of ANY kind, but I feel the most like that when I try to write fanfiction or fanfiction-like things (such as "fandom" roleplay). By contrast, I love sharing my fanfiction with people online, and am always happy when people like, or are emotionally affected by, works that I have written, and since I'm still getting my feet wet in the realm of "published original fiction", most of the response I've gotten in the past from people who liked my work was response to fanfiction.
It has value. But it definitely isn't everything.
Now, Game of Thrones Season 2, Episode 1:
I am still really impressed by all the ladies in the show. Generally, I don't really have any interest in reading these books because the setting is unrepentantly sexist in a way that so severely limits women's rights that, for example, it drove Circe insane. That's pretty messed up! But the ladies in the show are cooler than their book counterparts, from what I did read.
I still hate Bran, and wish he'd go away.
They are now green-screening the direwolves. IT IS HILARIOUS.
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