I'm thinking of starting up a diary again.
Maybe something online, maybe something off, idek. I'm starting to get to that point where there aren't enough people in the world who care to hear me ramble long enough for me to say all the things I want to say, so I need to put them on paper. I used to get to sleep better when I kept a journal, so maybe I'll start doing that again.
(Haha, this is why I became a writer.)
Firstly, crossovers: I'm actually a huge fan of them. A well-done crossover not only shows off a writer's skill and goes to prove that rule about anything can be written, so long as it's done well, but also shows an immense amount of creativity. Plus, I am totally a fan of the awesome thing 1 + awesome thing 2 = SUPER AWESOME THING formula.
My problem comes when I read crossovers for fandoms I don't read. Typically, if I read fanfiction for a fandom for which I don't know the canon very well, it's because I'm interested in joining the fandom. For example, before reading Naruto waaaaay back in middle school, I looked up websites about it, and about the fandom, and the SasuNaru got me interested in it.
With crossovers, this may not be the case. I know fandom A and fandom B sounds interesting, so let's do this! In fact, I may not even know anything about fandom B if I like fandom A enough.
That's a problem sometimes. Sometimes the line between "inspired by" and "stolen from" is very fine, and sometimes people justify this by calling it a, um, what's the word for the kind of crossover where the characters don't meet, but it's essentially an AU with characters from fandom A thrown into the universe of Fandom B? There's a word for it, I'm sure.
What is really disconcerting is reading something like this and only realizing it later. For example, I read a J2 fic once in which the characters were thrown into The Big Bang Theory's setting in the aforementioned Type 2 crossover. Boyf got me to watch Big Bang Theory not long after we met, and the more I see of the show, the more I hate myself for liking that fic, because it was a cute crossover and a cute idea, and the prose was cute, too, but jfc, every smidgen of crossover wit and characterization was totally stolen! It's just--AUGH. IT bothers me more than the idea of people stealing each others' Mary Sue fics on quizilla and pasting their own usernames to it. That is the level of bafflement I am feeling. Take the time to write your own Mary Sue! HONESTLY. IT'S NOT HARD.
Come up with your own cute idea for big bang, preferably something that doesn't lift nearly every idea from another show!
(*A note: I don't actually remember much of the specific jokes and prose in the aforementioned J2/Big Bang Theory fic. Maybe it didn't steal as much as I remember! I certainly remember that the ship I was rooting for got to the sex a lot faster than the TV show! Unfortunately, the only other thing I remember is that two of the side characters were unceremoniously shoved into Raj and Howard's roles from BBT, and okay, it's RPS so I feel stalkerish as hell even reading it most of the time, so I don't really know the actors' personalities well enough to judge, because actual celeb-stalking is too much effort for me, so maybe those guys are a lot like the BBT guys, but I really highly doubt that the one side character made it even a little bit in Hollywood if he was mute around women unless inebriated. Really.)
The other rant is about feedback: Sarah's already had a long post about the benefits of long, careful, real concrit, vs. just letting it go and letting the writer improve on her own, but this is not specifically about that. This is about friends.
It's one thing to give a respected author all the concrit they need, because after a certain level of fame, it becomes almost expected that the author can handle concrit. There's also a certain distance that is maintained between writer and fan. I admire Neil Gaiman a lot! But I am willing to admit if we met in person, it would just be as writer and fan, and I'd have him sign something and critique absolutely nothing at all. Critique isn't really for the public, anyway, which is why it's interesting that reviews are typically publicly available online. Good critique is best given in private, I think, because it seems less like an attack that way and more like "Dude, I really respect you which is why I feel comfortable saying I think your writing is great here and here, but you can totally do better than here."
With friends it's more delicate. Thankfully, I met most of my f-list through writing, so I already feel comfortable saying anything that needs to be said, and I trust everyone else to do the same for me and my writing. In real life, this isn't as easy. I know RL friends first as people with delicate egos, and second as writers. (And I am talking exceptionally delicate egos; I understand that many people have more delicate egos than they let on, and this is perfectly fine, but I seem to have a gift for meeting people who absolutely cannot handle criticism without either taking it as a personal affront or spiraling into a pit of emo. Not all of my friends are like this! But enough of them are that I don't feel bad for generalizing.)
It is actually my custom to assume that if I meet a writer in real life, unless they give me a screenname by which to reach them, I am to assume that their ego is fragile and I should be really nice with any concrit lest they be personally affronted or spiral into a pit of emo. Unless, of course, they ask for constructive criticism. In that case, as on the internet, anything is fair game.
Boyf has an ex-girlf who is a writer. She recently asked for our opinion on a piece. Boyf is not particularly interested in such a thing, because she is his ex-girlf and he is not, um, particularly fond of her style. She is a bit of a new writer, which is to say, he got her into writing and she has been writing ever since, but only for herself and without a lot of feedback.
It's a delicate situation because as a developing writer, I feel like she really needs the concrit, but as an RL friend, I'm worried that she won't be able to handle it or will decide she no longer wants to be friends. (At the moment, our friendship is solely based on our shared status as writers.) I suppose at this point, since I just met her it's not really a big deal if she decides I'm a horrible friend and a mean person, but I tried to be nice with the concrit, and I think I did okay, and there's nothing to do but watch my email for the explosion.
Also, boyf and I got a kitten a few days ago! He is a black tabby and we named him Lawrence. 8D I'll have pictures as soon as I find a cord for my phone or whenever boyf uploads his. <3
ETA:
That's my hair in the edge of the picture there. Lawrence thinks he's a parrot.
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(Haha, this is why I became a writer.)
Firstly, crossovers: I'm actually a huge fan of them. A well-done crossover not only shows off a writer's skill and goes to prove that rule about anything can be written, so long as it's done well, but also shows an immense amount of creativity. Plus, I am totally a fan of the awesome thing 1 + awesome thing 2 = SUPER AWESOME THING formula.
My problem comes when I read crossovers for fandoms I don't read. Typically, if I read fanfiction for a fandom for which I don't know the canon very well, it's because I'm interested in joining the fandom. For example, before reading Naruto waaaaay back in middle school, I looked up websites about it, and about the fandom, and the SasuNaru got me interested in it.
With crossovers, this may not be the case. I know fandom A and fandom B sounds interesting, so let's do this! In fact, I may not even know anything about fandom B if I like fandom A enough.
That's a problem sometimes. Sometimes the line between "inspired by" and "stolen from" is very fine, and sometimes people justify this by calling it a, um, what's the word for the kind of crossover where the characters don't meet, but it's essentially an AU with characters from fandom A thrown into the universe of Fandom B? There's a word for it, I'm sure.
What is really disconcerting is reading something like this and only realizing it later. For example, I read a J2 fic once in which the characters were thrown into The Big Bang Theory's setting in the aforementioned Type 2 crossover. Boyf got me to watch Big Bang Theory not long after we met, and the more I see of the show, the more I hate myself for liking that fic, because it was a cute crossover and a cute idea, and the prose was cute, too, but jfc, every smidgen of crossover wit and characterization was totally stolen! It's just--AUGH. IT bothers me more than the idea of people stealing each others' Mary Sue fics on quizilla and pasting their own usernames to it. That is the level of bafflement I am feeling. Take the time to write your own Mary Sue! HONESTLY. IT'S NOT HARD.
Come up with your own cute idea for big bang, preferably something that doesn't lift nearly every idea from another show!
(*A note: I don't actually remember much of the specific jokes and prose in the aforementioned J2/Big Bang Theory fic. Maybe it didn't steal as much as I remember! I certainly remember that the ship I was rooting for got to the sex a lot faster than the TV show! Unfortunately, the only other thing I remember is that two of the side characters were unceremoniously shoved into Raj and Howard's roles from BBT, and okay, it's RPS so I feel stalkerish as hell even reading it most of the time, so I don't really know the actors' personalities well enough to judge, because actual celeb-stalking is too much effort for me, so maybe those guys are a lot like the BBT guys, but I really highly doubt that the one side character made it even a little bit in Hollywood if he was mute around women unless inebriated. Really.)
The other rant is about feedback: Sarah's already had a long post about the benefits of long, careful, real concrit, vs. just letting it go and letting the writer improve on her own, but this is not specifically about that. This is about friends.
It's one thing to give a respected author all the concrit they need, because after a certain level of fame, it becomes almost expected that the author can handle concrit. There's also a certain distance that is maintained between writer and fan. I admire Neil Gaiman a lot! But I am willing to admit if we met in person, it would just be as writer and fan, and I'd have him sign something and critique absolutely nothing at all. Critique isn't really for the public, anyway, which is why it's interesting that reviews are typically publicly available online. Good critique is best given in private, I think, because it seems less like an attack that way and more like "Dude, I really respect you which is why I feel comfortable saying I think your writing is great here and here, but you can totally do better than here."
With friends it's more delicate. Thankfully, I met most of my f-list through writing, so I already feel comfortable saying anything that needs to be said, and I trust everyone else to do the same for me and my writing. In real life, this isn't as easy. I know RL friends first as people with delicate egos, and second as writers. (And I am talking exceptionally delicate egos; I understand that many people have more delicate egos than they let on, and this is perfectly fine, but I seem to have a gift for meeting people who absolutely cannot handle criticism without either taking it as a personal affront or spiraling into a pit of emo. Not all of my friends are like this! But enough of them are that I don't feel bad for generalizing.)
It is actually my custom to assume that if I meet a writer in real life, unless they give me a screenname by which to reach them, I am to assume that their ego is fragile and I should be really nice with any concrit lest they be personally affronted or spiral into a pit of emo. Unless, of course, they ask for constructive criticism. In that case, as on the internet, anything is fair game.
Boyf has an ex-girlf who is a writer. She recently asked for our opinion on a piece. Boyf is not particularly interested in such a thing, because she is his ex-girlf and he is not, um, particularly fond of her style. She is a bit of a new writer, which is to say, he got her into writing and she has been writing ever since, but only for herself and without a lot of feedback.
It's a delicate situation because as a developing writer, I feel like she really needs the concrit, but as an RL friend, I'm worried that she won't be able to handle it or will decide she no longer wants to be friends. (At the moment, our friendship is solely based on our shared status as writers.) I suppose at this point, since I just met her it's not really a big deal if she decides I'm a horrible friend and a mean person, but I tried to be nice with the concrit, and I think I did okay, and there's nothing to do but watch my email for the explosion.
Also, boyf and I got a kitten a few days ago! He is a black tabby and we named him Lawrence. 8D I'll have pictures as soon as I find a cord for my phone or whenever boyf uploads his. <3
ETA:
That's my hair in the edge of the picture there. Lawrence thinks he's a parrot.
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