hauntedpoem

We need to discuss this in depth. I mean it! I really think we do. I need to figure out why as a woman I like male slash so much. Ah, time to psychoanalyse, I guess.

made my day! … and that’s why the dinosaurs disappeared. Thank you @pippychick for talking about this. It’s quite enlightening.

Ahhh… The art of fanfiction, the title says it all. I read HP like everyone else while still in middle school and I remember waiting anxiously for the 5th book. You see… I am Romanian. I read in Romanian and when our small town library got the 5th book in English, there was no translation yet into Romanian. I had to read it. So I did. I was 14 and I so wanted to know what came next that I worked really hard on my English. I remember beeing a teenager, back in high-school and discovering fanfiction through a good friend of mine. She was into LOTR (still is!). I was 16, devouring Dostoyevski and heavy novels of epic proportions, I fancied myself in love with German expressionism and I even attempted to understand Wittgenstein. I was an idealist. I started reading other things to get a grasp of how things work in the modern world and I found fanfiction but I had little idea about the original works. Then it all clicked. Must have been that age. Ha haa! There was an abundance of fanfiction with an erotic twist. Even now, I think that so-called adult-themed fanfiction draws the most readers. I don’t think it’s that easy to write about such subjects, especially when you’re underage and have no experience except for the giggling fumbling awkward kissing in your highschool hallway. I see that most male slash is written by women. I read a couple of slash novels but to be honest I preferred the fics for some reason. I am still trying to figure out that reason. These days I find myself cleaning my hard-drive. I find fics I started a year or probably two years ago. I mend them and I send them out. It’s quite cathartic. I’ve written before. Not fanfiction. I’ve written in my own language on different subjects. I tried serious stuff but when you’re in 7th grade, you know little about the world around you and you are anything but a serious writer. Then I started writing in my first year of Uni. Together with a friend of mine, I managed to create a 200 pages monstrosity that ended up in a dusty drawer because we had exams and serious life stuff to battle. I write sparingly in my own language. It takes a bloody long time. I am my worst critic, after all.

true that! ha ha! my sentiment exactly! I can vouch for that. I used fanfiction in some of my darker times. I don’t know whether it helped but I also used fanfiction to take some things out of my mind and placing them on the characters, I realised I could see some things objectively ( yes, it is possible!). I mainly externalised some things through fanfiction – I then analysed those things and I came back with a fuller understanding of myself. I specifically said fanfiction because I always chose the characters closer to my heart to say these things I was unable to. I felt safe, true. Whereas a published writer, no matter the talent and the value of their work, needs to constantly be en garde about those inner demons. The scrutiny is public. that’s amazing because just this morning I woke up with an immense feel that multiverse is possible! I wish to know the name of that story! I really want to try out reading things that inspired others. For me, it’s the first time I joined a forum like this where I can talk about fandoms and fanfiction. Yep, virgin indeed. @pippychick, yeah, that video is quite long but I liked how Mr Pinker chose to use “she” instead of “he”. Plus, he makes some interesting points about how we come to write about certain subjects. He talks about how many writers, if they have to write a character who is a biologist for example, will try and delve into biology, just to create depth for the character.

(I’m on break and currently trying to figure the posting system out) Absolutely true! Practice makes perfect. However, I think that the quality of the material you read can also influence you, can set a sort of standard for your own writing practices. (figured how to work the quotes, folks. Indeed, practice makes perfect. here’s living proof) I wonder how many fanfiction writers view this form of writing as an exercise? To me, it is still an exercise (working those muscles hard atm), mostly combined with a love for the worlds of the respective owners. To me it was something like: please don’t end, it’s too beautiful, has so much to offer! If we talk Tolkien or Rowling. What @BronxWench says is quite reassuring. A writer. Thank you! It isn’t painting by numbers, but a different approach that is directed at satisfying yourself and if you want, the audience. I mean… how many of you got into fanfiction to write for others, and how many of you got into it to write for yourselves? I write for myself. I don’t necessarily think about what people want to read. Sometimes, when the interests converge, something wonderful happens! We stay in touch with our favourite fanfiction writers and we learn about each other. Sure, there may be competition but what started the whole thing was an outpour of creativity and a necessity to write when the bug bites you. I know people who published. Like IRL – ha ha- and they are so plagued by following a certain structure and their publisher’s directives that they end up printing something that only resembles 40% of what they intentionally had in mind. If they want certain things. Like money. And success. Because to some people, these two are indistinguishable. And ohmygosh @pippychick , your post is just amazing. Thanks for those links. I will definitely check them out because I really wish to know what other people’s favourite fics are. I can’t even make up my mind. Exactly! That’s how I feel about it! There is an urge to write that doesn’t necessarily look for an audience. The audience finds it if they’re drawn to it. This is a very interesting perspective. To be honest, I never bothered figuring out how the translation me-character X actually worked. This is actual food for thought. Personally, I started out as favouring a certain character. Maybe because I identified with them. Who knows? However, your approach now makes sense to me. Upon further thinking things through, I realise that what we write is entirely subjective. Character X is a product of the original author’s mind, it is constrained by the design and structure of a work of fiction, thus limited. There are characters to whom are dedicated many hundreds of pages, they become more multi-faceted, more complex, absolutely true. However, they are still limited to those pages. So I guess that it any further exploration rests on the fanfictioner’s shoulders. I also think that the limited design is the actual incentive for starting to write fanfiction. There never seems to be enough said about it. There are many possibilities. You said it! No, you don’t. You give really good explanations and may I say… advice! You cleared some things up for me. Personally, I enjoy long and reasonable explanations. Every day I learn something new! Like this: This may not be 100% on the topic of writing (adult) fanfiction but I really wanted to share it with you. I watched it recently and it is useful. Steven Pinker a psychologist and feminist talks about~ Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century~ for an hour

@Noumena, I know the feeling. I have been a reader of fanfiction and then I too felt the urge to write some. About the value of fanfiction, as you have put it, l guess that it always depends on what the reader wants and expects, don’t you think? Personally, l am grateful to be writing and reading fanfiction. It is not only a creative outlet but you also grow as a writer. l think that what has been written in the past 30 years or so can surpass as volume, two centuries of writing. We are a very active and creative generation because we are finally allowed that, don’t you think? We can express ourselves in writing freely, we have the right to the freedom of speech and expression. How beautiful is that? Suddenly, we find out that we all could be writers and that is an uplifting feeling. Here comes the value of fanfiction. Not anyone here may be a published author with friends in high places or studies of literature. You might think of fanfiction as the secret art of the pyramids, illicit and apocryphal. I always wondered whether famous and well-known authors have written fanfiction. I have read somewhere that Neil Gaiman, a British novelist and creator of Coraline used to. I think there are many who write fanfiction. It attracts you with the freedom it promises! On the other hand, I think you mention adult fanfiction as a form of an easier to emulate literature. Now another question… is fanfiction literature? Yes, it can be. The dictionary says that literature could mean any written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit. Regarding your comment, the answer is maybe… or maybe not. I think many people associate fanfiction with writing about other people’s characters having sex, without it being necessarily so. It all relies on how the fanfiction author writes this “sex” happening. There is a very fine line between writing erotica, sensual works and simply describing acts of sex. The first titillates but keeps some mystery, the latter may be associated with porn. I guess the answer lies in the eye of the beholder. I had the pleasure of reading some very explicit works by some authors, lengthy fanfiction stories with multiple characters, action, intrigue, and of course, lots and lots of sex. What automatically classified this into my mind as erotica was the immense skill of the author to provide us with deep and meaningful psychological aspects to this sex. How amazing is that? Writing about sex, finally, escapes centuries of taboo. Sex in writing becomes highly explorative and highly psychological. It may not be a continuous discourse on feelings and emotions and consequences of said emotions but the sensuality and thus the quality of the sex depicted may rely entirely upon small, even mundane details. These are very good questions and you made some interesting and useful points! I too wonder, many times, whether placing the characters in different settings alters their personality too much. However, I put my faith in the diversity of fanfiction. Whenever I read something that is so well written that would make published authors envious and in an unusual, highly improbable setting (even OOC or with many OCs), my faith is restored. I agree with @BronxWench! I guess fanfiction is more of an intuitive thing to write, one filled with challenges? There are creative writing classes but with fanfiction, no one but other ficcers can tell you how it is done (their experience) or whether there is a correct way to do it. I too believe that trying to inhabit that character might put us into perspective. That’s why, I guess with darker fics, this might come to reflect on your own state of mind, even affecting you to point where you need some time-out. I still have to reach a point where I feel completely detached from what I write. Plus, I don’t think that’s entirely possible.