An Experiment

[dawn_felagund]

Over on heartofoshun's journal, Oshun, pandemonium_213, and I have been talking about the experience that is posting to Fanfiction.net. I haven't posted there in years. Once upon a time, the ability to reach a very broad audience (who might not be inclined to read on a Silm-only archive like the SWG or even a Tolkien-only archive like MPTT or HASA) appealed to me. I quickly

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[pandemonium_213]

So I've decided to try an experiment. Although it seemed very cutting-edge at the time, AMC is a relatively tame story; I would certainly make different choices if I were to write it now (beginning with less adherence to L&C as a "canon" text). I think Hastaina is probably my most heretical story at the moment: It both directly challenges the "canon" and is likely to piss off the holy-rollers as well. So I'm going to post "Hastaina" on ff.net and see what happens. Will it get comments? What kinds of comments will it get? Will it be flamed? Will anyone "get" it? (It was well-received and many certainly "got" it on the SWG.)

Here it is. We'll see!

Ah! So the experiment begins! No nibbles yet, I see, but then you just posted it. I have to say, it's interesting to scroll down the list and see the other company Hastaina keeps. I see a few familiar names, e.g., kenaz, Gadira. I also see what I'd call "exploratory" fan fic that may just be written by young writers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. AT ALL. But I'll put my judgy-pants on: the titles alone seem to reflect the maturity of the writer (and maturity is not judged by age alone).

On FFN, my first exposure to it was not through Tolkien-related stories, but Harry Potter. I was not writing such, but my then 12 year old daughter was. Being a nosy mother (also having a weird combination of being protective but wanting my kids to explore), I found FFN where she was posting her stories (nicely written, too; she's writing "Lost" fan fiction these days). I continued to monitor the site, and overall, came away with the impression that the majority of writers on FFN were, well, quite young. I also saw some bad behavior on the part of those who should know better.

Now at that time, I never dreamed I would become ensorcelled by Tolkien fan fiction. But once that happened, the first place I looked was FFN. Again, other than a few exceptions, the majority of stories fit into that exploratory type. And again, I saw lots of bad behavior and some pretty narrow-minded viewpoints. Given that my major motivation for writing Tolkien fan fiction was critique of Tolkien himself (rather than sticking to non-fiction essays), I thus sought a more mature milieu. Also, I know myself. I would quickly jump into the mud and wallow with the pigs if snarky comments ensued upon my participation in FFN. That's not the best use of my time and energy.