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Crisco Kid
Jan 14, 2008

Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book?

Pladdicus posted:

As a 'winner' of nanowrimo I can attest to everything in this post being true. Nanowrimo was a hell of a thing to get me actually writing but the output is...barebones at best. Less 'workable' more 'needing a severe rewrite from the ground up'

50,000 in a month is still feasible, in my opinion. If you have a solid foundation and ideas and aren't just writing to pad up word count for the sake of 'winning' at least.

NaNo helped me in a similar way. I could never complete a project other than the shortest short story, because anything beyond that and I got stuck in the endless loop of beginning rewrites that never got anywhere. I would get a few pages and trash it because it didn't remotely resemble my favorite works or authors. I kept waiting for ideas to formulate, for characters and theme and conflict to become perfect. A lifetime of loving books and trying to teach myself about writing had locked the art in this ivory tower that I could never hope to access. Anecdotes about people claiming they were "born to write" and heard the characters' voices in their head didn't help, because no way could I relate to that - so it must be an innate talent I lacked, right?

NaNo gave me the excuse to gently caress up. I would want to spend all day waffling over some word arrangement, but I had to charge through or fall behind in wordcount. The result was a very flawed first draft that actually went somewhere. Of course it needed editing, but being able to see the whole helps tremendously when you're trying to fix the parts. And I discovered all the stuff about discovering themes and the characters coming alive is true, but you have to write it first. Relationships and conflicts emerged that were far more interesting than what I had planned, but I didn't discover them until I wrote myself into them. You can plan a year-long trip in advance, but you don't know exactly where each footfall will land until you're a few steps away. Unlike real life, in writing you have the opportunity to go back and tweak every one of those steps, so take advantage of that ability. loving up is part of the process. No matter how good you become, you will gently caress up and that is normal, because even though timeless works may appear as if they flew fully-formed from the masters' foreheads, what we're actually looking at is the result of lots of polishing and rewriting and mistakes.

This all seems obvious in hindsight, but for a perfectionist beginner who doesn't know any better, the realization that flaws and mistakes are a part of the process is an invaluable lesson. NaNo is whatever you make it, and for me it was the antidote to editing paralysis. This is also my advice to supermikhail: just do it. Especially when you don't want to, and when you can't figure out why or how. Do the next best thing. It will be wrong, but you will better know how to repair it later. This process is called "writing."

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Fortuitous Bumble
Jan 5, 2007

I've been writing a novel lately and most of the time what happens is I'll get started for the day and the first 500-2000 words flow really easily, but then when I get to the next major plot point or transition I see coming up I have to stop and meditate on it for a few hours to a day to figure out what precisely how things should play out and how to make it feel believable.

Does this mean my characters or plot or something aren't well developed enough? It seems like people always talk about writing like the story just drives itself once they get started but I tend to reach a point where I thought it was really obvious what would happen next but realize I haven't thought out the details or character motivations deeply enough to keep writing.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Fortuitous Bumble posted:

Does this mean my characters or plot or something aren't well developed enough? It seems like people always talk about writing like the story just drives itself once they get started

This is not the norm. Even Stephen King, who is a cheerful and shameless proponent of writing by the seat of your pants, had a huge stall in the middle of The Stand where he was completely at a loss as to what the gently caress to do next.

A little consideration before each major hurdle is fine. Beneficial, even, because it's my experience that writing long fiction is a bit like Jenga - if you have enough tiny little mistakes in construction at the start, then the whole thing will topple over before you can finish.

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012

Fortuitous Bumble posted:

Does this mean my characters or plot or something aren't well developed enough? It seems like people always talk about writing like the story just drives itself once they get started

I was talking specifically about when stories repeatedly die in the early phases. That's different from just catching your breath.

There are some super-productive writers who just churn out works nonstop (I can think of ones in romance, westerns, and mysteries) but those aren't everyone.

FauxCyclops
Feb 25, 2007

I'm the man who killed Hostess. Now, say my name.

Oxxidation posted:

This is not the norm. Even Stephen King, who is a cheerful and shameless proponent of writing by the seat of your pants, had a huge stall in the middle of The Stand where he was completely at a loss as to what the gently caress to do next.

A little consideration before each major hurdle is fine. Beneficial, even, because it's my experience that writing long fiction is a bit like Jenga - if you have enough tiny little mistakes in construction at the start, then the whole thing will topple over before you can finish.

I have no problem taking a break for a few days to let the idea percolate. It'll be the most inopportune, random time, but something will come to you that you really love and wonder how you didn't think of it before. Don't even devote a large amount of time to mulling on it, just let your subconscious go to work and then check in every now and then.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
Hey gang.

I was looking at a lot of different points of view, and I came across some things that made me want to ask a question: is it better to write for myself or to write for what other people want?

:cedric:

Chexoid
Nov 5, 2009

Now that I have this dating robot I can take it easy.

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

Hey gang.

I was looking at a lot of different points of view, and I came across some things that made me want to ask a question: is it better to write for myself or to write for what other people want?

:cedric:

See I dunno, I've thought a lot about this and I feel like it depends on what you want to get out of your writing. Pandering to what you think people want to read may lead to more success commercially, but writing what you truly want to write might be more fulfilling as an artist.

Eff art though, :10bux: is where it's at. Write a story about a vampire highschool then retire to your summer house made entirely of cocaine.

Chexoid fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Dec 30, 2012

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW

Chexoid posted:

See I dunno, I've thought a lot about this and I feel like it depends on what you want to get out of your writing. Pandering to what you think people want to read may lead to more success commercially, but writing what you truly want to write might be more fulfilling as an artist.

Eff art though, :10bux: is where it's at. Write a story about a vampire highschool then retire to your summer house made entirely of cocaine.

For art, even, I think it comes down to the same. See, I've always heard that you should write what you want to write as if only you would read it. A lot of people say you should focus on yourself and how you want to say something instead of the reader. It reminds me of a story about a guy I used to know.

He was a cosmetic surgeon who just loved his job. He got into the business because he loved it. And I don't blame the bloke a bit since his specialty was slapping on some fake tits. Every gal that walked through the door, he'd always tell her that she could use a bigger, better pair. He could tuck it, lift it, do whatever you wanted. It was his passion, his calling, and what he wanted to do all day since we were knee-high.

But like with a lot of jobs, it wasn't as glamorous as the TV tells you. Sometimes, you gotta suck the fat out of some hairy dude's lovehandles. Everyone learns what it's all about as they go along, though.

My friend figured after a few years that he wanted to get into a new business. Something that made him happy and where he could do what he wanted. He wanted to find that passion and love he wanted again. So, he became a vet. Who the hell doesn't love taking care of sick animals?

So, one day, he was talking to one of his client--a rancher. He had a pure longhorn stud bull, and the old guy had this big infection in his leg. My friend said he had to lance it and pump the bull full of antibiotics. You can't chop up a bull like that and sell it for meat, but it was a stud, so the rancher wanted to keep it around.

My friend did his thing then went back home while the rancher tended to the herd. Next day, the rancher comes to check up on his bull, see how it's doing. The infection had been drained, and he was looking a lot better, and my friend had even done a good job on slapping a couple of big tits on that there bull.

He did what he loved, and he did it for himself, so I guess we can see how useful that mentality can be when applied to our own craft.

Erik Shawn-Bohner fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Dec 30, 2012

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I was looking at a lot of different points of view, and I came across some things that made me want to ask a question: is it better to write for myself or to write for what other people want?

If you always write what other people want, you're going to wear yourself out, waste your time, and end up with an audience you can't connect with on the things that interest you.

Think of an author you really like with a long career. The things they wrote to continue a series their readers were familiar with and/or put food on the table, the potboilers, are usually not as good as the things they wrote because they had that story.

It kills innovation because there goes your experimentation, which supposedly is one of the big things fostered around here.

If you want to be a ghostwriter it could work for you fine though.

A Loaf of Bread
Mar 19, 2008

Rose Wreck posted:

If you always write what other people want, you're going to wear yourself out, waste your time, and end up with an audience you can't connect with on the things that interest you.

Think of an author you really like with a long career. The things they wrote to continue a series their readers were familiar with and/or put food on the table, the potboilers, are usually not as good as the things they wrote because they had that story.

It kills innovation because there goes your experimentation, which supposedly is one of the big things fostered around here.

If you want to be a ghostwriter it could work for you fine though.

I somewhat disagree, in that I think you're too adamantly advocating writing only for oneself. As a counter-example, think of Arthur Conan Doyle. He is by far best remembered for his Sherlock Holmes stories, but if I remember correctly, he viewed these as commercial efforts to put food on the table. His real passion and art, as he saw it, were his historical novels (I hope I'm remembering that right). However, today people seem to unanimously agree that the Sherlock Holmes works were his masterpieces.

I also recall reading that Kurt Vonnegut wrote for his sister; that is, he tried to think about what she would want to read whenever he wrote.

This is not to say that you should only write for others, but this certainly isn't a black-and-white issue.

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012

A Loaf of Bread posted:

I somewhat disagree, in that I think you're too adamantly advocating writing only for oneself. As a counter-example, think of Arthur Conan Doyle.

I somewhat disagree with your disagreement, in that he'd already written several things and was very pleased with his early Holmes stuff. Most of us have not already launched our careers and those that have are not too likely to be victims of our own success (but good luck everyone!)

Even when he resumed them, it was because of massive public outcry and he still put effort into the stories, so it wasn't that he wasn't putting pride and thought into his work.

A Loaf of Bread
Mar 19, 2008

Rose Wreck posted:

I somewhat disagree with your disagreement, in that he'd already written several things and was very pleased with his early Holmes stuff. Most of us have not already launched our careers and those that have are not too likely to be victims of our own success (but good luck everyone!)

Even when he resumed them, it was because of massive public outcry and he still put effort into the stories, so it wasn't that he wasn't putting pride and thought into his work.

Point taken, although my argument wasn't that he wasn't putting pride and thought into his work, but rather that those stories were written with considerable thought towards what other people would want to read. The fact that he resumed the Holmes stories "because of massive public outcry" seems to support this.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Rose Wreck posted:

If you always write what other people want, you're going to wear yourself out, waste your time, and end up with an audience you can't connect with on the things that interest you.

Think of an author you really like with a long career. The things they wrote to continue a series their readers were familiar with and/or put food on the table, the potboilers, are usually not as good as the things they wrote because they had that story.

It kills innovation because there goes your experimentation, which supposedly is one of the big things fostered around here.

If you want to be a ghostwriter it could work for you fine though.

:cedric: "watch out for the falling irony rose rec!"

Iroel
Jun 28, 2012
I met this good person one night and he told me: "I write for the consolation of my friend."

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012

Martello posted:

:cedric: "watch out for the falling irony rose rec!"

You can say your full meaning in the "advice and discussion" thread, it's not like it's derailing.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW

Rose Wreck posted:

You can say your full meaning in the "advice and discussion" thread, it's not like it's derailing.

I'll spell it out for you. You must be a woman, 'cause you got two black eyes and he can tell that you done just got told twice.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012
I try to make it clear my criticisms are only my opinion. I don't think I've pressured anyone into thinking they must agree, or that they shouldn't write if they don't write as I suggest.

Other than that, I can't answer what's been said so far.

HiddenGecko
Apr 15, 2007

You think I'm really going
to read this shit?
It depends on what you want to do with what you write. I write stuff I would like to read. You could say that I write for myself, at first, because the first audience for anything we write is always yourself first.

But beyond that initial draft, if you want to get it published, you need to start exposing it to the world usually in the form of beta readers or editors. If you just write for yourself exclusively your journaling or writing a diary which just happens to be fiction.

I always write with a specific audience in mind. this is probably the repulsive part to you Rose Wreck because it sounds like I'm putting the "commercial value" or whatever above the artistic value of my work. When the opposite is actually what is happening.

If you write to get published you want your work to widely read by as many people as possible and enjoyed. Just like you don't want people to come into a gallery and spit on your painting. Or take the CDs your label released with your music and burn them because they hate them. You have to write for an audience or else your just writing as a hobby.

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012

HiddenGecko posted:

I always write with a specific audience in mind. this is probably the repulsive part to you Rose Wreck because it sounds like I'm putting the "commercial value" or whatever above the artistic value of my work.

That's not quite what I'm saying. Apologies if I'm coming off too strong.

Knowing who your audience is, who your story will appeal to, is part of the deal. But to me that doesn't translate to "writing it for someone else" unless you're pulling in a panel of fans to tell you which characters to pair off.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW

Rose Wreck posted:

That's not quite what I'm saying. Apologies if I'm coming off too strong.

Knowing who your audience is, who your story will appeal to, is part of the deal. But to me that doesn't translate to "writing it for someone else" unless you're pulling in a panel of fans to tell you which characters to pair off.

Yes, we all know what it's like to tweet that we need a panel of fans to come and tell us which characters need to "pair off".

Rose Wreck
Jun 15, 2012
It's clear I should put whatever I'm saying into practice and go work on my writing. Good luck, guys, carry on.

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.
Always write for yourself. The trick is to write in such a way other people don't mind listening in.

aslan
Mar 27, 2012
It's silly to frame it as an either/or proposition. There are very few published fiction writers out there who aren't doing both. If they weren't writing for an audience, they wouldn't be published.

There's no point in writing only for the market, though. A) You probably don't understand what makes something popular, and your imitation is likely to miss the mark. B) What sells tends to change quickly, and writing tends to go slowly, so by the time your novel is finished, the trend you wrote it to capitalize on will either by over or the market will be flooded. That's why most writers/publishers/agents will advise you to write the book you wish you could find on shelves but can't--if you want to read something like it, other people probably do too. Unless you're a total weirdo.

I usually write the story I want to write, then address what other people want to read in editing. Fortunately the stuff I want to write is usually pretty commercial, so I rarely have a huge gulf between one and the other.

HiddenGecko
Apr 15, 2007

You think I'm really going
to read this shit?

aslan posted:


There's no point in writing only for the market, though. A) You probably don't understand what makes something popular, and your imitation is likely to miss the mark. B) What sells tends to change quickly, and writing tends to go slowly, so by the time your novel is finished, the trend you wrote it to capitalize on will either by over or the market will be flooded. That's why most writers/publishers/agents will advise you to write the book you wish you could find on shelves but can't--if you want to read something like it, other people probably do too. Unless you're a total weirdo.


This man speaks the truth and articulated it better than I can. Write what you want to read, not what you think the market wants to read.

screenwritersblues
Sep 13, 2010
So what's the general opinion of Fan Fiction? I know that most of it is really bad, but I've come across some really well written ones, but not really good, just well written. Is there really such a thing as good fan fiction or is it all bad and is it strange that I want to dabble in it?

HiddenGecko
Apr 15, 2007

You think I'm really going
to read this shit?

screenwritersblues posted:

So what's the general opinion of Fan Fiction? I know that most of it is really bad, but I've come across some really well written ones, but not really good, just well written. Is there really such a thing as good fan fiction or is it all bad and is it strange that I want to dabble in it?

I've always seen it as a crutch, or at the best a set of training wheels towards real writing.

Basically I feel it's the same thing as building your story with Legoes instead of building it out of pure imagination. A fan canon does all the work for you, you just gotta put in the characters and the situations and BAM you got a story.

It's a good stepping stone if you're not used to building ideas into stories or are intimidated by the prospect of the ideas in your head being somehow "good" or "bad" by an outside metric.

I'd personally avoid writing fan fiction. You'll learn a whole lot more by spewing out a million words of crap that didn't exist anywhere but your own head till that moment than an equal number of fan fiction words that is just exploring someone else's ideas.

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

If you really want to, and you think it'll be entertaining, then do so as much as you would do anything else entertaining. It's not going to kill you. But it'll be inferior as a method of practice or as an artistic product to original fiction, so if you want to be a 'writer' you should do original work too.

Like Gecko I like 'training wheels' as an analogy.

Crisco Kid
Jan 14, 2008

Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book?

screenwritersblues posted:

So what's the general opinion of Fan Fiction? I know that most of it is really bad, but I've come across some really well written ones, but not really good, just well written. Is there really such a thing as good fan fiction or is it all bad and is it strange that I want to dabble in it?
The complaints I hear about fanfiction typically fall into "it's usually bad," and "it's lazy because you aren't working with your own creations."

Both of these sins fall apart under scrutiny, because fanfiction can't be compared to published fiction in terms of quality/percentage on equal terms since it's usually the work of a single person without the benefit of slush pile sorting or an editor. Most creative efforts, without the benefit of a quality gatekeeper or professional editing, will be pretty bad -- this is not a special quality of fanfiction that makes it inherently inferior.

The derivative part is more complicated. There are some people who find derivative work offensive by definition; this is especially hilarious when they're fans of comics, the most successful fanfic market in existence. You have to start asking at what point does dabbling with someone else's characters stop being fanfic and start being "real art," if ever? Is fanfic the only thing you're supposed to hate, or fanart (which seems to enjoy more approval for some reason)? Star Wars novelizations? Any version of Batman not a product of Bob Kane and Bill Finger? Everything from Nolan's Dark Knight to the Timm Bruce cartoon to Frank Miller's Dark Knight is derivative. So is the BBC production of Sherlock, and the Downey Jr. Sherlock films. All could be called fanfic regardless of production values and creative teams attached.

I personally don't think working with someone else's creations requires less effort or can produce less entertaining art. While it's true fanfic can be the training wheels for young writers (who often move on to original creations), plenty of published authors have admitted to writing it. This gets down to the reasons people write it in the first place: love of the original subject. Whether a 14 year-old is fumbling through a Sailor Moon story or an experienced writer is covertly penning some lost Firefly episodes, they're all doing it because they love the original world enough that they're moved to create something in response. This is true of any fanwork, even the stupidest ones. It's just a love letter, is all. Nothing about that affects the integrity of the original work, but something about it grabbed hold of someone and made them ask "what if this happened?"

tldr; of course it's possible to be good, and no it's not weird to want to be part of an idea you really like. The real questions you have to ask yourself are, do you want to write and create beyond fanwork (not everybody does, and that's fine), and if so what can you learn from it?

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
If you write fan fiction, please murder yourself immediately for the sake of the human race.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

If you write fan fiction, please murder yourself immediately for the sake of the human race.

Mm yes, incisive as always

If you're only writing for giggles of your own, fanfiction is fine. If you want to pursue writing with any degree of seriousness, it's a distraction, and a bad one at that. Best-case scenario, you're developing your imagery and narrative skills using someone else's intellectual property, and why the hell would you do that when you can just make your own story and practice those elements of your craft alongside developing your own ideas? You won't get branded with a scarlet letter or anything for writing it, but there's very little point to doing so unless you're just wanting to get kicks on the internet and maybe let other people see your thoughts of fictional characters being naked with one another.

50 Shades of Gray has kind of stuck a pin in the safe assertion that all fanfic is a dead end (cuz it made megabucks), but personally I think that's not so much because of the fanfic aspect as the softcore-porn one.

HiddenGecko
Apr 15, 2007

You think I'm really going
to read this shit?

Crisco Kid posted:

The complaints I hear about fanfiction typically fall into "it's usually bad," and "it's lazy because you aren't working with your own creations."

Both of these sins fall apart under scrutiny, because fanfiction can't be compared to published fiction in terms of quality/percentage on equal terms since it's usually the work of a single person without the benefit of slush pile sorting or an editor. Most creative efforts, without the benefit of a quality gatekeeper or professional editing, will be pretty bad -- this is not a special quality of fanfiction that makes it inherently inferior.

The derivative part is more complicated. There are some people who find derivative work offensive by definition; this is especially hilarious when they're fans of comics, the most successful fanfic market in existence. You have to start asking at what point does dabbling with someone else's characters stop being fanfic and start being "real art," if ever? Is fanfic the only thing you're supposed to hate, or fanart (which seems to enjoy more approval for some reason)? Star Wars novelizations? Any version of Batman not a product of Bob Kane and Bill Finger? Everything from Nolan's Dark Knight to the Timm Bruce cartoon to Frank Miller's Dark Knight is derivative. So is the BBC production of Sherlock, and the Downey Jr. Sherlock films. All could be called fanfic regardless of production values and creative teams attached.

I personally don't think working with someone else's creations requires less effort or can produce less entertaining art. While it's true fanfic can be the training wheels for young writers (who often move on to original creations), plenty of published authors have admitted to writing it. This gets down to the reasons people write it in the first place: love of the original subject. Whether a 14 year-old is fumbling through a Sailor Moon story or an experienced writer is covertly penning some lost Firefly episodes, they're all doing it because they love the original world enough that they're moved to create something in response. This is true of any fanwork, even the stupidest ones. It's just a love letter, is all. Nothing about that affects the integrity of the original work, but something about it grabbed hold of someone and made them ask "what if this happened?"

tldr; of course it's possible to be good, and no it's not weird to want to be part of an idea you really like. The real questions you have to ask yourself are, do you want to write and create beyond fanwork (not everybody does, and that's fine), and if so what can you learn from it?

All this is true. And as a fan of overly derivative work (especially Warhol and the legion of pop art that followed him) I'm not really that harsh on fan fiction. It get's people writing and that's what counts in the end.

But it is still a crutch on your imagination. It makes you lazy and dependent on what is possible within a canon rather than exploring your own ideas or creating new things.

The examples of scriptwriters, Batman movies, Dr. Who are actually not fanfiction in any way. They rely on previous things and are largely derivative but are new creations in their own right and not fan fiction. Fan fiction is, by its very definition, fiction for/by the fans. Whom are often far too close to the source material or what they perceive in the canon to be "good" to create something truly unique.

Neil Gaiman writing a Dr. Who script is not fan fiction, just like Nolan's take on Batman is no more legitimate than Burton's or Shumacker. It's far more easy to pick out the written fan fiction than the visual stuff, because most of it reads like a thirteen year old stole his mom's laptop.

HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Dec 31, 2012

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
I agree. I could write about my depressingly short dick and probably make a buck or two. You have to decide how much of a whore you want to be. Me? I want to be a rich and famous whore, and I have zero qualms with writing for money, but even I won't slut out for 50 Shades of poo poo style crap. I'd rather not think of fat married women flicking their wrinkly beans to what I'd write while they contemplate their miserable lives.

HiddenGecko
Apr 15, 2007

You think I'm really going
to read this shit?

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I agree. I could write about my depressingly short dick and probably make a buck or two. You have to decide how much of a whore you want to be. Me? I want to be a rich and famous whore, and I have zero qualms with writing for money, but even I won't slut out for 50 Shades of poo poo style crap. I'd rather not think of fat married women flicking their wrinkly beans to what I'd write while they contemplate their miserable lives.

You're the ID to my Superego.

Crisco Kid
Jan 14, 2008

Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book?

HiddenGecko posted:

But it is still a crutch on your imagination. It makes you lazy and dependent on what is possible within a canon rather than exploring your own ideas or creating new things.

The examples of scriptwriters, Batman movies, Dr. Who are actually not fanfiction in any way. They rely on previous things and are largely derivative but are new creations in their own right and not fan fiction. Fan fiction is, by its very definition, fiction for/by the fans. Whom are often far too close to the source material or what they perceive in the canon to be "good" to create something truly unique.
Is derivative fiction created by a fan or a screenwriter so fundamentally different, though? I'm pretty sure Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were huge LotR fans, likewise with any current Dr. Who writers. They appear to be creations in their own right because they jumped media and because the names and money attached to them give them credibility. Like with anything intended to make a profit, we only end up seeing the creme of the crop. Even Transformers, I'm afraid.

I'm not saying that most fans don't do exactly as you describe, but there are so many fans out there -- and of such varying ability and intention, since literally anyone can make fanwork -- that it feels like no absolutes on quality can be made without a whole lotta goalpost moving. Whether or not derivative art makes the artist better, I certainly think it can make the subject better: the Batman mythos has benefited enormously from the mentioned additions, for example. This is something I find particularly fascinating about television and comic writing, since it's not so much about the development of you the writer but about the development of a shared world. But I hope every artist learns from everything they create, whether it be a failed short story, a 1000 word Thunderdome challenge, or a self-indulgent fanfic.

edit: I guess this is partly a reaction to some of the lit threads and communities, where you can always find a few people creating increasingly exclusive (and arbitrary) markers for what is or isn't "good art," and what their refined tastes are therefore able to find useful. Like, why would someone brag about how little you're able to learn from?? Basically, you can do anything in a stupid way or a non-stupid way, execution is everything. So it's your fault if it's stupid.

Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Dec 31, 2012

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

Perhaps the most important difference is that Gaiman and Nolan and so on get real critical feedback on what they write, rather than a tvtropes hugbox.

Crisco Kid
Jan 14, 2008

Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book?

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I'd rather not think of fat married women flicking their wrinkly beans to what I'd write while they contemplate their miserable lives.

So we can take it you're not a fan of erotica, then.

Speaking of, thanks to whoever linked that "Ask me about" Delilah Fawkes/Erotica thread a few pages back. It turned out to be way more interesting than I expected!

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

Crisco Kid posted:

Is derivative fiction created by a fan or a screenwriter so fundamentally different, though? I'm pretty sure Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were huge LotR fans, likewise with any current Dr. Who writers. They appear to be creations in their own right because they jumped media and because the names and money attached to them give them credibility. Like with anything intended to make a profit, we only end up seeing the creme of the crop. Even Transformers, I'm afraid.

I'm not saying that most fans don't do exactly as you describe, but there are so many fans out there -- and of such varying ability and intention, since literally anyone can make fanwork -- that it feels like no absolutes on quality can be made without a whole lotta goalpost moving. Whether or not derivative art makes the artist better, I certainly think it can make the subject better: the Batman mythos has benefited enormously from the mentioned additions, for example. This is something I find particularly fascinating about television and comic writing, since it's not so much about the development of you the writer but about the development of a shared world. But I hope every artist learns from everything they create, whether it be a failed short story, a 1000 word Thunderdome challenge, or a self-indulgent fanfic.

edit: I guess this is partly a reaction to some of the lit threads and communities, where you can always find a few people creating increasingly exclusive (and arbitrary) markers for what is or isn't "good art," and what their refined tastes are therefore able to find useful. Like, why would someone brag about how little you're able to learn from?? Basically, you can do anything in a stupid way or a non-stupid way, execution is everything. So it's your fault if it's stupid.

You can pretty much cite copyright law to draw a (albeit fuzzy) line in the sand. A work based on another must be significantly different--transformative--to be considered an original work. Fan work can't be sold--except when you change all the character's names, the setting, etc., and then you have 50 Shades of Whatever. The whole "serious writers, don't waste your time on fanfic" thing is about not wasting time on things that can't forward their career in a concrete monetary way. Therefore, making anything based on Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare is fine becuase they're now public domain.

TV, comics, and novelizations of popular franchises belong in a different catagory entirely. These begin as group projects, and continue as group efforts long after the original creators have left the team. However, fans can't just write a superhero comic and turn around and sell it because large companies own these franchises.

There's nothing wrong with dabbling in fan bullshit as a hobby. Hell, I mod games as a hobby and I can never make money at it because that would step over the copyright line. Is it a waste of time? Sure, it's a bigass waste of time, but it's fun as hell and everyone's allowed a hobby. Even artists are allowed to have hobbies and piss away their creative energy on harmless fun, whatever that might be. If a pro writer wants to take a break from their stories and write Firefly fanfic in their spare time, who the gently caress cares?

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Maybe I'm giving readers too much credit, but it seems like with the internet and sites like TV tropes, people are getting more canny to when they're reading something an author shat out because they're trying to write the next big seller (Twilight, Harry Potter, Dan Brown's poo poo, etc...). I personally like reading books where the author has fleshed out an original idea that they are passionate about. Most of us will know what genre we're writing in, and if anything I think it's better to know the market in your genre and then try to do something different. For all the readers clamoring to spend their dollars on awful vampire fiction, there is a huge silent majority waiting for something else.

Regarding fan fiction, I think it's a lot like fanart, which our friends over in the daily drawing thread advise people to not spend too much time on. Copying/elaborating on something you like isn't bad and the CC police aren't going to come to your house. But I've noticed online communities that host a lot of fanart/fiction are like giant echo chambers, and it's hard to get non-fanfiction writers to critique work that isn't original.

So it might be a fine thing to do for yourself or for fun or practice, but I don't think it would yield a lot of helpful feedback.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
Speak for yourself, T-dog. I'll come to a mothafuckers house if I see fit.

Drunk in Manhattan btw

An like happy new year and poo poo

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Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Are you drunk on Manhattans in Manhattan

Also now the world knows my IRL first initial =0

You know it's funny, when I was a high school student writing sci fi "novels" in my small town starbucks while waiting for my shift at the outlet mall to start, I would always pick like 2013-2015 as my setting. My thought was that it was far enough away to be, you know, science fictiony, but close enough to be recognizable.

Yeah iPhone apps aren't exactly the same as space travel or lasers but I feel more or less in the future. Still waiting for nanites so I can download my porns directly to my frontal lobe.

happy new year CC, my resolution is to post some things.

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