On fanficcing and proficcing

[altariel]

Over at meta_writer, across the next couple of weeks, there is going to be a post a day on the subject of fanfic and profic, particularly on making the transition from one to the other.

My thoughts are here, and the rest of the series is shaping up to be an interesting read. Enjoy!

Comments

[sheenaghpugh]

That was interesting! Thanks for crossposting.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed!

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the overview of your journey from fanfic to profic writer, and I partcularly liked mucking about in the whole of literature.

Yay for you and your words!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed!

mucking about in the whole of literature

:-D

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Ooh, interesting. I might try to be brave enough to post some thoughts to the comm in response.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I hope so!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

That was fascinating (I still love several of your B7 stories, that one about Blake pre-series especially is a favourite :)

I went the other direction, I guess... wrote some original (very, very slowly, I am a slow writer as well as being young and purple-prosey) but after discovering fanfic - and accepting that being me and being a professional writer weren't compatible - have found I'm actually happier with it for the most part (I have a couple of original ideas slowly formulating, but not enough to try and make something saleworthy of them...)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Your Avon/Christmas Carol story is one of my very favourites, across all my fandoms.

I did write a little original fiction as a teenager, but gave up and replaced it with studying/essays. Fanfic didn't really happen until my early twenties.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

{blush} Thank you :)

[temeres.livejournal.com]

I was particularly struck by:

I love the improvisational nature of fanfiction, its guerrilla-style rapid response: the way that one’s frustration with a story’s resolution (e.g. Donna Noble’s in New Who) can be transformed into a more satisfactory ending within a matter of hours

That, to me, was always one of the most irritating aspects of B7 fanfic, a reluctance to accept canon as canon, in particular with regard to events. I didn't like that therefore it didn't happen and instead it happened the way I want it to like what I have written in this story here.

Not that I was entirely immune to this kind of crisis of wishful thinking, otherwise I wouldn't have erased 'Dawn of the Gods' from what I considered to be the 'proper' B7 canon.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That, to me, was always one of the most irritating aspects of B7 fanfic, a reluctance to accept canon as canon, in particular with regard to events.

:-) Takes all sorts.

[temeres.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid my First Rule of Fanfic would be "Do Not Contradict Canon Unless You Absolutely Have To".

Rulebook dispensible for humourous fiction, of course.

Perhaps it's the scientist in me - theories should conform to facts, not vice versa.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I enjoy keeping to canon primarily for the intellectual challenge, and tend not to break it without a story-driven reason (e.g. writing an AU), but I don't instinctively think of made-up things (e.g. TV scripts) as "factual". As I say, takes all sorts and, if I'm not assuming too much, the accurate detail of world-building is a greater draw for you, and story-constructing and character exploration are a greater draw for me.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely essay - so inspiring. I might start writing again now. Thank you.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

What a lovely thing to write! I'm glad it was inspiring :-)

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

What a great essay! And you've affirmed something that I've long suspected: fanfic and profic are different beasts, which require different skills and have different rewards. So the people who criticize fanfic writers for not "taking the training wheels off and writing something original" are missing the point entirely.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed! And, yes, I completely agree that they are different beasts, and fanfiction is not (necessarily) a training ground: I think of them much more on a spectrum.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

I suppose if fanfic's a training ground for anything, it would be for historical fiction. But even there, there are differences; readers of fanfiction usually know a lot more about their favorite characters than readers of profic are likely to know about any given historical person, so a lot of the expository shortcuts we can use in fanfic would still have to be discarded.