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BSV Forum - General - The Bloodshedpub Why do you write fanfic? There really was no good category to put this in...it's writing related, specifically fanfic writing related so this was the closest category I could find. I thought I'd kick off a discussion of sorts. Why do you write fanfic (for those that write it.)? There are no wrong answers, I'm just curious about various other people's motivations. Some people may have read some of my LJ posts on this topic, I'll repost some of my own thoughts, but first I'm curious about what drives other writers...first to write, and secondly to write fanfic. Do you just write fanfic or do you write original fic too? (There's nothing wrong with if you just write fanfic...this is just a curiosity of mine.) Zoe =) I saw you weren't sure where to put this, so I moved it to the section where I think it belongs. In the end this isn't really about writing (the technical part or writing) itself, as much as it is a general discussion. And that's exactly what the pub is for. Please don't take this the wrong way, I don't intend to move things around all the time, this is just to get things started. Oh errr, maybe while I'm here anyway I should answer the question, huh? I wrote something about this on lj a while back, and since I'm lazy I'll just copy it, ok? When I see something I believe to be wrong, be it in a show or a book, I have this urge to fix it somehow. For a long time I was content with imagining those solutions (and annoying my sister by telling her about them), but when I started reading fanfic I fell in love with the idea that I'd be able to show them to others. Plus, I absolutely love reading and always wanted to be able to write something myself. Sadly language and literature isn't my strong suit, I was always better with math and technical stuff. Because of that I knew writing a "real" novel is way out of my league, so fanfic gave me the opportunity to dabble in writing – and the hope that in time I'll get to the point where at least I like what I'm producing. "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits." - Albert Einstein heh no, it's cool dia...I just didn't know where to put it was all. And it makes sense to put it here. I can identify with that reason for writing fanfic...I used to imagine other scenarios too...and then I found the concept of fanfic and wrote one down lol. It really is like indefinite episodes in the altiverse. This is a totally "romantic" writing notion of mine...but I read it in this children's fantasy novel by Diane Wynne Jones called: "witch week" some character said, "every story is true, somewhere." It makes me think of this whole: "all these conflicting stories can exist and be just as "true" from a story perspective as all the others." which is nice. I'm going to try to organize more briefly my reasons for writing fanfic...so i don't freak people out with my verbosity then I'll be back to post them. :) OK, here are my reasons: I read somewhere that in writing, the
first million words are just practice. No writer really likes to hear
that, but it is a fact that a lot of what you write will never see
the light of day, it's just the price of learning your craft and
honing your voice. If you are a novelist you might write three entire
novels before writing the one that actually sees publication.
So in brief (well brief for me...sorry i'm verbose)...the reasons I personally write fanfic:
Oct 10 2006 09:54 am #5Always_jbj Love. That's pretty much what it comes down to. I love writing, I love the characters, and I love the incredible world that Joss gave us. And feedback is really nice too! lol Aim from the heart Some will love and some will curse you, baby You can go to war But only if you have to Fanfic ~*~ Artwork ~*~ Live Journal Oct 10 2006 11:18 am #7Guest I've always been a reader....been reading fanfic for quite a while now. I started writing when...this is a bit embarrassing...I had this dream, and it was Spike and an original character "having a day in the life", so to speak, and I thought this OC was really cool, and the ideas for her powers and life just wouldn't leave me alone, and so I started from there. Put her in Sunnydale for an AU season 5 and beyond. That's now on its 3rd book in the series, LOL. I mainly read Spuffy, or gen fics that have Spuffy in them, so I figured I should eventually tackle a story my way sometime, and Discovery was born, basically because I wasn't satisfied with the end of "Chosen". That little story has gotten me the best review of any of my works, which was really sweet. When I was in school, I couldn't write for crap. Complete mental blank. My senior creative writing class helped by giving me prompts that I could build off of, and that's what the BTVS world is for me, too. After writing 3 fanfics, I started an original story, that is on chapter 4 right now. I'd like to try publishing it one day online. It really is huge that I can build a story now, considering where I came from. I guess I just had to live a while, LOL. I also wanted to figure out creative writing to be able to form my thoughts well enough for verse of other types, like song lyrics. The readers keep me trying new things, as getting feedback is just really cool! Caro Mio Oct 10 2006 02:03 pm #8slaymesoftly I don't consider myself a fiction writer. Hadn't written anything "creative" (except for some doggerel poetry to amuse friends) in a very long time when I fell upon BtVS and fanfic. I was inspired to write by seeing how other fanfic writers were twisting the events in the show and/or taking these amazing characters and creating their own adventures for them. I hated that Buffy was so mean to Spike all the time (because, me? I would have been all over him. lol), so I wrote a season VI ficlet to "fix" the situation. And somebody posted it for me (at Inamorati) and that was that. I wrote another one, and another one, and..... Still have no real interest in writing "original" fiction, although I do have the first three sentences of a potential short story on my hard drive. I suspect those three sentences will sit there until the laptop dies. LOL I am not a minion of Evil... I am upper management. I write fanfic because... I can't not? The characters just
bounce around in my head and get me thinking 'now what?' or 'Would
Willow really do that?' It's only for fantasy and sci-fi shows.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with writing, say, Veronica
Mars fics. I'm just not motivated to do so. Before
Buffy, my fandoms were TNG and X-Files. I've written a lot of
Buffy stuff, but it took some time to find the characters' voices, and
Borrowed Time was the first story worth showing. Oct 10 2006 07:52 pm #10Guest Coquine, again. Still too lazy to sign in. Despite my loooong-standing WIPs, I do still actually write fanfic, and still hope to finish all of my WIPs eventually. Like a lot of others, I was writing fanfiction before I even knew it was a 'thing.' It started with wanting to see more of my favorite characters in the X-Men comic books, so I decided to just write it myself. I actually did this with every obsession of the moment that I've had, and they've all been sci-fi/fantasy type 'verses. When I was a freshman in college, I had access to the internet for the first time, and I was delighted to discover that, not only was I not the only person who did this, but that there were entire communities on the web dedicated to it. I started off reading mostly X-Men (Rogue and Gambit in particular) fanfic. Then when I discovered BtVS, it was an easy shift to Spuffy fanfic, and I found it to be so good and so satisfying that it's now the only 'verse I really read anymore. It is, in my opinion, some of the best writing of any kind out there, and I hope that it never, never fades away. Oct 10 2006 07:54 pm #11Guest Coquine again, because I realized I forgot to answer the question! I read and write fanfiction for love of the characters, and wanting to see them in far better ways than we were given them in canon. That's really all it boils down to. Cara Mio, I totally get that about writing prompts. It really DOES help you to see your other writing (if you do other writing) in a whole new way...and the dream thing isn't silly. Part of the idea for my current novel came to me in dream. LMAO Patti about the three sentences that will die with your laptop. I'm very curious now lol. MsClawdia..."Borrowed Time" is absolutely fantastic and I'm really glad you're sharing it with us! :) Coquine: I'm right there with you on the "really i'm going to finish those WIPs" someday lol. And yeah...I hope Buffy fanfic never dies either. We have a lot of great stuff to read. Buffy fans are in a class all their own. Oct 11 2006 01:25 am #14slaymesoftly Zoe - be as curious as you like. I have no plans to try to do anything else with them. Did it as much to prove to myself (and stupid hubby) that I really don't want to write about anybody but Spike and Buffy as for any other reason. LOL Could they be the beginning of a short story? Yeah, sure. Will they be? Not likely. I am not a minion of Evil... I am upper management. Why do I write? Because I have to. I started out writing original fiction, many, many, many years ago. I wrote a book for my sister when I was 7, and haven't looked back since. I have over 500,000 words written in a long fiction series that hasn't completely seen the light of day. I've got stories I've started and not been able to finish because of lack of feedback -- and decided inability to finish something. However, I always have a story to tell. . . . it's just getting onto the screen that is the problem Why do I write fanfic? Because I got stuck at home one summer, unable to even dress myself and I watched seasons 2, 3, and 5 (because those are what I had) in endless loops, and caught up on other seasons while they were on FX, until I got season 4, which got added to the loop. The dangling plot threads and dropped story lines ("you don't know what you are") drove me out of my mind as a writer. So once I could hold a pen again, I set out to tell a story I thought hadn't yet been told. I guess I struck a nerve, because 2 people kept nagging me to post it, finish it and well, here I am nearly a half a million words later, still telling the same story. The love story of Buffy and Spike -- because it is love -- struck a nerve within me, one that I couldn't ignore. And while the whole star-crossed lovers thing that was going on with Buffy and Angel was cute -- it sure as hell wasn't real. What Buffy and Spike had -- with all it's danger and darkness -- that was real, because it grew -- it didn't just pop up out of thin air and cotton candy dreams. And to me, the real hard story is what needed to be told. Plus, I have some real issues with one of the show's writers. And that's all I'm saying. So, yeah, that's about it. Cool Niamh and I agree that Buffy and Angel wasn't real love. It might have been cute puppy love or infactuation but it didnt have any of the messy qualities that a real love relationship has. Oct 11 2006 03:20 am #17Guest Cas I agree with what everyone has said. It's not so much for the reviews, though those help, mainly I write for myself. The story I am posting now I wrote just because it was left unfinished, (with a couple of false starts by other authors)and I wanted to see if I figure out how the story should go as Spuffy intended. Never really expected it to see the light of day. However, the reviews really do help, and not just with encouragement. I need to see what the readers are getting from what I have written, because sometimes they don't come away thinking what I intended. Hope this prints okay, cause it looks a little wonky here. Oct 12 2006 12:26 am #19GoldenBuffy I just like to write as well as read. Been doing both for a long time. My mom taught me to read at 3.5 yrs, and I started writing stories in the third grade. As I got older it just helped with stress, so I guess it was only natural that I'd start to write fanfic as well. And in the air the fireflies Our only light in paradise We'll show the world they were wrong And teach them all to sing along Nov 13 2006 02:26 am #20Guest Pfeifferpack here (not logged on)
I write both but have only put the fanfic out for public consumption thus far.
I write because I always have done so. I write fanfic because I had these stories in my mind (all BtVS/AtS inspired as it is the only arena I write fanfic in) and they had to come out. Some, like my first William Chronicles, were to flesh out the reason a character was as portrayed onscreen. Others are a "what if" exercise where I take canon and give it a tweak to see where it might lead. Some were in response to a challenge. My longest was an attempt to go past NFA and also try my hand at getting the voice for all the major characters of both shows. Nov 13 2006 03:19 am #21GoldenBuffy I like writing Buffy 'cause we can fix all the wrong that happened on the show. ROFL Same with Angel,lol. And in the air the fireflies Our only light in paradise We'll show the world they were wrong And teach them all to sing along Nov 13 2006 06:47 am #22dipole_dipole_attraction Reading is my escape and Buffy is my passion. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time!) an idea gets stuck in my head and I just have to develop it. Writing it down makes me see the infinite amount of possibilities, and I end up just as immersed in the story as if I were reading or watching it. And sometimes, just because I like words. Nov 15 2006 02:54 am #23Spikez_tart Me, too, Goldenbuffy. Spike deserves to get the girl and he's going to get her in my stories, no matter what. If we want her to be exactly she'll never be exactly I know the only really real Buffy is really Buffy and she's gone' who? | |||
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