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Creative effort
Jan. 2nd, 2007 11:50 pmA common refrain among both defenders and detractors of fanfiction is that fic is "training wheels". That is, it's a place to build one's skills because the fic writer only has to do half the work; the work of creation has already been done and the fic writer only needs to sing along.
This is a steaming load of excrement.
Derivative fiction and original fiction both call for very much the same amount of work. If one does half the work, one gets a half-assed story; this is true for both forms. In the case of original fiction, one must build a world in accordance with one's sense of where and how the story takes place, and likewise build characters. In the case of derivative fiction one must still build a world and characters, this time in accordance with one's sense of what the whole world of the source-story might look like.
After all, we only ever see a small slice of the whole world in any story. Most authors will, of course, tell you that the whole world exists in their heads and informs the finished story with all the little touches of depth that the reader never actually sees. Quite true.
But, as that particular whole world only exists in the author's head, a derivative writer must take the bits and fragments that actually made it onto the page and use her very own creative powers to extrapolate a whole world in her own head. This world may have remarkable congruence with the world that is in a) the original writer's head and/or b) other readers' heads, or it may have the slightest passing resemblance. But the world-building effort has to be done by each individual writer, original or derivative, one way or another.
The effort to shape a story-world from scratch and the effort to shape a story-world that meshes with the puzzle pieces reflected in someone else's writing are perfectly equivalent. Both are learned skills--and quite different skills at that. A fic writer attempting for the first time to do the former may well bewail how much harder it is than what she's used to doing.
An original writer attempting for the first time to do the latter will, if she is honest, be wailing just as loudly.
.
This is a steaming load of excrement.
Derivative fiction and original fiction both call for very much the same amount of work. If one does half the work, one gets a half-assed story; this is true for both forms. In the case of original fiction, one must build a world in accordance with one's sense of where and how the story takes place, and likewise build characters. In the case of derivative fiction one must still build a world and characters, this time in accordance with one's sense of what the whole world of the source-story might look like.
After all, we only ever see a small slice of the whole world in any story. Most authors will, of course, tell you that the whole world exists in their heads and informs the finished story with all the little touches of depth that the reader never actually sees. Quite true.
But, as that particular whole world only exists in the author's head, a derivative writer must take the bits and fragments that actually made it onto the page and use her very own creative powers to extrapolate a whole world in her own head. This world may have remarkable congruence with the world that is in a) the original writer's head and/or b) other readers' heads, or it may have the slightest passing resemblance. But the world-building effort has to be done by each individual writer, original or derivative, one way or another.
The effort to shape a story-world from scratch and the effort to shape a story-world that meshes with the puzzle pieces reflected in someone else's writing are perfectly equivalent. Both are learned skills--and quite different skills at that. A fic writer attempting for the first time to do the former may well bewail how much harder it is than what she's used to doing.
An original writer attempting for the first time to do the latter will, if she is honest, be wailing just as loudly.
.
