The Friday Five: Fandom!

[dawn_felagund]

This is the first Friday Five that's been interesting in a while, at least in my humble and hard-to-please opinion. Alas, it is not Friday, but since Friday found me without communication of any kind at work and an evening full of activities at home, then we shall consider it the Belated Friday Five.

The questions:
1.) What fandom do you center on

Comments

[frenchpony]

Sure, I'll bite. This time.

1.) What fandom do you center on most?

That would be Tolkien. Certain unnamed others for reading, but primarily Tolkien.

2.) Do you contribute to it much (write fanfiction, draw fanart, participate in online communities and discussions)?

I write stories and talk about it, primarily with online friends, although one or two others in the flesh.

3.) Do you think that such things are good or harmful to the fandom and why?

Well, considering that such things pretty much are "the fandom," they can only help it. I once looked in on a meeting of the University's Tolkien Society, since we were dancing in the room next door that night. Now, this was not our normal dance room, and we hates that room, precious, with a passion, because it has a floor of carpeted concrete. If you dance on carpeted concrete for more than fifteen minutes, you do nasty things to your feet and legs. But still, we laughed and danced and gossiped, and generally had ourselves a ball (ba-dum-bum!). When we left, I peeked in at the

[dawn_felagund]

You bit! Mwah!

That's interesting about the Tolkien Society. Interestingly, I've heard that complaint made about certain online groups: that they lack a sense of humor and tend toward the "canatic" persuasion and enjoy looking down their noses at genres like AU, slash, and "Mary Sue" because they don't meet their ideals of canon and writing quality. HASA/Henneth-Annun gets accused of that a lot. (As someone who's been on the Henneth-Annun Yahoo list for a year now and endured lived through about three squeeing hyperactive conversations about underwear, each involving about 100 emails fired back and forth, I can say that while some of the members can be a bit pompous and intimidating, it's hardly true of everyone!)

Although I wonder what your Tolkien Society even thought of fanfiction....

I like "serious" discussions, but then, I've probably been involved in an equal number--or more--chats that go "OMG Maedhros is hott!!11!1!" and the like. Well, maybe not quite that bad! But I've certainly written my share of stupid stories to

[frenchpony]

I don't know what the Tolkien Society actually thought about anything. I didn't go in and watch them; we just kind of peeked into their room as we were leaving. But they really did impress us with how grim and unhappy they looked. I'm sure they would have hated the very first Tolkien fanfiction I ever wrote. It was very much a parody, and to this day, it's the only one of my stories that's set outside the Pony!verse

[dawn_felagund]

Frankly, I think the thing that pisses people off most about Chris is his personality. He is known for being unpleasantly possessive of his father's estateI would certainly agree with that! I remember in my days as a rampant miniatures painter, I worked with the Games Workshop line of miniatures, largely because they had a line of models based on the LotR movies and that was how I got involved. The big competition for miniatures painting is Golden Demon; it is held at several sites around the world, including (for some strange reason) Baltimore. (I've yet to compete in Golden Demon, not because I don't think my work is that caliber but mostly because I'm too cheap to spring for a $45 dollar convention ticket unless I have a model to enter into every category for which I am eligible. But I digress....) Anyway, the issue of the hobby's magazine that features the Golden Demon winners is always a big deal because many of the models are simply extraordinary. I remember one model, though, that they could not print in the magazine. Why?

[sinneahtes]

Ooh, I love your rambles. They're always so interesting. :D

The argument is always made against fanfic in general that we are a bunch of non-creative louts who can't contrive our own stories and so will dilute the original.

That argument usually strikes me as non-creative itself, honestly. Or at least it rather misunderstands what "creativity" is--you don't have to be 100% "original" (as if even the canon story is just that) to be creative. I'm speaking as an original writer--or someone who sort of used to write original stuff--who finds fanfiction to be insanely hard to write, myself.

(What did my psychology professor say about what "creativity" was? I think it was something like, "If you present a problem to a creative person, they'll immediately think of a zillion different ways of solving it." Does that honestly sound like it doesn't apply to the very idea of fanfiction? "Show some people some characters in a story, and they'll think of a zillion more stories to put the characters through.")

[dawn_felagund]

Ooh, I love your rambles. They're always so interesting. :D

Why do I get the feeling that some much of my flist is looking in your direction and fiercely going, "Shhhh! Don't encourage her!" :^D

That argument usually strikes me as non-creative itself, honestly.

Good point. :) Especially since they all wave this around like a big banner no matter how many published writers of original fiction admit to their fanfic habit, making that "argument" so obviously false...but they continue with their (non-creative) persistent use of it.

I've always been of the camp that says that anything that gets writers writing is a good thing. Part of the reason that I ramble in my LJ and in comments is that I recognize that one of the reasons that I have grown so much as a writer in the last year is because I've grown accustomed to putting my thoughts in order quickly for journaling.

I don't even know that I advocate that jumping into full stories with a cast of original characters is necessarily the only way to learn to write...or the best. Jenni (digdigil)

[atanwende]

... or if our fandom is just an aggregate of pervy old women.

Funny enough, sometimes I think that's what it must look like for outsiders. ;-P

Other than that, I only can agree to the things you said. Though, hell, I still keep wishing I could be as productive as you!

[dawn_felagund]

Funny enough, sometimes I think that's what it must look like for outsiders. ;-P

Well, I just did a little experiment to test your point. Granted, it's a single-subject design, but the subject (my husband) is outside but certainly familiar with our fandom. So I asked him, "Do you think my fandom is sometimes just an aggregate of pervy old women?" and he didn't hesitate to answer, "Yes." :^P

Though, hell, I still keep wishing I could be as productive as you!

My secret is that I have a guv'ment job that literally allows me five times more time to do my work than I need because it's guv'ment and they actually factor incompetence into the equation when figuring job descriptions and the amount of time to allow for certain tasks.

I also type very fast, which makes things easier and allows my thoughts to be put on paper the moment they appear in my head

[atanwende]

My secret is that I have a guv'ment job that literally allows me five times more time to do my work than I need because it's guv'ment and they actually factor incompetence into the equation when figuring job descriptions and the amount of time to allow for certain tasks.

Well, I'm a lazy student, so - theoretically - I should have a lot time for writing as well. Unfortunately I tend to get really, really worked up on the stuff I have to do for my classes. So why I actually would have time to finally complete my modern-day Silm story or write that fic about the Haladin in Brethil (all stuff that's been ghosting around in my head for months now), my mind still thinks along the lines of "Destruction of art in 16th century anabaptism and the motivations thereof". And when I'm finished with my papers, exams, etc. I'm usually so burned out that I cannot bear any remotely intellectual thinking and am usually pretty useless for at least a weak. Meh

[dawn_felagund]

I barely wrote at all when I was in university, so I feel your pain in that. After slogging through essays and constantly reading--and never what I wanted to be reading--I simply didn't possess the energy.

In uni, aside from what I did for creative writing assignments, I finished a novel that I'd started in high school, one short story, and started something that thought it might want to be a novel but ended around 30 pages. That was it. So while you might think that your own progress in terms of wordcount is inferior, you've far outdone what I managed in all four years of uni!

(And, considering high school as well, I did two short stories and started the novel that was finished in uni. Nowadays, I can do that in three months...and this was eight years! :^P)

[miss_nightowl]

Interesting. :o)
I might nick this later, if that´s ok.

[dawn_felagund]

Go right ahead! :)

[digdigil]

Fëanor baffled me at first, so I wrote about him, and now his motivations and interactions with his universe are clearer to me.

Awesome rant, Dawn! I picked this particular comment out of all the others because I am fascinated by this particular phenomenon. It is true that by writing about certain characters, we begin to 'understand' them better. Why is this? It is not as if we 'know' them, but in a way we are 'creating' them. And doing this with some of Tolkien's 'sketched' characters is such fun! Sure, we could do it with original characters and we do that too, but I think it is so much more intriguing to give characters that we have fallen in love with such things as family lives, rich backgrounds, love partners and new friends! Isn't it? And writing in fandoms certainly helps us to hone our skills as original authors too.

[dawn_felagund]

It is true that by writing about certain characters, we begin to 'understand' them better. Why is this?

For me, when I take on a character's voice, I have to hop into his/her head for a moment. I think that's one reason why I tend to be averse to omniscient third PoVs (as a writer) because it does not allow me the focus that I need.

I know while thinking through things before beginning AMC, I looked for explanations as to why certain characters behaved the way that they did. I started with Tyelkormo because he was the most baffling to me, but once I managed to find his voice and his PoV, I realized that his complicated relationship with Feanaro (as sort of the outsider in his family in terms of skills and allegiance) probably explained a lot of his behavior. For me, anyway. And then the story had to be written, and AMC was underway! :)

And writing in fandoms certainly helps us to hone our skills as original authors too.I agree with this totally. I drew the comparison in an earlier comment to fanfic being almost like writer's