I thought I posted this last week. Whoops. Hurrah for clients.

[changeling]

The only thing major problem I had with in Batman Begins (apart from the Unnecessary Katie Holmes) is ...
... surely the police (or someone) could trace, oh, I don't know, A BIG FUCKING CAR WAYNE CORP CREATED FOR THE ARMY, and work backwards from there to who Batman was? I mean, GUYS. let's go with the obvious here.

But overall I thought it was an awesome fillum.


Oh, man. I kinda like what little I've read of Robin Hobbs' writing. But. She's gone on the warpath about fanfiction, and she's made this odd point:

“Fan fiction is a good way for people to learn to be writers.”
No. It isn’t. If this is true, then karaoke is the path to become a singer, coloring books produce great artists, and all great chefs have a shelf of cake mixes.

Uh, I think you might be flying in the face of popular opinion there, love. Many an arts student has copied a Grand Old Master stroke for stroke in order to study form. I've been told to, essentially, rewrite another author's passage keeping their rhythm (a verb where they have a verb, a noun where they have a noun), exploring a different emotion. I've been told to type verbatim other author's words into a word processor so I understand what good writing feels like. Hell, I learnt a lot about singing technique by mimicking Sarah Brightman on my recording of Phantom when I was a wee mite. Not everything, true; but I did learn something. Anyway, the karaoke point is completely moot because most singers don't write their own material, and many excellent singers cannot (or do not) play another instrument. It's an odd analogy to choose. (Colouring books produce great colourists.)

"Fan fiction is Paint-By-Numbers art."

Oh, Robin.

Comments

[jolly-oddness.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about this. A lot. Do you think it could be because we live in different eras? We sort of grew up with the internet, and post-modern appropriation, and the borrow / steal everything attitude that comes along with both those things. I might think of it as a natural progression and exploration of literary ideas, but someone else might just think of it as sacrilige. I've had the 'your writing is not a sacred piece of work, whispered into your ear by some invisible deity' lesson drummed into me recently, too, and it's just an entirely different way of looking at literature. Hey maybe these ideas have been around for ages, and some never caught on, and it's not at all about a difference in age or modern ideals.

I am sorry for babbling in advance. This is what happens when I'm away from uni. I pour all my thoughts into livejournal.

Apology being written, I will now continue!

I can understand why an author would feel horror if they searched the internet and find fan-fiction of their work. Apart from the obvious reason (my creation is being misrepresented, etc), they more than likely will find ban fan fiction, written by an eleven year old with some strange ideas about anatomy. They probably won't find the good stuff, the stuff that redeems the rest of the very very bad stuff. Actually, I don't know if that would make them feel better or worse.

OK, I should probably stop now. Good night!

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally agree. I understand why she's upset, I just think that some of the arguments she's used to support her point aren't ... well, really arguments. And they're often not true.

(I don't mind your babbling at all! Remember I'm an ex-Arts student!)

[dreamling]

My friend Paul started with kareoke, and is now the lead singer for a progressive rock band in europe. http://www.suncaged.com/bio_paul.php

I read a decent amount of fan-fiction, and while I think it's great that people are out there writing, somehow I'm more willing to read things with dodgy writing in fan-fiction. I'd be far more critical of original works, or hold those up to a higher standard. I wonder what that means.

The good news is, I'm far more likely to avoid fan-fiction cliche's in my own writing, (I hope) and recognize faulty plot devices in original works as well.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* She pulled some really stupid metaphors in that part of the argument.

I'm more likely to read dodgy writing if they sound like they have an interesting plot - and not just in fanfiction. 's why I stuck with L.K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series for so long (There was the glimmer of a good plot! And then with each successive book it glowed dimmer and dimmer!)

For a lot of writers, fanfiction is a training ground. It teaches you to hone your skills. It has tutorials on how to write better. It shows you examples of things that just don't work. And sometimes, it can show you brilliance.

[dreamling]

strangly enough, the more LKH writes, the more it seems she's writing fanfiction for herself. omg, more teh sex, and oh, more teh mary sue, this will be my best novel evar!

snert.

(not that I won't eventually pick up and finish novels after 4... but it's a pity things get so unwound.)

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I refuse to read any more, although I enjoyed reading buhfly's running commentary on the last one.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Damn, I missed this one.

Interesting quote from her... and personally... I find fanfic harder to write than something original. With original work, the whole world is your oyster, and you can go anywhere... with fanfic... you're stuck within someone else's canon. If anything, fanfic has taught me restraint with my own writing.

I think I get at what she's saying, that it doesn't encourage people to develop their own characters and settings, but using her example, writing something set "in real life" or drawing a still life would be "cheating" as well, and therefore "not really art/literature." There are plenty of fanfic writers who still keep developing the characters and keeping things IC, and that in itself is an art form.

Saying "fanfiction isn't a form of creativity" is limited in the same way that saying photography isn't an art. The setting might already be there, but how you choose to see- and capture things- and maybe embellish upon them- is where the "work" is.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

It was on metaquotes, and pegkerr linked it (I think), and scott_lynch had a nice little rebuttal on his journal.

I find fanfiction easier, but I also don't consider it (mine, that is) "real" writing. It's a luxury; it's a holiday. It's something fun to do between sessions of finishing one's novel (groan). It would depend how well I know the canon, however.

*nods* I agree completely.

*nods* Especially these days with point-and-click cameras. Though I think a lot of the genius in photography is luck. And knowing which settings to use, &c, &c. Makes it a lot like fanfiction, really.

[tycho.livejournal.com]

Well, the military DOES like to keep the wraps when possible on what armanent/equipment they built. Plus, it's a prototype-reject which was didn't live up to the aim of it's creation of being able to build the bridge.
The army wouldn't really keep track of the rejects I think.

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that Rutger (can't remember his character) had buried all this stuff so deeply and was shifting out of R&D. All this whizzbangery would be hidden from industrial espionage too.

[cabell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking--it's in the dead idea room; it was never PURCHASED by the Army, maybe not even marketed to them when they couldn't get the bridge to work. I'd worry more about Bruce's habit of giving people broad hints to his secret identity. *eyeroll*

I don't think they were shifting entirely out of R&D, though--they were just moving into arms dealing, right?

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

Fox was told that his department, R&D was merging with 'records' or something, I think it was 'archives'. They were going into Arms dealing, something Fox was against I take it, to get himself kicked off the board.

Comics!Bruce/bats would never do that, I'm not even sure the last Robin (Steph) knew that he was Bruce Wayne.

[cabell.livejournal.com]

I thought Fox's department was specifically the dead ideas room (so merging it with "archives" would make some sense)--he'd been moved out of the action already because he was too closely tied to the Wayne family. I imagine they still had some R&D. From what he said to Bruce, it sounded like he got fired sort of spontaneously for asking too many questions about the lost microwave emitter (my friend _becquerel_ had some issues with that, too, but never mind).

I suppose it might be his newness to the whole thing that made him kind of careless with his identity. Perhaps he will (painfully) learn better.

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

I think Rutger called it Dead End, a bit more of a put-down than department description rather than dead ideas. The R&D might have taken away any of the profits he wanted from the company, so it looked like it was shelved after Bruce was declared dead. I think he liked being able to put Bruce down there, especially at Bruce's own request.

The Microwave made me giggle, it's such a cartoon weapon. =D

Perhaps he will (painfully) learn better. Yay! More angst!

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

the Unnecessary Katie Holmes) Did you get the feeling that she could have quite nicely been called Harvey Dent? I would have liked that. (I may just keep telling people this all month.)

The people who complain about fanfic and the like probably feel all right with the concept of multiple writers for TV or serials, comic books that have been going for years, they don't all have the one 'divinely inspired' single source. Just because one might be a better quality, doesn't remove the right of the other to create it.

I have to say, even as tired as I am right now. I can still think of an argument to every example she has there.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Uh ... I can't recall who Harvey Dent is. *looks shifty*

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

Harvey Dent was a friend of Bruce's, he was a District Attorney in Gotham. He tried to prosecute a mob boss who threw acid in his face. He then became Two Face, a nutter with a split psyche. He used to flip coins to decide if he was bad or good.
Basically, he is a male Rachel and I thought the drugs affect would have been an excellent in for the character in the next film. =D

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

OOOOOH. I remember now. I've even read a Two-Face central comic, so I have no excuse.

Apparently KH hasn't signed up for the next movie.

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

Allegedly the producers aren't happy with her publicity efforts, it's all about Tom and not the movie. Whether her character was ever going to come back though I'm not sure, the track record would have her never mentioned again.
Everyone else seems to have though.

I'd love them to do something along the lines of The Long Halloween.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm just gonna smile and nod and pretend I'm as fluent in Bat-canon as you are. :D

(Katie Holmes is a dick.)

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

Haha sorry, love interests in comic book movies never come back. Mary Jane in the Spiderman films was the first I think.
There are all these stories about her 'disappearing' for 16 days and reappearing with Tom Cruise and a new religion. ¬¬ *books her in for deprogramming*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

WHAT IS THE LONG HALLOWEEN??? *on tenterhooks*

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

It's a big trade-paperback that I've been drooling over for ages. *covets*
I've only read one of the single issues but the story line was about a serial killer who only stuck on calendar holidays. The art was weird but I loved it.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, COOL.

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

"I am special. I spent my whole life working really fucking hard to be special and now someone is doing something I don't like, and so they must be horrible, selfish, uncreative people, and, and, and don't you see how OBVIOUS this is?"

I swear: I am going to become famous. I'm going to become famous in multiple genres including literary fiction and then I am going to sit down and write a mild, sweet-voiced essay about how all these people are stupid.

Everything else I had to say I think I said here-ish, in response to THAT anti-fanfiction-trainwreck.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Look, I understand all the points she's making; she just hasn't thought it through. She says at the beginning of the essay that this is a point where she's very emotional; it's just the arguments she uses that are stupid.

I understand that she doesn't like fanfic, that this is her world, that the majority of fanficcers are stupid, and their plots are bad. All this is true. It's just that in her "MINE! MINE!" hoarding, she finds it hard to let her world (etcetera) go to be changed or altered by someone else.

Another thing is that clearly she's never read any fanfiction. It's easy to say it's uncreative unless you've actually read some good stuff (and what about those screenwriters for Troy or King Arthur? They must be really uncreative, because even the plot's there! Or all those millions of writers - including T.H. White - who've rewritten the Arthur myths. That's still fanfiction, even if the original writer is dead and you don't know who he is). Hell, she's never read good Harry Potter fanfiction. I came for the Potter, I stayed for the fact that my fandom has a lot of really awesome writers, many of which are not writing alternate endings (although copperbadge's Stealing Harry is one of the best AUs in the history of the world, let alone one of the best fics), but rather exploring all the edges of JKR's world that she doesn't show us. Some of them explore history - what was it like when James &c were at school? Some go further back than that. Some of them are speculating on events that even when the final book is out will be beyond recorded canon - a "what happened next" (Just like Scarlett - which is the same thing, though published, for Gone with the Wind or Pemberley, or the new continuation for Pride and Prejudice). Admittedly I read a lot of slash, which for me began as a desire to see some homosexuals, dammit in the world of published fiction. It's not about the sex. It's about the relationships.

(Also, for some reason, there seems to be a much better ratio of good fic to bad fic in slashdom. It's the same with the unusual pairings, such as say, Percy/Luna.)


By the way, what did you mean by Neil Gaiman is my not!rolemodel in the other thread?

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

::g:: Old joke. I have systematically refused to have role-models since I was about twelve and they tried to make me write about mine for school. However, in terms of his dealings with his fans and his attitudes thereabout, Neil is kinda pretty much like I'd like to be. But he can't be my rolemodel.

Friends and I long ago asserted the "not![something]" prefix for such things.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* I know what you mean. Those "write about your hero/role-model" exercises are always obnoxious.

[bonesinger.livejournal.com]

MMMhm. I read that one a while ago, and it made me sad for a while because I really love her writing, and she is one of my inspirations, style wise, for my own writing.

Then I got over it. Karaoke IS a great way to sing ( or, singing along with your favourite CDs is a great way to sing), and yes, chefs will probably use cake mixes too. Imitating style and structure, using well made up characters to learn to make your own characters... this all happens. I've been using drabbles recently to learn a less verbose style of expression (since verbosity is one of my worst flaws). THe characters aren't important, the expression of a theme within a given structure is important.

I find that fanfiction also helps you to explore and express your own readings and interpretations of your fandom as well. Sure, I could write a long and academically acceptable essay on the tensions inherent in any relationship between Buffy and Faith given the themes of power, desire and betrayal that they constantly act out. Or, more interestingly, I could transport them both back to an isolated setting, throw in a paranoia inducing demon and let them show the reader what might happen, rather than me telling it all.

And isn't that the first rule of writing anyway?

Ms Hobb needs to spend less time on ffn.net with the barely literate fingirls (which she does mention several times) and more time on decent archives reading good fic. It does exist, and some of it might possibly even be as good as her own original fiction.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* I really liked the short she had in Legends II. 'Twas what inspired me to seek out more of her work.

*nods* I agree.

Ms Hobb needs to spend less time on ffn.net
Exactly! Precisely what I've said above.

[metyounow.livejournal.com]

Phbbbbbt.
I wanted to write my entire life and didn't find the courage - or the words - to express what I wanted until I heard about fan fiction and actually tried it myself. I think it's formed me into a much better writer and a more inquisitive person than I ever dreamed I could be. Ludicrous, I say!

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* There's a lot of people who feel that way, I think.