Allegory of the fic-cave
Mar. 18th, 2012 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootYesterday 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 06:37 pm (UTC)Yeah, for descriptions, it does make us lazy... but on the flip side, we have the added challenge, as you said in the shadows, of *matching* our shadows to their expectations. There's certain notes that we have to hit absolutely perfectly, or people won't accept it as part of their world.
I used to get a fair amount of flack for my Hiei and Kurama being OOC, despite my putting in great excessive detail at the top of stories that the characters were based on the first 25 episodes of the series and not the rest of it. Basically, I started writing when all we had were the first fansubs. And then when I saw the rest of it... well, the series itself had changed - after episode 25, Hiei and Kurama were *not* the same characters we were originally introduced to, particularly Hiei. So, well, yeah, my characters weren't set to most people who had seen the whole series expectations. And I got comments on that. Believe me, I got comments. o.O
For other differences, I think there's also the idea of getting published, and that's a different kettle of fish. Even if the writing of original fiction is done mostly identical to fanfiction, there's a whole lot of extra work and effort and heart-break going into trying to get said original fiction published. Good numbers of people who write original fiction want to try and get published someday. Whereas people who write fanfiction just want to toss it up on the internet and not worry about publishing. Fanfiction already has an in-built audience, where as original fiction has to go out and hunt their audience down. But that's not the actual writing process.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 06:42 pm (UTC)*nods* I have to wonder whether self-publishing outlets will evolve genre labels that can function like fandoms do for us. I mean, you know there are a ton of people who would be happy to pounce on anything under "Vampire Romance" just the same way fans of Naruto or Stargate comb through all the fic under those headings. Surely there are other categories like that.