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May. 18th, 2013 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI wonder what would have happened on various tv shows if the writers weren't interacting with fans and did not know what the fans thought? I always wondered the same thing about Buffy. Would the tv series be better - if the writers never knew what the people seeing it thought? Sort of like novelists who write their books and only one who sees it first is their editors/publishers as opposed to a fanfic writer who is posting chapters and getting comments as they go forward?
Don't know.
Matt Wiener the show-runner and head-writer of Mad Men recently stated that his wife and fellow writers insisted he stay off the internet. That he'd discovered you can get hurt on the internet. And how foolish he felt - that he allowed some random bloggers opinion to hurt him as much as it had.
Aaron Sorkin used to rage at the fans on discussion boards during The West Wing, and even got into a fight with a few of them. So he wrote a hilarious and somewhat satirical bit about the same thing happening to one of his characters on the West Wing. (Never piss off a writer - they'll kill you in their story.)
Joss Whedon used to tell fans that he never gave them what they wanted he gave them what he thought they needed. Which I think came across as a tad more condescending and patronizing than he may have intended.
Marni Noxon pissed off her fans so badly, they called her names and never forgave her.
GRRM doesn't engage with angry fans. But he has admitted to changing things in his novels due to things his fans noted. Discrepancies. And that he is incredibly attentive to small details. Due to the fact that he knows his fans will notice the tiniest thing - like a horse haven't a different name or being a different color than it was in a previous book or chapter. The fact that someone can pick that up from A Song of ICE and Fire series and actually cares...is another discussion.
David Fury and Tim Minear both got into trouble on boards defending their writing to fans.
Anne Rice, a novelist, did as well. As has JK Rowling.
Making me wonder if fandom's interaction with the artist can be a detrimental thing? A lot of artists are like myself - not wishing to be the center of attention. Not wanting that level of devotion or attack. They just want to create and get some recognition for it.
Many theater artists do not read reviews. A lot of actors and writers never go on the internet. They ignore it. If they are on it - it's just for email. Noah Baumbach, a film director and writer, stated this recently in an interview. It's also true of most if not all professional and popular television actors. As James Marsters once noted - "I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to stay away from the internet. You either get too full of yourself and begin to act like an ass" or "feel like a horrible bug and want to fall into a hole".
IF they go to a fan convention - it's Comic Con or one of the big marketing events, and they do it in an entourage, with a group of fellow actors, and with lots of protection. They don't interact. They keep up that third wall.
Again I don't know. I think I'd be tempted to interact to go online, to see how people were reacting. And most likely, I'd react the same way Matt Weiner did and my relatives and friends would scream with me to get off of it. Ghod knows they already have. The internet can be fun, but it can also be painful. Like all human interactions are. I think.
At any rate...I wish sometimes we could create, finish our work, and throw it out there. Without worrying while creating it what someone will think, if it's in the correct format, right style, sends the correct message, has characters they will identify with etc...
I wish sometimes writing was more like playing the trumpet or running a race. My writing used to be like that - until I interacted on the net, and became hyper-aware of all the rest.
Don't know.
Matt Wiener the show-runner and head-writer of Mad Men recently stated that his wife and fellow writers insisted he stay off the internet. That he'd discovered you can get hurt on the internet. And how foolish he felt - that he allowed some random bloggers opinion to hurt him as much as it had.
Aaron Sorkin used to rage at the fans on discussion boards during The West Wing, and even got into a fight with a few of them. So he wrote a hilarious and somewhat satirical bit about the same thing happening to one of his characters on the West Wing. (Never piss off a writer - they'll kill you in their story.)
Joss Whedon used to tell fans that he never gave them what they wanted he gave them what he thought they needed. Which I think came across as a tad more condescending and patronizing than he may have intended.
Marni Noxon pissed off her fans so badly, they called her names and never forgave her.
GRRM doesn't engage with angry fans. But he has admitted to changing things in his novels due to things his fans noted. Discrepancies. And that he is incredibly attentive to small details. Due to the fact that he knows his fans will notice the tiniest thing - like a horse haven't a different name or being a different color than it was in a previous book or chapter. The fact that someone can pick that up from A Song of ICE and Fire series and actually cares...is another discussion.
David Fury and Tim Minear both got into trouble on boards defending their writing to fans.
Anne Rice, a novelist, did as well. As has JK Rowling.
Making me wonder if fandom's interaction with the artist can be a detrimental thing? A lot of artists are like myself - not wishing to be the center of attention. Not wanting that level of devotion or attack. They just want to create and get some recognition for it.
Many theater artists do not read reviews. A lot of actors and writers never go on the internet. They ignore it. If they are on it - it's just for email. Noah Baumbach, a film director and writer, stated this recently in an interview. It's also true of most if not all professional and popular television actors. As James Marsters once noted - "I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to stay away from the internet. You either get too full of yourself and begin to act like an ass" or "feel like a horrible bug and want to fall into a hole".
IF they go to a fan convention - it's Comic Con or one of the big marketing events, and they do it in an entourage, with a group of fellow actors, and with lots of protection. They don't interact. They keep up that third wall.
Again I don't know. I think I'd be tempted to interact to go online, to see how people were reacting. And most likely, I'd react the same way Matt Weiner did and my relatives and friends would scream with me to get off of it. Ghod knows they already have. The internet can be fun, but it can also be painful. Like all human interactions are. I think.
At any rate...I wish sometimes we could create, finish our work, and throw it out there. Without worrying while creating it what someone will think, if it's in the correct format, right style, sends the correct message, has characters they will identify with etc...
I wish sometimes writing was more like playing the trumpet or running a race. My writing used to be like that - until I interacted on the net, and became hyper-aware of all the rest.
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Date: 2013-05-18 04:30 pm (UTC)It's admittedly a problem I began to have with Whedon after a bit as well and Aaron Sorkin for that matter - it felt at times as if Whedon was constantly commenting on his writing and his fans. There's too much meta in both series.
A little of that is fun. Example the episode of SPN where God turns out to be the writer of SPN, was fun. But then it felt as if they were changing things and building on subtext to service fans, but did not fit the story or characters.