McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Better to play in someone else's yard or get your own?
Apocrypha:
The largest problem is that you use someone else's setting you're not really being true to yourself. How creative are you playing with someone else's creation.
Your own world with your own rules allows you to basically play god. Using someone else's setting can severely limit you. I've been worldbuilding for a couple weeks now and honestly it really does come easily.
And as mentioned, you probably won't get published using someone else's world. At best you'd be reduced to being considered fan fiction.....*ugh*
Thrythlind:
for me, fan fiction serves several purposes:
a ) practice: You can develop all sorts of skills in writing fan fiction and the existence of a pre-existing world relieves the burden of having to create one. It lets you focus more on other skills: characterization, dialogue, foreshadowing, mood, plot, etc. This was, and is, one of my main sources of for just sheer writing.
b ) development in isolation: you have a flicker of a concept and you want to figure it out more, but don't feel like just sitting down and brainstorming is enough. So you take the concept to a pre-existing setting you are already familiar with and put it down there to see how it plays. This is one of the reasons that most of my fanfictions involve the Ranma 1/2 cast, I'm so familiar with them that I can adapt their basic characters to any sort of story I want and can model reactions to a new element using them.
c ) readership research: fanfiction comes out in smaller segments than most other writing, which means it can come out quicker. Fanfiction readers are very vocal about what they like and don't like. The good ones are both vocal and explanatory. Even better are the ones that start to speculate. A careful study of comments gives you excellent insight into what sorts of constructs or plot devices produce what sort of reaction.
d ) sheer fun. I have a hard time reading a book I enjoy or watching a good show without wondering how my characters would react or be treated in such a situation. This is the reason my fanfiction is rarely as grammatically well done as my original fiction, because I'm often writing for fun not art. The fact that it is not original leaves me kind of free to just do whatever I like. Currently, for example, I'm wondering about how Michael would respond to one of my two "demonic" (well, they LOOK demonic) girls who also happen to be rather fervently devout Catholics (though one of them is also a bit like a female version of Warden Ramirez). Also thought about Dresden meeting the main character of the novel I'm working on right now, but the metaphysical differences in play are huge, so I don't think I can arrange that in a way believable for me. (the first novel wouldn't show those differences, btw)
trboturtle:
--- Quote from: Thrythlind on July 31, 2010, 03:18:08 AM ---for me, fan fiction serves several purposes:
a ) practice: You can develop all sorts of skills in writing fan fiction and the existence of a pre-existing world relieves the burden of having to create one. It lets you focus more on other skills: characterization, dialogue, foreshadowing, mood, plot, etc. This was, and is, one of my main sources of for just sheer writing.
b ) development in isolation: you have a flicker of a concept and you want to figure it out more, but don't feel like just sitting down and brainstorming is enough. So you take the concept to a pre-existing setting you are already familiar with and put it down there to see how it plays. This is one of the reasons that most of my fanfictions involve the Ranma 1/2 cast, I'm so familiar with them that I can adapt their basic characters to any sort of story I want and can model reactions to a new element using them.
c ) readership research: fanfiction comes out in smaller segments than most other writing, which means it can come out quicker. Fanfiction readers are very vocal about what they like and don't like. The good ones are both vocal and explanatory. Even better are the ones that start to speculate. A careful study of comments gives you excellent insight into what sorts of constructs or plot devices produce what sort of reaction.
d ) sheer fun. I have a hard time reading a book I enjoy or watching a good show without wondering how my characters would react or be treated in such a situation. This is the reason my fanfiction is rarely as grammatically well done as my original fiction, because I'm often writing for fun not art. The fact that it is not original leaves me kind of free to just do whatever I like. Currently, for example, I'm wondering about how Michael would respond to one of my two "demonic" (well, they LOOK demonic) girls who also happen to be rather fervently devout Catholics (though one of them is also a bit like a female version of Warden Ramirez). Also thought about Dresden meeting the main character of the novel I'm working on right now, but the metaphysical differences in play are huge, so I don't think I can arrange that in a way believable for me. (the first novel wouldn't show those differences, btw)
--- End quote ---
All these are true. Fanfiction is a good place to start writing, as all the backgrounds and characters are laid out for you already. All I have to worry about is the story and the dialogue, taking the established characters and keep them true to the original while giving them my take on them. I add a few new characters of my own, and learn about the old and new interacting with each other.
I started in fanction, wrote a few, and now have moved to the next step -- Semi-pro writing in a shared universe (Battletech) While the characters are all my own, the background technology and basic sitiuations are already laid out for me. I don't have to create the universal backstory, just the backstory of the characters and the story. I'm leaning how the backstory influnces both the characters and story, what is necessary for the story and what isn't. I'm leaning how to write tight stories and making sure the scope is sufficent for the story.
After that? My own stories in the universes I create from whole cloth. I do have most of an original novel written. Its needs works and needs to be cleaned up, but it's all mine. It's the ultimate goal, but I'm not there yet. But I'm getting there.
Craig
Kali:
Thrythlind's a) and d) reasons are the main reasons I write fanfic. I used to be horrible at action sequences. I could see them, but the writing of them was not being full of goodities. So I used to sit down and practice writing them. In order to give myself a sense of a complete world, I'd write them in fanfic. I could've just started writing about two people in a fight, another couple in a gunfight, whatever, but they felt hollow without the whole world in place. And since I wanted to focus, I didn't want to worldbuild to get it done. Easiest solution: fanfic.
And of course, there's the fun of it. The Grace & Matt stories, to use my most recent fanfic, are just plain fun. The first one took some plot wrangling, but even that was fun. The hardest thing about the first one was making sure the timelines matched, and the second one doesn't have that problem, exactly. I had fun nudging my style a bit to be more in line with Jim's voice, I had fun inventing characters who'd fit into the world seamlessly, without disrupting the flow of the canon world.
The only other reason I write fanfic is to cover missed opportunities. Every now and then, something I read or watch leaves a huge question mark in my head, and I itch to answer it. Thus, fanfic. Also covered under this is when an author takes a left turn and either does something I despise to the world they created, or just abandons it. Wanting to get back to the world that was, I write fanfic for it until I'm over my mourning period.
Now, all that having been said, lemme get to the question. Is it "better" to play in your own yard or someone else's? That depends on why you're writing what you're writing. If you want to publish, get your own yard. No question. If you just want to write, if you just want to create the stories and maybe post 'em online for ten or twenty people to read, go whichever way the wind blows you. Fanfic can be fun, even if the story you're telling is serious. Original stuff can be fun, too. Feel free to do whatever gives you happy feelings on any particular day.
Dom:
Better is relative to you, and what you're looking for.
There are many shared worlds that are successful--Batman, X-Men, most comics out there have teams of people working on them, and have had many writers writing in that world. There are books spawned off of franchises that are quite successful by their sales numbers; World of Warcraft, Star Wars, Star Trek are three franchises that coem to mind. There are a handful of writing duos who aren't part of the behemoth franchises who complete novels successfully as well. And the majority of TV scripts and movie scripts have more than one author's hand in them.
Obviously, works by solo authors are popular too. Jim Butcher, obviously, is one. The novel market as a whole tends to lean towards "single" authors. The reasons people become novelists over scriptwriters or ghostwriters or writers for a franchise are various...some people don't want to play by other's rules. Some people aren't really "team players" and know it. Some people see their stories and characters as their "babies" and have a hard time loaning them out to other people.
It's really up to you, and what you're interested in and what you're looking for.
One thing to keep in mind...the answer you will get about which is "better" will have a bias depending on where you ask the question. This is a forum for fans of a novelist; most people will be biased towards writing in one's own worlds. I am myself. Doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of people out there that write in teams instead for franchises, and it doesn't mean that doing it one way or another is "better".
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