*All was still for a moment on the battlefield before the walls of Gondor, as all looked upon the broken body of Arwen. The Nazgul screeched in triumph as it mounted its foul steed and took to the air, bent upon the final destruction of all the forces of good in Middle Earth.
Suddenly, the air was split with an unMiddle Earthly roar! From above, a strange silvery vision appeared… “Astroboy’s F-15” painted upon its nose in oddly shaped runes that only the truly wise would understand.
“Die, evil goat-felcher from Mordor!” screamed Astroboy, as he shook his fists at the Witchking (he was on autopilot… Astroboy, not the Nazgul…). A high pitched whine filled the cockpit as the sidewinder missile found its target…*
As a reader of comic books, I have stumbled across some bloody awful fan fiction: the erotica is the worst. I’d be embarrassed to put my name to some “Batman Does Wonder Woman” porn-fest, but self consciousness and pride doesn’t seem to stand in the way. I’ve you’re going to have a wank, don’t publish the process.
Fan fiction is fun because you truly never know what you are going to get. OTOH, there’s just so much out there that you could spend years perusing it all.
It’s like anything else – read what you like, and if you find yourself hating something you’re reading, stop.
I have never gotten the anger directed against Mary Sue’s. They’re written by people who like to fantasize about being romantically involved with their favorite characters. Sure, they’re badly written, but no one says you have to read them.
I have written only one piece of fan fiction, and it contains no original characters (meaning no Mary Sue). But it does contain my personal vision of how I’d like to see these characters behave, without regard to the intentions of their original authors, the restrictions of canon, or even the mechanics of the real world.
Fan fiction is written for the writer, no the reader. If someone else enjoys it, so much the better.
I have read a few excellent fanfics, but a surprising amount is crap. I don’t think fanfics and Mary Sues are the epitome of evil, just as long as the writer starts doing original fiction and making up their own characters.
And Astroboy14, you should totally write that story. Hell, I’d read it.
I don’t have much of a problem with the bad writing found in slash or fanfic. It’s not pretending to be anything other than what it is - writing for leisure. I know many slash writers from a multitude of different fandoms, and they are all part of gently supportive communities who will feedback, encourage, inspire and socialise with each other. None of them are professional writers, most of them hold no illusions that they could be, but they enjoy expressing themselves in this manner and get a real kick out of sharing it with the other writers and readers in their own fandom.
I don’t have much of a problem with Mary Sues either, and to be honest I never really understood why it is such a no-no. Any original character written will have aspects of that writer’s personal experiences, knowledge, tastes and needs. Much of my own writing is fairly explictly auto-biographical. Mary Sues just take it that one step further and no, it’s not subtle but I never got the impression that most fanfic authors were striving towards that in the first place. They are placing themselves into the fiction, and I find it touching and almost amazing, the naivety and joy with which they do this. No sense of restraint or self-conciousness. They are having fun, communicating with like-minded people who, I stress again, tend to be supportive, encouraging and gentle with even the worst writers. I write original fic and get no love (well, ok, a little - you know who you are and I can’t thank you enough for it). I constantly find myself envious at the sheer strength of community with most of these writers. Writing original fic is like pissing in the wind - the only sign we have that people are reading is the stats. And I don’t think I’m that bad…
All this said, I do have some unease about taking someone else’s creation and bastardising it in the name of a hobby, usually when you are perfectly aware that the original creator disapproves. I’m not sure how I would personally feel if somebody liked one of my characters enough to ‘borrow’ them and start writing them straight. Flattered? Maybe, I doubt it, but not much danger of that happening anyway. But generally I approve of anything which gets people writing for fun, badly or no, especially when they’re so obviously having a great time. Hating fanfic writers is liking hating puppies - ok, they can be a little stupid with a tendency to crap where they’re not supposed to, but they’re so fluffy and cuuuuute!
The best fan fiction is for the BuffyAngelverse. That’s because the fans are much more demanding, in that any fan/slash writing must be at minimun as good as what Joss Whedon does, or some say, used to do. Hell, there are many who hate the current seasons because of its decline in the wit that made both shows famous among Internet fans.
As for Mary Sues, some of the best writers insert themselves in the literature. I can’t help but think that Shakespeare must have thought of himself as Falstaff, the butt of jokes in several of his plays. And Stan Lee plays himself in the classic Spider-Man time-universe-jumping series of comic books, which was adapted in the 90’s series.
One of the worst fanfics I’ve ever read was a Warhammer 40,000 story in which not only was the writer the main character, he was a genetically enhanced, chaos corrupted warrior who could “defeat Kharn the Betrayer with great ease.”
Now, that probably meant absolutely nothing to most dopers. Allow me to clarify.
Kharn the Betrayer is the greatest mortal champion of the God of Slaughter. He is a contender for the most dangerous hand to hand fighter in the galaxy. No one can defeat him “with great ease,” any more than anyone could walk all over the Witch King, or knock Superman out with one punch.
The element of a lot of fan fiction that annoys me is the preoccupation with topping the acheivements of existing characters, or outdoing the source material. Why does the main character have to be stronger than (insert mighty legendary hero/ine here)?
I’ve run across some very, very good fan fiction. Most of it works because it tells a good story with that world as a backdrop. I stay away from using existing characters extensively (a character in a Middle Earth story might hear about Gandalf, or catch sight of a wizard in grey on the horizon, but wouldn’t interact with Gandalf in any meaningful way) and focus on the world.
Minor hijack: what about the published fanfic? I submit Laurell K. Hamilton’s Elfiverse. The plot consists of the heroine having an amazing variety of sex with a bevy of supernatural studs. Oh, wait, that’s just like her Vampire chronicles. Does anyone else get the feeling that Ms. Hamilton is performing self-insertion?
(Damn, but that sounded Freudian.)
“I have never gotten the anger directed against Mary Sue’s. They’re written by people who like to fantasize about being romantically involved with their favorite characters.”
Yea, I’m aware of that. It’s just that my problem with Mary Sues is that they are nearly always VERY beautiful, talented in everything, exceeding powerful and pretty much perfect. It can be very irritating.
“Sure, they’re badly written, but no one says you have to read them.”
Well, they’re like trainwrecks sometimes. Especially if you run a fanfic review site. ehehe
“Fan fiction is written for the writer, no the reader.”
“Then why post them online if it’s for the writer?”
I’m not saying that writers should do everything the reader wants. I just tend to prefer what Stephen Donaldson had to say about things like this. He writes for the STORY rather than just for himself or others because if you did it for yourself, you wouldn’t share it with others.
I feel that once you post something in public, you expose your works to judgement of many people. Not all of them will say, “Great fic! Write more!”
To invite the reader to share in the expansion of the universe the writer has just enjoyed. Sometimes the reader actually enjoys it, believe it or not.
Oh dear God. How much Buffy fic have you actually read? I am thinking back to my fanfic phase which was mercifully brief and houw there were perhaps three authors that could write worth a damn?
Go read The Erotic Adventures of Willow and Spike and tell me that hackneyed pseudo-literary mastrubation is worthwhile literature. Or even better, the “Willow Codex.” Eight year olds have a better concept of writing than this guy.
“To invite the reader to share in the expansion of the universe the writer has just enjoyed. Sometimes the reader actually enjoys it, believe it or not.”
I KNOW that. It’s just that when they claim that they’re doing it for THEMSELVES, then WHY invite others to read the work? Sounds more like a two way street rather than just “for me”. Or for the story/universe itself, like I mentioned. And, of course, to get comments. (But, if you’re writing something for yourself, then what do you care what people say?) It’s just that I get tired of people claiming “I’m doing this for me” when someone doesn’t favor the work 100%. So it makes me wonder why one bothers to make things public if they can’t accept the fact that some people aren’t afraid to say more than 100% praise.
I have read very little fan fiction. A friend of mine once had a collection of stories about Dr. Who, some of which got *quite * erotic, and they were bad.
But over twenty years ago I read a Star Trek fan/fic short story that ever since I have regretted not keeping. It involved a teenaged girl, a student, that was, along with some others, being given transport on the Enterprise to her school. Now the unusual thing about this girl was that although she was full
Vulcan by blood she had been raised by humans since the age of six. So her emotional makeup was thoroughly human. This didn’t sit well with Spock and he kept trying to introduce her to the Vulcan mental training that he had received. She tried it out but it didn’t work for her and finally she put her foot down and said no more. She explained that when her human family had taken her in after the death of her Vulcan parents she had been well on the way to being a good little Vulcan child, cool, reserved etc, and she didn’t think she could make another such major life change. Furthermore she didn’t want to, she liked the way she was.
