tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post3655149861574424593..comments2023-11-03T11:37:13.579-04:00Comments on Something Old, Nothing New: Good Fanfic?Jaime J. Weinmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15128500411119962998noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-58975611854304630182009-09-21T18:11:49.992-04:002009-09-21T18:11:49.992-04:00I've been into some types of fanfiction. It al...I've been into some types of fanfiction. It all depends on what you are a fan off. I will admit that most fanfictions are strange, badly written, and even disturbing, but it's a way for a person to express themselves. I get a good laugh, and every now and then you come across good writing skills. (Harry Potter fanfiction seem to contain most of the skilled writers from what I've seen.) Some are bad, some are good. If you don't like them, don't read them. I do the same thing. Read what you can tolerate and leave the rest alone.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-2355260060788040482009-01-14T02:56:00.000-05:002009-01-14T02:56:00.000-05:00In response to Sumana Harihareswara - I am both am...In response to Sumana Harihareswara - I am both amazed and horrified at the fact that there is a world of Colbert Report fanfiction.<BR/><BR/>More so by the discovery that some of it is actually ENTERTAINING.Kelleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09365332515005375025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-26094601012996135402007-11-04T17:21:00.000-05:002007-11-04T17:21:00.000-05:00http://www.eskimo.com/~vecna/truthiness.html is pr...http://www.eskimo.com/~vecna/truthiness.html is pretty good, but ends as though it's been cut off.<BR/><BR/>http://reseda-ptah.livejournal.com/17907.html is very good too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-24942087913971992992007-07-03T21:40:00.000-04:002007-07-03T21:40:00.000-04:00If you look hard enough, past the really bad stuff...If you look hard enough, past the really bad stuff that covers most fanfic (of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings variety, anyway), there really are some good stories that actually have a plot and character development. Not everything is average or bad.<BR/><BR/>However, the majority of people writing fanfiction don't pay enough attention to the basics of writing, like grammar, because they think they don't have to, since (presumably) the reader already knows everything about the setting. Such logic escapes me, but, sadly, there it is.<BR/><BR/>So the really good stuff, that does have development, good grammar, plot, etc., is hard to find but good when you do find it. I think it comes from those authors who want to write well and for fun, not just one or the other.<BR/><BR/>And that's my two cents. XDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-68006973835139465712007-05-05T04:30:00.000-04:002007-05-05T04:30:00.000-04:00I have read a metric ton of fanfic, as I've been i...I have read a metric ton of fanfic, as I've been involved to various degrees in writing fanfics off various Japanese animation series since 1993. So I can pretend to expertise.<BR/><BR/>Fanfics can be...well, categorized in many ways, but the triad by which I divide them are: self-inserts/thinly disguised personal fantasies, extensions, and cross-overs. The first category is the most common and is, I expect, what you identify as 'fetishistic'. Lots of fanfic writers either write themselves into a fictional world or heavily identify with a specific character, who effectively functions as the avatar for their fantasies. This may involve sex or power or violence or whatever, but often heavily distorts the source material to fit into the story patterns in the author's head. A lot of fanfic writers do nothing but this, while others move on to other things. <BR/><BR/>The second category takes a single series and in some manner extends the canon of it or changes the canon (alt-universe stories). This is where you will find the really good stuff, which is generally less fetishistic. Indeed, I've seen some fanfic I thought was much superior to the original series in this category. (There's a lot of Ranma 1/2 fanfiction which is better than the canon, which varied a lot in quality according to how funny the author-artist was in any given week.)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Finally, you have stories which either combine characters from several series or fuse them together in some way. Done well, this can be very good, done badly, it can be an even bigger train wreck than self-inserts.<BR/><BR/>I'm going to plug one of my own works in this regard because it's 3 in the morning and I'm too tired to find something I didn't write. (Egotistic, I know...) http://www.thekeep.org/~rpm/eva/coaeg.html<BR/><BR/>is the homepage for a joint project of mine with a friend, Children of an Elder God, which takes the animated series Neon Exodus Evangelion, a surrealistic mecha show from Japan and reinterpets it through the lens of Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories, instead of the gnostic, kaballistic, and Christian symbolism of the original. <BR/><BR/>Why write fanfic?<BR/><BR/>Several reasons. You have a built-in audience. When you're doing something as a hobby, that's a huge incentive. I have written a lot of original work, and it all basically drops into the audient void; I might as well just spend the time jumping in front of cars for all the attention it gets. Whereas, you have a fan community to produce for with fanfic. That's a big incentive, compared to spending hour after hour on something that may end up with no one ever reading it or caring.<BR/><BR/>Secondly, I disagree that original work is necessarily better than fanfic. I have read a ton of fiction and lots of it got published despite being miserably mediocre or outright terrible. The same applies to movies and TV. Most fanfiction is not very great, but most of any kind of fiction is not very great.<BR/><BR/>Further...well, it's like this:<BR/><BR/>There is a tension in all writing projects between the author's creativity and the restraints imposed by the editor / manager / script manager / whatever. Every author needs some source of external discipline to produce their best work or else they become too self-indulgent as happens to many famous authors once they are so rich and powerful their editors can no longer tell them anything they don't want to hear. (See Robert Jordan for a perfect example.) <BR/><BR/>At the same time, the constraints imposed by editors/rules/etc may often choke off creativity and lower the quality of the final product. Comic books especially suffer from writers who have to shoehorn their stories into larger editor-driven projects which may well wreck them entirely. (See Rucka's run on Wonder Woman.)<BR/><BR/>Fanfic writers often have no one to act as a source of restraint. Which means when they are good, they are very good and when they are bad, they are wretched. Their best is not choked off...they can go places the original didn't or couldn't go. But it also means there is no one to stop a plunge into self-indulgence.<BR/><BR/>The best fanfic writers restrain themselves and produce something great, the worst produce self-indulgent messes, as a result. Much like original writing, except the extremes can go further.<BR/><BR/>Certain stories compel us to tell and retell them through the centuries; I'd argue the real mark of a story's greatness is whether it inspires retelling. Because those which are not retold, reshaped, those are the stories which will, in the end, be forgotten.<BR/><BR/>John Biles<BR/>Ph.D--British HistoryAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-84021349806154237582007-04-28T18:40:00.000-04:002007-04-28T18:40:00.000-04:00I used to read way too much Digimon fanfic... Oh m...I used to read way too much Digimon fanfic... Oh man, was that stuff terrible...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-48751224371902472842007-04-28T12:33:00.000-04:002007-04-28T12:33:00.000-04:00I stumbled across this fanfic some time back, a 20...I stumbled across <A HREF="http://www.electricfishmusic.com/001.html" REL="nofollow">this fanfic</A> some time back, a 200+ page illustrated Rescue Rangers fanfic. I didn't read it, but skimming through the pages, I was impressed by the artwork. So I'd say it's at least good fanfic in that respect. (It also unfortunately appeared to be about inter-character romance, which seems to be unusually prevalent in fanfic.)Lorenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10466505033314234610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-14816474412331623512007-04-27T21:32:00.000-04:002007-04-27T21:32:00.000-04:00The best fanfic I've ever read is A Dark, Distorte...The best fanfic I've ever read is <I><A HREF="http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk/" REL="nofollow">A Dark, Distorted Mirror</A></I> by Gareth Williams, a five-volume series (in which each volume contains volumes, though they grew in length and complexity as the project went on) set in a parallel universe/alternate history of the TV show <I>Babylon 5</I>--as you say, something they couldn't have done on the TV show.<BR/><BR/>But it's not <I>just</I> a gimmick--Williams took the characters, recrafted them in his revisioned history of the world they were in, and told his own stories with them, stories as funny, as tragic and as engrossing as those on the TV show (and some even more so--I dare anyone to read <A HREF="http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk/v4p4c1.html" REL="nofollow">Volume IV, Part IV, "A Future, Born in Pain"</A> and not weep for the protagonist of that chapter, even if you're reading it out of context).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-54090216529566234672007-04-27T21:18:00.000-04:002007-04-27T21:18:00.000-04:00John W. Nowak's Rescue Rangers stories, mainly abo...John W. Nowak's Rescue Rangers stories, mainly about Gadget Hackwrench and her "Byronic" sister Widget, are particularly good!<BR/><BR/>http://rrdatabase.dyndns.org/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-84162294410795424862007-04-27T18:39:00.000-04:002007-04-27T18:39:00.000-04:00I haven't read much fan fic, but most of what it o...I haven't read much fan fic, but most of what it only average at best. However, I think the story "Phoenix Burning" (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/321561/1/) is very well done. It was written after the end of <I>Buffy</I> Season 5 and speculates about Buffy's inevitable return.justkimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14742362520075394934noreply@blogger.com