(no subject)

[brigdh]

New computer! New computer! New computer!

Feel my glee, y'all. ^_^ It's a Dell Latitude, and I'm so very happy with it. It still needs a name, though...

While I was in the computer store, which also does repairs, someone came in to drop off their laptop. It was the exact same brand and make as my last one, and it had the same problem that I'd had. Hah. I knew it wasn't my fault.

Okay, now a bunch of links:
gushoushinfiles. For all your Yami fandom needs. It's like fandom_bb, but for YnM instead of Smallville. It'll keep track of new fic, icons, challenges, whatever. Such a cool resource. Much love for animadri. She does way too much stuff for this fandom. ^^

rinoared wrote an excellent Tatsumi/Tsuzuki/Hisoka essay for ship_manifesto. So cool.

And speaking of ship_manifesto, do you realize that no one is signed up to do Muraki/Tsuzuki? That is just wrong. Someone should sign up! Don't make me do it, my essay would be far too strongly influenced by the fact that I really dislike Muraki. But we can't let the pairing just languish.

Meanwhile, yasminm has collected 20 themes for Yami no Matsuei, plus a few bonus ones. And she's working on a list for Weiss Kreuz. Go suggest some! See, the idea is that you take these themes, and write a fic for each of them. Major, major cool points for anyone who actually manages to write all 20. But it's a very neat idea for a challenge.

And now I swear to stop pimping things out for a moment. I wouldn't have to keep making link-posts if so much stuff didn't happen. :p But I have a question that I'd like people's opinions on. At what point does fanfic become too self-indulgent? I mean, on some level, obviously all fanfic- all writing, even- is self-indulgent. It's telling stories that you expect people to listen to, writing down your daydreams- though hopefully with a bit more characterization and tighter plot- in the hope that it will make other people happy as well. But where's the point that it becomes too much? How do you know if you've gotten in to a project that's nothing but your kinks and ideas, with no interest to anyone else?

Is there a point at which some stuff just shouldn't be written? Or shouldn't be published, at least. How far can you reasonably expect readers to follow you? And how do you know when you've crossed the line?

Comments

[gamera.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting that themes link! I fell in love with the concept of theme lists in Fullmetal Alchemist fandom, where there's one for just about every popular pairing and a few crack ones as well, so a Yami one is really neat. (I'm just glad there are only twenty; I think I'm going to lose my sanity before I finish the Roy/Ed 45.)

I think that there's no point where one should stop writing a fanfic, but you should probably only expect readers to follow you as long as you can back up your ideas reasonably in the canon itself. I've seen too many works based entirely on fanon, and that's the sort of thing that's really self-indulgent.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what she said.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No problem! I'd be really interested to see how fics using these themes turn out; it's such a cool idea.

*nods* True. The fics that have obviously no effort put into them bug me. Too much fanon just makes things seem simplistic. Besides, they're never any good to read.

[katsue_fox]

Yay for new computer!!

I don't think there's any point where the writer needs to restrain self-indulgence in fanfic. There is, however, a (highly variable) point where the reader will give up reading any given fanfic if the author has disappeared off into their own little world.

There's probably a reasonably high level of wish fulfillment and personal perspectives that can be found in any fanfic. Reading stuff written by anybody I know at all well, I can often pick out stuff that says something about the author. (*Includes self in this*)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

You know, I think you're probably right. I mean, there's plenty of things that I've read and quite enjoyed, even though they were likely extremely self-indulgent for the author. But when I'm the one writing, I always feel a bit more nervous. #^^# I hardly want to become known as 'that chick who write the really weird thing.'

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Yay for your new computer!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thank you! XD

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the links! I swear I would never know anything that was going on in fandom if it weren't for link posts. *G*

As for your question, I think fanfiction becomes too self-indulgent to post when it either loses coherence or the connection to the canon. Or, obviously, both. Also, when it's more about you as the author than about the source material. That could manifest as indulgence in kinks without proper setup, it could manifest in a blatant Mary Sue, it could manifest in "issue fic," wherein the characters care passionately about an issue that, given the canon, they either wouldn't care about or wouldn't share the author's opinion on.... It could manifest any number of ways, in other words.

It's true that there's a core of self-indulgence at the heart of just about every story, and I'm not limiting that to just fanfiction, either. For a lot of people, writing is therapy, myself included. I'm not about to deny anyone that outlet. However, there's a huge difference between writing something and publishing it, and by publishing I mean making a work available in any public way. If you're going to publish a piece of writing, then that piece of writing is no longer just therapy, it's communication. And when it comes to communication, it's important that you not only be clear in what you're saying, but that you say something of interest to people other than yourself.

This is just one more area where I think beta readers come in handy, honestly. Aside from any technical assistance they provide, beta readers can also tell you if what you're saying a) makes sense and b) holds interest to at least a few people who don't live inside your head. As much as I'm sure we'd all like to think every one of our passing thoughts is of vital interest to everyone else on the planet, the fact is that's just not the case (something Anne Rice would do well to learn, to get topical for a moment). Your beta reader can tell you when you've crossed that line before you make a public ass of yourself.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the links! I swear I would never know anything that was going on in fandom if it weren't for link posts.

No worries. This fandom is way too disconnected. Though helpfully we might be a bit more centralized, now that gushoushinfiles is organizing things.

I think fanfiction becomes too self-indulgent to post when it either loses coherence or the connection to the canon.

That's a very good point, and it was the connection to canon that I was thinking of specifically. I suppose I could have phrased my question much better. AUs are one of my favorite genres, but I find that the ones that tend to be best written and have the most things to say about the characters are the ones that are very close to canon, with just a few things changed. And then you get the crazy AUs, where the characters are transported to Hogwarts or Ancient Rome or space or a pirate ship. Fics like that can often be a lot of fun, and they're not neccesarily badly written- there's an excellent LotRPS one set in a high school- but do they really count as fanfic? That's what I meant by self-indulgent: not bad, but just so far from canon that there might not be any reason for readers to follow.

Ah, well. I'm sure I'm just angsting terribly over something that isn't really that big of deal. But you're right: I need to point some beta readers at the issue and have them tell me what they think.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point, and it was the connection to canon that I was thinking of specifically. I suppose I could have phrased my question much better. AUs are one of my favorite genres, but I find that the ones that tend to be best written and have the most things to say about the characters are the ones that are very close to canon, with just a few things changed. And then you get the crazy AUs, where the characters are transported to Hogwarts or Ancient Rome or space or a pirate ship. Fics like that can often be a lot of fun, and they're not neccesarily badly written- there's an excellent LotRPS one set in a high school- but do they really count as fanfic?

I believe they do, though they may not count as successful fanfic. They're still stories based on specific source material created by someone else, stories fuelled by that fannish desire to play with the source. Sometimes that play can render the source nearly unrecognizable, true, but the impulse remains the same.

That's what I meant by self-indulgent: not bad, but just so far from canon that there might not be any reason for readers to follow.

Or at least not certain readers, so you have to decide who you want your audience to be. *G* I've seen some incredibly self-indulgent stories that garner huge audiences, but the audience make-up is often one I personally wouldn't want for my stories. Readers who like such stories often don't value the same things I value in a narrative.

On the other hand, I wouldn't say all AUs are self-indulgent, not even all the really outre ones. Some of them are all about getting at what makes the characters tick, what changes would take place if you changed their ages, their surrounding, their relationships with each other. Some of them are about the window dressing, of course, and some of them are about both window dressing and characterization questions. And then there are the stories that only use the canon setting and canon events, and still are self-indulgent because of the way they're written, the thoughts they have the characters thinking, the agenda involved. There's no way to tell by genre whether a story will be more or less self-indulgent, really.

LotRips high school, huh? I'm...disturbingly intrigued.

I didn't see you as angsting so much as just musing. *G* Is there a particular story you had in mind when posting? Or were you just addressing the issue in general?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I wouldn't say all AUs are self-indulgent, not even all the really outre ones. Some of them are all about getting at what makes the characters tick, what changes would take place if you changed their ages, their surrounding, their relationships with each other. Some of them are about the window dressing, of course, and some of them are about both window dressing and characterization questions.

*nods* Very true. And of course there've been AUs that I loved more than any closer-to-canon fic. A lot of it depends on the author, how well they know the characters and the effort that they put into predicting how changes in the enviroment lead to changes in characterization. Window dressing can be fun, but it can rarely hold a reader's attention up for longer fics unless there are other compelling elements to the story.

I was thinking, in particular, of an AU I'm writing- the ClubSoka epic, if you've heard me babbling about it. I'm getting fairly close to publishing it, or at least to sending it to a beta, which means of course that all my second thoughts and reservations are coming out. I keep going back and forth: it's a story that I want to tell, but I can't decide if it's a story worth telling, if it says anything. And while I ceetainly could write it just to amuse myself, I don't know if I want to put it so much time in effort if it would be better spent on other things. Plus, you know, I'm just shallow enough to not want to be known as 'that chick who writes the really weird AU and we humor her'.

LotRips high school, huh? I'm...disturbingly intrigued.

Ironically enough, it was updated (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=circe_tigana&keyword=LOTRIPS+High+School+AU&filter=all) this morning.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

*nods* Very true. And of course there've been AUs that I loved more than any closer-to-canon fic. A lot of it depends on the author, how well they know the characters and the effort that they put into predicting how changes in the enviroment lead to changes in characterization. Window dressing can be fun, but it can rarely hold a reader's attention up for longer fics unless there are other compelling elements to the story.

And that's true even if you're writing a non-AU, I think. I love it when an author can evoke the canon universe and do it well, but you have to be able to do more than give good setting.

I was thinking, in particular, of an AU I'm writing- the ClubSoka epic, if you've heard me babbling about it. I'm getting fairly close to publishing it, or at least to sending it to a beta, which means of course that all my second thoughts and reservations are coming out. I keep going back and forth: it's a story that I want to tell, but I can't decide if it's a story worth telling, if it says anything. And while I ceetainly could write it just to amuse myself, I don't know if I want to put it so much time in effort if it would be better spent on other things. Plus, you know, I'm just shallow enough to not want to be known as 'that chick who writes the really weird AU and we humor her'.

I've heard you mention it, but no specifics. What's the premise?

Ironically enough, it was updated this morning.

I took a look, but the focus seems to be characters and pairings who don't interest me, so I passed. I'm re-reading an AU vampfic series that proves self-indulgence isn't always bad, especially when your readers share your kinks. *G*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I've heard you mention it, but no specifics. What's the premise?


The original short is from a '5 Things That Never Happened' fic I did, and is here (http://chosenone.envy.nu/ClubSoka.html). I liked it enough that I'd been planning to expand it into an entire epic.

I took a look, but the focus seems to be characters and pairings who don't interest me, so I passed. I'm re-reading an AU vampfic series that proves self-indulgence isn't always bad, especially when your readers share your kinks. *G*

I haven't been following it much, because I'm not really into that fandom, but it was well-written enough that I liked seeing how she took such an utterly cliched AU idea and doing new things with it.


But vampire AU? Ooo, sounds good.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I've read that story several times, and even recced it on crack_van when the Pimpin' Twin (boniblithe) and I did YnM in July. *G* I thought that was a good premise for an AU, so I'm glad to hear you thought it was, as well.

I recently fell into the fandom, probably about three weeks ago. Since it's all about the pretty for me, I steer clear of the hobbits and tend to focus on various permutations of Karl Urban, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, and Viggo Mortensen.

The vampfic is admittedly not great literature, and I have some quibbles with it, but it's very enjoyable braincandy. Go here (http://www.fadedink.com/writing/index2.html), look up stories by series, then hunt for "Claimed." It's the first in the series.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

#^^# Thank you.

I'm not morally opposed to RPS or anything, I just don't care enough about any of the actors to search out fanfic with them. But the amount of pretty contained in that movieis mindboggling.

Oh, thanks for the link! It looks pretty good; plenty of sex scenes, at the least.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

That's always been my reason for not reading RPS. The lives of most actors just aren't that interesting in comparison to Immortals, Jedi, Shinigami, etc. But my interests have expanded to include gay ad execs and artists, so there you go. And the story of the filming of LotR, the glimpses of what those actors went through together, really is interesting to me. Plus, I find most of them prettier out of costume and wig, hence the privileging of LotRips over LotR fanfic. That, and my loathing for Tolkien is a deep and burning thing. *G*

Oodles of sex scenes, starring various combinations of characters. My biggest complaints are that Viggo doesn't get any, and Sean Bean, that sex god, is stuck with a hobbit. Still, lots and lots of Karl worship, which is always a plus with me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That, and my loathing for Tolkien is a deep and burning thing. *G*

I have a soft spot for him. I read The Hobbit as a tiny child, and made it all the way through Lord of the Rings for the first time in Sixth grade. I remember being so proud that I'd read such long books; big, famous classics.

Of course, it wasn't until years later that I realized quite why it was that I'd liked the parts with Frodo and Sam so much... *laughs*

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I loved The Hobbit as a child. I tried to read LotR every summer for a period of about eight years. I never made it farther than the middle of the second book, and I finally decided that no books, no matter how well-known, were worth what I was putting myself through.

Part of the problem was the dryness of the language, but part of the problem was definitely also my familiarity with the source material Tolkien used in constructing LotR. I couldn't understand why he was praised so much for his originality when he'd borrowed stories wholecloth from the mythology and folklore I'd been raised on. A bit of questioning quickly revealed that it was because most people, even "scholarly literary" people, weren't that familiar with the mythology and folklore in question. So not only am I disinterested in Tolkien for his own sake, but I associate him with a loss of faith in a few people I had looked up to until I learned they weren't as well-read as they presented themselves to be. That sort of thing tends to make for some bitterness. *G*

As far as the movies go, though, my best friend saw them and was taken with the visualization of the world, with the attention to detail and the inclusion of spoken Elvish and the absolute beauty of the scenery. She never read the books and was only passingly familiar with most of the specific stories Tolkien drew from, but she knew my love for a) good world-building in movies and b) fannish TPTB who let their love shine through in their creations. She talked me into watching the movies with her at the beginning of the summer, and while I found them long and perhaps not as compelling as she did, I also really did love the way PJ's love shone through, the gorgeous visuals, the singing (Eowyn's lament startled me by making me cry), and of course the pretty, pretty people. Plus, I find Elijah Wood less freakish as a hobbit. *G*

And yes, Sam and Frodo were so married. ;-)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I tried to read LotR every summer for a period of about eight years.

I did that for Les Miserables. I must have started that stupid book ten or fifteen times. I finally managed to finish it last year, and decided that it really hadn't been worth the effort. The musical version is so much better that it's astounding.

when he'd borrowed stories wholecloth from the mythology and folklore I'd been raised on.

Ah, see, I have to admit I'm one of those people who weren't familiar with the background. I've never even read Beowulfe, much less some of the more obscure Western Europe folklore. I probably should, if just to be better versed in the allusions and stories, but it's currently very low on my list of Classics I Will Someday Read If Just to Have Read Them.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I tried to read Hunchback at one point and promptly decided Hugo was one of those authors who would drive me crazy if I had to read him. Since I already had to read too many such authors for English (Dickens is my bane), I decided not to torture myself.

I had a retelling of Beowulf illustrated by Jim Fitzpatrick. It was one of my favorite stories, and I adored the drawings of Grendel. Dad's got German blood, so I grew up knowing fair bits of Die Nieberlungenlied,and he's also got a lot of Scandinavian blood, which means I got huge doses of Nordic mythology along with the more usual (in America) Greek. Mom's got a lot of Scottish, so on her side I got hit with a great deal of Celtic mythology and folklore. So I hit Tolkien very much with a sense of, "Been there, done that," and I found the versions I grew up with juicier in the writing. I'm impressed at all the trouble Tolkien went to to create a fully realized world, but for me, it does not compelling reading make. Plus, I have to fight the urge to throttle someone every time I hear Tolkien attributed with creating things like tall elves (Tuatha de Danaan, anyone? Alfar?). I'm glad so many other people enjoy him, I just wish there was a little more respect for the idea that not all of us who don't are illiterate swine. I mean, I think it's pretty clear from my personal experience that part of the problem can be that we are literate.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Dickens is my bane

I am so glad you said that. I abhor Dickens, but he's so well-liked by so many people that it seems hating him is the equivalent of declaring yourself to be a brainless teenager. And his books could have been so *good*, if only they'd been written by someone else. Take A Tale of Two Cities. There's revolutions and secret identities and angsty pasts and true love and evil villanesses and grave robbery and self-sacrificing heroics! And yet somehow, it's still boring and impossible to get through.

See, that's a lot more mythology that I know. I learned the basics of Greek/Roman when I was young, and recently I've been looking at a bit of the Norse stuff- if only because Neil Gaiman features it in so many of his books- but really, that's it. I'd like to know more. It's always interesting.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I adore A Christmas Carol with a mad passion, but it only makes his other works all the more awful in comparison. Especially Great Expectations, which I hate and had to read three friggin' times in school, thanks to being a military kid and changing schools a lot. Pip's wimpy, self-involved angst worked my last nerve in ways any veteran of skirmishes with badfic writers would recognize.

I suppose one good thing came out of the experience. My own teen queen tendency toward purple prose and melodrama was severely curtailed by my run-ins with Mr. Dickens. Though my taste for minimalism didn't make Steinbeck or Hemingway any more palatable. But then, I'm not really impressed with Man Pain, no matter how it's dressed.

Oh, man, you're making me itch to dump books on you now. *G* Mom read mythology to us like it was fairy tales, and certainly the two aren't unrelated. I'd say check out the Folklore section of your local bookstore, they should have at least one book each of Nordic mythology and Celtic (probably a lot of Celtic, given it's an "in" mythology right now). I think someone just pubbed a translated compilation of Icelandic sagas, but I haven't read it yet to say how much good it would do you in terms of the basics. If you're in college (can't remember if you are), you might also see if there are any folklore classes offered and track down the professor to see what books s/he recommends for getting started.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

If you're in college (can't remember if you are), you might also see if there are any folklore classes offered and track down the professor to see what books s/he recommends for getting started.

I did, actually! I took an Intro to Folklore that was incredibly disappointing. We didn't talk about mythology at all; rather the whole class was about ways to collect folklore, theories on why folklore such as jokes or urban legends became popular and how they spread and what they said about the populations telling them.

But I did get to write my term paper on the 'my hed iz pastde on yay' wank, since I made the argument that fandom_wank was obviously a folk culture, in terms of people who spend time together, share obscure termonology and create art, stories and other items as part of a shared community. That was fun.

Hemingway isn't too bad, and I haven't read Steinbeck, but I've rarely been very enthusatic for any books I read in school. Shakespeare's an exception, and I'm sure there's a few others I'm forgetting, but in general I've much preferred by own choices, even when it comes to "classic" type things.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I did, actually! I took an Intro to Folklore that was incredibly disappointing. We didn't talk about mythology at all; rather the whole class was about ways to collect folklore, theories on why folklore such as jokes or urban legends became popular and how they spread and what they said about the populations telling them.

Oh, feh. I hate those classes. I don't want interpretation of folklore, or discussion of theories, or analysis of its usefulness in the current age. Just give me the stories, damn it. *G* As many as possible, as fast as possible, from as many cultures as possible. I'll draw my own conclusions about their usefulness, parallels, and application to the human condition/psyche.

But I did get to write my term paper on the 'my hed iz pastde on yay' wank, since I made the argument that fandom_wank was obviously a folk culture, in terms of people who spend time together, share obscure termonology and create art, stories and other items as part of a shared community. That was fun.

Fandom as a whole is a folk culture, with a lot of subcultures, of which I definitely agree fandom_wank is one. And a lot of the jokes and terminology have leaked out into the larger fandom community, which is interesting to watch (probably more interesting if you're more familiar with f_w than I am, but oh well).

Hemingway isn't too bad, and I haven't read Steinbeck, but I've rarely been very enthusatic for any books I read in school. Shakespeare's an exception, and I'm sure there's a few others I'm forgetting, but in general I've much preferred by own choices, even when it comes to "classic" type things.

I loathe Hemingway, though he's not so long-winded as Dickens. Try to avoid Steinbeck if at all possible. I was lucky enough to get some very good English teachers a time or two, and some of them were able to manipulate the curriculum somewhat to give us the good stuff. I first read Farenheit 451 for school, and spent one delirious Christmas vacation devouring our reading assignments: Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Slaughterhouse Five, and...drat, I forget the other two. I had them all finished before Christmas hit, though, and got my parents to buy me my own copies as Christmas presents. *G*

Shakespeare I knew because Dad used to read it to us when we were little (he did theatre in college), but my first encounter with Chaucer was in school, as well as Cry, the Beloved Country!. Even thinking about that book still moves me to tears. It had some of the most amazing passages.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

And then you get the crazy AUs, where the characters are transported to Hogwarts or Ancient Rome or space or a pirate ship.

I call those ones Elseworlds rather than AUs, and I strictly prohibit myself from writing them. I think there is a point when I, at least, go too far from canon, when I'm not just examining the characters in a new light but actually using their names on an original cast.

My own "ranking" for self-indulgence, from least to worst, goes: Canon extrapolation, minor What-Ifs/AUs, full scale Alterniverse, Crossover, Elseworld. I start to get wary when I hit an alterniverse that requires a fundamental change in the canon setup, because it can too easily turn into an elseworld which I'd do better saving as an original fic.

This is part of my attempts to limit plot-bunnies, however, since once I've been in a fandom for a while I start trying to think too far outside the box (^_^), and may not work for everyone...

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That's a really good category that clears things up: Elseworld vs AU. We need to spread that around; it'd be useful.

I have a real kink for stories that make one little change, and extrapolate it farther and farther out, until everything's different. It's like Chaos Theory, and it's always so cool to see how tiny things can have huge effects, how delicate the canon balance was.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

Yes, because I specialise in alterniverse, and it IS a specific kind of story - the kind where you drop a stone and plot the results logically, not just stick everyone into a new setup because you feel like it. I severely dislike fics labelled as "AU" just because they disregard one aspect of canon with no explanation as to WHY.

And yesyesYES. This is why I write AUs. This is why the AU of DOOM has eaten my soul. I _love_ coming up with all the little tiny details of change, and I love plotting it all back to one moment. The AU of Doom comes down to one tiny change, really, and it's not Hisoka's belated death so much as the first major consequence of his not dying when he was meant to...

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*wants more of the AU of DOOM, like, very very much*

Good AUs are so much fun. Elseworlds have their attractions too, but there's something absolutely fascinating about the way tiny changes, tiny differences, add up and change entire personalities and relationships and situations.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

It's a fascinating question, and I wish I knew the answer. The thing is, I suspect that this is a little like the in-some-ways-related question of how a writer knows whether she's done enough research for a piece. The answer to that one, in my experience, is an ugly little paradox: a writer who's inclined to think that she's only done a fraction of her research is probably at the point where she should stop fretting about whether her characters would have shoes that laced, and should just write her story; the one who's confident that she's done plenty needs to go back to the library. I sometimes fear that, similarly, the writers who have enough self-awareness and skill to worry about how close they're coming to the self-indulgence line, and who hold themselves back because of it, may be cutting themselves off from doing remarkable work because of it. The people who don't worry about self-indulgence at all, meanwhile, are the ones posting the really embarrassing stuff.

But I don't know that, because if I'm right to worry, we just aren't seeing the cool stuff that the best writers might do if they weren't afflicted with taste and critical awareness. And if I'm wrong, then what's not making it through the filters is the material that in all justice ought not to.

As a reader, I know when the line's been crossed when a little voice in my head begins saying, well, this is all very interesting; but don't you think you should be discussing it with your therapist, not with me? But I find that happening with professionally published work all the time -- and that means, I can't help but think, that there's a huge audience that isn't bothered when the writer goes too far.

Not only isn't bothered, but may actually like it. Honestly, is there anything else that explains the popularity of Tom Clancy's later novels, which feature one of the most blatant Mary Sues in all pop literature? Or the readers who're defending Anne Rice?

Not, I suspect, that most of us here would want to be either one of them, artistically speaking. But their fans would probably be unhappy if they stopped doing the things that make us shudder.

Which is a hell of a long way to go round to repeat, damned if I know. But if anybody does have a better answer, or a good way to tell when you're crossing the line as you write, I'd love to hear it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I definitely think you're right to compare it to research; that's an excellent way to think of it. Of course, that doesn't really with the question at all, because it makes the answer: always more than you think you need! Except when it's less than you think you need. Heh.

No one seems to have a good answer, though. I suspect it may be one of those timeless questions, like what style is best or how much description is good or where should I start and end the story or how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

I suspect I just need to stop worrying and write it. Or at least get beta readers to reassure that I haven't become lost entirely inside of my own head.

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

How do you know if you've gotten in to a project that's nothing but your kinks and ideas, with no interest to anyone else?

Honestly? I've no idea. My ability to judge that is long gone after years of art films, manga with talking penii and cracked-out doujinshi. I can say with some conviction that any crazy idea you can come up with will be of interest to someone.

This is possibly why I love LJ so much as a way of interacting with fandom. My flist will stop me before I go over the edge. Or, at least, go along with the ride. :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

XD You know what? You're totally right. I think maybe I might be worrying a bit too much, considering I've just come from reading crazy YnM/Harry Potter crossovers.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

It did occur to me once that when Sirius fell through the veil he might have had Words with Britain's Judgement Bureau...

AUGH but then it went away and is NEVER COMING BACK. *stomps*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*grins* That reminds me of the massive Buffy crossover (http://www.livejournal.com/users/thetwotrees/13010.html#cutid1) I was going to write with a friend...

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

Hm... Well, seeing as I believe one should write for themselves, I believe writing in itself is already self-indulgent, much like you...

Apart from that, I think the rest of these wonderful people made some rather nice statements, such as needing to research, and get betas to stop you before you go too crazy. I think that if you are just making things up, or the writing has no purpose, or that it has no one else that would like it but the writer, then you've hit that level.

Say, for instance (in this fandom), someone wanted to write a (God forbid) Gushoshin/shinigami piece. Now, it may seem totally fine to the author, but I don't believe many would want to read it, so it should be kept for the author's enjoyment, and not posted. You have to gauge not only what YOU want to write, but what you think others would want you to.

Now, if I could only work out some cannon stuff for a Hisoka/Watari... *ponders*

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Say, for instance (in this fandom), someone wanted to write a (God forbid) Gushoshin/shinigami piece. Now, it may seem totally fine to the author, but I don't believe many would want to read it, so it should be kept for the author's enjoyment, and not posted.

See, saying this just *tempts* me.

I don't agree that potential audience is a reasonable standard of judgment. I've written minor and unpopular characters several times (it's a thing), or even for media which I didn't think had an organized fandom, and sometimes these stories sink like a stone, and sometimes, rather to my surprise, they don't. It doesn't seem like there's much demand for Tsubaki-hime or Hijiri fic, but I'm very glad wordsofastory posted those stories, because they're (a) good stories; (b) interesting reflections on canon; and (c) pretty different from anything else out there.

rachelmanija just had an interesting post (http://www.livejournal.com/~rachelmanija/60800.html) on this subject, which amazingly did not focus on Anne Rice.

I don't think you necessarily *do* know when you've crossed over the line, but then I think writing is often an emotional risk in general. The best thing I've found is to get beta readers who I trust to tell me if I'm on crack.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thank you. ^^

And it was actually that post that started me thinking on the topic. It's easy to get lost inside your own head when you're writing; you start out with one small step, and then another, and then another, and before you know it you're so far from canon or logic that no reader could follow you. Especially if you're working in isolation without people to stop you when you've crossed the line. Which is why beta readers are the best thing ever.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that writing is communication, too. Although you don't want to tailor yourself completely to the demands of your audience- because that way just leads to the horrible fics on ff.net that demand 'R&R or I won't continue!!!1!' but on the other hand, you do have to be able to convey your ideas and meanings. It's like the old writing saying, 'The message received is the message sent'.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

You should ask my friend squarewhore to do Muraki/Tsuzuki. She'd probably do a real good job. :)

We like the psychos.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! I'll do that then. ^^