I never read a new author with a first person - at all, I've been burned so many times, for me to bother with first person you need to have sold me or written something pretty damn spectacular and I know why, I wrote a book in first person once, dear god I could not keep on topic, and it's so easy to have authorial voice blend with character voice and it's almost impossible to avoid character bleed, you start talking like them, they start talking like you... it's not good.
I think with fandom there's a great divide, there's readers and writers, which sounds odd and is probably better to say writers and authors, there are those who write because they have an idea and have no skill (not talent but no idea how to format or build a character or things like that) and then there are authors who build a world and take the time to build characters and know how to format and who genuinely love (or are driven by demons, probably b) to write, and the skill in reading fanfic is learning the difference and being able to tell before you're 30k in
I don't think it's a thing about youth, because I got my first paid publishing credit (a poem) when I was 15, so I'd be a hypocrite, but it is a skill, and if Raphael spent 20 years learning to paint skin to hone his talent, surely they can take 2 days to learn how to parse grammar. (please excuse me- there is a monkey on my back about this)
I've read some truly magnificent fanfics and gloried in the freedom that allowed it to be, the experimentation and the wonder of it. I've also read some real shit.
writing is hard and I have nothing but respect for people who try it, but it's also like being flayed alive and so I have nothing but disdain for people who compliment writers who are half assed, it bothers me that people who write dangerous porn are getting comments like so hot, because the majority of fanfic readers want, as my brother so eloquently put it, porn that they're too embarrassed or young to go into a sex shop and buy.
have you ever read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series? on paper they sound like everything we hate, they're romantica with vampires and werewolves and whatnot, but the thing is, they're actually really well written and the characters are great, they're flawed and sometimes they're over weight women in their thirties or shrews who have failed at love and been burned, I can't stand Rom-coms, I find them hideoously unrealistic and not very romantic at all. they present women as objects to be wooed who do nothing other than be remarkable to the men that they attract (hmmm sounds like stalkers to me) and so I watch horrors (girl is anything less than capable ends up shish kebabed) but I like these books, yes they're light (none of them are more than 500 pages) but the characters are rich, the world is realistic and people fuck up and sometimes fuck off too that's more than most romantica can claim
they're not bdsm but they're still books I'd let a daughter (if I had one) read because they're about honesty and failing and trying anyway and really isn't that more than most of them get.
and I know why, I wrote a book in first person once, dear god I could not keep on topic, and it's so easy to have authorial voice blend with character voice and it's almost impossible to avoid character bleed, you start talking like them, they start talking like you... it's not good.
I think with fandom there's a great divide, there's readers and writers, which sounds odd and is probably better to say writers and authors, there are those who write because they have an idea and have no skill (not talent but no idea how to format or build a character or things like that) and then there are authors who build a world and take the time to build characters and know how to format and who genuinely love (or are driven by demons, probably b) to write, and the skill in reading fanfic is learning the difference and being able to tell before you're 30k in
I don't think it's a thing about youth, because I got my first paid publishing credit (a poem) when I was 15, so I'd be a hypocrite, but it is a skill, and if Raphael spent 20 years learning to paint skin to hone his talent, surely they can take 2 days to learn how to parse grammar. (please excuse me- there is a monkey on my back about this)
I've read some truly magnificent fanfics and gloried in the freedom that allowed it to be, the experimentation and the wonder of it. I've also read some real shit.
writing is hard and I have nothing but respect for people who try it, but it's also like being flayed alive and so I have nothing but disdain for people who compliment writers who are half assed, it bothers me that people who write dangerous porn are getting comments like so hot, because the majority of fanfic readers want, as my brother so eloquently put it, porn that they're too embarrassed or young to go into a sex shop and buy.
have you ever read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series? on paper they sound like everything we hate, they're romantica with vampires and werewolves and whatnot, but the thing is, they're actually really well written and the characters are great, they're flawed and sometimes they're over weight women in their thirties or shrews who have failed at love and been burned, I can't stand Rom-coms, I find them hideoously unrealistic and not very romantic at all. they present women as objects to be wooed who do nothing other than be remarkable to the men that they attract (hmmm sounds like stalkers to me) and so I watch horrors (girl is anything less than capable ends up shish kebabed) but I like these books, yes they're light (none of them are more than 500 pages) but the characters are rich, the world is realistic and people fuck up and sometimes fuck off too
that's more than most romantica can claim
they're not bdsm but they're still books I'd let a daughter (if I had one) read because they're about honesty and failing and trying anyway and really isn't that more than most of them get.
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