Halloween in Four Days!
Oct. 28th, 2006 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhMy roommate has gone home for the weekend. Double-you Tee Eff. Seriously people, what could possibly entice you to leave New York City on Halloween weekend? It is the best holiday of the year, as I have recently spent some time arguing with a girl from Iceland, where apparently it is not celebrated. (Which, by the way, is clearly blasphemy. Life without Halloween is just wrong.)
Anyway. I read a very interesting post on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom earlier today: Fandom and RP, from an Outsider by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
altoidsaddict.
Her basic argument is that the difference between fanfiction and original writing is that fanfiction necessarily entails communication within a community, and original writing, while the purpose is still communication, is far more unidirectional, from an author to the reader (but do go read the original post; maybe I'm misrepresenting her).
Which I thought was very interesting, because a lot of my stories were conceived as my contributions to the fanon conversation. When I get so sick of people writing Hisoka as the girly uke (or whatever my current hated trend is), I go and write a story with him on top. Looking over my stories, quite a few were written because it's politer than screaming, "Oh my GOD, fandom, stop writing that or I'ma cut a bitch!" Also, writing porn is generally more fun than getting into a wank.
It reminds me of a post I was thinking about writing a few weeks ago, about the differences between fanfictions that can be read without knowing the canon, and ones that can't. It was Swordspoint fandom that made me think of it, of course (what else do I think about?), because most of the existent stories are of the first type: they're relatively long, most over a thousand words, and tend towards either first-times or other similarly self-evident plots. Which is not to say they're bad, not at all! But they are stories that you probably can get a lot of enjoyment out of even if you have no idea who Richard and Alec are.
I do not write stories like that. My first Swordspoint story was only 300 words, and relied on and alluded to the canon so heavily that I imagine it would be incomprehensible to people who haven't read the book (and possibly people who have). Of course, then I threw off my theory, at least in regards to myself, by writing one of those long, canon-free stories, which is why I never got around to writing the post, but I still think it's an interesting division. I like stories, both to write and to read, that do require you to be obsessively immersed in the canon to untangle all of their metaphors, ones that depend on you understanding some tiny reference to make sense of the plot or characterization. I like the feeling of interplay with canon and fanon, with the community of people equally involved in the story, and with the story itself that those types of fanfic give me. I like stories that aren't just well-characterized or recognizable as being from a certain source, but that are heavily steeped in all possible details of the canon: tone of voice and mood and colors and sounds and everything else. (Occasionally there are fanfictions that manage to do so better than the canon itself. Not in Swordspoint, but when some mangakas seem to forget what happened to their characters earlier in the series, yeah). But that's me, and clearly many people prefer the other type.
Another reason why I was thinking about this topic recently is because nanowrimo is coming up. There is no possible way I'll have time to participate, but I was thinking about setting up a challenge for myself for the month of November, just to see if I could: write an original short story. And I have no problems thinking of characters, or world-building- any of the things, really, that fanfiction writing supposedly hampers- but I have no ideas for a plot. Because so many of my plots are just parts of a conversation; they're me saying "check out this interpretation!" or "you've all got it wrong, this is how he acts" or "don't you think they look good together?". And when I don't have my community to say things to, I have no idea what I do want to say.
So! What do you all think? Does that seem like a valid distinction between fanfiction and original writing to you? Which type of fanfiction do you like better? Am I still feverish and making things up that are totally illogical?
Anyway. I read a very interesting post on
metafandom earlier today: Fandom and RP, from an Outsider by altoidsaddict.Her basic argument is that the difference between fanfiction and original writing is that fanfiction necessarily entails communication within a community, and original writing, while the purpose is still communication, is far more unidirectional, from an author to the reader (but do go read the original post; maybe I'm misrepresenting her).
Which I thought was very interesting, because a lot of my stories were conceived as my contributions to the fanon conversation. When I get so sick of people writing Hisoka as the girly uke (or whatever my current hated trend is), I go and write a story with him on top. Looking over my stories, quite a few were written because it's politer than screaming, "Oh my GOD, fandom, stop writing that or I'ma cut a bitch!" Also, writing porn is generally more fun than getting into a wank.
It reminds me of a post I was thinking about writing a few weeks ago, about the differences between fanfictions that can be read without knowing the canon, and ones that can't. It was Swordspoint fandom that made me think of it, of course (what else do I think about?), because most of the existent stories are of the first type: they're relatively long, most over a thousand words, and tend towards either first-times or other similarly self-evident plots. Which is not to say they're bad, not at all! But they are stories that you probably can get a lot of enjoyment out of even if you have no idea who Richard and Alec are.
I do not write stories like that. My first Swordspoint story was only 300 words, and relied on and alluded to the canon so heavily that I imagine it would be incomprehensible to people who haven't read the book (and possibly people who have). Of course, then I threw off my theory, at least in regards to myself, by writing one of those long, canon-free stories, which is why I never got around to writing the post, but I still think it's an interesting division. I like stories, both to write and to read, that do require you to be obsessively immersed in the canon to untangle all of their metaphors, ones that depend on you understanding some tiny reference to make sense of the plot or characterization. I like the feeling of interplay with canon and fanon, with the community of people equally involved in the story, and with the story itself that those types of fanfic give me. I like stories that aren't just well-characterized or recognizable as being from a certain source, but that are heavily steeped in all possible details of the canon: tone of voice and mood and colors and sounds and everything else. (Occasionally there are fanfictions that manage to do so better than the canon itself. Not in Swordspoint, but when some mangakas seem to forget what happened to their characters earlier in the series, yeah). But that's me, and clearly many people prefer the other type.
Another reason why I was thinking about this topic recently is because nanowrimo is coming up. There is no possible way I'll have time to participate, but I was thinking about setting up a challenge for myself for the month of November, just to see if I could: write an original short story. And I have no problems thinking of characters, or world-building- any of the things, really, that fanfiction writing supposedly hampers- but I have no ideas for a plot. Because so many of my plots are just parts of a conversation; they're me saying "check out this interpretation!" or "you've all got it wrong, this is how he acts" or "don't you think they look good together?". And when I don't have my community to say things to, I have no idea what I do want to say.
So! What do you all think? Does that seem like a valid distinction between fanfiction and original writing to you? Which type of fanfiction do you like better? Am I still feverish and making things up that are totally illogical?
