No, at best fanfic is using someone elses gruntwork. Sort of like using a function library when programming. And it swings both ways, it's less work to write and less work to read, as long as you're familiar with the library.
I had been writing original fiction for a decade when I started in on fanfic, and though I've never been published in anything grander than national fanzines I'm well aware of how professional publishing works and much work for how little reward there is in it. I don't need pointers to any competitions, particularly not to ones invoking Hubbard. You associate your name with him if you want.
Go read (for example) Henry Jenkins "Textual Poachers", so you can insult people from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance in the future. I asked for opinions on what people might want to read, not for disparaging remarks on my writing skills. If you want to do that sort of thing, do it with pointers to my writing so I at least have a chance to learn.
So do I. However, from looking at the URL, he was pointing to some sub-directory of the "Undocumented Features" shared-universe meta-multi-crossover series. I suppose you could call it an example of fanfic not being training wheels, since it has clearly, a long, long time ago, mutated into a universe of its own. However, it's so much a universe of its own, it's more like a soap opera -- you haven't got a clue unless you were there from the beginning.
As for the poll, hey, Calle, just do what you want. You know you will anyway.
Real writing involves creating characters as well. Fanfic is trainer wheels at best.
Hm. You'll be wanting to tell Tom Stoppard that as well, so he can return his Tony for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and his Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, since one is fanfic using Shakespeare's characters and the other is real-person fanfic. And be sure that Shakespeare himself is denounced as a hack, since he co-opted not only characters, but entire plots.
Or perhaps you might consider that fanfic can and often does include original characters to interact with canon characters. And that writing about characters with which your readers are intimately familiar often requires more careful and skillful characterization than writing about characters that only you have any idea of what they are like.
Can fanfic be an invitation to sloppy writing? Certainly. But choosing to write well or sloppily is a function of the writer's ability and effort, not of whether the work is original or derivative.
(And Calle, if you find this post overly argumentative or otherwise inappropriate, please go ahead and delete it.)
Argh, is it NaNoWriMo again already? I keep telling myself, 'Next year I'll have the time,' but you know how that goes. I really wish they'd do it in February or March instead of November, though.
I say go for it! (I did vote for original fic, but just as a change of pace. I'd love to see you make a story from one of those game scenarios you posted last week. But to get it done in a month, I guess you'd better just write whatever wants out of your brain the most at the moment.)
And maybe if I can get a few things caught up around here, I'll join you.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 05:21 am (UTC)You don't write yourself, do you?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 05:25 am (UTC)Evidently she doesn't. ;-)
Your writing for nanowrimo should be anything you want it to be!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 07:51 am (UTC)2. Not much, and not lately. But in any case, you did ask in the ticky-box.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 01:46 pm (UTC)Go read (for example) Henry Jenkins "Textual Poachers", so you can insult people from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance in the future. I asked for opinions on what people might want to read, not for disparaging remarks on my writing skills. If you want to do that sort of thing, do it with pointers to my writing so I at least have a chance to learn.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-12 03:45 pm (UTC)Read this...
Date: 2003-10-12 01:39 pm (UTC)And tell me that fanfic is training wheels...
Re: Read this...
Date: 2003-10-12 01:51 pm (UTC)Re: Read this...
Date: 2003-10-12 03:16 pm (UTC)However, from looking at the URL, he was pointing to some sub-directory of the "Undocumented Features" shared-universe meta-multi-crossover series. I suppose you could call it an example of fanfic not being training wheels, since it has clearly, a long, long time ago, mutated into a universe of its own. However, it's so much a universe of its own, it's more like a soap opera -- you haven't got a clue unless you were there from the beginning.
As for the poll, hey, Calle, just do what you want. You know you will anyway.
Re: Read this...
Date: 2003-10-12 04:05 pm (UTC)Shalon Wood
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-13 06:06 am (UTC)Hm. You'll be wanting to tell Tom Stoppard that as well, so he can return his Tony for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and his Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, since one is fanfic using Shakespeare's characters and the other is real-person fanfic. And be sure that Shakespeare himself is denounced as a hack, since he co-opted not only characters, but entire plots.
Or perhaps you might consider that fanfic can and often does include original characters to interact with canon characters. And that writing about characters with which your readers are intimately familiar often requires more careful and skillful characterization than writing about characters that only you have any idea of what they are like.
Can fanfic be an invitation to sloppy writing? Certainly. But choosing to write well or sloppily is a function of the writer's ability and effort, not of whether the work is original or derivative.
(And Calle, if you find this post overly argumentative or otherwise inappropriate, please go ahead and delete it.)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-13 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-13 05:50 am (UTC)I say go for it! (I did vote for original fic, but just as a change of pace. I'd love to see you make a story from one of those game scenarios you posted last week. But to get it done in a month, I guess you'd better just write whatever wants out of your brain the most at the moment.)
And maybe if I can get a few things caught up around here, I'll join you.