Well, I wouldn’t say it’s bad but it certainly makes you realize SF/F writers are a lot less original than they think - I remember studying kinship systems and thinking Star Trek’s aliens had nothing on Australian aborigines, and these are our fellow human beings here. Plus you instantly recognize the gaping flaws in the fictional societies in the stories you like, kind of how physicists play spot the impossibility with sci fi shows.
I wasn’t saying anything about “those people,” except that there were a lot of them. I was previously under the impression that few hobbyists (and maybe not that many professionals) were up to writing a story I’d want to read. But quite possibly I was wrong. If it turns out that there are 30,000,000 Americans who can write a decent novel, than my chances of being anything at all remarkable are slimmer than if there are 500,000.
I was just using fanfic as a convenient way to survey the talents of non-professional novelists; I could just as easily been looking at the entries in a novel-writing contest for milkmen.
In general, I’m happy to go to any reasonable length to avoid offending you, but it does seem like the claws came out a little early. 
Ooh, the Diana Gabaldon flap? Yeah, she’s something else. But you have to admit there’s some amusement to be had from her outrage – especially coming from a Cassie Edwards defender! That’s some high quality hypocrisy there.
Thanks! I’m glad you liked it. 
The best part is that she has admitted the hero of her outrageously successful series is based on a Doctor Who character (the 2nd Doctor’s companion, Jamie).
No. Two things:
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Fanfiction is like writing with training wheels. While the author has to work with his own prose (i.e. the diction and the syntax), he is borrowing characters, settings, and sometimes even plots, taking a lot of the heavy lifting–and more importantly, a lot of the planning aspects–off of the writer. As such, not only is it easier to write fan-fiction, but the author can also write spontaneously without working to plan out things like back-story and world-building, which pushes some decent writers into writing things they never would otherwise.
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Lots of people write as a hobby. While it takes a lot of work and effort to write a decent novel, part of the work in making it profitable is…well, making it profitable. Specifically, taking something you worked on, and getting other people to pay for it. That is an undertaking unto itself, and one fanfiction writers don’t bother with.
(Okay, I lied, 3) While I agree with you that writing a novel, any novel is not as hard as it is made out to be, there’s a world of difference between writing a novel, and writing a profitable novel, and writing a good novel, and writing a classic. Those are all completely different tiers. Writing a novel that will earn the approval of critics requires skill, talent, and lots and lots of effort. Writing a novel…any novel, requires much less of each.
(Actually, there’s 4) Fanfiction “reviews”, by and large, come in two types: the mindless flamers and the mindless gushers. People train themselves to ignore the flamers. Thus, one reason why it’s fun to write fanfiction is because you get lots of praise no batter how well you write it.
Personally, I do the opposite: rather than looking at good fanfiction thinking I’ve got too much competition, I look at the likes of Meyer as a reminder that you don’t have to be a great writer or even a decent human being to print money.
Yeah, but she’s also a dirty stinkin’ plagiarist.
Then again, if a dirty stinkin’ plagiarist can get a book deal, that’s another point in favour of my own chances.
Oh, this is very true. I do love fantasy novels, but the world building is always so frustrating to me. It’s like, every country is exactly the same, except in that country, they wear their hair like THIS and in this other country, the people take their names from the mothers instead of their fathers!
Lame.
But what I was referring to upthread was my fascination with fandom, which I find a really intriguing internet subculture. It has its own inside jokes and jargon and abbreviations that don’t make any sense to outsiders. The fact that the large majority of fandom people are women and that a lot of fanfic revolves around sex makes for an interesting dynamic. It’s something that would make for an interesting doctoral dissertation in a number of fields. (One dude wanted to write an academic book on the topic last year and put a long and involved questionnaire on the web. Many people found the questions to be incredibly offensive and bombarded his department with emails until, afaik, he gave up.)
I do also enjoy reading and writing fic, I don’t want to make it sound like I’m only an observer and not a participant, but I think what drew in in the first place was the interaction between the fans, and how they relate to the source material to create something of their own.
Also, Diana Gabaldon is ridiculous and needs to stfu.
/my thoughts on yaoi.
I’ve never read any fan fiction, but in my mind somehow it’s associated with cosplay.
I had the same feeling. But to paraphrase the old bikers’ joke about riding a moped, it can be a lot of fun—as long as none of your friends catch you doing it.
Beyond the fact that you find cosplayers and fanfic in fandom, there’s not really any direct relation. Some people who write fic might also cosplay, but the majority of ficcers don’t. It depends on the culture of the fandom (there aren’t a lot of Buffy cosplayers, for example) and the people involved. Most people tend to invest themselves in one fannish activity over others.
I get the impression that the people who enjoy cosplaying are largely in anime fandom, which I know nothing about and have zero interest in. Also have zero interest in cosplay.
Cosplaying in my fandom would be hilarious, though, since the characters are men and we’re…not.
I want to address this point without the background noise of fandom and fanfic. Of all the things to be concerned about as an aspiring novelist, the number of people capable of writing a good, publishable novel should not be on your list. The real number is surprisingly small. You hear a lot of people bemoaning the fact that they can’t get published because it’s all about who you know, or that publishers don’t want new authors, or other similar crap. The fact is, most of the people who are trying to get published will never get published because they just aren’t very good. Others who probably could have the chops one day don’t have the patience to keep practicing. Others who have the chops don’t have the patience to keep submitting. Which isn’t surprising–rejections are extremely demoralizing. After receiving a couple of hundred over the years, some people think it’s best to cut their losses and move on, and I don’t blame them. It’s the long game, and not everybody wants to play it.
I think when it comes to submitting to agents and editors, you’re really only in competition with yourself. Do you have a well-written, well-crafted beginning? Are your characters fleshed out? Can you go a whole 3 chapters without a single typo? Would somebody want to read chapter 4? Do you have a marketable hook? Do you have an engaging style? Do you have a plot a reader could sink her teeth in? If the answer to those questions is no then it won’t matter if there are 30,000,000 or 3,000 people capable of writing a publishable novel, you’ve already taken yourself out of the running.
I’m not big on fanfic really. I’ll occasionally stick my nose into a few, but I’m not ever in the mood for long ones, the short ones aren’t terribly high in quality, and even good smut can be hard to find. I know one of my favorite authors (Diane Duane) started out writing fanfic and essentially admitted writing some now as a break from her normal writing, though she doesn’t release it.
I have a few ideas that I’d almost like to write, but I don’t plan on ever doing so. However, I found a book I was really into as a kid and reread it the other day (one of the Animorphs ones, heh) - checked out the fan fiction community, and the first one I checked out was amazing. A great, believable look at how a race of alien invaders and enslavers deal with Christianity and how the religion might spread and cause issues.
I would also say that it depends on the original material how the quality of the fanfiction comes out.
Harry Potter lends itself brilliantly to fanfiction, most of is Harry PoV, yet lots and lots of important things happen (and more often in the later books) off stage which he never witnesses and which we know little about. So just take Ginny, stick to whats known expand, and viloa you have a fan fiction story about Ginny’s Deathly Hallows, or one of the stories about Harry’s pre-Hogwarts turing teachers hair blue adventures.
And some series come with official fanfiction, case in point Star Wars Expanded Universe.
This seems like sound advice to me.
I think I’m just trying to psych myself up to believe that I could be capable of producing something worthwhile. I have to believe in it, or it definitely won’t be any good.
But there’s always an internal critic who says I’m kidding myself, and I’m just a deluded schmuck wanking off on 3x5" scene cards. And I think that critic seized on the news that I was getting off on fanfic to try to prove its point.
Anyway, sorry to get all emo on everybody. Time for less whining and more… um… genius! (Yeah, genius! That’s the ticket. :rolleyes:)
Just out of curiosity, which fics have you written? I don’t remember if I’ve seen them mentioned before or not (maybe it’s time for another “fanfics written by dopers” thread?).
Damn, you beat me to the mention. Star Wars, Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: the Gathering, Aliens vs Predator, Halo, World of Warcraft…the franchise section is damn near 50% of the sci-fi/fantasy aisle in the bookstore, and it’s basically all commissioned fanfiction, with many of the foibles and flaws (and occasional gems of brilliance) that fanfiction.net puts on display for free. And it sells, my god does it sell.
To the OP, the other thing to consider is that the set of people who get published does not contain the entire set of good authors. There are many talented people in all areas who don’t, for some reason, make the jump from amateur to professional, whether due to principles, fear of rejection, inability to recognize their own potential, whatever. American Idol demonstrates this on some level by finding a decent pool of talented, photogenic young singers each season, and can you imagine the number of excellent singers who would never even think to try out for AI, or otherwise not have the opportunity?