flemmings | (no subject)

I don't read much fanfic anyway, and I'd certainly never read it before I started writing myself for fear of contamination. So I'm not going to troll the Pit to find out if someone has ever quoted Nietzsche (god what a name) with respect to Hellsing. But "She who fights with monsters should take care that she herself does not become a monster" fits rather too well, given the other meaning of 'with'. Half a manga is still not much of a basis, but I'm hoping to see more hot moral temptation from A la Kaado. Don't bother telling me if it doesn't happen; I shall find out soon enough. When I finish marathoning Blue Seed.

Actually I can't understand how anyone who writes in a fandom manages to read in it and still retain the urge to write. There's all your best ideas done by other people. Whether they're done wrong or right makes no difference to me: the sands have been tromped on and churned up by others, and I don't want to lie down there. It's different if they're Japanese others, because their language has no effect on mine, and once upon a time at least their takes were so far from my take as to be inspirational. But in English-- no. I require virgin fandoms; and if they aren't, well, I can be happy if the general camp, the BNFs and all, have written reams about her, so I have nothing known. Is why I don't read much fanfic.

I recall quite clearly arguing the other side of this with someone once long ago. 'Doesn't the awful fic make you want to show how it can be done right?' I asked her. She said No, and now I agree with her. It might be different if more fics were the eye-opening kind that do... well, something new and useful, to cite the old standard, and so make me want to do it myself. Very few are that. Most fall somewhere between mediocre and respectable and that, even more than bad fic, seems to be what makes me lose my creative hard-on. My writer's urges are of a Princess and the Pea sensitivity-- it takes nothing to send them sulking into a cave. They went into eclipse the other day merely from me opening the Y-con anthology at random and finding the line 'If a man layeth with a beast it is an abomination.' Jesus wept, I said, and went to bed an hour earlier than usual.

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The thing I've found is that even fandoms which have been worked over like hooker in a barracks still tend to have undiscovered virgin territory within them. Take one step off the well-trodden path of mediocrity, or god forbid, two- and then you're all alone again. It's like the tiny little wild spaces that crop up inside any city that no one ever pays attention to- I've seen more than one fan author apologize for an idea that to them seems to be blatantly obvious and presumably overdone... only to find out instead that it's revolutionary. (

kickinpants had an experience like this with the FMA fandom, IIRC.)

Yeah, for the most part, I don't read FMA fanstuff, so I had no idea if that idea had been done to death. That story is still really strange. I like it- it gets lots of "hits", but no one ever says anything. So, it leaves me to think that it's too strange, but I like it, so ah well.

(I like it too, though I'd like it better if I knew the characters involved.)

True, one woman's obvious can be another woman's off the wall. That said, the same-old-same-old is usually a) the obvious and b) what pushes my buttons- and everyone else's, of course. Which is why I want to be There First. Hakkai and Gojou are very comforting as an idea even after everyone else has written them; but now I can no longer write them because everything has been said.

From this comes the easy descent into Mannerism/ the outre: odd angles, shocking subjects, kinky twists, on-crack what-ifs: stuff that takes you farther and farther away from the canon characters. It's an inevitable progression in a large active fandom. Never mind HP- the Potterfen's mothers did it all with B7 and Pros.

The unexplored patches do exist, but I think should be explored only by people whose minds naturally take them there (looking pointedly at Greer.) If I were to go searching for them, chances are I'd merely wind up being clever. Sincerity is all: one must feel a gut need to write the thing. Unless you're a ~~Nabokovian~~ head writer by nature; but that's another ball game.

Is interesting. While I'm a much bigger reader than writer for the most part, I also get a bit of the "all my ideas have been done by others" feeling, especially if it's "Done by The Canon". :P

The creativity-killing is very true... bad fic seems a little unreal (we don't seem to be on the same planet, she murmurs in awe), but mediocre fic is just sort of a bummer. (For the eye-opening kind I just wait in a bouncy anticipation for more, but that's the difference between reader and writer types. It's not very clear what exactly makes me want to write. :)

mediocre fic is just sort of a bummer

Yes, actually, it is. I wonder no-one has fanfic-ranted on the subject yet. (Possibly the glass house syndrome at work?)

Badfic has its own special awfulness, like kitsch, but it never negates good fic. In fact, it makes it very clear what good fic is: anything that's not this. Whereas mediocre fic makes me at least doubt the existence of good fic. Surely all writing must be this bland uninspired soup; all sex scenes this painfully unerotic clinical prose style; all characters these undifferentiated and generic personalities. Think I'll go play solitaire...

I see what you're saying. I think it's harder to read other views the more you're thinking about stories in that same realm. A lot of times when you read, an "oh, that's just wrong" slips through, and the part where you should just let the writer have her fun is somewhat stomped out by one's own notions of what the series (story) should be.

Personally, what gears me to write is the challenge to see something. The challenge is broader if there's more ideas to explore, and then more fine when you have a narrow field to play in. "Write a story that's not "Sad Saiyuki in the Rain", write Hakkai and Gojou make sweet love in a tree, write the end of Gaiden, write a story about characters related to canon characters, write a story that you must incorporate poetry in...etc.

Another sad story in the rain, after so many sad stories in the rain, seems boring to write now, unless you do a verbal trick like playing with tenses, word count, or absolutely-no-adjectives, etc. A newer (fresher) fandom seems easier because the "been there-done that" isn't so much there. (it's also more forgiving and accepting, like early Saiyuki stories, where everything that came down the pipe was applauded because there was so little in the pipe to begin with.)

You never know what will set you off. Maybe it won't be in a story, but in something someone says off-hand, ("God, I hate it when a character does that.") or in something in your RL, like seeing a large tree against an early evening sky and the idea of what it would be to sit someone on one of the thick higher branches, and how would it fit with two...and these ideas just roll along, and whatever someone else has written has fallen to the wayside as you ponder wind and weight and the feel of bark against your back...

Personally, what gears me to write is the challenge to see something

Hmm. I see two impulses at work here, the fannish and the writerly, which aren't quite the same.

The Fan wants to see the characters: more of the characters, inside the characters, the characters doing things not shown in canon. The Writer wants to do technical things involving the characters: a Jiip POV, a story about the space between, something that incorporates the image of a field of yellow flowers.

Best case scenario the two work in tandem: the writer writes happily because she gets to see more of the characters. Here the writer's skills feed the fan's love for the characters. Hence we get that missing scene from vol 6, or What Happens After, or the minor character brought centre stage. But when the fan has finally seen enough the writer starts doing more if not most of the work. Then we get into the drabble challenges and theme challenges, and also I think into the more bizarre scenarios. There the fan's love is feeding the writer's inspiration. I wouldn't write a drabble about just anything but I'm happy to try it if it's these guys.

Just-- the slow cooling of our ~~chivalrous~~ fannish passion (such a useful man at times, Pound) eventually leaves the writer still wanting to write but without the original fannish ardour to inspire her. Then one resorts to more intellectual challenges, to phrase it positively. The thud to the gut inspiration becomes a thing of the past.

To me it's obvious that the Fan's passion cools faster the more people there are to feed that first fannish need. And that's why new fandoms or obscure ones will provide more fodder for longer periods- the Fan is kept fasting so the Writer needs to keep feeding her. Reduction of intake has been proved to extend longevity, and fandom is no exception.