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<  The Common Room  ~  Confusion of a reader.......(discussion starter)

sophierom
Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 24 Location: Cambridge, MA
Razzberry wrote:

I tend to be of the opinion that if you call a spade a spade, I don't care what you do with it. If you want to use a stapler to butter your toast, go for it, but don't try to convince me it's a butter knife, and don't be offended if I tell you that you're full of sh*t if you do try to convince me.


Very Happy This seems fair enough! The problem comes, however, when I start to use a steak knife to butter my toast. A knife's a knife, right?

This is why I should be banned from making analogies.

Best,
Sophie

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Snape Fan
Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:33 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 29
Quote:
I still do not understand how you have read a half million words of a Snape/OFC story while ignoring the OFC


LOL Razz, When I read your Snape/Autumn story, I put Hermione in the back of my mind and enjoy what you have written with him and Autumn. You are one of the few authors I will go and read an OC story with Snape
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Sulwen
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:50 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Feb 2005 Posts: 11 Location: USA
Sorry if this has already been mentioned...I'm on a time crunch, so I only read the original post in this thread. I think that how strictly canon the characters are should be entirely up to the author. This is the way I see it: there must have been something about those characters that made you want to write about them in the first place. If you want to play up those characteristics you liked and downplay the rest, who's to stop you? I know the response to this opinion is generally "Well, why don't you just write your own original character with the characteristics you like?" It's pretty easy for me to see why that just isn't an attractive way to go. Fanfiction is far more popular online that original fiction because there's a common denominator to attract readers: the canon. When you go to read a fanfic, you already know at least something about it because you've read/seen the jumping-off point for that author. There's a built-in hook. That just doesn't exist for original fiction. So if there are writers out there who want to interpret something in a wildly different way than the canon suggests, more power to them. I won't read it, but that's me. To conclude, I want to address your question about fanfic authors writing specifically for their readers. I don't know about the fanfic world in general, but the vast majority of my fanfic stays safe in my notebooks, and I don't have any intentions of publishing it. I just like to write it. I don't really care if anyone else enjoys it or not. *shrug* Hope I answered some of your questions!

-Sulwen

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Not all those who wander are lost

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Vesera Paens
Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:52 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Posts: 13
Well. I suppose there's one good thing about spam... I don't know if I ever would have found this thread otherwise, and it's a really fascinating one.

Fanfiction can be compared to and contrasted with several different kinds of regular fiction. Most fiction, aside from fantasy and science fiction, require a great deal of research on settings: if you place your story, especially if it's a novel, in a real world setting, you need to research things in the real world. If it's an actual real city, you need to know the streets, the restaurants, the culture, the way people talk... In other words, the real world becomes "canon" and the same is true in Harry Potter stories: the things in the book can be researched in exactly the same manner.

When it comes to characters, though, there are a couple of different ways you can go about it. You can be inspired by real life characters, and change them, making them into original characters. You can write historical fiction. And, you can create alternative fairy tales or make up plots around great heroes that is less historical and more mythic. And, one way of looking at fanfiction is to think of it as an alternate reality, so rules for nonfiction might seem to apply to some, likely explaining why some people are so against fan fiction: it looks to them like libel.

I have double standards. In my own writing, I like to keep the characters as close to canon as possible. I find it a challenge, and also, I write original fiction, so it's nothing to me to modify existing characters into original ones. When reading, however, I'm much less demanding (well, unless I'm beta-reading), and tend to enjoy the stories the way they are written. True, I've read some wildly out of character stories, but typically I've enjoyed them anyway. And a lot of the time, the really, really out of character stories are paired with horrific grammar.

I'm currently working on an alternate fairy tale, though, and I've had a problem in sticking too close to the original fairy tale. It was through this that I realized that canon is less important than I'd thought previously. You really just need enough to make it recognizable. And if that's true with fairy tales, why not with fan fiction?

Personally, I would not be at all offended if people stole my characters and wrote crazy things about them, as long as it was clear that they were my characters. Part of that is that, well, I'm not easily offended. I might be shocked, and probably amused, and possibly even horrified at the *stupidity* of some who insisted on things I knew weren't true (if I was the author, I'd know what was true), but offended? Not likely.
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MithLuin
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:42 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 16
There is also one facet of fanfiction that is exploring the story how it should be. Meaning, the author is "correcting" mistakes or things they don't like in the original story. I think this is an interesting idea, but it is of course a fine line to walk and still call yourself a fan. There are very few points where I think I know better than JKR, but surprisingly, there are a few (her maths ability leads her to put her foot in her mouth at times). I think I know how old Bellatrix is, but it does not coincide with the date on the Black family tree. Other authors may feel that they should 'explain away' other canon details - such as Snape's betrayal of Emmeline Vance, or telling Hermione he saw no difference with her teeth.

Back to Draco, the misunderstood. I have no doubt that Harry misunderstands Draco, but it is also pretty clear from what he says and does in canon that he is spoiled and cruel, and very prejudiced.

In a well-written fanfic, the author can explore how he could change. I have no problem with an author not writing Draco as a whiny brat, but I want to see why and how he has 'grown up.' In other words - convince me.

One of the things Snape "would never do" is get into a relationship Razz. Not really, but seriously, it takes some convincing to swallow that. Any well-done fanfic can pull it off, though, and makes the reader ask, "what about if...." would he be in a relationship then? Maybe so. And so, complaints about someone being out of character are really complaints that the author has not convinced the reader that this chain of events would progress to a particular end. Is this the author's fault? Or the reader's?

Sometimes, it is due to overly-stubborn readers, and the criticism should be taken with a grain of salt. In other words, if you don't like the ship anyway, you are less likely to go along with the story. If you don't like slash at all, you aren't going to be convinced by the relationship in a slash story. Etc.

I think it is always best to criticize honestly. If a story is poorly written, and has ridiculous characterizations - say so. Don't insult the author's intelligence or 'commitment' to the fandom. Everyone has a first attempt, and some authors are rather young. They don't need to get torn to shreds, but they shouldn't be praised for bad writing, either. But criticize the writing, not the author. Snape-the-sex-god fantasies were written for a particular purpose, and it has nothing to do with examining his childhood or figuring out why he joined the Death Eaters. You have to recognize the purpose, and not critique it for not being something it never pretended to be. Now, if the author says, "I think Snape is just like this in JKR's books," feel free to disagree with the assessment. But, again - with the statement, not the person.


You can dislike whole swaths of stories without ever becoming elitist. You can write off all PWP as drivel and still get away with being fair-minded...if you refrain from passing judgements on the authors and insist on judging the stories. You can refuse to set foot on fanfiction.net without saying "anyone who posts there is a stupid fangirl who never read the books."
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tonksinger
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 9:31 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 15
Maybe I'm just easy to please. Maybe I'm just a hopeless fangirl. But most fanfiction is fine to me. If I start a story and I don't like it, I'll stop reading. If I like it, but I see something that I feel could be improved upon, I'll mention it in a review.

Yes, most Snape-fics are more or less OOC, but I can't say that I care too much when I'm in the mood for fluff or PWP. I generally don't hold fanfic to the standards that I hold original and published-in-book-format works to, simply because I would spend way too much time trying to find great literature on the internet. And I have read books that, had they been fanfic, would probably have gotten panned by some of the pickier readers.

I see fanfic as a place for writers to play a bit with characters that they love and a world that fascinates them. Especially for new and aspiring writers like myself, it's a place to explore various styles and find our own voice, complete with ready-made characters and feedback from our peers. If I want something amazing, I'll go to the library. If I want strict canon, I'll read the books.

I know that my works are a bit fluffy and romantic, but that's just what I happened to feel like writing. If anyone dislikes it, they are free to stop reading or to tell me (politely) why they don't like it.
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Lillith
Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:09 am Reply with quote
Joined: 03 Feb 2005 Posts: 3
It has been over a year since I have read any fan fiction. I started to feel like I was just reading the same 10 or 15 stories over and over again. And with all of the new canon developments with Snape in HBP and DH. I didn't know if I could read anything new. But here I am four years after this original post. I came to the forums to look for some recommendations and found this. I barely remember starting this post.

After all of these years I have found myself starting to read a story and getting a chapter or two into it and just becoming so frustrated by how far off it is from cannon. I grumble about fangirls and inevitably go back to my favorite old stories. How very strange that I now have a more elitist attitude about it all. But it is wonderful to go back and see all the conversation that the post started. I am so grateful for this community.
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