Allegory of the fic-cave

[branchandroot]

Yesterday I had occasion to discuss with someone unfamiliar with fanfic why fanfic is not "easier" than origific because "half the work is already done". This is, of course, a hoary old chestnut often put forward by people who have never tried to write both forms, and much verbiage has already been expended on it, but this time something new occurred to me.

I think I have finally found a use for Plato's damn Cave.

In brief, the Allegory of the Cave suggests that the reality we see around us is merely a shadow of some higher reality of Forms (platonic ideals), as people confined facing a cave wall with a fire behind them would only be able to see the shadows on the wall of actual objects in the cave with them.

Now, I think the Allegory of the Cave is a useless bit of self-congratulatory twaddle, when it comes to models of human perception in general, but it does seem to have some particular applicability to written fiction.

A good writer does a whole lot of world-building that never makes it directly onto the page. Just think about all the memes that go "name a character/fandom and I'll tell you X many things from my personal head-canon/mynon/etc about them". The words on the page are, if you will, the shadow of what the author built up in their mind, in their storytelling space. That building always has to be done; the author has to know all those little details. Without that, the shadow won't look convincing or have weight. But a shadow is still all that makes it onto the actual page. An author going to write fanfic has no direct access to the vast majority of the last round of world-building.

This means that, when writing fanfic, all that world-building must be done again from the ground up and it must be done in such a way that the text/shadow it makes on the page overlaps smoothly with the first text/shadow. This must be done without having ever seen the "object" that cast the first shadow, because that "object" only exists inside the first author's head. All the next author has to work with is the shadow.

When an author doesn't do the world-building, then they write a shoddy story. Fanfic or origific, lack of world-building detail results in an incoherent, inconsistent, or flat story. On top of this, when a fan author doesn't manage to make their shadow overlap sufficiently with the source shadow, then the story fails as fanfic. Fanfic does not have any of the work done already; what it has is an extra requirement in the building process. (This is, of course, modified by the fact that fan readers will forgive a whole lot of not-overlapping if the fan author still manages to give them sufficient id-candy tagged with appropriate names and outfits, just like origific readers will forgive a whole lot of shoddy world-building if the author gives them sufficient id-candy, period.)

So there we go: Plato's Cave of Condescension finally serves a useful purpose. Remix, reuse, recycle.

Comments

[edenfalling]

Interesting! I am not completely sure that fanfic doesn't have some of the work done already -- what I have noticed as the primary difference between my fanfic and my original fiction is the different way in which I introduce characters. In fanfiction, I can basically say something to the effect of "and then Person A walked into the room" and know that readers will fill in Person A's personality and story role for themselves without me having to make all the details obvious. In original fiction, I don't have that shared pool of knowledge/assumptions to rely on, so I have to do more of the work upfront. It's like, instead of people seeing the story shadow and saying, "Oh hey, I remember this pattern," I am showing a completely new shadow. Or something, I don't know, I think this analogy got away from me somewhere.

But yes, in both cases you HAVE to know the shape of the world and the characters in order to cast a realistic shadow. And you have to play by the rules. That's another way fanfiction might be trickier than original fiction, because in original work, you get to make up the rules and therefore ensure that they're congenial to your own worldview and stuff. In fanfiction, you may be forced to play by rules you utterly disagree with... and working within those constraints, and figuring out how to express disagreement while still casting a story shadow that recognizably overlaps the canon story, is not a negligible challenge!

(Sorry if this makes no sense. I am ill and currently dosed on NyQuil and Benadryl at the same time, which I have been told produces a fairly convincing facsimile of being stoned.)

[branchandroot]

*nods* I think of fanfic, on the character-introduction score, a lot like writing another installment in a series. (At least if you're doing it decently.) Introduction and description still has to be done, but it's more about signalling where an established characters is at /now/ and less about signalling the basic framework. Really, that's the phase I like best, since it's where you can really dig into what makes that character tick (says the character-driven writer). And, of course, it changes some depending on how much of the original world you're using and how AU the fic is.

(Oh man, I hope you feel better soon. I mean, being stoned can be interesting, but usually only when there's abstruse philosophy to be laughed at. Just having to go to work sucks.)

[adalger]

I respectfully disagree that you don't have that shared pool of knowledge/assumptions to rely on. It's just that in fanfic, all your tropes already have names and costumes. However, I think David Eddings thoroughly proved that you can write a very good story made up entirely of characters and storylines everybody already knows and stop just about one millimeter short of actually being fanfic.

[edenfalling]

There is a flaw in your argument: David Eddings did not write "very good stories." He just wrote stories that were so familiar they went down like fruity alcoholic drinks, the kind you can get utterly smashed on without realizing how bad they are for you.

And I say this as someone who read all ten of the Belgarion books plus all six Sparhawk books plus the first of whatever series he started after that. The thing with the rift or gods or... oh, I don't know.

(No. Wait. Twelve Belgarion books, counting the backstory about Belgarath and Polgara.)

[adalger]

There is something to your counter here. It all depends on whether you're the kind of person who likes to get smashed and has a taste for the fruity. I suspect there's a significant segment of fandom who'd be quite content to pound mai-tais until they couldn't lift the glass any more, and for them, any bartender willing to serve 'em up in gallon jugs is "very good." On the other hand, if your taste runs more toward a delicately balanced salad and a solid but just as subtle Eastern European dark beer, of course you'll get tired of waking up hung over and feeling unsatisfied; I'm sure that's just as large a portion of the fannish culture.

How would you feel about the statement if I struck "good" and substituted "successful"?

[edenfalling]

Better, yeah. There is no arguing that Eddings certainly sells a lot of books and has a lot of readers! And there is definitely a place for that kind of story -- there are days when I just want simple brain candy instead of something more complicated and/or deeper. :-)