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May. 3rd, 2007 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katharosI have had a proactive day! Actually, y'know, done certain jobs that needed doing before they became huge screaming issues of DOOM which I feel is a valid reason to feel pleased with myself. Also, the Azalea on my window sill is thick with blooms that are a beautiful shade of red except where the sun shines through the thin petals, which then become this lovely shade of really, really deep pink. Ah, May. I also got my first sun burn of the season today! Yay! *snort*
Also I was attacked, brutally beaten, blasted, bowled over, and other such things beginning with 'b' in my creative writing seminar today. I know I (and my creative writing portfolio which is due in in about a week ack!) will be thankfull for the pain, once my bruised ego has recovered a bit. *whimper* However, it did remind me of something I've mused on a couple of times about the difference between writing original fic and fan fic.
One of the main problems, which recurs again and again in my original writing, is understatement. I tend to do an awful lot of showing and very little telling - I'm bad at giving readers my characters' emotional states, and I'm bad at actually informing my readers as to what the story is actually about. All hints and implications and nothing concrete. As my creative writing tutor says, while its nice that I have such faith in their intelligence, unfortunatly their superpowers do not include mindreading.
And yet, when I'm writing fanfiction, that's exactly what I'm trusting my readers to be able to do. Not necessarily to read 'my' mind, but our shared hive-mind of fandom, the solid facts and details that we all know. In fanfiction it's not necessary to inform the reader about the world and about the characters - in fact, its bad writing to interrupt the story to do so. While characterisation and world building are important, the basic and most important building blocks are in place and can be brought into the story through allusion and reference. If, in a fanfic, I made a reference to a similarity between Ryuuki and Seiran, a fellow Saiunkoku fan would immediatly pick up on the implications. A lot can be said with just a half reference, whereas in original fic what is being referenced towards also has to be built into the text somewhere else. Something I tend to forget to do, or avoid with extreme horror.
While writing fanfic has, I think, helped me to move past certain pitfalls of original writing (some of my early stuff is extremely stodgy and overburdened, I've gone a bit too far! It's interesting, writing both original and fan fiction because they both use such different skill sets.
Now I have to stop procrastinating and go and learn how to call a spade a spade.
Also I was attacked, brutally beaten, blasted, bowled over, and other such things beginning with 'b' in my creative writing seminar today. I know I (and my creative writing portfolio which is due in in about a week ack!) will be thankfull for the pain, once my bruised ego has recovered a bit. *whimper* However, it did remind me of something I've mused on a couple of times about the difference between writing original fic and fan fic.
One of the main problems, which recurs again and again in my original writing, is understatement. I tend to do an awful lot of showing and very little telling - I'm bad at giving readers my characters' emotional states, and I'm bad at actually informing my readers as to what the story is actually about. All hints and implications and nothing concrete. As my creative writing tutor says, while its nice that I have such faith in their intelligence, unfortunatly their superpowers do not include mindreading.
And yet, when I'm writing fanfiction, that's exactly what I'm trusting my readers to be able to do. Not necessarily to read 'my' mind, but our shared hive-mind of fandom, the solid facts and details that we all know. In fanfiction it's not necessary to inform the reader about the world and about the characters - in fact, its bad writing to interrupt the story to do so. While characterisation and world building are important, the basic and most important building blocks are in place and can be brought into the story through allusion and reference. If, in a fanfic, I made a reference to a similarity between Ryuuki and Seiran, a fellow Saiunkoku fan would immediatly pick up on the implications. A lot can be said with just a half reference, whereas in original fic what is being referenced towards also has to be built into the text somewhere else. Something I tend to forget to do, or avoid with extreme horror.
While writing fanfic has, I think, helped me to move past certain pitfalls of original writing (some of my early stuff is extremely stodgy and overburdened, I've gone a bit too far! It's interesting, writing both original and fan fiction because they both use such different skill sets.
Now I have to stop procrastinating and go and learn how to call a spade a spade.
