![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dagas_isaBecause I'm actually in love-love with the "five things" trope. Five things I believe about Fanfic, and how that affects what I write.
Writing fanfic is important in the way that I relate to certain texts and to the culture at large.
I'm not going to say that creators owe me the right to write and post fanfiction featuring their characters, but I can pretty well guarantee that I write more and advocate more for canons where I'm inspired to not just consume what someone else creates for me, but also to expand or build upon it as well. Also, I can't just only relate to texts by consuming and the process of creating, recreating, and transforming aren't in themselves valuable, just the end result, and only if it's salable and aesthetically pleasing.
Stories also reflect the culture they come from. So responding to stories is not just about interacting with the text, and all the hints, and reading between the lines, and twisting stories so they represent another point of view or what should have happened. But they're also responding to the culture that created the stories. This is what you think a hero is. This is what you think a villain is. This is what is worth creating stories about. Stories are pretty much embedded in culture, and engaging with that story, for better or for worse or just by accident, is also to engage with the culture in which it's created, and at least within the confines of fic doing something with it.
2. Writing fanfic is a completely legit form of writing meta.
Totally. I'm not going to go so far as to say that all fanfic is meta, although you know...I wouldn't call it impossible. For a lot of my canons, there's a lot of fandom meta that's better expressed through fanfiction than through essay format. Hopeless Moves is pretty much meta, in the sense that I wanted to show how something that was originally played for a comedic reveal in the manga could actually be pretty sad if you consider the genuine feelings involved, and that they're likely not returned. And even for meta that could be expressed through essay or fiction, fiction offers a wonderful advantage that essays don't have: It leaves the reader open to an epiphany, where essays are better when the reader understands ahead of time the point that's getitng made.
I'm not going to say that there's no difference in regards to fair use between writing a literary criticism essay and writing fanfiction, except that the meta aspects of the literary criticism are grounded obviously within an accepted intellectual structure while fanfiction, at best, is grounded in that same structure as "writing practice."
3. Writing fanfic is about pleasing myself first and foremost, and hopefully others will tag along.
This is where I'm going to say that I differ from a lot of the posts that revolve around the uses of fanfic because I've only rarely experienced fandom as a community, and I'm not sure that I "belong" in fandom as part of its sharing economy (like seriously, how do people get 2-3 betas and someone to squee to as they write?). I'm too much of a weirdo and individualist in my tastes to be able to offer much of common value or to accept that anything written by someone else could somehow be written just for me. So fandom is mostly a solo activity, with participation happening really only in the sense of the periphery.
Writing fanfic is about writing the stories that I want to read, working through some of the issues that I need to get through (though hopefully good stories in themselves), and just sort of exploring and meandering through fandom. If readers want to come along and join in and read what I've left behind, then that's nothing but a good thing as far as I'm concerned, but I would be both lying and failing if I said that fanficiton wasn't ultimately a personal and solo pursuit for me rather than the community one that fandom people at large seem to partake in.
4. Writing fanfiction reflects my thoughts and experiences as a person.
I don't think anything is ever "just a story." Even only counting the things I post because I find them acceptable for public viewing. But still, I think my stories probably are decently reflective of who I am as a person and what I believe about life, my sense of humor, my interests both as a fan and outside fandom. I'm not going to say that I am my stories, or my stories are me, but that good or bad they are largely expressions of myself and what I find valuable for my own survival. This also includes the processes that go into choosing what to write and what to post, but that's largely invisible unless one wants to talk about the absence in what's posted.
I'm not sure where to go with that. But it exists, and it affects what I write and what I choose to post.
5. No story is ever 100% complete and airtight.
This goes for canon and for fic as well. I'm fine with ficcing most canons, because there's not a single story that just ends complete and airtight without there being another interpretation or another side to the story. Even taking aside the editing process and things getting left out or changed during the creation of the text, all forms of storytelling (and communication) is actually an active process on both the part of the sender (creator) and receiver (consumer). The sender intends to say something, creates a message, which is then transmitted to the receiver, who then interprets that message. Assuming the canon is the message, even assuming the creator has created their intended airtight message, the only way it remains airtight is if the receiver never actually gets the message and/or never applies that interpretive process.
But as for fic, I really don't view my fic as being airtight. Even after it's been posted. I've changed major parts of my stories including the endings, I keep continuing to adjust and tweak things that seemed fine when I posted them, but that can still be improved, or in retrospect seem problematic in their portrayal. There's still a lot of stories that I've both written and posted that I want to completely restructure so that it's the same story through a different frame, and I maybe have one story that won't ever cry for a sequel and that's because the lights went out and everything died in the end. All the others remain open, and untold.
I should so do my pink soda post tomorrow. If I get enough work on my thesis done. Or a five things post on why I really like the five things fic structure. =P
ETA: Fixed HTML fail.
Writing fanfic is important in the way that I relate to certain texts and to the culture at large.
I'm not going to say that creators owe me the right to write and post fanfiction featuring their characters, but I can pretty well guarantee that I write more and advocate more for canons where I'm inspired to not just consume what someone else creates for me, but also to expand or build upon it as well. Also, I can't just only relate to texts by consuming and the process of creating, recreating, and transforming aren't in themselves valuable, just the end result, and only if it's salable and aesthetically pleasing.
Stories also reflect the culture they come from. So responding to stories is not just about interacting with the text, and all the hints, and reading between the lines, and twisting stories so they represent another point of view or what should have happened. But they're also responding to the culture that created the stories. This is what you think a hero is. This is what you think a villain is. This is what is worth creating stories about. Stories are pretty much embedded in culture, and engaging with that story, for better or for worse or just by accident, is also to engage with the culture in which it's created, and at least within the confines of fic doing something with it.
2. Writing fanfic is a completely legit form of writing meta.
Totally. I'm not going to go so far as to say that all fanfic is meta, although you know...I wouldn't call it impossible. For a lot of my canons, there's a lot of fandom meta that's better expressed through fanfiction than through essay format. Hopeless Moves is pretty much meta, in the sense that I wanted to show how something that was originally played for a comedic reveal in the manga could actually be pretty sad if you consider the genuine feelings involved, and that they're likely not returned. And even for meta that could be expressed through essay or fiction, fiction offers a wonderful advantage that essays don't have: It leaves the reader open to an epiphany, where essays are better when the reader understands ahead of time the point that's getitng made.
I'm not going to say that there's no difference in regards to fair use between writing a literary criticism essay and writing fanfiction, except that the meta aspects of the literary criticism are grounded obviously within an accepted intellectual structure while fanfiction, at best, is grounded in that same structure as "writing practice."
3. Writing fanfic is about pleasing myself first and foremost, and hopefully others will tag along.
This is where I'm going to say that I differ from a lot of the posts that revolve around the uses of fanfic because I've only rarely experienced fandom as a community, and I'm not sure that I "belong" in fandom as part of its sharing economy (like seriously, how do people get 2-3 betas and someone to squee to as they write?). I'm too much of a weirdo and individualist in my tastes to be able to offer much of common value or to accept that anything written by someone else could somehow be written just for me. So fandom is mostly a solo activity, with participation happening really only in the sense of the periphery.
Writing fanfic is about writing the stories that I want to read, working through some of the issues that I need to get through (though hopefully good stories in themselves), and just sort of exploring and meandering through fandom. If readers want to come along and join in and read what I've left behind, then that's nothing but a good thing as far as I'm concerned, but I would be both lying and failing if I said that fanficiton wasn't ultimately a personal and solo pursuit for me rather than the community one that fandom people at large seem to partake in.
4. Writing fanfiction reflects my thoughts and experiences as a person.
I don't think anything is ever "just a story." Even only counting the things I post because I find them acceptable for public viewing. But still, I think my stories probably are decently reflective of who I am as a person and what I believe about life, my sense of humor, my interests both as a fan and outside fandom. I'm not going to say that I am my stories, or my stories are me, but that good or bad they are largely expressions of myself and what I find valuable for my own survival. This also includes the processes that go into choosing what to write and what to post, but that's largely invisible unless one wants to talk about the absence in what's posted.
I'm not sure where to go with that. But it exists, and it affects what I write and what I choose to post.
5. No story is ever 100% complete and airtight.
This goes for canon and for fic as well. I'm fine with ficcing most canons, because there's not a single story that just ends complete and airtight without there being another interpretation or another side to the story. Even taking aside the editing process and things getting left out or changed during the creation of the text, all forms of storytelling (and communication) is actually an active process on both the part of the sender (creator) and receiver (consumer). The sender intends to say something, creates a message, which is then transmitted to the receiver, who then interprets that message. Assuming the canon is the message, even assuming the creator has created their intended airtight message, the only way it remains airtight is if the receiver never actually gets the message and/or never applies that interpretive process.
But as for fic, I really don't view my fic as being airtight. Even after it's been posted. I've changed major parts of my stories including the endings, I keep continuing to adjust and tweak things that seemed fine when I posted them, but that can still be improved, or in retrospect seem problematic in their portrayal. There's still a lot of stories that I've both written and posted that I want to completely restructure so that it's the same story through a different frame, and I maybe have one story that won't ever cry for a sequel and that's because the lights went out and everything died in the end. All the others remain open, and untold.
I should so do my pink soda post tomorrow. If I get enough work on my thesis done. Or a five things post on why I really like the five things fic structure. =P
ETA: Fixed HTML fail.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 02:43 pm (UTC)Which is a long way of saying I agree very, very much with 1 & 2. I dance half-in-half-out of 3, in that I love to do challenge fics, which are writing for others, but anything that I write because of my own inspiration is first and foremost for me. Which might explain why I post so little. :) And I agree with 4 & 5, too.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 07:39 pm (UTC)I wonder if that's why Japan seems so much more lenient on fanworks.
3 probably depends on how well you're connected to people and the community. I'm not at all, but for others, it'll be different.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 07:46 pm (UTC)