Why do we write?

[selenay]

alicambs picked up some interesting posts and wrote an interesting snippet on why she writes here. It's interesting reading the posts that she links to and the arguments between them. Basically it's the usual defence of fanfic/fanficcers must be practising to publish original fic argument, but I've found it interesting. To be honest, my first fanfic was written because I thought "hey, that looks fun, I wonder whether I can do it?" It was hideously bad. I'd been writing my own stuff for years before without improving a jot, but writing fanfic has helped enormously with all aspects of my writing. I have great fun doing it and I have no intention of stopping, even if I do get something published, although my fanfic writing has slowed a lot since the original fic took off again. In the years since I began writing fanfic, I've written in incredible number of words. The best way to improve? Write lots. It's the advice I've seen everywhere and it really works. Getting feedback from people about what worked, what didn't and how I might improve has also helped.

I'm a mixed-motivation writer. I love fanfic, the fun of writing it and the community I'm in as a result of it. I also have original characters running around in my head and I'm having a lot of fun working with them and herding them in the rough direction I want them to go. In many ways my original writing has become more fun since discovering fanfiction because I'm not afraid to put in plot-elements that I would have been nervous about before. Yes, that means adding a slashy sub-plot :-) I'd love to be published one day and I'll admit that the fanfic thing has helped me towards that goal, but I wouldn't want to only write one or the other.

I got loads of reading for relational databases done and almost began typing up more of Mage Murders but got side-tracked by a trip to the store for food. Sis and I spent way more than we'd planned because we hit a new store that's just opened to investigate the rumours about their fish counter. They were all true and we now have some lovely sea bass for supper :-))

Comments

[paranoidangel]

To be honest, my first fanfic was written because I thought "hey, that looks fun, I wonder whether I can do it?" It was hideously bad.

Same here. Mine was very definitely, really bad. And Mary Sue. In my defence I found out what Mary Sue was after that and didn't post the second one I wrote, which was even worse.

[selenay]

I managed to avoid the Mary Sue thing. I even managed to avoid the Mary Sue thing in most fanfics I read, probably because I wanted to read about the characters I knew rather than an author's original character. I managed to hit every other cliche you could find in a Buffy fanfic, though, and possibly invented a few. I also felt intimidated into making it NC-17 and wrote a hideously bad sex scene. There aren't words to describe how bad that fanfic is. Only one archive has it and I ain't saying which - it's definitely never appearing on my site :-)

At least you found out that you were Mary Sue-ing and resisted the temptation :-) That's always a good sign. And you've never been intimidated into writing absolutely horrific sex to ramp up the rating on a fic. Go you :-)

[paranoidangel]

And you've never been intimidated into writing absolutely horrific sex to ramp up the rating on a fic.

Although I have written some R-rated sex scenes that will never see the light of day because I realised what I was doing - ie I don't know what I'm doing! They were also crap, cliched and out of character, but that seemed beside the point at the time :)

[selenay]

*g* But you saw the crapness and didn't inflict them on someone else - you're a considerate fanficcer :-)

I...er...didn't. Bad Sel.

[paranoidangel]

This is true :)