I have realized something interesting.
So my parents and I collectively have spent about $160,000 on my college education. I came to university with the intent of studying creative writing and then Mary Kinzie pissed me off so I ended up in history but that's a whole other thing! Anyway. I took a total of four writing classes at NU. The best was by far the visiting professor, Richard Powers, who taught the fiction class my sophomore year. ♥ ad infinitum to that class, which taught me a great deal about story structure; his class is the sine qua non of my ability to structure plotlines and sentences the way I do. The class I took from School of Continuing Studies over the summer taught me somewhat, but not as much, and the two "Reading & Writing" classes from the English department of NU were worse than useless, despite NU's much vaunted writing program.
I was reading something on precious_stones today, and I came to a rather stunning realization. Fanfiction (reading and writing) has taught me far more about both good and bad writing than I have learnt reading published authors and taking classes at Northwestern. I was reading one of laylah's pieces and it just struck me how she incorporates tiny little worldbuilding details without infodumping or really making them stand out at all; you acquire all kinds of little bits of info about the world of Casmile and the Bijou without realizing it, and I think that is so fucking cool. The only other place I've really seen that done well is in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Another thing I have learnt from fandom is how to write very, very closely inside a character's head. I blame many people for this, but at the top of my list right now are bottle_of_shine, laylah, sister_coyote and twilightsrain.
If I desired to, I could justify my enjoyment of fanfic by pointing out all these interesting things I learn from it (and the massive and ever-growing list of stuff to never do that spawns from it as well), but you know what? Fuck it. I've given up defending my hobbies from people who want to bitch at me because fic isn't real writing or young ladies don't play video games or I spend too much time thinking about Exalted. Fuck it. I enjoy it, and that is all the justification you're getting from me, so shut the fuck up and back off.
...Okay! That? Was my "rar!" moment of the day. And now, I finish my het_challenge fic (ahem, [names removed], please to be getting to the pairing part instead of snarling at each other like...like...like you're Reno or something.)
ETA: I am exceedingly grateful for my education, don't get me wrong. My education in history is superb. I just hate NU's writing program.
I was reading something on precious_stones today, and I came to a rather stunning realization. Fanfiction (reading and writing) has taught me far more about both good and bad writing than I have learnt reading published authors and taking classes at Northwestern. I was reading one of laylah's pieces and it just struck me how she incorporates tiny little worldbuilding details without infodumping or really making them stand out at all; you acquire all kinds of little bits of info about the world of Casmile and the Bijou without realizing it, and I think that is so fucking cool. The only other place I've really seen that done well is in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Another thing I have learnt from fandom is how to write very, very closely inside a character's head. I blame many people for this, but at the top of my list right now are bottle_of_shine, laylah, sister_coyote and twilightsrain.
If I desired to, I could justify my enjoyment of fanfic by pointing out all these interesting things I learn from it (and the massive and ever-growing list of stuff to never do that spawns from it as well), but you know what? Fuck it. I've given up defending my hobbies from people who want to bitch at me because fic isn't real writing or young ladies don't play video games or I spend too much time thinking about Exalted. Fuck it. I enjoy it, and that is all the justification you're getting from me, so shut the fuck up and back off.
...Okay! That? Was my "rar!" moment of the day. And now, I finish my het_challenge fic (ahem, [names removed], please to be getting to the pairing part instead of snarling at each other like...like...like you're Reno or something.)
ETA: I am exceedingly grateful for my education, don't get me wrong. My education in history is superb. I just hate NU's writing program.