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jadelyntateSo, I wrote my half-meta thingy on fanfiction for my Creative Non-Fiction class and I need opinions! Its due tomorrow (Sunday) at midnight so if anyone can PLEASE get back to me before then I'd really appreciate it!
- Does it end well?
- Is there anything you think I could add?
- Is there anything you think I should/could drop?
- Spelling/grammar check FTW!
- TITLE IDEAS?
When I look at it, I cringe. I can't help it. Twenty-four years old and an English major, I can't imagine what my sixteen year old self was thinking. There are no paragraph breaks. At all. My punctuation is a nightmare. I have SONG LYRICS in it.
What is this atrocity you might be asking? A new writers first attempt at fan fiction. Posted on the world wide web on June 6, 2001 which I only know because its still on the world wide web. I, in my sixteen year old wisdom, thought it was perfect, amazing, a bestseller of the fan fiction world.
The six people who reviewed it thought otherwise.
“Ok, you make a new paragraph whenever a different person starts to talk.”
“Some spelling and other grammatical errors really distracted me from getting the most of the story. Besides that, it was ok.”
“Use spell-checker, please, as the errors were greatly distracting.”
In retrospect, they were very polite in their explanations of what I was doing wrong. At the time, I didn't realize that and spent two hours crying on my bed. In the course of posting fanfiction, it's quite common to get scathing reviews with little constructive criticism (referred to as “flames” in the fanfiction community). One way to thoroughly irritate members of a fandom is to write nothing but flames in response to any and all fanfiction. Most do not consider these rants as true reviews but occasionally the drama that springs up in response can be as bad as anything you'd find in a soap opera. These were not flames but they might as well have been to my sixteen year old self. I was devastated.
Fanfiction has been around since before the common era. At its heart, fanfiction is taking a tale, be it actual literature, movies, TV show, or comics, and adding to it. Fanfiction is primarily amateur writing, not part of the canonical universe and usually revolves around fans wanting more stories that they haven't seen or read in the original work. Arabian Nights could be considered the first published work of fanfiction, as most of the stories have their roots in different initial story-tellers. Each story-teller added to the work of the original until Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights, was born.
It wasn't until the 1960's, however, that fanfiction began to pick up steam with the general populace. Star Trek, the original series, spawned multiple fanzines, and the first, Spockanalia, was published in 1967 and had fanfiction as part of its content. The fanzines were either sold via conventions or sent through the mail. With the introduction of the Internet, mailing lists were set up as a way of replacing the old fanzines. This connected more people than ever to other fans and fanfiction began to truly pick up steam.
It wasn't until Fanfiction.net opened its site in 1998, however, that fanfiction truly blew up. Before, mailing lists and the small, personal sites were very specific in what type of fanfiction would be accepted and for what fandom. They were selective on who could publish and who could read. Fanfiction.net (commonly referred to as both FF.net and The Pit) changed all that. It created a website that was not only open to anyone and every fandom, but once published, work became viewable in as little as five minutes. What started out as a cataloging website has grown into a huge community with millions of fanfic works for any media outlet you can possibly think of. Today, the five largest sections include Harry Potter (462,426), Naruto (239,577), Twilight (149,358), Inuyasha (93,919), and Kingdom Hearts (53,170). Additionally, Fanfiction.net boasts an impressive 2.2 million users and hosts stories in over 30 languages.
Fanfiction.net was where I got my start. I found it when it was still in its infancy stages. Half the time pages didn't load, the other half, I wasn't interested in. But it was one of the few places online that I could find Power Rangers fanfiction so I remained. It took nearly two years of reading and lurking before I finally took the plunge and created an account for myself. I do not remember my original penname on the site, as I changed it several times, but I've ended with Jadelyn, a nickname of mine.
My first works were longer than most first-writers, but that may have been because of the lyrics. In fanfiction, you can write in several different ways. Chapter fanfics, with multiple parts, are common, as are one-shots (fanfics that are not in several parts and can be anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 words). Drabbles and ficlets are usually the shortest, typically with a 500 word cap. It is quite common to find an author creating a story in drabbles, with multiple sections each with the same amount of words. Authors commonly find this a challenge and a way of focusing on word choice as well as the content. Song fics are works based not only on a fandom, but on a song and typically the song lyrics can be found inside the work; it is a music video in words. Fanfiction.net has since banned song lyrics but they still crop up from time to time, as it is a common way for new writers to start out.
I myself have mostly walked away from fanfiction.net. I still surf there occasionally, but with so many fics, its just as easy to be lost in the sea of words than it is to find a specific story. I have 63 stories on the site, in 11 different fandoms, over 500,000 words, and 980 reviews. Given how prolific some writers on the site are, this is an modest amount.
In some ways, fanfiction.net is for adolescents still finding their footing in the world of writing. Its a place for growth spurts, learning in the ins and outs before moving onto more focused and detailed work. If it were a TV show, fanfiction.net would have been high school. Now that I'm older, now that I understand more about writing and how to go about it (and what not to do), I've moved onto other places. I spend most of my time now on online blogging communities, such as Livejournal and Dreamwidth, as well as a large site devoted almost exclusively to crossover fanfiction for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As I've grown, so too has my circle of friends, nearly all which are at these locations. Since they're blogging sites, it is easier to get to know the authors here. In some cases, I've actually had the chances to meet several of my writing friends, even going so far as to spend a day at the National Aquarium in Baltimore with one of them.
The feedback is also much more structured and pointed. When I was on fanfiction.net, I found most of the suggestions were rather simple, to allow growth and learning from your mistakes. Now, however, the suggestions have changed from “create a paragraph when someone new begins talking” to “maybe you could explore this idea more thoroughly.” The feedback I get now is similar to what my professors do when writing or making suggestions on my creative work.
My work in 2001 was simple, easy, the beginning scribbles of a young girl who loved to read and write. In some ways, I'm still that girl. I still get a little thrill when I get an email about a new review, I still feel a pang of hurt when a reviewer says he or she didn't like something in the latest chapter of my ongoing epic. But now, as I'm older and wiser, I can take that pang of hurt and mold it into something positive, a way of expanding my knowledge base and to learn not to do it again without a really good explanation.
My first fic was 1,347 words with 6 reviews from people who didn't know me from Eve. Now I have a small group of readers who will read my work even when they don't know the fandom in which I'm writing (this has led to more than one person start watching the show or reading the books). Recently, I received what is possibly the best review I have ever gotten, period, a far cry from my first reviews nine years ago.
“You have an amazing talent that brings these characters to life even when I don't have any background to base it off....I wouldn't have bothered reading the series if it was by anyone other than you... I really got hooked on your writing style in Tales From Atlantis and so now whenever I see your name attached to something I read it....Thank you so much for being such an entertaining and talented writer. Keep it up!”
- Does it end well?
- Is there anything you think I could add?
- Is there anything you think I should/could drop?
- Spelling/grammar check FTW!
- TITLE IDEAS?
When I look at it, I cringe. I can't help it. Twenty-four years old and an English major, I can't imagine what my sixteen year old self was thinking. There are no paragraph breaks. At all. My punctuation is a nightmare. I have SONG LYRICS in it.
What is this atrocity you might be asking? A new writers first attempt at fan fiction. Posted on the world wide web on June 6, 2001 which I only know because its still on the world wide web. I, in my sixteen year old wisdom, thought it was perfect, amazing, a bestseller of the fan fiction world.
The six people who reviewed it thought otherwise.
“Ok, you make a new paragraph whenever a different person starts to talk.”
“Some spelling and other grammatical errors really distracted me from getting the most of the story. Besides that, it was ok.”
“Use spell-checker, please, as the errors were greatly distracting.”
In retrospect, they were very polite in their explanations of what I was doing wrong. At the time, I didn't realize that and spent two hours crying on my bed. In the course of posting fanfiction, it's quite common to get scathing reviews with little constructive criticism (referred to as “flames” in the fanfiction community). One way to thoroughly irritate members of a fandom is to write nothing but flames in response to any and all fanfiction. Most do not consider these rants as true reviews but occasionally the drama that springs up in response can be as bad as anything you'd find in a soap opera. These were not flames but they might as well have been to my sixteen year old self. I was devastated.
Fanfiction has been around since before the common era. At its heart, fanfiction is taking a tale, be it actual literature, movies, TV show, or comics, and adding to it. Fanfiction is primarily amateur writing, not part of the canonical universe and usually revolves around fans wanting more stories that they haven't seen or read in the original work. Arabian Nights could be considered the first published work of fanfiction, as most of the stories have their roots in different initial story-tellers. Each story-teller added to the work of the original until Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights, was born.
It wasn't until the 1960's, however, that fanfiction began to pick up steam with the general populace. Star Trek, the original series, spawned multiple fanzines, and the first, Spockanalia, was published in 1967 and had fanfiction as part of its content. The fanzines were either sold via conventions or sent through the mail. With the introduction of the Internet, mailing lists were set up as a way of replacing the old fanzines. This connected more people than ever to other fans and fanfiction began to truly pick up steam.
It wasn't until Fanfiction.net opened its site in 1998, however, that fanfiction truly blew up. Before, mailing lists and the small, personal sites were very specific in what type of fanfiction would be accepted and for what fandom. They were selective on who could publish and who could read. Fanfiction.net (commonly referred to as both FF.net and The Pit) changed all that. It created a website that was not only open to anyone and every fandom, but once published, work became viewable in as little as five minutes. What started out as a cataloging website has grown into a huge community with millions of fanfic works for any media outlet you can possibly think of. Today, the five largest sections include Harry Potter (462,426), Naruto (239,577), Twilight (149,358), Inuyasha (93,919), and Kingdom Hearts (53,170). Additionally, Fanfiction.net boasts an impressive 2.2 million users and hosts stories in over 30 languages.
Fanfiction.net was where I got my start. I found it when it was still in its infancy stages. Half the time pages didn't load, the other half, I wasn't interested in. But it was one of the few places online that I could find Power Rangers fanfiction so I remained. It took nearly two years of reading and lurking before I finally took the plunge and created an account for myself. I do not remember my original penname on the site, as I changed it several times, but I've ended with Jadelyn, a nickname of mine.
My first works were longer than most first-writers, but that may have been because of the lyrics. In fanfiction, you can write in several different ways. Chapter fanfics, with multiple parts, are common, as are one-shots (fanfics that are not in several parts and can be anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 words). Drabbles and ficlets are usually the shortest, typically with a 500 word cap. It is quite common to find an author creating a story in drabbles, with multiple sections each with the same amount of words. Authors commonly find this a challenge and a way of focusing on word choice as well as the content. Song fics are works based not only on a fandom, but on a song and typically the song lyrics can be found inside the work; it is a music video in words. Fanfiction.net has since banned song lyrics but they still crop up from time to time, as it is a common way for new writers to start out.
I myself have mostly walked away from fanfiction.net. I still surf there occasionally, but with so many fics, its just as easy to be lost in the sea of words than it is to find a specific story. I have 63 stories on the site, in 11 different fandoms, over 500,000 words, and 980 reviews. Given how prolific some writers on the site are, this is an modest amount.
In some ways, fanfiction.net is for adolescents still finding their footing in the world of writing. Its a place for growth spurts, learning in the ins and outs before moving onto more focused and detailed work. If it were a TV show, fanfiction.net would have been high school. Now that I'm older, now that I understand more about writing and how to go about it (and what not to do), I've moved onto other places. I spend most of my time now on online blogging communities, such as Livejournal and Dreamwidth, as well as a large site devoted almost exclusively to crossover fanfiction for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As I've grown, so too has my circle of friends, nearly all which are at these locations. Since they're blogging sites, it is easier to get to know the authors here. In some cases, I've actually had the chances to meet several of my writing friends, even going so far as to spend a day at the National Aquarium in Baltimore with one of them.
The feedback is also much more structured and pointed. When I was on fanfiction.net, I found most of the suggestions were rather simple, to allow growth and learning from your mistakes. Now, however, the suggestions have changed from “create a paragraph when someone new begins talking” to “maybe you could explore this idea more thoroughly.” The feedback I get now is similar to what my professors do when writing or making suggestions on my creative work.
My work in 2001 was simple, easy, the beginning scribbles of a young girl who loved to read and write. In some ways, I'm still that girl. I still get a little thrill when I get an email about a new review, I still feel a pang of hurt when a reviewer says he or she didn't like something in the latest chapter of my ongoing epic. But now, as I'm older and wiser, I can take that pang of hurt and mold it into something positive, a way of expanding my knowledge base and to learn not to do it again without a really good explanation.
My first fic was 1,347 words with 6 reviews from people who didn't know me from Eve. Now I have a small group of readers who will read my work even when they don't know the fandom in which I'm writing (this has led to more than one person start watching the show or reading the books). Recently, I received what is possibly the best review I have ever gotten, period, a far cry from my first reviews nine years ago.
“You have an amazing talent that brings these characters to life even when I don't have any background to base it off....I wouldn't have bothered reading the series if it was by anyone other than you... I really got hooked on your writing style in Tales From Atlantis and so now whenever I see your name attached to something I read it....Thank you so much for being such an entertaining and talented writer. Keep it up!”
