i am one of those people, i confess, who looks at the massive lines of D&D books and star trek fan fic novels from every generation, and thinks, why can’t these people tell a story with their OWN characters? but then i’m also one of those people who will read books based on mangas, mangas based on book, mangas based on movies, books based on movies, who watches movies based on books, who in fact has written fan fiction herself, and who indeed will be writing fan fiction for NaNo this year. i guess my concern centers around this point: writing quality. i really don’t care what the fandom in question is, as long as the writing is good. actually, i once read an inuyasha fan fic that made me cry it was so good. why was it good? because the person who wrote it took the time to make the characters her own. she took the time to write in all those details that maybe someone obsessed with the series would already know but that the rest of us were just reading for the first time. she took the time to edit her work, to revise it, to consider it as Proper Writing. now of course, i’ve also read fan fic that makes me want to cry for wholly other reasons, but this is usually because the person writing has used the fact that these characters may be well known as an excuse to fail to excercise their writing skill. they skim over the characters’ backgrounds, assuming that people are already familiar with the facts, and the miss out on opportunities to do that precious thing that all writers crave – to connect with readers. they assume that, because their readers already know certain things about the characters, they as writers don’t have to work so hard. this? is of course utter nonsense. i would in fact argue that you need to work harder when your reader already has some knowledge of your subject matter. if your reader has any sense at all, he will expect more. you didn’t have to work so much on developing your character, why didn’t you spend that time on setting? or plotting? so my challenge this NaNo is to treat my fandom as if it were fresh and new, instead of the Please Don’t Make Me Watch Any More Samurai Jack that i’m certain it will be by the time i’m done watching all 52 episodes forwards, backwards and sideways in prep for november. my challenge is to take Samurai Jack and make him mine, to inflict my own style and personal touch on him and his world, rather than simply quoting back the episodes. can i do it? well, we’ll see, but i’ve won three years in a row now, and i don’t intend to fail now.
~meredeth.
is off to watch episode 5 of 52…
Nano nearly kileld me and I only wrote 2500 words. My official count is 5k, but that is because I actually had 2500 written before nano. I was very motivated this year, but I simply wasn’t able to write the way Nano participants are encouraged to write, so that kileld my motivation a bit. Then I got sick and it was pretty much downhill from there. I, like Carol, plan to sit on the sidelines and congratulate my friends on their awesome success with their novels!