riemannia ([info]riemannia) wrote,
@ 2005-06-17 10:29:00
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Entry tags:fanfic, writing

Fanfic
I'm sure I shouldn't touch the fanfic ruckus at Lee Goldberg's blog with a ten foot pole. But one comment by Guyot:

It is in my opinion (which I said how many times?) that if you engage in fanfic as a hobby, job, whatever, you are not a real writer. Because if you were - if you had inside you what a real writer does - you have no desire to engage in fanfic.
Severely pissed me off. I can't stand people who talk about 'real writers'. And he has no idea what somebody else has inside them.

I don't write fanfic but I am the kind of writer who needs to read. The reading feeds my writing. I get ideas from other writers. The heroine of my current wip was originally born in another's short story. No, it's not fanfic. (I only ever get as far as daydreaming fanfic, though I don't find that kind of daydream inferior to originals.)

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[info]sartorias
2005-06-17 03:47 pm UTC (link)
Twits like that may as well save their breath. Nobody cares how a gasbag defines "a real writer."

If you have two brain cells, you know a writer writes. What is up to the writer. But writers WRITE. Sheesh.

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[info]faithhopetricks
2005-06-17 03:47 pm UTC (link)
Because if you were - if you had inside you what a real writer does - you have no desire to engage in fanfic

((rolls eyes so far back into her head they get stuck))

I've heard this sooooo many times -- I tend to think of it as the "derivative" approach, in a number of ways -- that somehow if you are writing a piece of fiction based on someone else's piece of fiction (or television show or movie or whatever) you are Sad and Wrong. My response is always something like hell if it comes to that you can consider the Odyssey a fanficcing of the Iliad, because it is most definitely a response and there's no evidence they were written by the same person IIRC. Not to mention Virgil, Dante, and most of the medieval/Renaissance artists in word AND paint and song and whatever else....it just makes me tired.

Plus, the fact that it is coming from a guy who writes NOVELIZATIONS OF MONK AND DIAGNOSIS MURDER FOR A LIVING is just....yeah. Whatever, guy. I think people like that need to make sweeping nasty pronouncements to preserve whatever little's left of their self-esteem.

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[info]riemannia
2005-06-17 06:47 pm UTC (link)
Just to be clear, the quote is from a comment in Lee Goldberg's blog, but not by LG himself.

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[info]janni
2005-06-17 04:11 pm UTC (link)
I can't stand people who talk about 'real writers'.

Hear, hear!

And there's always someone out there ready to tell us all what a real writer is and is not.

I wonder whether it's a sign of insecurity ... (in the writers saying such things).

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(Anonymous)
2005-06-17 11:02 pm UTC (link)
Hee hee--I know several fanfic authors that are now published fan fic writers!

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(Anonymous)
2005-06-17 11:04 pm UTC (link)
Oops-- I meant romance writers!

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[info]janni
2005-06-17 11:16 pm UTC (link)
Well, given shared world anthologies and media tie in books, one could argue there is such a thing as a professional fanfic writer. :-)

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Why I love fanfic even though I don't write it
[info]marybethlee
2005-06-18 04:21 pm UTC (link)
DD loved Harry Potter and LoTR. She and her friends talked about it all the time. Around grade seven she started reading fanfic. Within months she and her friends were writing fanfic. Hundreds of pages of fanfic. Hours and hours of fanfic. By grade 9 she had a voice. A REAL writing voice. Not something you see all that often in a 14 year old.
Now she writes characters of her own creation as well as fanfic. She's not interested in pursuing publication right now, but she's having fun. AND she's scoring 4's on her AP writing when 9th graders rearely do. I love fanfic!

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Re: Why I love fanfic even though I don't write it
[info]riemannia
2005-06-18 11:33 pm UTC (link)
That's great for your daughter! I would love fanfic, too.

(Right now I'm fairly indifferent except when those opposed to fanfic are so excruciatingly annoying I'm tempted to love fanfic just on principle. And I'm not talking about those authors who do not want their own stuff fanficced.)

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Re: Why I love fanfic even though I don't write it
[info]marybethlee
2005-06-19 03:31 am UTC (link)
People are so strange. :-(

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