I have a deep and abiding inability to just let things goAs I may have mentioned in a previous post, I got into a small argument with the writer GoH, Michael Stackpole, during a CONduit panel this weekend. The argument was whether you can learn anything by writing fanfic. I, of course, am firmly in the camp that you do. I maintain that I would
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Not that Stackpole was frothing, but he was...rather adamant. "You shouldn't need training wheels." "Well, sir, some of us do." It was a lively panel.
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And it's hilarious how personally affronted these guys seem to get, that people dare to write fanfic in universes that they write in themselves but didn't create. They act like we walk into their houses and steal food directly from their children's mouths.
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OMG, exactly. I can't tell you how many tie-in novels I've read that are phoned-in pieces of crap* that would be better off lining a birdcage than a bookshelf. And for a tie-in writer to say that "you can't learn anything by writing fanfic" strikes me as the height of silliness.
I will freely admit that I picked up some bad habits writing fanfic. My description is weak, my death scenes frequently lack punch (until I rewrite them), and I can't seem to do "long" to save my life.
On the other hand, my characterization is consistent--I've had plenty of practice writing many different characters from many walks of life, and with many points of view that I don't necessarily share. I learned how to finish a story--and while my endings sometime suck like big sucking things, at least there's an END at the bottom and I have words on the page to work with ( ... )
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I'm speaking from my own experience in writing, when I say it's a good learning tool. I'm not sure I would have ever put hand to keyboard in the first place if it hadn't been for fanfiction--and I wrote what I was inspired (or prompted) to write, which is a huge part of the process: Getting the plot bunny, and finishing...sometimes on a deadline.
And naturally, not everyone learns the same way. I, personally, needed to get my feet wet writing fanfic first, but my experience certainly isn't the be-all and end-all of writing. Would I have learned faster had I started writing original fiction first? Eh, maybe. But who's to say I would have ever started at all?
The people who say that you can't learn anything from writing fanfic are demonstrably wrong. Can it be a crutch? You betcha. But it can also be a springboard. You know two other women and me who got started writing fanfic. Two-thirds of them are now published, paid writers. That's an admittedly small pool to draw from, ( ... )
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