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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jun 30 2009, 5:38pm
Post #1 of 12
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Musings on Fanfic
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This is not an advertisement. I have just finished an absurdly long, eight-volume, ~30 chapters per volume epic that I don't expect anybody to read from end to end. It was okay as a serial, I suppose, but I can't see anyone diving into it now. No, I'm here to talk about the process, to get off my chest what this obsession meant to me, and what it means to have it over.
Fanfic is not really a legitimate literary form. So I feel like I've been raising this illegitimate child, half in secret, in my home and in my life, who started out so innocent, but just kept growing bigger and bigger, and more and more of a rogue, yet charming withall, and mine. I loved this big, rude teenager, though he broke my heart again and again. Now he has finished growing up, and has moved out of my life, and I am so proud of him, and so lonely without him, and there's this enormous empty space in my life where he used to entertain and worry and frustrate and reward me.
And I cannot help but wonder where he came from. Who is the father of this child, really? Everything that Tolkien ever wrote about "discovering" Middle-Earth, "receiving" it, trying to capture by pen something pre-existent, trying to find out what happens next, not feeling like one made it up at all, applies to me as well. Rewrites weren't so much a matter of trying to alter an invention as trying to more accurately capture a clouded glimpse of something true.
I am ashamed to say that this story has some really dark corners, passages that shocked me. How could that possibly fit with Tolkien's world, where nothing "base" ever enters in? Ah, but it is a 4th age piece, a post-ring piece, set in the time of Men, after the wise had left and the elves begun to fade. When Tolkien tried to write something of this later generation, he concluded, "I am not the man to write it." A curious choice of words, implying that someone else might be.
More than a few times I became so distraught at what I had written that I didn't want to write any more! But each time some reader would step forth, more often than not a total stranger to me, to insist that not only did he or she want to read more, but the very passage that most distressed me fit that person's life and needs in some powerful way. It went out of my hands. I couldn't stop. I felt, in a word, helpless. And fortunate. And cursed. And blessed. And very, very confused.
Well, it is done now. I can step back from it, and breathe, and go back to wholly original fiction. Legitimate fiction.
And yet doesn't fanfic actually have honorable antecedents? Isn't it in fact the most ancient form of all? Before we had a concept of authorship, before we had money to exchange for books, before we even had a way to write tales down, people fit their stories into a larger legendarium, old myths and legends with roots going back so far that nobody knew where they started. Indeed, they might have always been there. New ideas burst into the minds of storytellers, not as inventions but as inspirations. People didn't imagine characters, they acquired a new slant or insight into archetypes.
Something gripped me when I wrote these stories, and I cannot help but wonder if the same muse gripped Tolkien. I don't profess to be his match--oh no, the talents that expressed our separate works are entirely our own, and mine are definitely inferior. It is as though all who write fanfic, plus the original author, are like an art professor and art students in a studio, all painting the same model from different positions around the room, varying greatly in skill yet trying to capture the same beauty. And of course the professor is the greatest artist of the lot--that's what puts him at the head of the class, leading the rest of us. Yet there is something so much more there, a living, breathing model, that we each struggle to flatten down to the limitations of paint, even as we stand in awe of the unmatchable creation before us, whose Creator we cannot hope to emulate. Not even our professor.
It has been a privilege to try, all the same.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Sonic#
Nevrast
Jun 30 2009, 9:39pm
Post #2 of 12
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It is a good musing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Fanfiction is important, and I dislike the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate. They are part of the basic urge of storytelling, and a basic urge after hearing a good story. We want to keep telling the good story, to keep the parts that we want and to let it continue and grow beyond the bounds of the original storyteller. Most of those that follow write in the shadow of the original writer, but that does not make the writing without value to the writer or the right reader.
Also, we who are stuck in the era of copywrited works, publishing houses, and an author getting paid for his/her work need to remember that there wasn't always such a stigma against continuing, adapting, or changing another author's stories which rest comfortably in an established canon. There are tons of Canterbury Tales out there that Chaucer never wrote, complete with backstories about new pilgrims joining the pilgrimage and so on. This was fairly normal in the fifteenth century. One of my professors likes to say that Sir Thomas Malory was the best amateur author out there, and (in response) I'd say that Le Morte Darthur is one of the best fanfics. I think, then and now, there has been a need for fanfiction that can never be considered illegitimate, but only different. (I sense you resisting the word "legitimate," or at least it's negative connotations.) No, you can never sell it for money, but since when did money determine all the value in the world? No, it's not original and standalone, but since when was original necessarily better writing? There is nothing wrong with lingering over a good theme, or writing for one's own pleasure.
I will probably never read your fanfic in full, because I don't have the time, and you have posted no link, but I'm glad you wrote it, and wrote this. :)
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jun 30 2009, 10:34pm
Post #3 of 12
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Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Goldberry of the river
Menegroth
Jul 2 2009, 5:03pm
Post #4 of 12
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Everyone has a book in them...
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Isn't that what they say?
I'm glad to see someone has lit their own torch from Tolkien's and would like to see some of your story, Dreamdeer. Do plan to get it publised? How long did it take you to write? I'm sure Tolkien had the same obsession and worries when writing and was glad when it was done.
I too would like to write something perhaps not directly from LOTR but inspired by it. I want to wait until I've gained some life-experience to write anything at all. But also my lack of high intelligence makes me wonder if I could ever write something to even remind one of Tolkien's work. He was a professor of English Language at Oxford!! But when the time comes I will do my best :)
Brian Blessed for Thorin!
Formerly known as Rosie!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jul 2 2009, 6:51pm
Post #5 of 12
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I cannot publish it, because that would infringe on Tolkien's rights. But it's on my website. It took about eight years--a year per volume. As I said, absurdly long!
Write, write, by all means! The pros say that you have to write about 1,000 words of bad fiction before you can write good--so the sooner one gets it over with the better. Waiting till one is good enough to write is like waiting till one is strong enough to play football. You get strong by doing. So write before you have life experience, just to keep your hand in the game, so that by the time you do have the experience, you'll have the skills with which to express it. I started writing at age six--I didn't have all that much experience to start with!
And the same goes for intelligence. We now know that IQ does not measure anything immutable. Brain exercise or atrophy can increase or decrease your IQ. Anyone who does not have brain damage or brain malformation can become a genius. There is some evidence that Albert Einstein might have been below average before he developed a fascination with the speed of light, and exercised his brain trying to puzzle it out.
You have a whole world of possibilities out there for you, my friend!
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Goldberry of the river
Menegroth
Jul 2 2009, 8:17pm
Post #6 of 12
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I was forgetting about copyright. Eight years, wow! I don't think the length is absurb, if that's what you needed to write then it's fine!
I also started writing when I was little. I never actually finished a story though because I ended up not liking what I had written or got bored :). I think I will start writing again, just short stories, nothing epic! But who knows!!
Brain exercise defintely helps. A few years ago when I couldn't find a job and was at home a lot I found myself struggling in conversations. It was all because I wasn't challenging my brain enough. Not long after I got a job and out in the world again I improved. And I hope to improve more!!
Thanks for your advice and encouragement!
Brian Blessed for Thorin!
Formerly known as Rosie!
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Anorien
Nargothrond
Jul 6 2009, 10:50pm
Post #7 of 12
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Yes. I think that is what many writers come across. An idea is born, they try to depict it with words. Along the way they come across parts that they love and parts that make them want to stop entirely. Your comparison of writing to the raising on an illegitimate child sums it all up.
Sometimes knowing that you tried is best feeling. Whether you succeeded or not is of little concern, but knowing that you contributed in your own way, that you did the best work you possibly could have is enough.
And I know how you feel, I finished the rough draft of my fan fic a year ago, which seems to be lacking. I haven't touched it since, afraid that by finishing it I'll either lose apart of myself or be bored out of my mind.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts so beautifully!
The Lord of the Fellowship of the Return of the Two Towers of the Hobbit King of the Rings...with the Silmarillion!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jul 7 2009, 2:18am
Post #8 of 12
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Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Idril Celebrindal
Dor-Lomin
Jul 7 2009, 3:33am
Post #9 of 12
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Fanfic is addictive, isn't it? I've written a bunch of fanfic stories over the years, starting as a 12-year old scribbling my own Star Wars stories in a notebook. I still scribble fanfic in notebooks; the main difference now is that I use better quality ones that don't fall apart so easily! My stories usually end up being kind of fragmentary, but I've really enjoyed composing them and learned a bit about the craft of writing along the way. Right now I'm working intermittently on a longer Tolkien fanfic that takes place during the waning years of the First Age (from shortly before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad to the War of Wrath). It's occupying my mind, really, and I add to it when I have the chance. It's astonishing how the story has its own mind and takes me to places where I hadn't planned on going.
Yet I think of my fanfic writing as a guilty pleasure. It's somehow disreputable, even compared to writing bad genre fiction. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being lazy or even disrespectful for appropriating Tolkien's world. Painting, music and sculpture that are inspired by the literary works of other people aren't viewed as negatively, even though I believe they spring from the same impulse as fanfic. To be inspired by their worlds, to have them grip your imagination and take on their own reality, to want to set down your interpretation of them ... that's the source of fan fiction, fan films, fan music, fan art, and even fan criticism.
Some good writers have cut their teeth on fanfic, though. Maybe we should think of it as a training ground for improving the craft and practice of writing.
With caffeine, all things are possible.
The pity of Bilbo will screw up the fate of many.
(This post was edited by Idril Celebrindal on Jul 7 2009, 3:43am)
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jul 7 2009, 3:23pm
Post #10 of 12
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I don't know much about the younger crowd of writers. But of the science fiction and fantasy writers of my generation, only two major writers did not cut their teeth on fanfic. And one of those broke into the field by writing a Star Trek script, which is darn near the same thing.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
(This post was edited by Dreamdeer on Jul 7 2009, 3:24pm)
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Pryderi
Ossiriand
Jul 7 2009, 8:09pm
Post #11 of 12
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On reviewing what I wrote below I notice I never actually got round to saying that I agree with you and that the post is intended to be in your support. Hmm… I've misrepresented myself here before. By all means let me know if my tone is too hectoring. Any further comments would also be welcome.
Well I don't think it is only modern authors who write fan fiction. I think it has a great and ancient tradition and much of that tradition is not "canon".
I'll start with the Ancient Greek tragedians. Don't Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides take the tales of Homer and put their own "spin" on them? How about Tolkien himself? Isn't "The homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son" a typical fanfic about the aftermath of "The Battle of Maldon". Jean Rhys's novel "The Wide Sargasso Sea" is, I understand, a tale about Jane Eyre's "mad woman in the attic" the first Mrs Rochester, and how she reached that pass. How about Shakespeare? Most (if not all) of his plays took a story that would be familiar to audiences and embellished and embroidered it so well that now we see it as the definitive version. Thomas Mallory was exploiting an already ancient tradition when he wrote "Le Morte D'Arthur" (Hope I have not confused the title with another writer's but if I have it only emphasises my point!). Similarly I wonder where Mark Twain got his idea for "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"! Is this a proto "Mary Sue" or not?
On a more personal note, but to continue the Arthurian point, I read T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" in round about 1962/3. I really enjoyed it and in my adolescent certainty I decided I liked "long books". So I went to my school library and looked for the longest (story) book in there. I found this apparently enormous book in three volumes which were together, in a box I think. So I borrowed them (in the box) and had very little sleep for the next few days!
I am not a creative writer myself but I completely understand those who are and wish to, as in my examples above, exercise their creativity through already existing structures, in particular, of course, JRR Tolkien's structures. As a reader one is either engaged with the story or not. There is much Tolkien fan fiction which leaves me cold but some which I have enjoyed immensely. That is why I continue to monitor my site of choice.
So, basically, I do not believe that fan fiction writers should feel defensive about the genre in which they write. If they feel defensive about the quality of their writing, that's a different story.
I have views on copyright implications too but this post is already too long.
Pryderi
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Jul 7 2009, 11:37pm
Post #12 of 12
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No question, your post sounded very supportive indeed--thank you! And I had many of those examples in mind. John Steinbeck also did an Arthurian book, as I recall.
I suppose if a man sets out to write myth, knowing that it's myth and not just fiction, he should prepare himself for people treating it as such. The specific words that Tolkien wrote still belong to his family, yet the the myth itself belongs now inextricably to the folk who filter and transmute it with every generation.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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