At 05:54 AM 2/18/99 PST, Chris Tendo wrote:
Personally, I think these rules are total bunk.
1) The first and foremost purpose of writing fanfiction is
to please yourself. *You* are your primary audience.
Really? If so, don't bother releasing your work to anyone else. Yes,
your writing should please yourself first and foremost, but if you can't
take time to try and make it pleasing to others, then don't bother
releasing it to others.
Then where are we in disagreement. How about instead of reading
the first sentence of each paragraph you read the entire thing
first and disseminate my meaning. I have released my work to others,
and I'm pleased with the reviews. I also understand that there
are a number of 'well-written' Sailor Moon fanfics out there, but
I wouldn't touch a single one because I find the premise completely
intolerable.
2) If you intend to post your fanfiction, then some
attention to grammar and spelling is required, but
that's *all.* Your style is your style, and whether
or not you accept or decline critique on the way
you present your story does not reflect on your
qualities as a writer.
Oh, fewmets. Spelling and grammer is NOT, with a VERY occasional
exception, the way you present your story. What it IS, is a reflection
on how much you care about your work.
I really have no idea what you're arguing.
Mechanics, more than any other supposed criteria for judging
writing quality, adheres to a certain set of general rules.
These rules, however, at not universally applicable; there
are cases in the violation of mechanical rules is deliberate,
just as there are cases where these violations are overlooked
in lieu of another quality.
If you can't be bothered to take the time and effort to make sure a
story is written in decent English, why the hell should anybody beleive
you've taken the time and effort to make sure the story is decent,
period? Nothing is so big a turn-off as supposed "writers" who don't
take the time to make sure their writing is made with even school-grade
English.
Really? Who took the poll? Where your statistics? I have yet
to find any solid numbers to back up proponent arguments for
these rules, so why should I believe them? I find it easier
to fathom at least a reader willing to overlook mechanical
error if and only if the work involved has a sufficiently
appealing quality and is presented to the targetted audience.
Nevertheless, I digress. My original statement upheld that
mechanics were, in my general experience, an important
(not essential, but important) part of producing a work
suitable for a general audience. I will go even farther
this time and assume that the same holds true for a
specific audience. Ultimately, this is a minor point in
my argument.
3) Fanfiction is nothing more than original fiction
placed within the setting of an existing fictional
work. If you're looking to remain true to the canon,
then follow the rules all you want. If you don't
give a damn about what's canon or not, then shape
your characters whichever way you want to.
Then don't call it a fanfic, and don't use the characters SOMEBODY ELSE
made. You are BORROWING them, and like anything else you borrow, you
have an obligation to the owner. You want original characters? MAKE
original characters. You want to use Ranma (or Sailor Moon, or DBZ, or
Slayers, or whatever) characters? USE those characters.
I'll take it under advisement. If and when I decide that I want to
heed this little bit of advice, I'll make sure to give credit where
credit is due.
Obligation to the owner? What obligation? I have obligations
listed under 17 USC 107, which defines what constitutes fair use.
There is no moral obligation unless I personally except it. I
doubt that you or anyone else could convince me that I owe
anything to Carl Macek or Harmony Gold beyond my legal
obligations.
Don't make up your own character and give him/her the face and name of a
character someone else created. That is disrespectful to the creator,
and just shows that you don't have the talent or the guts to do real
original characters.
Well, there's a nice piece of emotional logic.
Fanfiction crosses into a grey where it may or may not be viewed
legally as "disrespectful to the creator." Derivative works
produced by persons without proper copyright authorization
has come under intense scrutiny regarding derivations of
written material.
I fail to see how you conclude that the use of the physical
and biographical attributes of an existing character (or
real personage), constitutes a lack of ability or
willingness to produce "truly" original characters. I
was under the impression that many folks considered
the personality attributes of a character far more
important than a name or physical description.
4) With these extremes outlined, you're probably saying
"All right. This guy thinks you can put just about
anything up for sail and the average Joe will digest
it." Well, no. Actually, I'm not. There are
considerations you must make when you right a story
IF one of your driving motivations is to reach a
sufficiently large audience. First, you must define
Which, if it is released on the Net, one assumes it is. If you don't
care about an audience, don't release it. There's too much horrible
fanfic on the net already.
Here's a flash. The number of GOOD fanfics on the net, mine
included, is ZERO. Wow, I can make up numbers, too! So,
who delegated the comittee on judging fanfic quality?
clearly what audience you want to reach. Too many
times I've read pseudo-literary essays that prescribe
general rules to catch the attention of the general
reader. That's pure bullshit. Tell that to the guy
No, they're general rules. The vast majority of successful writers have
followed them; yes, you can supplant the rules if you're gutsy and
talented enough, but that is the exception, not the rule.
If you prefer, call that kind of thing a "general guideline".
Bull. I consider them guidelines for reaching a specific
audience. Once again, I make a notable exception the
concept of mechanics.
working in the IBM plant in Kingston hanging on to
Tom Clancy's every word. Tell that to the lit prof
who forces you to read and understand every word of
Tolstoy's divergent narrative prose on calculus
concepts. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of
audiences out there with varying tastes. Some like
"simple" stories that don't delve to deeply into
character development and intrigue. Others like
sprawling epics with dense prose, massive casts,
and enormous settings. Others go for the whole
Yes; however, there is a distinct measure of quality that supersedes
tastes. When something is bad-and most fanfic, like most writing, is
bad-it is BAD, and not just a matter of taste. I've read plenty of
fanfic (and books, for that matter) with good ideas that simply were
carried out in a horrible manner.
Once again, I ask you to quantify, in some way,
what exactly you mean by a standard of quality? What
makes a fanfic good and bad, and then justify your
arguments with solid data. Not just a gut feeling
of what you feel is necessary to win over a huge audience.
My perception is vastly different from yours, and I'm not
about to say it's an abnormal stance. I hardly see the
correlation between this arbitrary standard of
quality I keep hearing about an author's ability to
sell books (or write prolifically and maintain a
sufficiently broad readership).
Mr. McAvoy brought up some good points. He's
a reader as well as a writer, and he has taken the
time to inform other writers that there's an
audience out there that shares his tastes. There's
also an audience out there that likes something
completely different. I don't give a damn about
the character interactions of NXE (or even UF).
Those are secondary to their hilarious antics,
IMHO. Maybe that makes me a shallow reader, but
hell--I know what I like.
<shrug> Precisely. Some like plot oriented stories, some don't. Some
like deep characters; some don't care. That's why there's Sanctuary and
still Urusei Yatsura.
Screw crossovers then. Might as well throw out that Grave of the
Fire Flies / Pokemon script I was working on. =) What's stopping
someone from developing the characters from Sanctuary in a Takahashi
fashion? If somebody reads it, likes it, and if the author
gives a damn, then what's the big deal?
However, this doesn't mean you can ignore quality; because the SUBJECT
of a story is not the same as the story's quality. Basic things like
reasonably good usage of language, continuity (unless the story is of a
sort that discourages that, and nearly all prose is NOT), sensical
plotlines, and (if writing a fanfic) respect for the original
characters, are not matters of taste but matters of quality. Ignore
them, and no matter what else you may do, your story is likely to be
extremely poor writing.
Once again, if you have some sort of quantifiably to qualify your
arguments, I stand ready to receive them. Otherwise, I must dismiss
this all as the opinions of a single reader (or fellow author).
In any case, I wish you good luck in your fanfiction endeavors.
-The Reverend "I'll do whatever the hell I want to Robotech" Prez
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
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