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 Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:50 am
I'm curious. What do you like to write best - fanfiction or originals? Being a writer's guild, I'd put my money on the "originals", but then again a huge portion of the online community - myself included - has been known to fall prey to the fanfiction bug...
So, which is it? ^^
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:22 pm
That's a very interesting question. I like to write originals when doing short stories and fan fiction for novellettes. And when I'm feeling retarded and goofy, I do equally retarded and goofy mini-comics!
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Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:01 pm
I'll be honest, I hate fan-fiction. In my opinion, fan-fiction creates an environment where a person can write without developing any of the real talents needed for good writing. Fan-fic does nothing to teach character creation, description, world development, or character development. The only thing it teaches is plot development, and even that people often shirk off by keeping their story within the premises of the original stories plot ark.
Beyond that, there's the total lack of creativity in the plot. There's only so many ways that a writer can insert themselves into a pre-existing story either getting saved by, or saving the main characters. Likewise, there's a limited number of ways a pair of characters from any given show, book, or series, or combination of these genre's, can have sex. Slash/Lemons, or whatever they happen to call it in your particular neck of the woods irritates the life out of me.
Finally, I cannot understand how a writer can, in good ethics, steel the characters, worlds, and ideas of another writer. Maybe I’m weird, but I have a very personal relationship to my characters. A lot of thought goes into each of them, just as I put a lot of thought into every world I place them in. I do a lot of work learning about and developing these characters, getting to know them, and the idea of someone coming along and taking them repulses me. I can only assume that other writers feel the same about there characters and worlds, and therefore out of respect cannot condone fan-fiction.
Ok, my rant is finished. Feel free to rave about how wrong I am.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:46 am
Wrong? No and I'm not here to try to change your mind either. Although I immensely enjoy fanfiction - that 1% that's actually good -, I do understand some of the reasons why you hate it.
Fanfiction might not be such an intense exercise as writing something entirely original, but mind you, if it's to be done properly it's not that light either. There's lots of room to practice character development - I've seen stories with exclusively original characters, where only the world was vaguely recognisable - and world development - the famed "AUs". The thing is, you probably won't be practicing all those skills at once. I first started out in fanfic-land precisely because I wanted to practice my writing and my english and, since both my imagination and the amount of time I could spare were limited, fanfiction became an excellent way to do that.
About the "stealing" factor: I honestly think people take themselves too seriously sometimes. There are boundaries that should never be crossed - like taking advantage of someone else's creations for profit or to promote themselves or N other situations of the like - but seriously, people don't make fanfiction to try to replace the original on which its based. They do it because they love it, and if anything I consider fanfiction as encouragement to go and read/watch/whatever that wonderful original which inspired the author of the fic so much. If you like classical music, there are mountains of examples where a composer inserts famous themes in his work as tribute to other composers. I see fanfiction in pretty much the same light.
But then again, I can understand your perspective. There are dungpiles upon dungpiles of fanfiction on the web, and if even among fanfiction authors there are cases of plagiarism, it's certainly not easy to dismiss the issue.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:29 am
I must agree with Cyn - I love the singular percent of it that is good. The best thing about fanfiction is that it's a great opportunity to refine your plot and character development. There's no need to worry about the basics of characters or the general idea of plot - they're already there.
What you can do is take the characters that you've been given and put them in new situations that will tweak their personalities or display more characteristics than the original story allowed. The same goes with the plot. Like the general concept but hate where it's taken? You can keep what you like and send it off in a completely new direction, making a new story all your own.
Basically, I don't view the good fanfics as the ones that deviate and remerge with the original plotline. I see good fanfiction as the tales that take the story halfway through (or even after the original is finished), add completely new concepts to it, and send the fanfic branching in another direction that leads to entirely different problems, characters, and places. Good fanfiction is a tale of what the original story could have been had one event been changed in the slightest.
Cyn might know (probably does) about the fanfics La Ra Everlasting Frost and Severed, both in the Escaflowne fandom. La Ra Everlasting Frost starts halfway through the series and takes the character Dilandau Albatou into a "legendary" place mentioned in the show. The author then uses the lack of info on this area to add magical powers and the threat of an "everlasting frost" looming over the world. As the story goes, the author's Dilandau becomes less and less like the original Dilandau as he experiences new and different things.
Severed does much the same thing. It conjectures that Dilandau and Celena were naturally in the same body rather than artificially as the story says. This leads to Dilandau becoming deathly ill and leaving his country (which he would have never done in the real tale).
These are the kinds of fanfictions that I like - the things that start off with small changes that turn the story completely upside down with new ideas and threats. In that way, I see fanfiction as more of a homage to the original creator, a unique opportunity to practice plot and character developments, and a way to shake the post-series blues.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:26 pm
I can see your point to some extent. While I still dont like the idea of people using the characters developed by another writer, I also recognize that worlds can be adopted and adapted fairly easily from one to the next, particulerly within the same genre. I guess my issue is that most of the fan fiction i've read was crap. I've also seen people who did have tallent for writing, but who couldnt produce an original story with original characters. their technical skill was wonderful, but thier creative ability was horribly lacking. I've seen enough writers like that, that I started viewing fan-fiction as detrimental to development as a writer, and even crippleing in some cases. Perhaps my problem is simply that I haven't been exposed to the truely good fan-fiction that is out there.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:42 pm
Yes, sadly one must do some serious digging (and be very good at knowing what to look for in a summary) in order to find the good fanfiction. Like you said, most fanfic writers are not good with changing character personalities and thus are unable to make the characters their own (in a sense, make them become "original" characters through feasible events) and thus interesting.
There are also a few good AUs out there. Those are even harder to find than non-AUs, but if you can find a good AU, then... Jackpot! You might as well have found an original novel in the bookstore. The wonderful thing is when an author uses the basics of a few characters and maybe a few of their traits/powers and completely changes those powers into something hardly recognizable.
An example of this would be the Naruto fanfic Shadow Lands by Renalin, which is most likely the absolute best AU fanfic I have read amongst my dozens of varied good and bad AUs. It has a few of the main characters, but they have been twisted to match their bleak circumstances.
The characters live in a country torn by a civil war over the morality of genetic alteration and experimentation on humans. The characters are all orphans, and despite being too young to evade drafting (all orphaned children under 18 are immediately drafted or killed) they have each escaped somehow.
Sakura ran to a major city and managed to use her beauty to land a job in the middle of an unemployment crisis. Sasuke has used his skills as a "raider" (read here: burglar/thief) to keep himself alive and hidden. His eyes occasionally turn red from what could be genetic experimentation, just as he as they do in the anime (though the anime pins that to a bloodline ability), and like the original version who had a chakra affinity for fire, he is also a pyromaniac. Naruto was also genetically tampered with, creating a tattoo on his stomach that is exactly the same as the one in the anime. It is unclear what Renalin's tattoo means, but it will be interesting to find out.
The tale begins with a chance meeting of Sasuke and Sakura, who are quickly joined by Sasuke's friend Naruto. They are first forced together to escape falling shells (a daily occurence in this world) and later live together after Sasuke's pyromania gets the better of him and he torches Sakura's apartment building.
But quickly they discover disturbing secrets about their side of the war and go on a mission to discover the truth that their government has tried so hard to hide; on the crew's side of the war, not a single girl has been born in the past 10 years.
This is what I mean by a great AU. It's like a whole different tale in which ideas from the original work are carefully warped and woven into the fanfiction in a completely natural-feeling manner. A good AU is just a bunch of characters whose personalities and possibly some skills resemble the originals, being flung into what is basically another world with no memory of their original story.
This is what makes a good AU. Similar characters, alternate universe. If well done, it is bliss. If poorly done, well... Get out the match. There is hardly any middle ground in the world of AUs. Either it sucks or it rocks, and sadly the former is almost invariably the case. However, the good ones are so good that it's worth it - you feel like you're reading a published novel, and THAT is fun.
Duello, if at some point you are totally, utterly bored and want to see what one of the rare GOOD fanfictions is, just tell me a fairly common fandom (I mostly know animes - Naruto, Death Note, Escaflowne, etc.) and I'll see what I can dig up. A word to the wise: don't read crossovers. More often than not they suck and the interesting ones are simply not worth the headache it takes to unearth them.
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:15 pm
ok, common fandoms... well lets start with the anime since it's your speciality: rurouni kenshin, gundam wing/ g gundam, robotech, full metal alchemist, vampire hunter D. additionaly anything from tolkin's universe or the Forgoten Realms books would work. if you can find fan-fics for anything i've listed, i'll give it a read. I'm willing to be convinced if you can give me a good example.
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:04 am
duello ok, common fandoms... well lets start with the anime since it's your speciality: rurouni kenshin, gundam wing/ g gundam, robotech, full metal alchemist, vampire hunter D. additionaly anything from tolkin's universe or the Forgoten Realms books would work. if you can find fan-fics for anything i've listed, i'll give it a read. I'm willing to be convinced if you can give me a good example. Any favourite genres? I know a few good 'Lord of the Rings' ones - some comedy, some action/adventure...
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:44 am
I like to write fanfics because you alrady have a good outline to work with, such as setting, characters, prope, etc. Originals, however, take more work, but you can do whatever you want when it comes to worlds and characters. I am currently working on a Star Wars fanfic and I'm doing great.
I have done originals in the past, like thee failed Makina Chronicles series and Tubs the cat when I was little. This is actually my first writtenfanfic, but I have a saved Lord of the Rings storyline in my head that is quite extensive.
Fanfic or original, do whatever you feel comfortable with and are good at doing. I tend to with my fanfics make up new protagonists and antagonists and have the already-made characters act as support roles. Hell, I've already made up three whole new planets in my SW fanfic.
In summary, fanfics might be good for beginners or dabblers in a new topic, like yours truly, and originals might suit seasoned vets like PyroAurah up there.
(I think this the longest posting I have ever done) ninja stare
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:55 am
i'm more of an action/adventure type person. although i do enjoy a good comedy from time to time.
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 1:11 pm
I agree with you, duello. I love action/adventure stories. Sadly, it is very hard to find a solid, creative fanfic that manages to set romance on the back burner in favor of a strong plotline. I hate romance fics; they all run together after a while.
In a day or so I might be able to come up with a good Ruroni Kenshin fic (I haven't done any looking in on that fandom before, despite having seen the first season of the anime) or if you like Final Fantasy 7 I could come up with a lot of those fics.
In the meantime, here's a really good AU. Don't worry, you don't need to know anything about Naruto in order to understand it.
"Shadow Lands" by Renalin
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:17 am
I've always liked Cassia and Siobhan's writing. If you've ever read the Jedi Apprentice books by Jude Watson, these Lord of the Rings fanfics are very reminiscent of those. The Mellon Chronicles is a series that focuses on Aragorn and Legolas' adventures before the trilogy (though I think there's one or two that occurs afterwards as well). On the other hand, if you're in the mood for humour, I'd recommend TreeHugger's In the Hall of the Wood Elf King or Elrond's Most Forgettable Birthday. I'm sorry I can't point you in the direction of any Silmarillion fics, duello, if you were hoping for any. I like to keep a good distance between myself and that particular fandom, as I found the book perfectly satisfactory and never felt like ruining it by sifting through bad fics.
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