Meredith: I like that, both the quote and the thought that storytelling is a conversation. There's always a different direction to take the characters, etc. I found myself musing on this very thing a few weeks ago while browsing through Harry Potter fan fiction. I thought to myself, "Haven't all the stories one could possibly tell about these characters already been told?" and then I realized that of course they have, but that won't stop them from being told again and again in different (okay, sometimes the same, but sometimes different) ways by different people -- just like the Arthurian stories, etc.
Patrick: Thank you for the link (and the conversation in your office).
Kate: I think that asking for a moratorium on Mary Sue hunting is kind of like asking for a moratorium on using the period to mark the end of the sentence; it may work sometimes, and some people may be able to overlook it, but it will always cause pain to the Tor editorial department slush readers. The thread makes a lot of good points, but ultimately when a character is called Naramanthiza, has naturally curly (but never frizzy) pink and purple streaked hair and color-changing eyes, is good at everything, can communicate with animals using only the powers of her heart, and immediately causes Kirk, Harry, Picard, Neo, Draco, Giles, Spike, and King Arthur to all fall in love with her, everyone familiar with the term will point and said "Eeeeeew, Mary Sue!" in almost automatic reflex -- whether it's fanfic, a manuscript from the slush pile, or the newest novel by A Big Name Author.
Teresa: I love the word skiffy; it's possibly my favorite word that I have been introduced to so far in my (one month short of) four years at Tor. Therefore I will automatically come down on the side of using it affectionately, just so I can say it and not feel bad.
David:
The term "beta reader" is applied to anyone the author of a fanfic sends the fanfic to before the fic is released for general consumption (usually to a livejournal, an archive, or a mailing list). In effect, the editor(s).
Helpful glossary of general fanfic terminology:
http://expressions.populli.net/dictionary.html
Slightly OT: While searching for the above link, I found the Science Fiction FanSpeak Dictionary:
http://stilyagi.org/fanspeak.html
Granted, I am not an SF fandom authority, but some of these just look weird. I've never heard, for example, the word "skiffy" used as anything but an endearment for the geekier stuff in fandom, or SMOF used instead of BNF. Or "blog" used to describe punch. Is this because I am in NY and not Ann Arbor (the AASFA compiled this dictionary)? Or is this because this dictionary is just weird or out of date?
SF folks, please enlighten me!
Elizabeth:
Yes to all of those reasons. Plus one other that is actually the number one reason I have heard from fanfic writers:
They want the characters to do things that simply will not happen in the canon. Either because it's not the direction the author is taking them with the overall story arc, or because the two heroes can't fall in love/lust on primetime network television, or because the ending was just so very wrong... Etc. The list goes on forever. Almost every fanfic writer (especially television/movie fic writers, since the "subtext" there can be even subjective than in literature) has a reason based on wanting to twist the canon subtly to see what happens, or wanting to twist the canon blatantly because that's what "should have been done in the first place."
Of course, that doesn't explain RPS writers. (Or does it? I suppose they could view, say, Elijah Wood's actual life choices as his canon, and therefore by writing a story in which he's dating Orlando Bloom, they are twisting his canon to have him make the "right" choices.)
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 4 |
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