A Question.

[kungfuwaynewho]

What are people's thoughts on Real Person Fiction?  Have you read any of it?  Does the very idea of RPF squick you out?  Do you think less of a writer who tries her hand at RPF?  Is there some RPF pairing you would want to read or even write but don't?  Do you have an unabashed love of RPF (and don't care who frakking knows)?

I'm not saying yet why I'm asking!  But I am curious.

Comments

[icepixie]

I think there's also a certain element for me of, "If you can write well enough for fic, why not write your own cool stuff?" I got back into writing after a long absence thanks to fic, so I get how it gets people's feet wet, but there's nothing like the rush of writing your own thing, figuring it all out as you go along, seeing how the pieces of your own puzzle come together...and if you never progress beyond fic, you'll never discover that for yourself. To me, that seems like an awful shame.

Just to offer an alternate POV from someone who hears a lot of "you should write a novel" from RL folks: Fic and original stuff are wildly different, and for me, fic is a hell of a lot more fun to write. I like writing short little character-illuminating pieces, often ones which make considerable reference to canon, as well as cracky fun things that rely on canon knowledge to get all the jokes, and you just can't do that with original fic. (Well, maybe if you were writing fanfic of your own original series? What I'm saying is there has to be a mass of canon extant before I can get to the kind of stuff I like to write.) Plus there's the aspect of "I can slave over a novel (which is a format I hate writing in; my heart belongs to the 10,000-word-and-under set)*, and maybe, if I'm really lucky, after I revise it to fit what a publisher wants, something resembling my original concept might get seen by the wider world" versus "I can pour my heart into this fun little thing, have an audience already there--mostly composed of people whom I not only know, but who know the canon and can bring their own background with it to my fic--and we can enjoy it communally." In a sense, fanfic for me is a way of engaging and discussing the canon, and as such is closer to literary analysis than to storytelling.

Um. Okay, sorry, that just hit a nerve. Basically I'm saying that original does not necessarily equal worthier in some people's value systems, including mine, and so that's why some of us who write well enough for fic don't write our "own cool stuff," or go back and forth. Though I agree with you it's good to try both, just to see which one prefers, and I certainly don't want to try to force my own preferences on you. :)


* ETA: Okay, so there's a short story/flash fiction/etc. market out there, somewhere, but my understanding is that it's pretty dead.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Fic and original stuff are wildly different

Okay, so...to back up and reiterate other points I've already made:

1. I'm very well aware of that. I wrote a fair amount of fic before I started working on my own projects and then went to grad school, which I mentioned upthread.

2. I have no problem with people writing whatever their little hearts desire as long as they don't insist that I read it. (It's sort of my attitude toward sex and religion, too. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom or church, nor do I want to know. On the rare occasion that I'm curious about something, I'll ask. As long as you don't try to force your orientation/practices/etc on me, we're good. I said that upthread as well.)

3. Grad school changed a lot for me, one notable thing being my tolerance for fic.

4. I'm an anomaly.

Re: point #1, not only am I well aware of that, I also, in a previous life, argued your point in a conversation very similar to this one. I'm not saying that my way is the only way (see points #2 and #4). I am saying that a helluva lot of people spend their lives writing other people's characters and never go out and try anything more, and I think that's a crying shame. It's like riding around on a bike your whole life because you're afraid to try driving the car. It's a wasted opportunity, even if it's only to discover that there are good reasons why the bike might be better for you. I have never said, "Thou Shalt Only Write Original Fiction" (see point #2). For me, it's vastly more interesting and fun; for you it's not. That is fine. At least you gave it a try.

Basically I'm saying that original does not necessarily equal worthier in some people's value systems

I haven't said anything to the contrary! (Also, "value systems"? All I've done is express my opinion, plainly state several times that I'm the square peg that doesn't fit into the round hole, and attempt to explain why.) ::beats head against desk very very hard::

Okay, so there's a short story/flash fiction/etc. market out there, somewhere, but my understanding is that it's pretty dead.

Not so. I have friends from grad school who sell stuff all the time, and flash is, for reasons beyond my comprehension (though let me state very clearly that I don't care if other people write it) the very hot thing right now.

I would also point out that publishers and agents know what they want for a reason. Everyone I've spoken to or heard on a panel (and I just heard a whole helluva lot of them the other week) talks about how their book was so much better by the time it went to press than it was when they got the agent/book deal, and that's because you can almost never really see your own work objectively until you've had some distance from it, and because these people work with books every day and love them and know what makes them good or not. If an agent or an editor starts telling you to turn your book into something you very strongly feel it's not, you have the wrong agent or editor. I am well aware that my book is going to need edits once I find an agent and possibly also once it finds a publisher. That's how it works and I want it to be as good as it can possibly be. (Right now it's as good as I can make it on my own, and the agent/editor are there to help me get it the rest of the way.)

The idea that these people take books and turn them into something that doesn't resemble the author's original intent is the exception, not the rule, and often the product of working with disreputable folks. (And having recently read books by two friends, one self-published and one pubbed through a very small press, I can only say that they both had great concepts and pretty good execution, but really would have benefited from editorial input--the villain in one, for instance, needed some serious beefing up--and that the very small press is clearly very small for a reason, because the editor there isn't worth the space she takes up, and the fact that she allowed my friend's book to go out as it did made me want to cry, because it wouldn't have taken much to whip it into shape.)

Okay, sorry, that just hit a nerve.

Likewise.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I am saying that a helluva lot of people spend their lives writing other people's characters and never go out and try anything more, and I think that's a crying shame. It's like riding around on a bike your whole life because you're afraid to try driving the car. It's a wasted opportunity, even if it's only to discover that there are good reasons why the bike might be better for you. I have never said, "Thou Shalt Only Write Original Fiction" (see point #2). For me, it's vastly more interesting and fun; for you it's not. That is fine. At least you gave it a try.

I don't think this is necessarily applicable to everyone, though. Some people may enjoy writing but have no desire to come up with their own characters, or their own universes. Some of those people write fanfiction; some of them become studio executives. (Ba-dum-chee!) Different aspects of storytelling are attractive to different people, I guess, would be my overall thesis on this whole thing.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

"It's a wasted opportunity, even if it's only to discover that there are good reasons why the bike might be better for you."

That, right there...is what I said. Emphasis added. I said almost exactly what you just said in your comment, but in a different way, i.e., "At least give it a try and see if you like it and if not, that's cool." Can we please stop arguing over things we don't disagree on now?

[icepixie]

I'm not saying that you were insisting everyone write original fic forever more, and if I somehow gave that impression, I apologize. I know you aren't insisting anything of the kind. From your wording in the original comment I responded to, it sounded like you didn't understand why someone would prefer it, so I was offering my perspective/explanation, with no judgment intended.

I haven't said anything to the contrary!

I interpreted, "If you can write well enough for fic, why not write your own cool stuff?" as meaning that you thought it was better to write original fic than fanfic, although I think in conflating this with other arguments I've had on the subject, I extrapolated beyond "for you, yourself" to "inherently," and for that I do apologize.

I did not know that about the flash fiction market! (Actually, I do know someone who gets some of hers published, but she writes erotica, and somehow I thought it was only in that genre that it was taking off.)

I think it's great that the publication/editorial process works for other people, and I'm sure that for people who are willing to put in the work, it gets great results. (Hell, I've seen it work for academic essays as an editorial assistant.) I, personally, being both lazy and controlling, have no desire to participate in it as a writer of fiction, and that's one of the constellation of reasons I prefer writing fanfic to original fiction. That's all I meant earlier, and again, apologies if that wasn't clear.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

I am already going to be late to work, so please forgive me for being brief, but: thank you. I feel much better now that we're back on, if not the same page perhaps (I really don't know), pages that at least coexist in the same book.