On writing
Aug. 11th, 2005 03:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftOn muses and fanfic and why I shouldn't be allowed to associate with others after a certain hour of the night.
There's a pet peeve I have with certain aspects of fanfic, and that is the occurrence of characters, or muses who are just the character in your head, showing up and hijacking fanfics.
Oh, your character talks to you? That's cool. I think I can safely say that most of us have had a similar experience. You're sitting at your desk trying to figure the SPH percentage for the week ending 8/6/05 and the next thing you know, Urameshi Yuusuke's poking you in the shoulder and saying something along the lines of "I like turtles, by the way."
And then you have two choices on how to react.
Scenario one:
Latch onto this idea/inspiration and run to teh intranets where you promptly post 738 words, 564 of which are the author's note, and the whole thing goes along the lines of "I wuz at work 2nite and my Yusuke-Muse totally talked to me and what he said wuz "I love turtles more than anything I wish I had a turtle now!" so I wrote this fic.
Yusuke woke up. He saw his fishtank only instead of fish he had four baby turtles crawling around in ther with some rocks and water. he got up and fed his baby turtles some turtle food (AN: what do turtles eat anywayz?) and watched them move around.
Meanwhile, out there in Muse Land, Yuusuke's staring at you in befuddled horror. "But," he protests weakly, attempting to ignore the snickers from behind him as Hiei and Kuwabara temporarily unite against him, "I just said I like turtles. I thought she'd like the little detail."
Meanwhile Kurama's reading a book and saying "I keep telling you not to give them handouts. Make them work for their characterization."
Yuusuke comes back with, "Yeah, well, maybe if you provided a little more detail you wouldn't be having sex with yourself in every third fanfic."
And trust me, it only goes downhill from there.
Scenario two:
You do a mental double take and say "Turtles. Right. I'll remember that if I ever feel the need to write a Yu Yu Hakusho/Ninja Turtles crossover. Now let me work."
The characters are supposed to talk to you, although I think for most of us it's a little more abstract than having them actually pop up in our heads and offer us tidbits of info. The sign of a good character is that they appeal to you, they reach you in some way, there's something in them that touches you. If the character (either of your own creation, or one borrowed from another source) doesn't talk to you, then why are you writing about them?
A popular scifi/fantasy writer, LKH, once commented that her characters would at times show up and hijack entire scenes from her. She used this example to explain away a fight between two of her main characters which lasted for about 37 kajillion pages and contributed little, if anything, to the story. Based solely on her comments, I wanted to write LKH and ask her a simple question. "Who exactly is the writer, here?"
You are writing this story, you are plotting it and planning it and executing it - not the characters. They're just living it, the poor slobs, and as we all know, life does not always go the way we plan. You may have flashes of insight, you may have visits from muses, but part of being a good writer is knowing the difference between what seems like a good idea, and what actually is.
My intent is not to offend anyone, and I make no claims of perfection myself. But please, listen to the characters, but don't let them dictate to you.
There's a pet peeve I have with certain aspects of fanfic, and that is the occurrence of characters, or muses who are just the character in your head, showing up and hijacking fanfics.
Oh, your character talks to you? That's cool. I think I can safely say that most of us have had a similar experience. You're sitting at your desk trying to figure the SPH percentage for the week ending 8/6/05 and the next thing you know, Urameshi Yuusuke's poking you in the shoulder and saying something along the lines of "I like turtles, by the way."
And then you have two choices on how to react.
Scenario one:
Latch onto this idea/inspiration and run to teh intranets where you promptly post 738 words, 564 of which are the author's note, and the whole thing goes along the lines of "I wuz at work 2nite and my Yusuke-Muse totally talked to me and what he said wuz "I love turtles more than anything I wish I had a turtle now!" so I wrote this fic.
Yusuke woke up. He saw his fishtank only instead of fish he had four baby turtles crawling around in ther with some rocks and water. he got up and fed his baby turtles some turtle food (AN: what do turtles eat anywayz?) and watched them move around.
Meanwhile, out there in Muse Land, Yuusuke's staring at you in befuddled horror. "But," he protests weakly, attempting to ignore the snickers from behind him as Hiei and Kuwabara temporarily unite against him, "I just said I like turtles. I thought she'd like the little detail."
Meanwhile Kurama's reading a book and saying "I keep telling you not to give them handouts. Make them work for their characterization."
Yuusuke comes back with, "Yeah, well, maybe if you provided a little more detail you wouldn't be having sex with yourself in every third fanfic."
And trust me, it only goes downhill from there.
Scenario two:
You do a mental double take and say "Turtles. Right. I'll remember that if I ever feel the need to write a Yu Yu Hakusho/Ninja Turtles crossover. Now let me work."
The characters are supposed to talk to you, although I think for most of us it's a little more abstract than having them actually pop up in our heads and offer us tidbits of info. The sign of a good character is that they appeal to you, they reach you in some way, there's something in them that touches you. If the character (either of your own creation, or one borrowed from another source) doesn't talk to you, then why are you writing about them?
A popular scifi/fantasy writer, LKH, once commented that her characters would at times show up and hijack entire scenes from her. She used this example to explain away a fight between two of her main characters which lasted for about 37 kajillion pages and contributed little, if anything, to the story. Based solely on her comments, I wanted to write LKH and ask her a simple question. "Who exactly is the writer, here?"
You are writing this story, you are plotting it and planning it and executing it - not the characters. They're just living it, the poor slobs, and as we all know, life does not always go the way we plan. You may have flashes of insight, you may have visits from muses, but part of being a good writer is knowing the difference between what seems like a good idea, and what actually is.
My intent is not to offend anyone, and I make no claims of perfection myself. But please, listen to the characters, but don't let them dictate to you.
