I'm on a Rampage
Well, lately I've been catching myself angsting because of how much time I spend explaining why I'm wasting my time writing fanfiction instead of original fiction. It's even worse when I have to explain what fanfiction is . . . tut tut. It makes me sad - sad. So, I wanna argue about it, but most people - frankly - wouldn't be ready for the onslaught an opinionated girl such as I would give them. They're not ready to do battle, because they haven't thought about the situation for a whole fifteen minutes before. So, I shouldn't eat unopinionated people for lunch. It's just not good table etiquette.
When I was teenager and first got my appetite for writing, I had a really difficult time getting people to read my work and give me opinions on it. The number of creative writing assignments I got in jr. high and high school were few. It was so discouraging. I could hardly ever get anyone to read my stories. They just weren't interested. Plus, if they did read anything I wrote, I always worried that they weren't giving an honest opinion. I mean, I knew they thought their relationship with me was more important than anything I might write, so they were always complimentary, but their feedback was always weak. After awhile, I gave up trying to get anyone to read my work, and I hardly wrote anything in my early twenties. I mean, it was so unsatisfying to write things that would lie unread on my harddrive.
You see, I knew I had problems with my writing - I still do. I had major problems with my character designs, my story boards, my climaxes, my descriptions/atmosphere, and the general workability of a plot. It's so easy to be cliche, but I couldn't even get a traditional plot line (like a gothic romance) to play out properly. Yet, I had always had it screamed into my ears that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE ORIGINAL in everything I wrote. But, how could I be original? Everything's been done. I felt like I was banging my head against a cement wall whenever I tried to write anything. Like there was a barrier in my own mind that stopped me from doing anything fun with my writing. But I HAVE TO WRITE. I might never make a cent off it, but I HAVE TO WRITE. For some reason it's so much a part of who I am, that I can't not do it, and for ages all it was doing was bringing me a sever headache.
That's when I discovered fanfiction. It wasn't that I particularly wanted to do it, but I happened to try reading some Slayers fanfic to see if it was any good. Everything I read sucked a lot, and I thought I could do better, so I gave it a try. And I'll describe what happened the best way I know how, regarding:
Character Designs
Before I started writing fanfiction I had a problem with characters. They couldn't do something I wouldn't do - even the bad guy couldn't do something I wouldn't do. Fanfiction completely cured me of this because I suddenly had to be true to a character that someone else invented.
Story Boards
I actually started writing them, and I started keeping a journal of all my ideas for stories.
General Workability of a Plot
Because I started writing story boards this immediately improved.
The next thought I had was, "Can you really trust people to read your work online and not scam your awesome ideas?" If you post something on the net, or even get something published, there is always the chance that someone will steal your idea. I question if that really matters at all. Just like how we stand on the shoulders of our forebearers in technology and in all our knowledge, why not stand on the shoulders of author's of the past? That way we can only get better - entertain our readers, make more poignant statments about the human condition, and communicate our ideas through a marvelous medium.
Anyway, to put a cap on this rampage, I'd just like to say that the people who read my fanfiction, read it because they want to. There is absolutely nothing in it for them other than the enjoyment of my story. They don't get my friendship, because I usually don't write my readers back, unless they say something extremely interesting to me. I don't want them to be motivated to review my work because of friendship. I want them to read it because they're interested, because most of them are wannabe writers themselves and have given the challenges associated with writing some thought. Lots of them have really useful insights. I'll write original fiction when I'm dang good and ready.
When I was teenager and first got my appetite for writing, I had a really difficult time getting people to read my work and give me opinions on it. The number of creative writing assignments I got in jr. high and high school were few. It was so discouraging. I could hardly ever get anyone to read my stories. They just weren't interested. Plus, if they did read anything I wrote, I always worried that they weren't giving an honest opinion. I mean, I knew they thought their relationship with me was more important than anything I might write, so they were always complimentary, but their feedback was always weak. After awhile, I gave up trying to get anyone to read my work, and I hardly wrote anything in my early twenties. I mean, it was so unsatisfying to write things that would lie unread on my harddrive.
You see, I knew I had problems with my writing - I still do. I had major problems with my character designs, my story boards, my climaxes, my descriptions/atmosphere, and the general workability of a plot. It's so easy to be cliche, but I couldn't even get a traditional plot line (like a gothic romance) to play out properly. Yet, I had always had it screamed into my ears that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE ORIGINAL in everything I wrote. But, how could I be original? Everything's been done. I felt like I was banging my head against a cement wall whenever I tried to write anything. Like there was a barrier in my own mind that stopped me from doing anything fun with my writing. But I HAVE TO WRITE. I might never make a cent off it, but I HAVE TO WRITE. For some reason it's so much a part of who I am, that I can't not do it, and for ages all it was doing was bringing me a sever headache.
That's when I discovered fanfiction. It wasn't that I particularly wanted to do it, but I happened to try reading some Slayers fanfic to see if it was any good. Everything I read sucked a lot, and I thought I could do better, so I gave it a try. And I'll describe what happened the best way I know how, regarding:
Character Designs
Before I started writing fanfiction I had a problem with characters. They couldn't do something I wouldn't do - even the bad guy couldn't do something I wouldn't do. Fanfiction completely cured me of this because I suddenly had to be true to a character that someone else invented.
Story Boards
I actually started writing them, and I started keeping a journal of all my ideas for stories.
General Workability of a Plot
Because I started writing story boards this immediately improved.
The next thought I had was, "Can you really trust people to read your work online and not scam your awesome ideas?" If you post something on the net, or even get something published, there is always the chance that someone will steal your idea. I question if that really matters at all. Just like how we stand on the shoulders of our forebearers in technology and in all our knowledge, why not stand on the shoulders of author's of the past? That way we can only get better - entertain our readers, make more poignant statments about the human condition, and communicate our ideas through a marvelous medium.
Anyway, to put a cap on this rampage, I'd just like to say that the people who read my fanfiction, read it because they want to. There is absolutely nothing in it for them other than the enjoyment of my story. They don't get my friendship, because I usually don't write my readers back, unless they say something extremely interesting to me. I don't want them to be motivated to review my work because of friendship. I want them to read it because they're interested, because most of them are wannabe writers themselves and have given the challenges associated with writing some thought. Lots of them have really useful insights. I'll write original fiction when I'm dang good and ready.
posted by Sapphirefly at
1:37 p.m.
1 Comments:
Eating unopinionated people for lunch... *snickers*... I suppose you could justify it as helping them form an opinion if you really wanted to. ;)
Shavaineth
By
Anonymous, at 10:52 a.m.
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