On (Fan) Fiction
Aug. 21st, 2003 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottishlassAlmost everyone I know is either heavily involved in one fandom or the other and/or writes fanfiction. May it be for S:AAB, Farscape, LotR, Orli etc. Most of my friends are awesome writers and sometimes I really ask myself why they are not already established writers because I really 'fall' into their fics.
During my time as web archivist for two fanfiction archives (S:AAB FanFic Flightdeck and m.i.t.m.) I have come across a lot of stories and authors. I had the pleasure to see fledgling writers evolve and also established writers to run full circle and become published in real. That is the good side.
The down side is, I have also seen writers ... or so called ones who are too recalcitrant to learn anything about the craft of writing, let alone use beta readers at their disposal :s
Luckily in S:AAB there are some awesome writers, probably because they are more mature and because of the subject matter. Space: Above And Beyond is a well written, well paced and well plotted series with strong characters. The writers of that fandom are the same. Their skill and craft shines through their fiction. It is both a pleasure to read and archive.
Same goes with Farscape, also mature fans and brilliant writing.
Unfortunately, that is not true for other fandoms ... e.g. LotR (though I don't read much of that - I only make exceptions with friends even though they know that if I don't like what I read I tell them and stop reading) and Orlific ... Now, because of the subject matter (OB) this fandom has a lot of teenagers. Nothing wrong with that, but when these teenagers try to write and think they have written something akin to Joyce, Woolf or Hemingway and their work shows that they definitely have not ... then I have a HUGE problem. I really don't care how mature or immature a writer is as long as the story produced is spelled correctly, good grammar, has coherent plotting & sentences, and stays in character. Alas, some writers can't even follow the first two, not to mention coherency or characterization. What is really bad is that I have given up on telling writers that they should at least run a spell checker over their stories or get a beta reader. I know it is bad, but after over a year as archivist for an OB fanfic archive, I somehow have lost my zest for making mediocre writers better. After reading and converting the umpteenth fic with bad spelling, bad grammar, bad plotting and incoherency, I have given up. Literally. One skimmed look over a story and I shrug and up it goes onto the site. No quality check; however no bleeding eyes either :)
At first, I felt really bad about it, but nowadays I have discovered that I really don't have the energy anymore to even bother. Bad, bad Una ... but I can't help it.
Same as a reader ... if I don't like a fic (both fan and pro-fic) from the first two pages, I close it and never open it again. Am I too hard on writers? Too arrogant? Or just too full of useless knowledge from my studies at university?
Do you also have these hard feelings about fanfiction? Or am I way off?
------
Chatting to
elfnut ... she is at home because her doctor suspects her to have meningitis. ... Even thought o sound like an old LP on repeat: Elf, LAY DOWN!!! TAKE IT EASY!!!
'Nuff said for now - I should either start on tomorrow's m.i.t.m. update or write a bit more ...
During my time as web archivist for two fanfiction archives (S:AAB FanFic Flightdeck and m.i.t.m.) I have come across a lot of stories and authors. I had the pleasure to see fledgling writers evolve and also established writers to run full circle and become published in real. That is the good side.
The down side is, I have also seen writers ... or so called ones who are too recalcitrant to learn anything about the craft of writing, let alone use beta readers at their disposal :s
Luckily in S:AAB there are some awesome writers, probably because they are more mature and because of the subject matter. Space: Above And Beyond is a well written, well paced and well plotted series with strong characters. The writers of that fandom are the same. Their skill and craft shines through their fiction. It is both a pleasure to read and archive.
Same goes with Farscape, also mature fans and brilliant writing.
Unfortunately, that is not true for other fandoms ... e.g. LotR (though I don't read much of that - I only make exceptions with friends even though they know that if I don't like what I read I tell them and stop reading) and Orlific ... Now, because of the subject matter (OB) this fandom has a lot of teenagers. Nothing wrong with that, but when these teenagers try to write and think they have written something akin to Joyce, Woolf or Hemingway and their work shows that they definitely have not ... then I have a HUGE problem. I really don't care how mature or immature a writer is as long as the story produced is spelled correctly, good grammar, has coherent plotting & sentences, and stays in character. Alas, some writers can't even follow the first two, not to mention coherency or characterization. What is really bad is that I have given up on telling writers that they should at least run a spell checker over their stories or get a beta reader. I know it is bad, but after over a year as archivist for an OB fanfic archive, I somehow have lost my zest for making mediocre writers better. After reading and converting the umpteenth fic with bad spelling, bad grammar, bad plotting and incoherency, I have given up. Literally. One skimmed look over a story and I shrug and up it goes onto the site. No quality check; however no bleeding eyes either :)
At first, I felt really bad about it, but nowadays I have discovered that I really don't have the energy anymore to even bother. Bad, bad Una ... but I can't help it.
Same as a reader ... if I don't like a fic (both fan and pro-fic) from the first two pages, I close it and never open it again. Am I too hard on writers? Too arrogant? Or just too full of useless knowledge from my studies at university?
Do you also have these hard feelings about fanfiction? Or am I way off?
------
Chatting to
elfnut ... she is at home because her doctor suspects her to have meningitis. ... Even thought o sound like an old LP on repeat: Elf, LAY DOWN!!! TAKE IT EASY!!!'Nuff said for now - I should either start on tomorrow's m.i.t.m. update or write a bit more ...
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 10:17 am (UTC)I absolutely agree. So we are already three elitist bitches
I already tried to get rid of really badly written fic, like netspeak etc. with our submission rules, but a lot slips past me and Nedra. Because we don't have the time to read through every new fic that is submitted to us (and we would probably die of brain tissue softening with grey matter leaking out of our ears).
The reason why I brought this up is that I rejected two fics recently and the writers started to stir shit via email. It got me thinking that I might be too harsh, but then again reading your and Sez' comments I am confident again that I did the right thing.
Perhaps I'm even a bit more sensitive especially to grammar and tenses as I am not a native speaker of English. At my school you had the grammar rammed down your throat with a hot poker, even though it didn't help a lot in my case ... blame it on my Scottish relatives :) I can't understand why ppl only want to have reviews .. and positive reviews at that, and over all that ass licking they never evolve as a writer. I had a fight over this issue with two writers from the site, I told them that they could even become better writers if they used a good beta reader who might tighten up their fics a bit because they are so damn long (and becoming tedious after a while) ... the results were they left a beta list because they couldn't 'bear a full blown beta'. Hello? The harsher a beta is, the more a beta reader nitpicks the more I get better as a writer. Give ten reviews of 'Well done, Una, it's brilliant, wow, good I want more' and I would trade all of them in for one honest 'Una, you lost it in chapter two and never got back on track because of this and this and that reason.'
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 07:15 pm (UTC)amen! I would trade most of my reviews of "plz write more! It's great!!!11' for a few 'while very enjoyable, the cursing is a bit much but understandable and you could really use some fleshing out in chapters X, Y and Z.'
I would rather have an honest review picking my stuff apart piece by piece than a general 'it's good'.
Show, don't tell ^_^
And hi Una! ^__^
no subject
Date: 2003-08-24 06:14 am (UTC)A-FREAKING-MEN.
Hit the nail on the head with that one. I'd much rather be told exactly what's WRONG with my fic (and let's be honest... there is no 100% PERFECT fic out there) than have multitudes of people tell me "U rock so hard! More plz!!!11!" Ugh. Spare me.