(Untitled)

[adams_ransom]

Exegesis: The Wisdom of Water
Summary: a short essay about the writing process, written before submission and finished after having my marked story returned to me.
Read the first draft here.
Read the polished story here.

Comments

[alpha_orionis_v]

In comparison to my other stories, this is certainly the most sophisticated.

I do think that I agree with this, having read your fanfics. While I don't think that being original automatically makes it superior or inferior to fanfics just based off of simply being, this story did feel and read vastly different from any of the previous stories of yours I've read. It's much more rooted in reality, ever distant as this one seems, and it's easier to relate to a lot of the points and themes that show up throughout.

[adams_ransom]

While I do agree that original doesn't equate to being better than fanfic, I personally find fanfic easier to write, and I know that I find it easier because I'm too lazy to establish my own characters. It's something that I'm trying to break out of (hence all the OCs that have been slowly infiltrating my fics).

I think taking three months to work on a story helped me to find my own messages. Usually, I get a vague idea, and them steal some characters, and it's done and dusted within a week.

[alpha_orionis_v]

Oh, totally. I like to see fanfic as a first a social exercise, and secondly, a learning exercise. It's nice to treat as a sandbox for learning how to do some things with your words, but if you rely on it too heavily, you'll wind up getting confined in the itty bitty little space it provides.

I've got about a dozen fanfic ideas buzzing about in my head right now, but I've decided to put them all on hold until I finish something original. Fandom helped me learn how to research and spin plots, but it was all with someone else's characters.

I sort of like OCs in fics, because they can give you more freedom to play around without using cookie cutters, in a way.