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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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no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 03:16 pm (UTC)And the thing is that the rabid Sam and Dean girls on line, even the wincest shippers and Destial shippers, are IMO still kind of a minority compared to the casual audience that might follow the show and would be incredibly confused by a lot of those in-jokes. I think the writers forget sometimes that not all of fandom consists of shippers and extra devoted fans
But then I'm still annoyed at how they mishandled the character of Bela in season 3 simply because some internet fans disliked her and they spend too much time reading TWoP message boards, all of the time these days I'm coming across fans who loved Bela and were disappointed that more time wasn't spend on her story, but the writers were so focused on reading opinions at TWoP (I've no idea if they still do, but they used to admit reading episode reactions there every week) that they forget that the board only represented one type of fan, not all of them
no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 08:43 pm (UTC)The SPN fandom is...scary. And that's well putting it mildly. The blatant misogyny on those boards..**shudder**.
It's actually one of the reasons I stopped watching the series, well that and the lack of likable female characters that last more than ten episodes (I loved Bela, when she left, I thought why am I bothering with this dumb show?) - when I realized the writers were catering to a bunch of misogynistic sadists, I thought...eh...let's watch something else. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 09:07 pm (UTC)The writers did that with other characters like Jo too who also got a hostile response after her initial appearance, and was then barely given a chance to develop after that. It was so frustrating how quickly the male writers gave up on doing anything with those characters, and then turned around and blamed the audience for it
no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 10:57 pm (UTC)Jo and Bela were fascinating characters. And what was wrong with a few female characters outwitting the Wincester boys? It's not like they were the brightest bulbs on the planet to begin with? Other people outwit them.
The writers lost me completely as a viewer when I realized that a female character couldn't be smart and live, or be smart and not be evil. Every time one was introduced - she was summarily killed.