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I don't pretend to be a great writer.
Jenn, (Goth_Huntress) is a great writer, Reese (Wedschilde) is a great writer, and I still bow to the altar that is Kari's because she was the first person I could count as a friend who sucked me into a story. Granted, it was a Vampire the Masquerade story, and at that point it wasn't hard to suck me into one of those, but still, it was a very compelling story.
I ain't no great shakes at it, I simply like to write because these stories pop into my head, and I need them out. I've created so many stories on top of stories, sometimes I don't know where they start and where I begin. This is hard when it comes to fanfiction, as often I will rationalize and create ideas in my head and forget that these aren't what's happening in the actual, canonical storyline. Hence, part of my reasoning for being such a canon whore, it helps me keep my shit straight.
Also, being a historian and all around geek, I tend to get off on the details.
I'm no great critic at it either. I studied history, not English, and I tend to still have atrocious grammar and spelling if I'm not paying attention, (ie-most my LiveJournal entries), and if I didn't have Word, I'd never have managed that "Magna Cum Laude" at the bottom of my diploma from UCLA. I can come up with some pretty smart conclusions about social commentary, but I comma splice like a bitch! So I can't particularly say I know what I'm talking about when I read other peoples work. I know what I like, (does this engross me), I know what I think sucks, (did your writing really just make me cringe!)
I'm gun shy about my writing, always have been, and so it takes a lot for me to toss things out there. I have 'publishes' several fanfic stories, (if you can call it that), and I always think they are a tad subpar, even if my mother doesn't. But then I get bored on a Saturday afternoon like today, (or any afternoon at work), and I float about reading fanfic, and I think to myself...why in the hell would someone make this shit public? Really? It is floating out there in the internet ether, this waste of nouns and verbs, with the occasional L33T speak thrown in, (OMB, I M LMAO, LOL).
I've discovered these stories are sort of like storming a foreign enemy castle. Once you get past the first line of defense, (this ranges from the above mentioned text messaging short speak to the face that they can't usually pick a verb tense or voice from which to speak from), to the secondary line, that of the worse-known-characters-ever-written-in-t
See, having been a former storyteller, (not a great one, but an OK one), I know that plot is important. IT is what keeps everything else flowing along while your characters are out doing whatever they hell they are doing. In gaming terms, the plot keeps everyone herded in the right direction, even if they are fucking around, running back and forth, or standing there generally looking stupid. Plot doesn't just mysteriously appear out of no where after ten chapters of pointless drabble, and it doesn't just occasionally make an appearance when you can't think of anything better to write, plot IS the story, everything else is just extra.
Sometimes in these stories, there is a plot, and it stems from a cute idea. Hey, wouldn't it be great if I did THIS! And you work out in your head how THIS would happen, given the parameters of the world you are working in. (See, this is the key word in fanfiction, parameters, it's not just for geometry anymore.) Sometimes it merely a continuation of a scene or a thought that had been introduced in the original, canonical story, and you carry it out to see what happens with it.
Often in fanfiction plot seems to be an annoying aspect that breaks up the uncharacteristic angst/romance/sex/drama. Or it is the device that allows for such to happen. In either case, it's usually still written poorly, and then compounded by bad characterization. Oye.
There was a time I swore off fanfic, mostly for these very reasons. But some of the stuff my friends have written, and the general laugh I get at Potter-Sues makes me reconsider this. Some of the best author friends I have write this type of stuff, and it isn't bad at all. Thankfully they are bored fifteen year olds trying to write the next, great, Harry Potter epic. That shit makes my eyes bleed.
Which begs the question, why do I read it....hey, even I have my masochistic streak, and I do get REALLY bored at work sometimes.
Jenn, (Goth_Huntress) is a great writer, Reese (Wedschilde) is a great writer, and I still bow to the altar that is Kari's because she was the first person I could count as a friend who sucked me into a story. Granted, it was a Vampire the Masquerade story, and at that point it wasn't hard to suck me into one of those, but still, it was a very compelling story.
I ain't no great shakes at it, I simply like to write because these stories pop into my head, and I need them out. I've created so many stories on top of stories, sometimes I don't know where they start and where I begin. This is hard when it comes to fanfiction, as often I will rationalize and create ideas in my head and forget that these aren't what's happening in the actual, canonical storyline. Hence, part of my reasoning for being such a canon whore, it helps me keep my shit straight.
Also, being a historian and all around geek, I tend to get off on the details.
I'm no great critic at it either. I studied history, not English, and I tend to still have atrocious grammar and spelling if I'm not paying attention, (ie-most my LiveJournal entries), and if I didn't have Word, I'd never have managed that "Magna Cum Laude" at the bottom of my diploma from UCLA. I can come up with some pretty smart conclusions about social commentary, but I comma splice like a bitch! So I can't particularly say I know what I'm talking about when I read other peoples work. I know what I like, (does this engross me), I know what I think sucks, (did your writing really just make me cringe!)
I'm gun shy about my writing, always have been, and so it takes a lot for me to toss things out there. I have 'publishes' several fanfic stories, (if you can call it that), and I always think they are a tad subpar, even if my mother doesn't. But then I get bored on a Saturday afternoon like today, (or any afternoon at work), and I float about reading fanfic, and I think to myself...why in the hell would someone make this shit public? Really? It is floating out there in the internet ether, this waste of nouns and verbs, with the occasional L33T speak thrown in, (OMB, I M LMAO, LOL).
I've discovered these stories are sort of like storming a foreign enemy castle. Once you get past the first line of defense, (this ranges from the above mentioned text messaging short speak to the face that they can't usually pick a verb tense or voice from which to speak from), to the secondary line, that of the worse-known-characters-ever-written-in-t
See, having been a former storyteller, (not a great one, but an OK one), I know that plot is important. IT is what keeps everything else flowing along while your characters are out doing whatever they hell they are doing. In gaming terms, the plot keeps everyone herded in the right direction, even if they are fucking around, running back and forth, or standing there generally looking stupid. Plot doesn't just mysteriously appear out of no where after ten chapters of pointless drabble, and it doesn't just occasionally make an appearance when you can't think of anything better to write, plot IS the story, everything else is just extra.
Sometimes in these stories, there is a plot, and it stems from a cute idea. Hey, wouldn't it be great if I did THIS! And you work out in your head how THIS would happen, given the parameters of the world you are working in. (See, this is the key word in fanfiction, parameters, it's not just for geometry anymore.) Sometimes it merely a continuation of a scene or a thought that had been introduced in the original, canonical story, and you carry it out to see what happens with it.
Often in fanfiction plot seems to be an annoying aspect that breaks up the uncharacteristic angst/romance/sex/drama. Or it is the device that allows for such to happen. In either case, it's usually still written poorly, and then compounded by bad characterization. Oye.
There was a time I swore off fanfic, mostly for these very reasons. But some of the stuff my friends have written, and the general laugh I get at Potter-Sues makes me reconsider this. Some of the best author friends I have write this type of stuff, and it isn't bad at all. Thankfully they are bored fifteen year olds trying to write the next, great, Harry Potter epic. That shit makes my eyes bleed.
Which begs the question, why do I read it....hey, even I have my masochistic streak, and I do get REALLY bored at work sometimes.
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