About Fanfics~

[Turnsky]

Note: the following is purely subjective, not to mention opinionated. - as well as crossposted on my google+ account.

The Failure of Fan-fiction.
I have a fairly storied opinion on fanfictions in their entirety, and while i can't be bothered to read most, i figured i should explain in more detail why exactly, do i feel that fanfics fail, or rather, WHERE they fail.

1) Writing.
First we start with the writing of most, usually the bulk of fanfics either re-use the main character(s) from the original source material or go the usual method and utilise the author's own self-insert character, generally i have a bias against direct interaction of main characters with something that by all rights should be an original production. This often shows that the author themselves lacks imagination to take things that step further and we just end up with a chinese-knockoff version of the original story.

2) It's incomplete.
Often a sore point for me, but i feel that if there isn't a "bible" out there for it, most of the stuff for a fanfic would be either by what you know already, or made up as you go along, now a star trek or star wars fanfic would hum along perfectly fine because of the proverbial tomes of information available, but otherwise you'd be starved for information if you're working from say, a webcomic or other smaller production.

3) The power of retconning.
Now this is just pure amusement value for me, and continuing on from the previous point, if you're working from an incomplete source (like the aforementioned webcomic) and the author decides to either give a major retcon or reboot things entirely, that'd effectively would screw the fanfic author up royally especially if they have put a lot of hard work into it already.

4) More of the Same.
Usually nine times out of ten, a fanfic really doesn't add anything new to the world base that a production's setting uses, Stories involving already established universes need not feature any of the 'historical figures' of the canon proper to actually work, take a look at many sequels and spinoffs that have done well because they not only took the base idea, but expanded upon it.
"Aliens" is a good example of this, the sequel, "Alien3" is not in my opinion because it clearly did not add anything new and was pretty much more of the same and harkens back to "Alien" to some degree.
All had different writers and directors, remember that.

5) Interaction with Canon.
pretty much reaffirming my main points here, but really, if you want to add your own characters, don't throw them /directly/ into the main canon with an aim to change it in one way, shape or form.. it's just terrible form, really. Telling the tale of a bit character, or a story from an impartial observer as events unfold around them is also an interesting direction to take things.

6) And another thing...
World Building is a daunting task for many, but in the end provides one with a world to build many, many, many stories from, and not just the ones the creator(s) put out. Just don't expect the creator to say anything to you about it unless you are making globs of cash from it.

That's all i have for not, really a few of these points was what stirred me into piecing together "project ariannia" a rather large world-building project where folks have a 'bible" so folks who wish to, can write their own little stories within that world (or system, too) without needing to concern themselves with what's already written.

[Inumo]

Some interesting points in there. Personally, I'd say my big gripes with fanfic are the stereotypical editing errors (which aren't in all fanfic, admittedly, but the stigma is there), self-insertion (or similarly, the often cavalier attitude towards what one individual can do), and the quality of writing. Now, by quality of writing I'm not talking about spelling errors, missed punctuation, etc; that's editing. I'm talking more about how the sentences are often repetitive in format (<Person> <adverb> <past-tense verb> <rest of the thought>) or disjointed (He took his shoes off. Trading them for his boots. I'm still surprised how many people do things like this), or the way the ideas flow gets jumbled up, either due to how it was written (like Catch-22, which still somehow became a classic) or what words were used, where the author tries to be grandiloquent. I'm all for using cool words to describe a situation, but not if they're uncalled for. Still, when it's obvious that effort was put into a fanfic, I honor the attempt, at least.

[joshofspam]

I've read a few fan-fictions from time to time. I even read stories that weren't quite fanfiction and were more of several writers using the writings of another writer to add to canon. That last one I often see as a distant form of fan-fiction.

Some of the best stories of either is when the character isn't as all powerful. Sure they can play it really close, but when its all said and done they have their own set of flaws and are limited to what one man can do in the world their in and the short life they have to live in some cases or long life's.

One problem I see sometimes is when people try to apply things to the story where canon doesn't quite support it. Usually this upsets the die hard fans of original works because it upsets their view set upon the canon world. But it also leads to taking away from the story element if it makes things to easy and sometimes becomes to much of a focus which often leads to changing the universal view of canon.

Now often introducing your character or a character that represents you in your fan-fiction often comes up to the problem I often to think about as the Better-man syndrome. Often you have stories that never escape it when a fanfiction is written and you have a few that avoid it or ingeniously skate between the line. Better-man Syndrome is often the character or race that can do no wrong and can do whatever they want because, to put it simply, they are better then everyone else. Oddly enough, this problem can even just kill a story for me and not just fan-fictions.

Not all fan-fictions are bad for me. In some cases I've found them to be a real treat.

[Tapewolf]

I've always thought of them as being like add-on levels for a game.  You get a lot of really crappy ones, but occasional genius.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

One of the shining examples of fan-fiction is Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.

If you have not seen this play, I high, highly recommend it.



... sadly, most works fail to reach these dizzying heights. :-/

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

One of the shining examples of fan-fiction is Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.

If you have not seen this play, I high, highly recommend it.



... sadly, most works fail to reach these dizzying heights. :-/

What about My Immortal?

[VAE]

*sigh*
Most of these points can be summarized as "Lots of fanfics are bad because their authors suck at writing". Which is unsurprising as fanfiction, since it's not really possible to extract any cash from , is most of the time the domain of amateur writers.  
My point is, a person who writes a shitty fanfic isn't going to automatically write better if he's making up his own universe for it (a nice point would be Eye of Argon with its generic accordeon erm Ecordian barbarian Grignr.) Neither is a good writer going to suddenly suck if he writes fanfiction... An example would be the aforementioned (in booksies thread) works by C. Stross who uses quite a lot of Lovecraft's mythology in his books.
Points 1,4,5 are pretty much this - signs of a poor/unskilled writer who can't really add that much of his own to the story.

As for 2 and 3, come on.
Authors of original fiction leave plot holes pretty often. Take Harry Potter for example..  the world is surprisingly well built in some places , but there is a whole host of headbangers elsewhere, that several fanfics have improved on.
Or, for something i am far more familiar with, and relating to Tape's mention of addons- the Nehahra project for the original Quake game - this was a very nice and long mod which included a 4h machinima movie done in Quake engine, which actually gave an interesting backstory to the original game, and had several "Fridge Brilliance"  moments explaining several headbangers in original levels.
Or for that matter SW expanded universe...
All in all, if a fanfic writer is well familiar with the universe he is writing about , and can match the general feel of the world, there's not that much that can go wrong, especially if the risky additions make the world more interesting.
Furthermore,  looking at an otherwise good fanfic written several years ago and then criticise it on inconsistency with recent developments in there would take an anal-retentive jerk.

In a way this reminds me of the pen debate, where you proved to a particular resident of this forum that a person with good art skills can draw well with a common ballpoint, and doesn't need india ink or expensive markers.  I'd say it's the same with fanfic vs. original worlds.

[Kafzeil]

One of the shining examples of fan-fiction is Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.

If you have not seen this play, I high, highly recommend it.



... sadly, most works fail to reach these dizzying heights. :-/

What about My Immortal?

My Immortal is a masterpiece in the same way Plan 9 is. It's so terrible in the right mindset it's uproariously funny.

VAE pretty much said what I was going to say as counterpoint. Original writers are still humans and capable of making glaring, stupid plot holes. Even the most badly retconned fanfic is still less wallbanger inducing then Twilight Saga's Nessie and everything related to her.

I find Twilight to be in the same boat as Plan 9 and My Immortal.Though the last book was genuinely cringe inducing.

[Turnsky]

*stuff*

Note i said WHERE they fail, not "ALL Fanfics are FAIL", these are more observations about points of failure where a fanfic can fall completely flat on its face and just become... awful. It's not as much a sweeping generalisation as you might've guessed.

You make fair points on plot holes and whatnot, but overall that is a writer's prerogative and may lead to interesting avenues to explore or extrapolate later on, and could be grounds to explore with in a 'expanded work' by either the original creator or a savvy fanfic writer with the rest of the universe to work from to 'keep their story straight', as for 3, i didn't mention "recent developments", i mentioned actual retconning, the variety that's fairly significant. i was discussing this partially in a livestream a while back, and i cited Tapewolf's own "project future" as an example:
Basically i mentioned that if Amber did a massive retcon on various facets of the DMFA-Verse, such as how the cubi 'worked' and so on, it'd screw Tapewolf over a fair bit as he's invested quite a bit in 'em for his own work.

But then again, could Amber be that evil? 

If a person can write a fanfiction, and write it well, more the power to them, but as mentioned before, there are quite a few pitfalls to think about, and yes, most of which are tied to the writer's ability.
Much in the same way drawing a webcomic has its own fair share of pitfalls to look out for.

[joshofspam]

*stuff*

But then, also you have to take into account the taste of the reader as well.

Often enough you will get people with different taste and standards that can range from absolutly hating it, to thinking it's the greatest work they ever read and everything in-between that.

While writing capability can hinder a writer, you also have low account of good feedback from the reader sometimes as well. In some cases the writer might be starting from a point of a beginner and is getting there skills and idea's ironed out.

Not everyone starts at the starting point making great stuff, sometimes you have to keep at it to get better at something. But ranging taste might cloud the difference from making something interesting to read from something great. Then not giving good feedback can let slip what they need to improve and what they nailed right.

But then not all writers probably write too be great, they write because they generally like what their writing and maybe someone else too.

It's a real finicky thing, fan-fictions are.

[Turnsky]

yes, but that's more along the lines of actual criticism, and from past experience, informative criticism is few and far between, ESPECIALLY on the writing front.
And yet, it also depends on whether the reader can see the flaws present or not, or whether they have the backbone to say "hey, something sucks here, here's where it sucks, and here's how it might suck less".
Remember, there's a difference between Fans, Critics, and just downright brown-nosers, oh, and whiteknights too.

[VAE]

*stuff*

Note i said WHERE they fail, not "ALL Fanfics are FAIL", these are more observations about points of failure where a fanfic can fall completely flat on its face and just become... awful. It's not as much a sweeping generalisation as you might've guessed.

We-ell the "The Failure of Fanfiction" header as well as some of the things below is somewhat suggesting otherwise, but that isn't important.
My point was that the connection of this to fanfics is only incidental - you might as well have called half of the post "The failure of amateur/n00b writing". After all, reading about mary sues and/or boring, flat characters in an original setting wouldn't be anymore interesting than reading about mary sues and/or boring flat characters which try hard to mimic some original character. (the epically bad pr0nfic of DMFA and its hillarious reading comes to mind, with a straightout realization that Mab isn't behaving like herself thrown in by the hapless author)
To connect to my analogy once more, probably way more shitty art is done with a pencil than with Copic markers or a tablet, simply because most people with crappy drawing skills (am a prime example) use one.  

You make fair points on plot holes and whatnot, but overall that is a writer's prerogative and may lead to interesting avenues to explore or extrapolate later on, and could be grounds to explore with in a 'expanded work' by either the original creator or a savvy fanfic writer with the rest of the universe to work from to 'keep their story straight', as for 3, i didn't mention "recent developments", i mentioned actual retconning, the variety that's fairly significant.

It might be my failing at english, but such a retcon does count as "recent development" - once again, it would take a very special person to grill an author over something he couldn't have known.  

i was discussing this partially in a livestream a while back, and i cited Tapewolf's own "project future" as an example:
Basically i mentioned that if Amber did a massive retcon on various facets of the DMFA-Verse, such as how the cubi 'worked' and so on, it'd screw Tapewolf over a fair bit as he's invested quite a bit in 'em for his own work.

But then again, could Amber be that evil? 

*sigh* yeah, I'd expect you to use that example.
For the sake of the argument , suppose she did threw all of Demonology 101 out of the window tomorrow  and redefined Fae to be invisible pink unicorns. (she definitely is evil enough).  
Asides from frantically reworking everything, Tape would have the option to simply "secede" and keep using "Furrae 1.0". His stories don't interact too much with the canon (asides from SAIA and Fa'lina) and due to him actually stopping and explaining several of the concepts (i remember this from CJP)  - it is reasonably selfcontained writing, and therefore, not much trouble would happen.

If a person can write a fanfiction, and write it well, more the power to them, but as mentioned before, there are quite a few pitfalls to think about, and yes, most of which are tied to the writer's ability.
Much in the same way drawing a webcomic has its own fair share of pitfalls to look out for.

This part I do agree with. Doing a fanfic shows a deceptively easy way to deal with character and enviroment creation when in reality it isn't all that pink.

[Turnsky]

*sigh* yeah, I'd expect you to use that example.

i cited it as example because it's two things.
A) it's a fanfic that everybody here knows about.
b) it's a fanfic whose subject matter everybody here is also very familiar with.

also, you didn't read the subtext below the header.

I have a fairly storied opinion on fanfictions in their entirety, and while i can't be bothered to read most, i figured i should explain in more detail why exactly, do i feel that fanfics fail, or rather, WHERE they fail.

i get the sense you're being argumentative for the sake of playing devil's advocate, here.

There's also another thing i failed to bring up earlier, and that's..
Legalities
While i'm sure Darc and company (the Codename: Hunter crew) would have more to say on the issue on this, but in a nutshell you can't expect any feedback from the original author if you're doing a fanfic due to legal 'covering of ass'. The impression i get is if they do read a fanfic, it could either inspire plotline or the fanfic writer could just cite plagiarism anyway and bring all sorts of legal irritation down upon the original author. Especially if a movie deal's involved (stranger things have happened). So they don't, or rather cannot read fanfics so they're effectively legally covered.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

There's also another thing i failed to bring up earlier, and that's..
Legalities
While i'm sure Darc and company (the Codename: Hunter crew) would have more to say on the issue on this, but in a nutshell you can't expect any feedback from the original author if you're doing a fanfic due to legal 'covering of ass'. The impression i get is if they do read a fanfic, it could either inspire plotline or the fanfic writer could just cite plagiarism anyway and bring all sorts of legal irritation down upon the original author. Especially if a movie deal's involved (stranger things have happened). So they don't, or rather cannot read fanfics so they're effectively legally covered.

Gyr has said that his lawyer has offered/threatened to drag him into his office and ball him out for reading any fanfic of CN:H at all.

And then charge him for the experience. >.<

With glee, as you'd expect. *grin*

[Cogidubnus]

I guess I don't have much to add here, except to say that Fanfics got me into writing in the first place. When I was but a wee little lad, writers to me seemed like these very serious, tweed-coated men with padded elbows and pipes who performed some sort of secret magic with pen and ink.

Then I found fanfiction, and realized that while a bubble pipe is sophisticated, it actually has very little to do with writing at all.  Anybody can learn. Anybody can try. You can even be good at it, too. I owe fanfiction writers for giving me the courage to try to write myself.

[Tapewolf]

I guess I don't have much to add here, except to say that Fanfics got me into writing in the first place.

I second this.  At least, it's what inspired me to write fiction.

[Alondro]

My largest work to date was a 94-page fanfic for Suburban Jungle, which I wrote just for the sake of learning to write a larger work and to make something fun for Gneech (the SJ creator) and I to enjoy.  And we did, even though my attempt was rather amateurish now that I have a decade of experience to look back on.

I've read a few fanfics that were hilarious in years past.  One gigantic DBZ one comes to mind.  It was primarily for hilarty's sake, but also possessed some rather clever twists in altering timelines.  And then there was Space Ball Z (Space Balls/DBZ crossover), which was also illustrated by action figures and made me LMAO.

And recently, I've become hooked on the most bizarre cross-over imaginable:  Doctor Who x MLP:FiM.  Yes, one wonders immediately, "How in the hell can that work?"  But it does... oh god does it ever!  The writer of it is exceedingly clever and has the characters personalities and the pace of the new Doctor Who serials nailed down flawlessly.  Add in some excellent narrative and the whole thing just flows seamlessly.

As far as fanfics go, I'd say it's the best I've ever read.