Wherein Naphy Somehow Ties Fandom to Howler Monkeys, Underwear, and Celery
-Waves an initial hello to the talented Big Name Fans on her F-list, none of the following of which applies to them-
There are many, many rants and instructional essays on how to make friends with BNFs/become a BNF/survive being a BNF/tell if you are a BNF/Cassie Claire.
But what if, like me, you're too lazy indifferent bunny-enslaved 'cautious' about being a BNF?
What if… you really just want to stay a Small Name Fan?
Well, do I ever have the instructional checklist for you!
Er… In case it doesn't become immediately obvious when reading this, this list is entirely self-mocking. Any resemblance to anyone other than myself is completely coincidental and gains my full and complete sympathy.
'How to Remain a Small Name Fan AKA How to Let Loose, Write Whatever the Hell You Want and Still Not Get on Fandom Wank'
Let's face it, in many fandoms if you have the literacy level of a howler monkey, (or sometimes even less) you have the untapped potential to become known. Staying invisible can be a bit of a tricky tap-dance, but your ability to proceed through cyber-life in complete, smug obscurity is well worth the effort! To that end, I have included a list of everything you will need to do to sabotage any chance you have of becoming a fandom's tingod. And if you change your mind… Well, any scan of FW's wiki should give you plenty of material to work with :)
1) Finish your epics.
Nothing screams 'Big Name Fan' like a 300 000+ word masterpiece that is stopped indefinitely at a crucial point in the story's 'plot'. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a crucial point- just somewhere after the introduction of your kick-ass original character, but before the main story is totally taken over by your raging ego important side story (er… not that SNFs coughlikemecough can't pull this off occasionally too). The thing with unfinished epics (the more, the better) is that people will devote lots of time and speculation to the unrealized brilliance that could have been. Chances are, if you actually finished the sucker, the emphasis would have been on the 'unrealized' part of the brilliance.
2) Change fandoms like underwear. Or, in some cases, considerably more frequently.
This is a fundamentally simple principle: you can't become well-known if you aren't there long enough to show up on the radar. Write a few short pieces to test the waters. If it looks like you're getting any recognition, get the hell out of Daa Daa Daa. Archiving stories on your LJ (read by about three people), a small LJ community (three people plus the mod) or in entirely the wrong section can help prolong this if you're really enjoying the fandom. A subsidiary version of this is the Drive-By One Shot tactic. Close your eyes and randomly pull a fandom out of a hat. Write a one-shot for this fandom that you archive somewhere it will be read by three people and their mother. Rinse and repeat.
3) Write stories about characters that had three sentences/thirteen seconds of screen time. Preferably in a massive, massive fandom with hundreds of these characters.
Nobody cares about secondary characters, except the other pseudo-fanfic-lit-snobs. And they're trying so hard to be clever themselves that they can't afford to notice your cleverness. By writing stories about a character nobody cares about, you can have a long and happily obscure sojourn in the massive fandom of your choice.
The corollary of this is the Blaise Zabini Uncertainty Principle. If, for some reason, the position and velocity of your unknown character become targeted and locked-on by the general fandom, immediately desert Ship before you accidentally become the founder of a major Unconventional Sub-Fandom. In general to avoid this, it's a good idea to stay away from secondary characters that the fandom can't figure out whether they're male or female.
4) Write in fandoms that have exactly three other active members. And their mom.
What better way to ensure that you don't get recognition than to write for something where recognition is impossible? In these cases you can write whatever the hell you want and it won't make any difference because nobody will see it to care. What you have to do though is keep a close eye on the number of members in your fandom. If, for some reason licensing, it looks like your fandom is about to have people actually *reading* in it, get out and preferably delete your stories before they become 'classics'.
5) Write crossovers. And not romantic crossovers.
Generally, writing crossovers is the fandom equivalent of announcing that you're a crack-whore at Cotillion. Although it is possible to gain a certain level of fame if you crossover large fandoms and write romantic pairings, if you can write pseudo-literary crossovers that have no romance and involve obscure fandoms you're pretty much guaranteed obscurity simply because nobody else wants to catch the crazy.
6) Write Gen. No seriously, write Gen.
Big Name Fans, with a few minor, minor exceptions, have pairings in their stories. Slash/het/hermaphroditic- it doesn't matter. People like relationships. People do not want to read about solitary characters communing with trees. Embrace the trees.
7) Do not, under any circumstances, become a mod of a fanfic related community. Hell, don't even participate in fanfic communities.
Doing either of these things implies a level of skill and/or 'coolness'. You do not want to imply skill or 'coolness'. You want to imply that with enough howler monkeys throwing their feces at the keyboard, your stories could eventually have been written out in full. Plus, as mentioned in reasons for not wanting to be a BNF, it's way too much work. And minions are not nearly as fun electronically as they are in person.
8) Take lengthy, lengthy leaves of absence from writing.
These absences can be for genuine or not so genuine reasons, but the key is to wait until long beyond bated-breath-excitement, beyond frustration-and-growing-annoyance, beyond is-she-dead, only emerging when well into the realm of What'shername-who? -Blushes and shuffles feet awkwardly-
9) If you must write pairings, write pairings that the people who read the major fandom pairing, the second major fandom pairing and that other fandom pairing that has nothing to do with the first two fandom pairings all hate.
Hopefully, by eliminating the top three pairings, you have a pretty good shot at eliminating three-quarters or more of the fandom base. Although you may get a bit more recognition in the way of hate-mail than you'd like, you can be assured that most of the fandom will ignore you like the blight on the face of 'Twu Lub' that you are.
The corollary of this is the Hogwarts Giant Squid Second Law of Relationship Motion. This Law states that if you write a pairing that is squicky enough, the opposite reaction to pairing love may be powerful enough to propel you to recognition nearly as strong as if you were writing a well-beloved fandom pairing. Anything involving tentacles, animals, dead people or Jar Jar Binks probably falls into this category.
10) If, for whatever reason, in spite of following these steps, you're suddenly getting fawning e-mails and/or hilarious death threats in your Inbox, announce that you admire both Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton and feel that your main character is your soulmate on the astral plane. And then write Anne Rice/Laurell Hamilton RPF three-way femmeslash with your main character.
With any luck, anyone who is still interested in your writing after that can be dispatched by a stake to the heart or a complimentary tinhat.
Being a Small Name Fan doesn't come with respect, acknowledgement or naked pool boys peeling grapes. If you look at this list and think 'Well why would I want to go to this much trouble just to make sure that I don't get, well, anything?', I leave you with this thought.
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
-Aldous Huxley
Celery ho!
There are many, many rants and instructional essays on how to make friends with BNFs/become a BNF/survive being a BNF/tell if you are a BNF/Cassie Claire.
But what if, like me, you're too lazy indifferent bunny-enslaved 'cautious' about being a BNF?
What if… you really just want to stay a Small Name Fan?
Well, do I ever have the instructional checklist for you!
Er… In case it doesn't become immediately obvious when reading this, this list is entirely self-mocking. Any resemblance to anyone other than myself is completely coincidental and gains my full and complete sympathy.
'How to Remain a Small Name Fan AKA How to Let Loose, Write Whatever the Hell You Want and Still Not Get on Fandom Wank'
Let's face it, in many fandoms if you have the literacy level of a howler monkey, (or sometimes even less) you have the untapped potential to become known. Staying invisible can be a bit of a tricky tap-dance, but your ability to proceed through cyber-life in complete, smug obscurity is well worth the effort! To that end, I have included a list of everything you will need to do to sabotage any chance you have of becoming a fandom's tingod. And if you change your mind… Well, any scan of FW's wiki should give you plenty of material to work with :)
1) Finish your epics.
Nothing screams 'Big Name Fan' like a 300 000+ word masterpiece that is stopped indefinitely at a crucial point in the story's 'plot'. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a crucial point- just somewhere after the introduction of your kick-ass original character, but before the main story is totally taken over by your raging ego important side story (er… not that SNFs coughlikemecough can't pull this off occasionally too). The thing with unfinished epics (the more, the better) is that people will devote lots of time and speculation to the unrealized brilliance that could have been. Chances are, if you actually finished the sucker, the emphasis would have been on the 'unrealized' part of the brilliance.
2) Change fandoms like underwear. Or, in some cases, considerably more frequently.
This is a fundamentally simple principle: you can't become well-known if you aren't there long enough to show up on the radar. Write a few short pieces to test the waters. If it looks like you're getting any recognition, get the hell out of Daa Daa Daa. Archiving stories on your LJ (read by about three people), a small LJ community (three people plus the mod) or in entirely the wrong section can help prolong this if you're really enjoying the fandom. A subsidiary version of this is the Drive-By One Shot tactic. Close your eyes and randomly pull a fandom out of a hat. Write a one-shot for this fandom that you archive somewhere it will be read by three people and their mother. Rinse and repeat.
3) Write stories about characters that had three sentences/thirteen seconds of screen time. Preferably in a massive, massive fandom with hundreds of these characters.
Nobody cares about secondary characters, except the other pseudo-fanfic-lit-snobs. And they're trying so hard to be clever themselves that they can't afford to notice your cleverness. By writing stories about a character nobody cares about, you can have a long and happily obscure sojourn in the massive fandom of your choice.
The corollary of this is the Blaise Zabini Uncertainty Principle. If, for some reason, the position and velocity of your unknown character become targeted and locked-on by the general fandom, immediately desert Ship before you accidentally become the founder of a major Unconventional Sub-Fandom. In general to avoid this, it's a good idea to stay away from secondary characters that the fandom can't figure out whether they're male or female.
4) Write in fandoms that have exactly three other active members. And their mom.
What better way to ensure that you don't get recognition than to write for something where recognition is impossible? In these cases you can write whatever the hell you want and it won't make any difference because nobody will see it to care. What you have to do though is keep a close eye on the number of members in your fandom. If, for some reason licensing, it looks like your fandom is about to have people actually *reading* in it, get out and preferably delete your stories before they become 'classics'.
5) Write crossovers. And not romantic crossovers.
Generally, writing crossovers is the fandom equivalent of announcing that you're a crack-whore at Cotillion. Although it is possible to gain a certain level of fame if you crossover large fandoms and write romantic pairings, if you can write pseudo-literary crossovers that have no romance and involve obscure fandoms you're pretty much guaranteed obscurity simply because nobody else wants to catch the crazy.
6) Write Gen. No seriously, write Gen.
Big Name Fans, with a few minor, minor exceptions, have pairings in their stories. Slash/het/hermaphroditic- it doesn't matter. People like relationships. People do not want to read about solitary characters communing with trees. Embrace the trees.
7) Do not, under any circumstances, become a mod of a fanfic related community. Hell, don't even participate in fanfic communities.
Doing either of these things implies a level of skill and/or 'coolness'. You do not want to imply skill or 'coolness'. You want to imply that with enough howler monkeys throwing their feces at the keyboard, your stories could eventually have been written out in full. Plus, as mentioned in reasons for not wanting to be a BNF, it's way too much work. And minions are not nearly as fun electronically as they are in person.
8) Take lengthy, lengthy leaves of absence from writing.
These absences can be for genuine or not so genuine reasons, but the key is to wait until long beyond bated-breath-excitement, beyond frustration-and-growing-annoyance, beyond is-she-dead, only emerging when well into the realm of What'shername-who? -Blushes and shuffles feet awkwardly-
9) If you must write pairings, write pairings that the people who read the major fandom pairing, the second major fandom pairing and that other fandom pairing that has nothing to do with the first two fandom pairings all hate.
Hopefully, by eliminating the top three pairings, you have a pretty good shot at eliminating three-quarters or more of the fandom base. Although you may get a bit more recognition in the way of hate-mail than you'd like, you can be assured that most of the fandom will ignore you like the blight on the face of 'Twu Lub' that you are.
The corollary of this is the Hogwarts Giant Squid Second Law of Relationship Motion. This Law states that if you write a pairing that is squicky enough, the opposite reaction to pairing love may be powerful enough to propel you to recognition nearly as strong as if you were writing a well-beloved fandom pairing. Anything involving tentacles, animals, dead people or Jar Jar Binks probably falls into this category.
10) If, for whatever reason, in spite of following these steps, you're suddenly getting fawning e-mails and/or hilarious death threats in your Inbox, announce that you admire both Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton and feel that your main character is your soulmate on the astral plane. And then write Anne Rice/Laurell Hamilton RPF three-way femmeslash with your main character.
With any luck, anyone who is still interested in your writing after that can be dispatched by a stake to the heart or a complimentary tinhat.
Being a Small Name Fan doesn't come with respect, acknowledgement or naked pool boys peeling grapes. If you look at this list and think 'Well why would I want to go to this much trouble just to make sure that I don't get, well, anything?', I leave you with this thought.
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
-Aldous Huxley
Celery ho!