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capri0mniMy F'list is heavy with fan fiction writers (fanfictioneers? may not be a real word, but I like the sound of it, so: nyah!:-P): Blake's 7, Sgwun, Nightwing, Buffy, Farscape, Reboot, and, of course, Doctor Who.
Personally, I never knew that fan fiction even existed until I stumbled across mention of it when I looked for other Doctor Who fans online several years ago -- or existed as a cultural phenomenon, and any rate. If I'd ever stopped to think about it, I probably would have found it reasonable that if someone was the fan of a particular show, she or he might doodle out her or his own stories for that universe... but I never stopped to think about it. That's not surprising, really, considering that, although I've been a fan of Doctor Who, and other things, I've never really knew about (or imagined) Fandom, as such, until I went searching the Internet for other people who just happened to like Doctor Who, about 6 or 7 years ago, and stumbled on RADW (not sure of the exact date, and I'm too tired to google for it now, though I may pinpoint the date in a later edit).
I love to write. I especially love to write stories. Some of my earliest memories are of dictating stories for one of my parents to write down. And I enjoy reading fan fiction.
But the few times that I've tried to write fan fiction, my brain has rebelled. I am much more comfortable with original characters.
When an original character comes into my head, it's almost as if a real person has knocked on my door, asked to come in, and tell me his or her story, and ask me to help getting that story out. Sometimes, the character isn't too awfully clear as to what that story is, and there is a lot of hemming and hawing, and repeating bits, and leaving other key bits out. But after we spend time together, chatting quietly, or having knock-down, drag-out fights, the story eventually comes clear and the character and I work out the telling of it together.
But when I try to write fan fiction, it feels like I'm engaging in remote mind control of another person -- like I'm trying to make the character do something he or she would never choose to do on his or her own. There's hostility on the character's part. There's a definite squick factor on my part, and it just doesn't work out...
One original character didn't knock on my door, though, she popped nearly fully-formed into existance one day as I read the RADW threads, and this is she:
-- Eloise, the pro-fun troll (Though I didn't know her name was Eloise until much later). Though a friend of the Doctor, and always glad to welcome him down to her river bank for a cup of tea and a chat, she's never been his companion. Her mission in life is to divert and defuse the energy of flame wars into fun and games -- she is a troll... she does deliberately post provokative messages. She just aims to provoke laughter and thought, is all. In May of 2000, when the flamewars got a bit much for her to fight individually, she decided to host the first Pro-Fun Troll Hoedown, to distract people. I gave her a TARDIS for that, and, in Mary-sue fashion, I made the exterior of the TARDIS and its environs look like my house and its neighboorhood, and the inside was a giant barn.
The Hoedown became a more-or-less annual event, getting more elaborate and planned out with each year. And each year, new original characters came into my head to be Eloise's friends and relations. There's Ruthie, a littler, tourquoise-colored pro-fun troll who looks to Eloise as a mentor, and Walter Duncun, and older, purple, Pro-fun troll whom Eloise looks to as a mentor; the character of Eloise's TARDIS slowly emerged, and, in the third story, that TARDIS's original Time Lord pilot. ... All these characters are original to me, and all act primarily as hosts. In that sense, they are reflections of me: eager to foster and bask in fanfiction, but uncomfortable jumping into the skin of the primary fiction characters these roundrobins celebrate.
The fourth story (last year's) was an utter disaster. I vested a lot of energy in planning the thing ahead of time. When the story itself started, I got into ego wars with the other writers -- one in particular -- this, along with other tensions in my psyche, drove me into deep depression, and to save my sanity, I had to drop out of the story altogether before it was finished. I still can't bring myself to read the finished, redacted version. I never intended to give up on the Pro-Fun Roundrobins altogether, though, and thought maybe, if I returned to the way of the first story: totally unexpected, unannounced, and unplanned, I could recover some of the free spirit we had in the first story. I was thinking, since people began looking for the hoedown in the summer, that I should post the opeining to the story around Christmas, or New Year's, and make it a Grand Holiday Affair.
But when Christmas came around in RL, I slipped into another depression -- sparked by Bush's re-election, and the fact that the person I drew as my Secret Santee just happened to be a woman I was bearing a lot of anger and resentment toward -- I was in no way in a pro-fun mood. And besides, I get the feeling that the pro-fun doings wouldn't fit at ADWC, any more... they've already left RADW far behind.
Still, I don't want Eloise and Friends to fade into nothing and be forgotten. I Definitely need to exercise the pro-fun part of my psyche. I'm just not sure how...
Any suggestions?
Personally, I never knew that fan fiction even existed until I stumbled across mention of it when I looked for other Doctor Who fans online several years ago -- or existed as a cultural phenomenon, and any rate. If I'd ever stopped to think about it, I probably would have found it reasonable that if someone was the fan of a particular show, she or he might doodle out her or his own stories for that universe... but I never stopped to think about it. That's not surprising, really, considering that, although I've been a fan of Doctor Who, and other things, I've never really knew about (or imagined) Fandom, as such, until I went searching the Internet for other people who just happened to like Doctor Who, about 6 or 7 years ago, and stumbled on RADW (not sure of the exact date, and I'm too tired to google for it now, though I may pinpoint the date in a later edit).
I love to write. I especially love to write stories. Some of my earliest memories are of dictating stories for one of my parents to write down. And I enjoy reading fan fiction.
But the few times that I've tried to write fan fiction, my brain has rebelled. I am much more comfortable with original characters.
When an original character comes into my head, it's almost as if a real person has knocked on my door, asked to come in, and tell me his or her story, and ask me to help getting that story out. Sometimes, the character isn't too awfully clear as to what that story is, and there is a lot of hemming and hawing, and repeating bits, and leaving other key bits out. But after we spend time together, chatting quietly, or having knock-down, drag-out fights, the story eventually comes clear and the character and I work out the telling of it together.
But when I try to write fan fiction, it feels like I'm engaging in remote mind control of another person -- like I'm trying to make the character do something he or she would never choose to do on his or her own. There's hostility on the character's part. There's a definite squick factor on my part, and it just doesn't work out...
One original character didn't knock on my door, though, she popped nearly fully-formed into existance one day as I read the RADW threads, and this is she:
The Hoedown became a more-or-less annual event, getting more elaborate and planned out with each year. And each year, new original characters came into my head to be Eloise's friends and relations. There's Ruthie, a littler, tourquoise-colored pro-fun troll who looks to Eloise as a mentor, and Walter Duncun, and older, purple, Pro-fun troll whom Eloise looks to as a mentor; the character of Eloise's TARDIS slowly emerged, and, in the third story, that TARDIS's original Time Lord pilot. ... All these characters are original to me, and all act primarily as hosts. In that sense, they are reflections of me: eager to foster and bask in fanfiction, but uncomfortable jumping into the skin of the primary fiction characters these roundrobins celebrate.
The fourth story (last year's) was an utter disaster. I vested a lot of energy in planning the thing ahead of time. When the story itself started, I got into ego wars with the other writers -- one in particular -- this, along with other tensions in my psyche, drove me into deep depression, and to save my sanity, I had to drop out of the story altogether before it was finished. I still can't bring myself to read the finished, redacted version. I never intended to give up on the Pro-Fun Roundrobins altogether, though, and thought maybe, if I returned to the way of the first story: totally unexpected, unannounced, and unplanned, I could recover some of the free spirit we had in the first story. I was thinking, since people began looking for the hoedown in the summer, that I should post the opeining to the story around Christmas, or New Year's, and make it a Grand Holiday Affair.
But when Christmas came around in RL, I slipped into another depression -- sparked by Bush's re-election, and the fact that the person I drew as my Secret Santee just happened to be a woman I was bearing a lot of anger and resentment toward -- I was in no way in a pro-fun mood. And besides, I get the feeling that the pro-fun doings wouldn't fit at ADWC, any more... they've already left RADW far behind.
Still, I don't want Eloise and Friends to fade into nothing and be forgotten. I Definitely need to exercise the pro-fun part of my psyche. I'm just not sure how...
Any suggestions?
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 01:41 pm (UTC)And
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 09:50 am (UTC)Funny you should mention the knocking on door thing about your original characters. I can't write OCs to save my *life*, but I get that exact same thing with characters from tv shows. I get all these aliens and people from the future banging on my door and *demanding* I write down what they have to say. It's like they're forcing *me* to write stuff rather than me forcing them to do anything:). I think that the less gets said in the canon, the more the characters *scream* to me to tell what happens between the episodes. If there's a lot of explaining and going through of emotions (I've always found the "LET'S SHARE!" bits in US shows unrealistic), I find I can't write much or *at all*. But every time there's something hidden there, something the characters aren't saying, *snap*, I start speculating. Even then, I might not get answers and the characters will be just as frustrated as before, but boy, the journeys are fun:).
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 01:51 pm (UTC)Not sure why OC's come to me, and other characters don't. It could just be that I grew up as an only child, in the middle of the woods, with few neighbors, but with lots of cats and chickens and wild critters... and so I got the characters who'd stumbled off the main road and gotten lost, or something...
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 02:01 pm (UTC)Now that I know! *bounces off*
Bwa-ha-ha!
Date: 2005-01-26 03:26 pm (UTC)ahem. yes. Well. You can pick up your official pro-fun troll birthday hat and blow-out party favor on the way out. They're in the closet on the left...
Re: Bwa-ha-ha!
Date: 2005-01-26 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 02:11 pm (UTC)Now that it's done, you should at least read the final chapter. (It's just the "thank you and goodbye" bits - all the plot is safely over.)
Well, I have no suggestions, but I'm glad you're still thinking about it. I don't want Eloise and friends to fade into nothing and be forgotten, either...
no subject
Date: 2005-03-09 03:26 pm (UTC)Sorry I took so long to find this reply...Glad I went looking for you in