Re: Rambling: the info (+ experiment on reader reaction)

ShellyS <shelly.s@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Readers bring their own ideas and views to stories. I sometimes
think writing is collaborative, but it's done in turn. Writers
write, then readers read and for each reader, the story is unique.

Yes. Once the story is in my head, the author has no control over
it. But I wouldn't claim that my version is the truth.

Truth in fiction seems highly subjective. ;) And variable.

For me there's the true, original version by the creator, and anything
else is fanfic, not genuine. Like fake money, or forged paintings. It's
not the real thing. It can't be the real thing since it didn't spring
from the original creator's mind.

Which is part of why I think writers who are anti-fanfic need to
get over it.

I don't know. (I don't like reading fanfic either, or
collaborations.)

I don't read fanfic much these days, but fanfic was my first
experience in writing fiction and enough pros got their start in
fanfic.

That's their thing. :) Doesn't change my opinion. (It just highlights
that different people have different heads, with different thoughts, and
thus no other person could have the exact same thoughts concerning a
story, and only the creator's is the true version.)

[...]
the fanfic writers turned pros wrote/write tie-ins. I don't read that
anymore, not since I stopped reading Star Trek novels, but for me,
any book is worthy if it gets people reading, so collaborations and
shared universes are fine with me.

I'm not saying they shouldn't, just that they're not the real thing for
me. If I want someone else's idea on it, I dream up my own. :)

Even bits from my own works that turn up in my multi-crossover
daydreamscape aren't part of the real thing; it never happened.

In the end, a reader can't work with the original characters. They
might create a copy that's nice in its own way , but it's still only
a copy, and crude when compared to the original. (I don't like
translations, either; that's not the original either.) I don't mind
what they do in their head, but writing something and then claiming
it's the same character, well that's simply not true.

As soon as the story gets into print and is officially on its own,
it's no longer the original, because it becomes a copy for everyone
who reads it.

None of that changes the text or the ideas the writer had, so no. That's
not copies, that's the original (save printing errors, typos, whatever).

They might not write fanfic about it, but they might argue about it
and the characters with friends or fantasize about them in their own
way.

Nothing wrong with that. :) They just can't claim to know better than
the author. (If some author wants to hand out that authority, that's up
to them. I would object.)

I've been in plenty of arguments with people about various novels, TV
shows, and movies and I don't think I've ever fully agreed with
someone about a character we've read about or seen. To me, the best
characters are the ones that leap off the page or screen and demand to
be taken seriously as *real* people/beings.

For me they're real (in the story). Even cardbord characters, they just
look very flat and stiff. But taking them seriously, or care about
them... I can't think of many examples. (But that's why I write my own
stories, after all.)

If I can believe they really exist, then the author has succeeded,
IMO.

Odd. I don't ever have that problem. :) I just don't want to read about
them.

But for me the characters are the central thing. Without them there's no
story. (What I object to most is characters doing stupid things for plot
reasons. Just plot, with no one I care about any of the plot things
happening to, and I just yawn, uninterested.)

I want that more than anything for my characters. When readers
have discussed my characters (in original stories I write with 2
friends and print up), I feel like a *real* writer. It felt like we
had our own fandom. It was a great feeling. Even if they didn't see
the charactes the way I do.

I think that would irritate me. (That's why I want to do it right. :) If
they're portrayed correctly, all that's left to object to is their
nature. That's opinion, and quite ok to diverge.)

Readers will make up stuff about what they like or are interested
in. Be flattered, even if it's not what you the writer meant or
intended.

But it's like them coming into my flat and rearranging the
furniture, saying that's how I like it.

No, but the feeling can be the same if you meet your readers. Even
people in crit groups. That's partly why I had a hard time learning
to let go and let people read my stories, even the fanfic. Because if
they didn't like it or didn't get the point, I took it personally.

Well, for me there are two options: I didn't portray them correctly, or
the other person didn't get it. :) Nothing to take personally.

I got over it. Now, I know if they don't like the character, I need to
know if it's because my writing sucked or because they simply don't
like characters who are X and can do Y. The former is important to me
and something I'll try to fix. The latter is just something I have to
learn to live with.

<nod>
That's how I start out. (But I'm megalomaniac, as mentioned. :) There's
nothing wrong with my idea of the story and characters, I'm just not too
sure about the actual words I tried to wrap it in.)

It doesn't seem to happen as much for books as for tv shows or movie
series, but fans often take TV or movie characters to heart, to the
point of telling the writers they're not writing the characters
correctly. Which is where a lot of fanfic comes from, the fans
version of *correcting* the original.

:) I don't take screen-stuff all that seriously to begin with. That's
flat, as the screen, the pictures presented, rather than in my head. I
take it even less seriously since I learned that there are different
writers. (If I did take it to heart, I'd watch no TV at all, because all
characters are stupid[*]. So I watch for the stories alone, and as
that's somewhere at the bottom of the list of what makes a story
interesting, I don't care all that much.)

[*] Except perhaps Ripley from Alien. That's just about the only screen
character I like.

Copyright is something else, but it's like trying to stop people
from telling stories around a campfire. And you can't look into
people's heads and tell them they misunderstood your story.

If the characters do things they never would, then that is what they
did.

Yes, but you can't stop that. Same as you can't force someone to see
something in your story. No matter how well you write it, someone
won't get it. I don't think you can succeed with 100 per cent of
readers.

And it's easy to say someone never would do something, real person or
character. In the right situation, we're all capable of doing a lot
of things we would never dream of doing. It's all in the setup.

Depends on the characters. Never mind the 'right situation' being
possible in that world in the first place. :)

(Thinking of the S&E here, where a lot of things aren't possible.)

--
Tina
Reading: Seasons&Elements 1, Controlled by Magic: 196213 words
WISuspension: Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: LNH: Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #51
    ... characters in any way is laudable, even if not all the manifestations ... your writing, namely how overliteral and one-dimensional it is. ... A lot of the time your stories parod some movie or other (it's ... comedy is an interesting one that fits very well into the LNH. ...
    (rec.arts.comics.creative)
  • Re: Rambling: the info (+ experiment on reader reaction)
    ... That's so opposite of how I feel, even about my own writing. ... writing and revising later on is more like actual revising. ... looking at fanfic stories I wrote in 1980. ... as change some in the first book, to make the characters the way I want ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Critique rules
    ... the stories you're working on. ... writing cinquentas, for instance. ... and to trust the reader to pick up something ... characters end up, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Putting a scene into words.
    ... knowing the characters not very well, so it is more likely to ... I also trust my writing skills enough to be confident I will ... already has, no option of other directions, just as you can't ... Starting new stories without knowing how to do it better ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: [REPOST/LNH] Saviours of the NET #7: A Fight Scene! A FightScene!
    ... Fanboys adore writers like Alan Moore, who ended the career of Batgirl. ... When writers make major changes to the characters and the universe they ... and in "funnybook stories" nothing ever changes. ...
    (rec.arts.comics.creative)