quote: Original post by ahw
Would "The hero with a thousand faces" qualify ? ''coz I wanted to read that one for bloody ages.
Yes, that book would certainly qualify for the challenge.
quote:
Oh, and s&s, I''d love it if you explained somewhere what you mean by fanfiction. There is something I just dont seem to grasp about it. I mean, what is the point of writing about a character that everybody already has an idea about ? I think the word I associate for it would be something between "impolite", "innapropriate" and possibly "groupie" (well, fanatic...)
But you seem to be so much into it, I''d love to see how you can present it under a different light...
Sigh, I typed up a reply to this once, but the posting script somehow managed to eat it. :/ Well, I''ll try again.
Often a fanwriter will choose some secondary character or worldbuilding detail that the original writer did not fully explain, and the fanwriter will try to answer their own and others'' questions about the secondary element. This also happens when the original author does not tie up all the loose ends of their plot; the fanwriter will attempt to satisfy their need for resolution by resolving unrequited love, love triangles, offscreen or too-sudden character deaths, etc. It is a fact that original fictions with mysterious characters and plots with lots of loose ends are the most popularly written about by fans. So, the first benefit of writing fanfiction is that it satisfies the fans'' sense that something was neglected in the original.
For example, I am currently writing a Fushigi Yuugi fanfiction called _Facepaint_, which centers around an original character of my own, and the Fushigi Yuugi character Tomo, who gets little screen time and most of the mysteries about his eccentric costume, history, and motivations are not answered in FY cannon. This is also a case of too-sudden character death; Tomo finally gets to be a focus character for two anime episodes, then he gets killed off. >_< Now, this wouldn''t bother me except that Tomo is a fascinating character with lots of potential that Watase Yuu (the mangaka of FY) never tapped. I am drawn to his character archetype: the person with low self-esteem because he doesn''t like some aspect of himself, who valiantly tries to be proud of his accomplishments/abilities, and defends himself with a mask of haughtiness and sarcasm. I''m not sure why I''m so mesmerized by this archetype, but I feel the need to write about a character like this, so naturally I also want to study characters like this to prepare me to write well about them.
I have so far identified 3 examples of this archetype: Tomo from Fushigi Yuugi, Saionji from Utena, and Snape from Harry Potter. So I proceeded to read all the available fanfic about these characters, noting which fanauthors'' versions I liked and what these had in common so I could put those traits into the original character of this type I plan to create. So the second benefit of fanfiction is as a place to do research on which small variations of character or plot or worldbuilding I should choose to write about. I wouldn''t have been able to describe The Tomo/Saionji/Snape archetype to you so succinctly if I hadn''t been able to study how different fanwriters had described/implemented various versions of these characters.
Now, I''m writing _Facepaint_ as kind of a test run to see how my favorite version of Tomo works out with the archetype I picked to play opposite him. Perhaps you''ve heard of the concept of a programming sandbox, in which programs can be tested without having to be completely done and ready to direct all the computer''s resources? Fanfiction is just like this; I can concentrate on my two characters and the plot, and not worry about the worldbuilding or secondary characters because they''re all created already. It''s very helpful to be able to do this because I''m already good at creating worldbuilding but I really need to practice my plotting. When I''m not distracted by juggling creating the worldbuilding and too many little details at the same time, I can focus on creating deep, 3-d, appealing characters that I will then be able to write my own original fiction about. So the third benefit of fanfiction is as a test bed.
Now I would like to comment that _Facepaint_ and the average fanfiction, don''t borrow as much from the cannon fiction as you might think, because their focuses are different. Where FY focuses on the ''good guys'', the Suzaku seishi, _Facepaint_ focuses on the ''bad guys'', the Seiryuu seishi. Whenever I want to talk about one of the characters'' philosophy or motivation I have to make it up almost out of whole cloth, because Mrs. Yuu never explained why the Seiryuus did what they did. All of my dialogue is original because Mrs. Yuu never had her characters talk about ''what is love?'', ''BDSM and collaring'', ''how little elements of human beauty are echoed in the beauty of a curvy vase or a string of pearls'', etc. Some of the original content I generate in the process of writing my fanfic will then be available as raw material for me to cobble an original piece of fiction together out of. So, the fourth benefit of fanfiction is like a sketch pad, a place to spin out ideas that can be harvested later, and the chaff ideas threashed out in the process.
Don''t get me wrong, I do and have written reams of original fiction; I just like fanfiction as a crucible for developing my ideas before I try to incorporate them in a serious novel-length project, especially one that other people will have to work with because the story is my contribution to a graphic novel or game design.
Does that answer your question?
