Four things before a shower...and bed.
Apr. 20th, 2012 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Weird LJ question: "Is fanfiction the lazy way out?"
Uh. In what regard? Or in relation to whom? The original writer who refuses to answer key questions about his characters or write a dense fanfic proof story (although I seriously doubt such a thing exists, people write fanfiction about Mad Men and Game of Thrones and you can't get denser than that)?
No. I don't think it is a lazy way out. I may be in the minority here, okay maybe not "here" so much as in the world at large, but I harbor a great affection for fanfiction. I've written it myself. It's not illegal (well unless you write something that obviously infringes on the original and for money, but seriously, herself_nyc and nautibitz along with rarirah could probably just change the names of their characters, change a few other key things here and there and publish it without any infringement whatsoever.). We all borrow and steal from each other - we don't write in a vaccume or live in one. What we read, what we watch, what we listen to influences our writing and changes it. Fanfiction isn't plagirism. And it's no less innovative than drawing a picture of Mal Reynolds.
And I don't think it is lazy writing. I've seen more lazy writing from published and established writers actually - who pick a boilerplate and just plug it in. (Most of the people on the best-seller list unfortunately - which is a direct result of lazy readers who ship one writer and refuse to try anything outside of them. Yes, I'm looking at you, Nick Sparks and James Patterson fans. It should be noted that my Granny fell into this category - it got to the point that she couldn't remember which book she'd read (granted she was senile, she was lucky she could remember which day of the week it was at that point, but even before that set in, she couldn't keep the books straight and used to write her name in them to help. Having read many of them as well? I couldn't keep them straight.
I honestly think Janet Evanouvich and Patricia Cornwell started using a boilerplate by their tenth book and just plugged in new names and settings. Talk about lazy. Although, I can see how it happened...I mean I'd be bored of my characters by the tenth outing.)
2. I don't ship writers. I may follow writers, but not quite the same thing. Shipping a writer, means you are "fannish" about the "writer" - you want their autograph, they can do no wrong, you ...secretly adore them or not so secretly. And you want to kill people like myself who feel this weird inclination to rip their works apart, put them back together, rip again. Rip them apart. Adore them. Then rip them some more. Keep in mind, shipping writers is sort of counter to being an English Lit Major who has been trained over a four year period to rip the dudes apart in a lengthy thesis. We're taught to be intensely critical of what we love.
Example? One of my first job interviews when I moved to NYC was ...with a major publishing company or literary agency, I can't remember which. It was 16 years ago. I was 27 or 28 at the time. The job was for $15,000. And I had a frigging law degree. It was a copy-editor.
I had to take this computer test. And I failed it. Because instead of merely correcting punctuation and spelling (never my strong-suits to begin with) - I kept trying to rewrite the sentences - because they were crappy and sounded wrong. I remember getting creamed by the moderator/person interviewing me - to the point I left in tears, and of course it was pouring diagonally outside. Everywhere else the rain falls vertically. But in NYC, if falls diagonally or horizontally - rendering umbrella's or all other attempts at staying dry useless. At this point, it hit me - you are not cut out to be an editorial assistant or editor, you need to use the damn law degree and go for contracts or sub-rights. True.
Writers...well most writers at any rate...don't tend to make the best editors, we have a tendency to want to rewrite the book. Writers tend to be intensely critical of others writing.
Oddly? I'm not that critical of romance novels. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I haven't figured out how to write them or have no interest in writing them? Or I sort of go in with very low expectations. So am surprised when it's better written than I thought it would be.
Mystery novels on the other hand - I'm nasty about. I rip them to shreds. Possibly because I know how to write them, my father writes them (he's not very good...shhhh...don't tell anyone) and I've read too many...also the frigging law degree.
At any rate, I don't ship writers. They always disappoint me eventually. TV writers are the worst, along with film writers. So, I may ship characters and stories, but not writers or artists. And it's hard for me to understand why others do. Oh I get it, but ...I want to argue with them about it. It's again because I'm a writer and I find the idea of any one shipping me cringe inducing. I remember back in the day, when I was obsessively writing essays on Buffy...being told how I was some Big Fan Name and a rock-star. I remember being incredibly embarrassed and tilting my head to one side, and thinking, how pathetic...my claim to fame is what? Writing meta on a somewhat campy but generally entertaining and at times incredibly innovative and thought provoking cult tv series aimed at tween girls on the internet? Entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Oh god. Kill me now.
(My most embarrassing moment was my kidbrother telling me that a friend of his read my posts on the net. And that I was *cough*famous*cough*. Although I seriously doubt that, most people just confused me with the erotic fanfic writer SaberShadowcat - who wrote insanely graphic torture porn with Spike as the victim. Which while...okay not exactly flattering, is not me. Then my mother decided to tell a book store clerk that I did this in my spare time. I wanted to bury myself in a hole.)
I was raised to scoff at tv. Not praise it. Books you praise. Good films maybe. TV is the idiot box. So...tv writers? Hacks. Genre tv...guilty pleasure viewing. I watched Buffy guiltily. I did not announce it to the world at large. I wrote under a psuednonyme. The idea of having anyone in my real life know I wrote Buffy essays...oh god. How embarrassing.
And while I heavily followed Whedon, more so than other writers, I am also currently amongst his worst critics. I have and do rip his current works to shreds. Being a contradiction in terms? I also went nuts back in the day when other people ripped him to shreds. I don't pretend to make sense. I'm human not a robot. Trajectory? Buffy I adore.
Angel season 4 and 5...I loved. Angel seasons 1-3 - I rip to shreds. Firefly? I like it in spite of myself...but I also have the oddest desire to poke fun at it. Dollhouse - I am of two minds on, one rips to shreds, one likes bits of it. It was weird. Buffy comics - I rip to shreds, although I actually liked them to begin with. I'm like those smokers who stopped smoking....
Whedon's not alone...I'm consistent. I got similarily annoyed with Ron Moore. Also with JJ Abrhams. And ...Diane English. Not to mention Stephen Bocho (*cough*NYPDBLUE*cough*), Michael Crichton, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas (the prequels, need I say more?), Aaron Sorkin (50 Sunset Strip and The Social Network). As well as Janet Evanovich, Anne McCaffrey, Madeline L'Engle, CS Lewis, and various other serial writers. They all piss me off eventually. RT Davies also made me mildly cranky. And don't get me started on Ryan Murphy.
So no, I don't tend to ship writers, particularly television writers. It never does end well.
3. Should take a shower, had to skip it this morning...overslept. But made it to work five minutes early - score! Besides needed the sleep more than the shower. But feel icky now.
4. Don't judge me or shoot me but after a slight detour, I am back to reading smutty dime-store novels. Actually dime-store novels go for $9.99 on the Kindle nowadays. Yes, I am reading...Fifty Shades of Grey...it's oddly not that bad. Yet, still cheaper than Cabin in the Woods was last weekend. Remember when it was the opposite? I do. (Two things that I bought out of curiousity. Shades and a ticket to the movie. Yes, the evil marketing people can sublimely get into your brain like a worm and work their evil magic. I try to resist, but work uses up all my will-power, by the weekend I have the will-power of a gold-fish. Which is when these choices usually happen.) Not to mention less violent and gory than Cabin in the Woods (considering it's a book - not hard to do either. I'm on the fence as to which is better written, will have to get back to you on that one, only 70 pages in, we haven't gotten to the sex stuff yet, they are chatting in a cafe. Besides not exactly comparable - one's a horror movie, the other an erotica novel based on an erotica fanfic (although you really can't tell - the characters bare no resemblance to Meyer's outside of Grey's hair style.).)
There's even a decent line in it: "I just blushed the color of the communist manifesto." LOL! James has a wry sense of humor, I'll give her that. She's also shockingly, okay maybe not so shockingly, a much better writer than Stephanie Meyer (granted this is not that hard to accomplish, she's also better than Danielle Steel and James Patterson, which is not hard to accomplish either. All you have to do is not write by boilerplate...and you are better than Patterson and Steel. I've read both by the way. I only rip apart writers I've actually read or tried to read. And...it is far better written than the Buffy comics...which admittedly isn't hard either and appear to be also written by boilerplate. No offense intended towards fans of Steel, Patterson, Meyer and Buffy comics. I am certainly not an expert on taste - hello? I'm reading a smutty novel and talking about it on the internet. Why would you begin to take any of this seriously?? Yes, I've read one too many badly written books, graphic and otherwise in the past several years - would mid-life crisis and brain eating job count as excuses? Most likely not.)
Uh. In what regard? Or in relation to whom? The original writer who refuses to answer key questions about his characters or write a dense fanfic proof story (although I seriously doubt such a thing exists, people write fanfiction about Mad Men and Game of Thrones and you can't get denser than that)?
No. I don't think it is a lazy way out. I may be in the minority here, okay maybe not "here" so much as in the world at large, but I harbor a great affection for fanfiction. I've written it myself. It's not illegal (well unless you write something that obviously infringes on the original and for money, but seriously, herself_nyc and nautibitz along with rarirah could probably just change the names of their characters, change a few other key things here and there and publish it without any infringement whatsoever.). We all borrow and steal from each other - we don't write in a vaccume or live in one. What we read, what we watch, what we listen to influences our writing and changes it. Fanfiction isn't plagirism. And it's no less innovative than drawing a picture of Mal Reynolds.
And I don't think it is lazy writing. I've seen more lazy writing from published and established writers actually - who pick a boilerplate and just plug it in. (Most of the people on the best-seller list unfortunately - which is a direct result of lazy readers who ship one writer and refuse to try anything outside of them. Yes, I'm looking at you, Nick Sparks and James Patterson fans. It should be noted that my Granny fell into this category - it got to the point that she couldn't remember which book she'd read (granted she was senile, she was lucky she could remember which day of the week it was at that point, but even before that set in, she couldn't keep the books straight and used to write her name in them to help. Having read many of them as well? I couldn't keep them straight.
I honestly think Janet Evanouvich and Patricia Cornwell started using a boilerplate by their tenth book and just plugged in new names and settings. Talk about lazy. Although, I can see how it happened...I mean I'd be bored of my characters by the tenth outing.)
2. I don't ship writers. I may follow writers, but not quite the same thing. Shipping a writer, means you are "fannish" about the "writer" - you want their autograph, they can do no wrong, you ...secretly adore them or not so secretly. And you want to kill people like myself who feel this weird inclination to rip their works apart, put them back together, rip again. Rip them apart. Adore them. Then rip them some more. Keep in mind, shipping writers is sort of counter to being an English Lit Major who has been trained over a four year period to rip the dudes apart in a lengthy thesis. We're taught to be intensely critical of what we love.
Example? One of my first job interviews when I moved to NYC was ...with a major publishing company or literary agency, I can't remember which. It was 16 years ago. I was 27 or 28 at the time. The job was for $15,000. And I had a frigging law degree. It was a copy-editor.
I had to take this computer test. And I failed it. Because instead of merely correcting punctuation and spelling (never my strong-suits to begin with) - I kept trying to rewrite the sentences - because they were crappy and sounded wrong. I remember getting creamed by the moderator/person interviewing me - to the point I left in tears, and of course it was pouring diagonally outside. Everywhere else the rain falls vertically. But in NYC, if falls diagonally or horizontally - rendering umbrella's or all other attempts at staying dry useless. At this point, it hit me - you are not cut out to be an editorial assistant or editor, you need to use the damn law degree and go for contracts or sub-rights. True.
Writers...well most writers at any rate...don't tend to make the best editors, we have a tendency to want to rewrite the book. Writers tend to be intensely critical of others writing.
Oddly? I'm not that critical of romance novels. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I haven't figured out how to write them or have no interest in writing them? Or I sort of go in with very low expectations. So am surprised when it's better written than I thought it would be.
Mystery novels on the other hand - I'm nasty about. I rip them to shreds. Possibly because I know how to write them, my father writes them (he's not very good...shhhh...don't tell anyone) and I've read too many...also the frigging law degree.
At any rate, I don't ship writers. They always disappoint me eventually. TV writers are the worst, along with film writers. So, I may ship characters and stories, but not writers or artists. And it's hard for me to understand why others do. Oh I get it, but ...I want to argue with them about it. It's again because I'm a writer and I find the idea of any one shipping me cringe inducing. I remember back in the day, when I was obsessively writing essays on Buffy...being told how I was some Big Fan Name and a rock-star. I remember being incredibly embarrassed and tilting my head to one side, and thinking, how pathetic...my claim to fame is what? Writing meta on a somewhat campy but generally entertaining and at times incredibly innovative and thought provoking cult tv series aimed at tween girls on the internet? Entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Oh god. Kill me now.
(My most embarrassing moment was my kidbrother telling me that a friend of his read my posts on the net. And that I was *cough*famous*cough*. Although I seriously doubt that, most people just confused me with the erotic fanfic writer SaberShadowcat - who wrote insanely graphic torture porn with Spike as the victim. Which while...okay not exactly flattering, is not me. Then my mother decided to tell a book store clerk that I did this in my spare time. I wanted to bury myself in a hole.)
I was raised to scoff at tv. Not praise it. Books you praise. Good films maybe. TV is the idiot box. So...tv writers? Hacks. Genre tv...guilty pleasure viewing. I watched Buffy guiltily. I did not announce it to the world at large. I wrote under a psuednonyme. The idea of having anyone in my real life know I wrote Buffy essays...oh god. How embarrassing.
And while I heavily followed Whedon, more so than other writers, I am also currently amongst his worst critics. I have and do rip his current works to shreds. Being a contradiction in terms? I also went nuts back in the day when other people ripped him to shreds. I don't pretend to make sense. I'm human not a robot. Trajectory? Buffy I adore.
Angel season 4 and 5...I loved. Angel seasons 1-3 - I rip to shreds. Firefly? I like it in spite of myself...but I also have the oddest desire to poke fun at it. Dollhouse - I am of two minds on, one rips to shreds, one likes bits of it. It was weird. Buffy comics - I rip to shreds, although I actually liked them to begin with. I'm like those smokers who stopped smoking....
Whedon's not alone...I'm consistent. I got similarily annoyed with Ron Moore. Also with JJ Abrhams. And ...Diane English. Not to mention Stephen Bocho (*cough*NYPDBLUE*cough*), Michael Crichton, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas (the prequels, need I say more?), Aaron Sorkin (50 Sunset Strip and The Social Network). As well as Janet Evanovich, Anne McCaffrey, Madeline L'Engle, CS Lewis, and various other serial writers. They all piss me off eventually. RT Davies also made me mildly cranky. And don't get me started on Ryan Murphy.
So no, I don't tend to ship writers, particularly television writers. It never does end well.
3. Should take a shower, had to skip it this morning...overslept. But made it to work five minutes early - score! Besides needed the sleep more than the shower. But feel icky now.
4. Don't judge me or shoot me but after a slight detour, I am back to reading smutty dime-store novels. Actually dime-store novels go for $9.99 on the Kindle nowadays. Yes, I am reading...Fifty Shades of Grey...it's oddly not that bad. Yet, still cheaper than Cabin in the Woods was last weekend. Remember when it was the opposite? I do. (Two things that I bought out of curiousity. Shades and a ticket to the movie. Yes, the evil marketing people can sublimely get into your brain like a worm and work their evil magic. I try to resist, but work uses up all my will-power, by the weekend I have the will-power of a gold-fish. Which is when these choices usually happen.) Not to mention less violent and gory than Cabin in the Woods (considering it's a book - not hard to do either. I'm on the fence as to which is better written, will have to get back to you on that one, only 70 pages in, we haven't gotten to the sex stuff yet, they are chatting in a cafe. Besides not exactly comparable - one's a horror movie, the other an erotica novel based on an erotica fanfic (although you really can't tell - the characters bare no resemblance to Meyer's outside of Grey's hair style.).)
There's even a decent line in it: "I just blushed the color of the communist manifesto." LOL! James has a wry sense of humor, I'll give her that. She's also shockingly, okay maybe not so shockingly, a much better writer than Stephanie Meyer (granted this is not that hard to accomplish, she's also better than Danielle Steel and James Patterson, which is not hard to accomplish either. All you have to do is not write by boilerplate...and you are better than Patterson and Steel. I've read both by the way. I only rip apart writers I've actually read or tried to read. And...it is far better written than the Buffy comics...which admittedly isn't hard either and appear to be also written by boilerplate. No offense intended towards fans of Steel, Patterson, Meyer and Buffy comics. I am certainly not an expert on taste - hello? I'm reading a smutty novel and talking about it on the internet. Why would you begin to take any of this seriously?? Yes, I've read one too many badly written books, graphic and otherwise in the past several years - would mid-life crisis and brain eating job count as excuses? Most likely not.)
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Date: 2012-04-21 12:25 pm (UTC)I have to admit, I have a thing for smutty romance novels. Like you, I can seem to tolerate (somewhat) lesser writing in that than any other style. I love a good mystery, but have no patience when I can figure it out immediately (when I am not supposed to) or they just pull something/someone out of the woodwork in the last 20 pages.
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Date: 2012-04-21 02:06 pm (UTC)It's actually quite funny in places. And feels like a satire of Twilight.
There's one bit - where Ana trips and stumbles into the street, and Grey
yanks her back, saving her from....a cyclist going the wrong way on a one way street. LOL!
I listened to the writer do an interview for the Today show, and she's sort of dryly making fun of herself and the interviewer. "Yes these are my fantasies, no it's really not that great a book or innovative, I honestly don't understand why you are making a big fuss. It's bewildering."
I have to admit, I have a thing for smutty romance novels. Like you, I can seem to tolerate (somewhat) lesser writing in that than any other style. I love a good mystery, but have no patience when I can figure it out immediately (when I am not supposed to) or they just pull something/someone out of the woodwork in the last 20 pages.
Exactly the same way. I can't figure out why this is. Badly written mystery novels (and there are sooo many) annoy me. But badly written romance novels I find sort of funny and a bit charming. I wonder if it's because the mystery genre is treated with more respect by mainstream, critics, and genre fans? So, I think, okay if you get all this frigging respect and are considered so great - you frigging better live up to it. It better be a great mystery. If you aren't - why are you even published!
While romance and erotica novelists are sort of the underdog...they barely get any respect.
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Date: 2012-04-21 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-21 04:47 pm (UTC)