Seriously?

May. 14th, 2010 12:27 am
apocalypsos: (Default)
[personal profile] apocalypsos
We're going to do this wank again?

Aw, come on, authors. It's the same script every time.

First you tell us that you hate fanfiction. Then you say that people who write fanfiction are lazy and stupid. At some point you usually question why we're not going out and getting our own original stuff published, as though willfully ignoring just how hard it IS to get published and that hobbies even exist and how writing fanfiction and original fiction at the same time are not actually mutually exclusive either/or scenarios. Then you make a rape analogy, or just outright use word "rape" repeatedly. Then you say something about how porn is bad, and therefore all fiction with sex is bad, and therefore no one should ever write anything EVER. And somewhere along the line you accuse fanfic writers of "taking it easy" by forcing themselves to write to an established canon with established characters who don't always realistically behave the way they'd like and with established backgrounds and mythologies that you can't just deviate from without a shitload of planning. Because that's really easy.

And then you say something about how all fanfiction is bad, because biased generalities are our friends, and because there's no such thing as bad published fiction, because getting an advance and royalty checks makes our writing English gooder. Then you doubt our commitment to sparkle motion, and then you make some sort of snide comment about how you'll wait patiently because you know comments will be slow to come what with every single fanfic writer attempting to type them out one-handed and all.

Seriously, you guys, somebody get creative already. This thing where you write fanfic of each other's anti-fanfic screeds from the first-person POV of your own bitchy Mary Sue is tiresome. The least you could do is add some unicorn mpreg. I mean, really.

Date: 2010-05-14 05:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aesvir.livejournal.com
THIS. I don't write myself, but it's obvious to any fair-minded reader that good fanfiction requires skill, understanding, and hard work. One of the joys of watching any new fandom grow is seeing authors take the emerging canon, mix in fannish tropes (sex pollen! bodyswap! genderbending!), to create something delightful. Dismissing all that creativity just because it didn't use original characters or produce a paycheck is folly.

And I wonder about those offended authors who are so proud of their own creativity. Did their novel have dragons? Daddy/mommy issues? Love triangles? Consciously or not, they were writing in reaction to Oedipus Rex, Arthurian legend, the Ring Cycle, you name it. Someone should Wiki "anxiety of influence."

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