Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Rant from a Writer

I didn't have much to say tonight - apart from yes, my PIN arrived this morning and I have until noon Friday to file my tax return. I have never been so glad that one of my sisters is an accountant. *g*. It will be done in time. Other than that I was going to offer some random silliness - jokes & things. Of the quality of this (best said aloud)... a piece of string walks into a bar and the barman says to it, "I know what you are, you're a piece of string." The string replies, "Sorry, no, I'm afraid not." ... but as it happens I don't have to destroy your brain cells that way. You've been rescued by a rant from a friend of mine, an excellent writer whose work can be found HERE ... any comments you have send to me & I'll forward them.

Begin Rant:

I'm sorry -- can I rant for a moment?

I'm a writer. I can say that again after actually finishing several stories in 2008 and currently being on chapter 10 of a new novel (publishers out there, I'll be looking for you soon). While I have written some fanfic, I'm mostly interested in Original Fic. That's what I write. Original characters, original situations, original settings. Everything mine. I think I do it occasionally very well, and I'm proud of it. I have nothing against Fanfic; I've done one Xena fanfic, one BTVS fanfic, and four WMC fanfics. Nothing wrong with fanfic.

I heard about this fanfic exchange that's going on. Someone said I should go check it out, so I did, even though I didn't expect to see anything I could actually write about listed in their fandoms. For those of you who don't know what a fic exchange is, it's a fairly simple concept. Everyone interested in participating sends out a prompt as to what they would like to see in a story (what fandom, what pairing of characters, whether they want it be PG13 or NC17, and anything they really dislike like incest or character death, and some kind of prompt to go with it), and then a list of what fandoms they'd be willing to write in. The people running the exchange then match up the requested fandoms with the people who said they'd write in a fandom, and all the writers have a certain amount of time to finish their assigned stories. Simple, right?

Well, the organizers of this one put up a poll for fandoms they would include in this fic exchange. It was a nice long list, and then at the bottom you could write in another category if there was a fandom you didn't see listed.

Someone (not me) wrote in Original Fic as a write in category.

What did the organizers do? Well, their comments are in a private journal, so I can't tell you specific statements, but in my opinion they weren't exactly -- nice. I would call it snark, though others may not. Definite hints, in my opinion, that they were laughing. Granted, it was in a private journal, so they had every right to say what they wanted, and I'll respect their privacy as far as names and what was said. And if they didn't mean to sound so negative, then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

But their attitude set off just about every hackle I have.

Why would Original Fic be so hard to include in a ficathon? How difficult would it be to say, "I'd like two original female characters who meet at such and such a place and end up doing this or that, or having sex or not having sex, and here's a prompt for inspiration." This is exactly what you're doing with fanfic exchange prompts. You want to say you don't like incest, or bdsm, or fic where one of them ends up dead? Cool. That's something you have the option of saying in your prompt for a fic exchange anyway. Worried you might not like what you get back, or that it might not meet your expectations? Most of the time in fic exchanges you don't get exactly what you wanted, but you get something you enjoy anyway, so what's the difference? Why is it so much harder to wrap someone's mind around the idea that people want to read Original Fic as well as rehashed characters in redone storylines in already familiar settings?

I have nothing against those who write strictly fanfic. And I enjoy reading some of those rehashed characters in redone storylines in already familiar settings, so don't take that quite as snarkily as it sounded. But as a writer of Original Fiction, I'm more than a little ticked off at this idea that the two can't be included in the same exchange.

Thank you to Uber Etc. for listing Original Fic; thank you to the Xena fandom who helped people move from Uber Xena to Original Fic and encouraged this movement; thank you to those of you who READ Original Fic; and thank you to those of you who WRITE it.

Now, here's me being quietly subversive. Here's the address for their fic exchange poll. I've already gone over and scrolled down to the bottom and listed Original Fic in the Write In Category at the bottom. I think (and it's just my opinion) that it would be really cool if they got a few more calls for Original Fic. More than a few. A lot more.

And if they get enough to include it in the official exchange list? I'll write for it, if you will. Let's show them how original Original can be.

And if you think I'm on crack for this, at least go over and write in Xena because they forgot that, too.

Shadowriter

End Rant

Thanks Shadow...

Ze

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