Fanfiction Authors Are Not the Sanest of Folk

Notes from a night of reading fanfic:

-Yes, I get it, person whose summary included “(Character X)-WOMAN” You are writing a genswap fanfic, and this is obviously such a unique idea that you didn’t think that “woman” was quite obvious enough. All-caps was clearly necessary, along with three pointed notes in the summary.

Way too true.

-When is writing “LOL I didn’t want to write the beginning of this fic so it starts in the middle” ever a POSITIVE advertisement for one’s writing? Why would that EVER be information you would reveal in the one sentence you have to try to get people to read your piece? Why wouldn’t you just start in the middle and act like it’s some brilliant postmodernist tool?!

-Holy crap, I just used an interrabang and all-caps. I am going to the special hell, the one reserved for ax murderers and those who abuse the Queen’s English.

-Cardinal Rule #1: Badass male heroes do not cry. Especially not in the first three paragraphs. Especially not in a way that is described using flowery metaphors.

-Is there some sort of Original Character plague right now or is this just my fandom? Why does everyone feel the need to write up a new character (inevitably with some sort of oddly spelt name or two first names or some such shit) when this TV show already has a cast of probably 200 characters (including cameos). I assure you, many of those have been nothing more than a face flashing across the screen in a group shot, or a one-line delivery method. Don’t know anything about Minor Character X? Why don’t you read the goddamn source material?

-When you make Virtuous Character Y a rapist, Strong Character B a weak-willed bundle of nerves, and have Character X leave the series without warning, rhyme, or reason, you should just go write a novel. Or get counseling. But please stop wrecking these characters, and kindly get me a bottle of brain bleach so I can forget this awful definitely-not-K-rated morass you call a fanfic.

-I may be getting too old for fanfiction.

Yeah, Kristy was totally a lesbian, but so was Mary Anne, not Claudia.

-Yes, it is okay to kill off characters in fanfic. When you kill off half of them in the first page, it starts to lose its effect just a bit.

-I’m glad you like my fanfic, but posting a review two days after the last update saying, “Please update now or I will diiiiiie!” is not an effective way to get me to update. As you can clearly see, there has been a new chapter every Monday for the past five Mondays. Ergo, the next chapter will probably be written and updated on–wait for it–Monday. And no, posting the same review tomorrow will not speed the process either. I don’t get paid for this, you know.

-Loathe as I am to admit it, some characters just shouldn’t be slashed.

-Person of Interest fanfiction is actually really good. Huh. Maybe I should stop reading cartoon fandoms and move into shows with actual real people.

-Oh, wait, this one has Finch being a werewolf. And this one has him being a succubus. Yep, I knew this was too good to be true.

-And for the love of god, what is this fascination with characters’ hypothetical children? Is there some sort of contest to see who can come up with the most improbable scenario through which to bring children into a series? Cloning apparently wasn’t enough–now we’re onto magical children who must be Cared For or Will Destroy the World.

-Am I incapable of writing in anything but rhetorical questions now? Or lists?

-Must remember the motto: Live and let live, no matter how weird.

-Now I realize why I write fanfic: No one else is doing the stories I want to read. If only it weren’t so much work.

1 Week of NaNo, 20 Pages of Story, and 300 Days of Writing

We’re now a little over one week into NaNoWriMo and my great (greatgreatgreat) surprise, I haven’t failed yet! I’m a little behind, but only by a few hundred words. Nothing that I can’t make up on a weekend. This truly is the first year where I’ve felt good about NaNo. I feel like this is something that I can come to the end of and succeed at.

And speaking of succeeding when my former track record speaks otherwise, I’ve just hit three hundred days of The Year of Writing Daily! *Phew* Just another 65 days, and this grand experiment will be over. I’ll be honest, I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to continue with the daily writing. On one hand, I’ve loved my output this year, and have definitely seen improvements in my writing just from the sheer force of practice making perfect. But there have been nights where I’ve gotten into my pajamas, had my tea and watched my late-night sitcoms, then gone to bed only to wake up half an hour later thinking, “Shit! I have to write!” It would be nice to have a day off on occasion, like maybe Mondays and Fridays (my busiest days). And yet, whenever I’ve tried to have that sort of schedule in the past I’ve failed miserably.

The projects that I’m doing for NaNoWriMo are humming along. I’m being a rebel this year (like usual–I’m not good with attention spans) and doing three short stories and finishing up my novel instead of doing one new novel. Other than one of the short stories turning into a novella (damn those talky characters!) its all according to plan.

Unless I just jinxed it, which is a distinct possibility.

So, anyone else having a surprisingly good NaNo year?

 

And the Muse Speaks Again

Artistic malaise never lasts forever, thank god, and I’ve finally gotten over last week’s! And not just gotten over it, but come out with one of those glorious, intoxicating lightning-of-inspiration moments.

I have a formula for getting out of the writing blues, you see. It involves binging on an artist who I really love, preferably someone who I have read/watched/listened to in a while. Previously, this has involved reading a hundred comics in two days and listening to every song that The Decemberists have ever recorded, on loop, for a weekend.

This time, I was not quite so crazy (as I had a paper on Russian politics and another on the role of food in Caribbean cinema due, and those are not things that are conducive to artistic immersion). So I checked out from the library all the Wes Anderson movies that they had and have been watching them between the hours of midnight and 4 am every morning. (Yes. Sleep deprivation is conducive to tricking your brain into having a near-religious experience.) I’m not a huge movie-watcher, because of the expense of going to the cinema and just the fact that my attention span isn’t usually three hours long,* but I think I’ve watch 20 hours over the past week.

I’ve got my reasons for loving Anderson’s movies: everything that’s left unsaid, the twisted-up plots, the whimsy (as cliched as that is to say) the bizarre and beautiful characters. What I love most, though, is the color. It smacks you in the face with its vividness. Aesthetics are important, and boy do these movies have their own feel.

Halfway through Rushmore, the last one I watched this week (fangirl moment: go see it. Its tied with Moonrise Kingdom as my favorite),  I got that tingly feeling that usually means that my brain has finally cooked together something good. And then bam! This scene started unfolding in my head, and I knew the characters and better yet I could see how I’d actually been thinking the story over for awhile but didn’t know how to do it.

But the muse strikes again, and right in time for NaNo. And boy, am I thankful.

*At least not with American cinema. This is one thing I’ve begun to believe: we Yanks make stupid movies. The Canadians are good though. They should bee, seeing as how they’re our hat. They’ve got the brains.

Sunday Sharing #1

Yet another idea I stole from Ari over at A Fuzzy Mango with Wings. Mostly because I don’t have enough to say about any of these things for a whole post yet they’re still all awesome. 

1. I’m kind of in love with spoken word, even though its something I have absolutely zero talent for (*cough* overbearingly shy *cough*). The gorgeous Sarah Kay has made this playlist of poets from the Bowery Poetry Club, a collection of videos of amazing NYC poets.

2. I tend to write a lot of pieces that have either tons of female characters or tons of male characters, which inevitably leads to sentences with two he‘s doing things together and no one can tell who’s who. One of the best discussions of this problem is on the NaNoWriMo erotica writers’ forum (oh, hush) but its applicable to even the most unsexy of fiction. Link here.

3. For the science fiction-ers out there, here’s the crazy and kind of beautiful picture (and story) of an opera singer who grew algae with her voice during her performance. By modulating her voice she can even change the color and taste of the algae. Isn’t that crazy cool?

Look at it!

4. Then there’s this article from Cracked, which is not for the faint of heart or the hypochondriacs. But there’s a story inside one of these unexplainable, brain-altering diseases. One of the buried ideas inside of it is that disease is oftentimes location-specific, and yet we don’t know why. Any new place humanity steps foot on has the potential to turn us to the lemming route and throw ourselves from cliffs. Or burrow deep into our brain, unknown and silent, until we come home and it makes us blind but suddenly able to hear every crick of an old house from a hundred meters away.

5. I just have to ask: Is there anyone on the House Science Committee who actually likes science?

6. Finally, 12 Novels is the project of a woman who is, basically, attempting to do NaNoWriMo every month of the goddamn year. The italics pretty much show the level to which my mind is blown. Part of her mission was to show that life doesn’t have to be perfectly arranged and convenient for you to be a writer, because that will never happen. A very neat read.

Before You Workshop…

Workshop series part 2!

The thing about reviewing unpublished fiction (and one of the reasons that my dreams of academia are slowly dying) is that you start to see the same set of problems over and over. Besides just flat-out bad writing or cliched plot lines, here’s a list of things to take a red pen to before you make your workshop group do it.

Question: Does your story contain any of the following elements?

-An angel named Angelo, a cat burglar named Gato or any other sort of overly obvious name? (I once wrote a short story with one character named Mercedes and another nicknamed Wheels. I will never live it down)

-Formatting that switches oddly halfway through the piece? Think very carefully before you try being postmodern.

-A Moral of the Story? There’s nothing wrong with your piece having a message, of course, but the first goal is to write something good and interesting. If you have the idea that this will be a story about “The evils of obesity” or “the havoc wreaked by an absent father,” then take a deep breath and start with a character. First character (who we have to connect with), then plot (which we have to be interested in) and then message. We’ve all progressed past Highlights Magazine. You don’t have a pulpit.

“We just met today! But she smells nice!”

-A romance that fails to mention why the characters love each other? Just because the brooding male has such pretty eyes the female shouldn’t fall all over herself imagining his sculpted abs. In real life, no one sees a random person on the streets and embarks on a torrid love affair to Last The Ages (well, rarely). There are awkward getting-to-know you dates, ups and downs, that weird moment where she realizes he can’t do dishes, etc. Show us why they stay together. Also, a pet peeve of mine: Just because two girls are the only lesbians in their schools does not mean they instantly have a grand connection. There still has to be a meaningful romance that has them attracted to each other for more than just sexuality alignment. Otherwise I’m more likely to think “Get out of this desperation-spiral and go to New York, girls” rather than “What a great love story!”

-A jump to a fantasy world with little-to-no transition? Explain, if you can.

-Adverbs? “Kill the adverbs,” she said angrily.

-A science fiction/fantasy world that you try to keep as mysterious as possible? Here’s the thing. If I don’t know why the hell are the Zoorbians are looking for a Glesspf (whatever the heck that is) by page 10, I don’t care anymore. Give us something.

-A set of previous chapters that no one else has read? A word of advice: if your novel is sixteen chapters long, start with chapter 1. If you give us chapter 15 no one will no what on earth is going on.

And finally, if you call it the Sahara Dessert I will kill you. Personally.

 

How to Write a Critique Letter

Since I’m on a workshopping-high here, I’ve decided to abandon my Month of Books (seeing as how I haven’t done a post on that in nearly two weeks, you may have already extrapolated its abandonment) and instead write on How To Workshop Without Dying.

So congrats! You’re in a workshop! That’s awesome! And probably a bit scary, because you’ll eventually be in the spotlight! But for right now, let’s concentrate on being a good editor!

(And I promise to stop with the exclamation points. Because that is a no-no).

Firstly, here is a short non-exclusive list of all the things a crit letter is not:

• One paragraph long
• “I really loved this and don’t have anything bad to say.” (As flattering as this is, it doesn’t help anyone)
• “I don’t understand this.” (WHAT didn’t you understand? The world? The message? The character’s motivation? What would you have needed to understand?)
• A note that you don’t really like the genre.
• Grammatical notes (save this for your edited copy)
• Completely negative.

Now that that’s out of the way, there are three main things a critique letter needs to contain:

1. Your interpretation of the story. Not the moral/theme, because that’s subjective, but what do you think the author was writing about? After all, it does no good if you thought Bob’s story was about an alien world when in reality he was writing about Sub-Saharan Africa, or if you thought his children’s story was intended as literary fiction.
2. What worked, and why you liked it. Always start with this, so that the drama queens don’t get their silken panties in a knot over criticism (let’s face it, there’s always one). These are general things: character, voice, a specific scene, dialogue. Leave line edits for the edited copy.
3. The things that weren’t working. In general, this should be the longest part of your letter as it is the important part. When you note something here, give a specific example from the text. If you mention that the dialogue is clunky, add that on page 10 a character says, “Your illegal actions threaten our stable familial relationship, Kara.” If the problem is that you don’t believe that the character could be such a total moron, note a section where she does something that would require one to be absent of grey matter.

Here is a crit letter I wrote this week (with all details changed, of course):

Hey, Bob!

     I enjoyed your story, “The Many Gremlins of Arizona,” about a girl who discovers small elves living in her town and is persuaded by them to campaign for the rights of illegal immigrants. (Part 1)

    My favorite part was the way you incorporated Hispanic folklore into the story. This gave it an unusual flavor that I really enjoyed. Also, the fact that your story is written for adults but features a child protagonist is a wonderful opportunity to explore your themes through a different point of view. (Part 2)

     I did have some concerns with your story as well. While I was reading it, I felt overburdened by the social agenda. I think there are subtler ways to show the desperation of migrant workers than by having a starving, unclothed orphan being jailed by a cadre of Republican congressmen. Perhaps if the gremlins or Lara had a personal connection to the issue, or were drawn into it more naturally? On page 16, when the gremlin has his page-long monologue on the history of workers’ rights in Southwestern America, I would have preferred to have seen this perhaps through Lara’s own research, or at least a much pared-down version of the existing information. I am concerned about the sustainability of this in a novel-length piece. (Part 3)

Sincerely Yours,

A Totally Non-Hating Reviewer

See? Easy as pie!

Writerly Non-Problems

A list of excuses that you (meaning me) that you (again, meaning me) should stop using as reasons to not write:

I’ve got time later! Yes, you do, which is why you never go to bed before midnight. Stop that.

I wrote a lot yesterday! Sure you did. But you made a commitment to 400 words a day, and if you keep whining about how you did a whole 600 yesterday and now your poor little brain is all tuckered out, you’re never going to finish your novel. Remember when you didn’t used to have a daily goal? Remember how you barely did more than a hundred words a day, if you wrote at all?

I just saw that someone else is writing a book that sort of sounds like mine! Oh dear. There’s just no way that two people could have the same idea for, say, a YA vampire romance, now is there? No, that has never ever happened. You’re such a special little flower that even your vague plot blurbs scream of uniqueness. And obviously that other unpublished author in the blogosphere who’s writing a comedy YA sci-fi novel will turn out a book exactly like yours. Jesus.

Do you realize how much reading I have to do for class? I haven’t read a book for fun in a week. Yeah, I get it. But let’s face facts, hon–we’ve established that if you stopped watching TV during “writing time” you could knock out your wordcount in 20 minutes. So do it. If you actually stuck to the kitchen timer idea you’d surely have enough time to watch whatever idiot sitcom you’re on this week.

But I’m a Very Important Writer and must wait for inspiration to strike. No you’re not. You’re a chick with one publishing credit, a handful of finished stories, and an almost-finished novel. Let’s not kid ourselves here–you’re not George Martin. And although every writer has a tiny Pretentious Bitch voice inside their head, you sure as hell won’t get anywhere indulging it.

Submissions, Submissions, Frakking Submissions

After the crazy nine-hour-long, six-am-bedtime writing session Wednesday, my brain needs some time to recuperate. So I’m dabbling a little in my novel, and adding a couple hundred words to another short story I’ve got dangling, but the majority of my brainpower this week is going to submitting my two finished-n-polished pieces.

And so I confront my giantass copy of the Writer’s Market (2010 edition, because I’m a broke college student. Don’t worry, I always read the website guidelines too because its highly likely that things have changed. But I like having a book  to flip through) to discover what sort of magazine will want to take in my little fledglings.

My first project is fairly straightforward science fiction. Its a piece that garnered an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest, subsequently failed to sell, and so I put it away for awhile. Recently I pulled it out, gave it another edit, and am going to send it out again (not to the same places. I know things, peeps). I’m hoping the fact that it has a small award to its name, is in general an okay length if a bit short, and is easily definable genre-wise will help it along. Most of what I write is sci-fi, so I keep a list of my favorite markets in a hierarchy of pay rates and ease-of-submission (this is a great thing to do if you write one specific thing. It makes it much easier to send stuff out).

The second piece is a bit harder. I really love it–love the voice, the character, and the overall feel. Too bad its like the mutant runt-child of the pack (you know, the weird looking kid from that fundamentalist family with the wife who’s always pregnant). Its got three main problems: A) its got a hint of sci-fi/steampunk but is a literary style, B) Its told in second-person as a one-sided conversation, and C) it is extremely short at barely 2,000 words.

I’ve decided that I’m going to try out a few of the literary markets that have a more experimental flavor. This means, of course, that I don’t get to pull out my handy-dandy sci-fi markets list and send it off to my top choice. And let me tell you–there are way more lit markets than sci-fi and they get way more specific. I would really like to get a submission out by the end of the weekend, just so I know I’m not dragging my feet, but we’ll have to see.

The 15-Minute Maniac Spree

Hello, my name is Lin, and I have a problem. I am a horrible writer.

Not horrible in the “man, this shit sucks” sense, because I’ve been doing this for a long time y’all. Horrible in the sense that even though my writing sessions are “two hours long” they really consist of me getting down a handful of words every now and then while simultaneously watching Doctor Who. Which is super productive, as I’m sure we all know.

So I’m trying something different this week. Instead of doing my usual TV-n’-writing for a couple of hours, I’m going to do 2-3 fifteen minute speed-writing sessions throughout the day. The rules are: no tv, no Twitter/blog/Facebook, no music (unless I need it for the scene), no texting, minimal talking. Essentially it will be fifteen minutes of me putting all of my caffeine-addled brain cells into writing.

I’ve tried this two days in a row so far (except the first day I was lazy and only did one session) and I can do around 350 words in fifteen minutes. Honestly, I can’t see a downside. I’m writing more in less time. The only problem is how to get in my Doctor Who watching without feeling like I’m being unproductive. Or if I get too lazy and keep putting it off. But I’m working on it.

Anyhow, this whole thing is probably common sense to all of you (“Actually WRITE during your writing time? What is she, an idiot?”) but I’ve always been one for the school of hard knocks.

Breaking News: Authors are Idiots Too

I’ve been trying to avoid a lot of the really, really stupid stuff going on in publishing right now (from buying reviews to Goodreads attacks to just general nuttiness) but today something broke that was just so absolutely amazing to me that I have to address it here.

Firstly, let me say that I am not a lawyer. I have, however, done extensive research into copyright/trademark law and did a culminating term paper on it. So I do know something.

Melissa Marr (author of Wicked Lovely) has just released a new book, entitled Carnival of Souls. She, along with her publisher Harper-Collins, are now being sued by a man named Jazan Wild, who writes a graphic novel series also entitled Carnival of Souls. Mr. Wild holds the trademark to the series title, and is suing to change the title of Ms. Marr’s work.

I really could care less about this lawsuit. It’s dumb, but I’m real good at ignoring dumb stuff at this point in my life. But then Mr. Wild began sending threatening (and inaccurate) cease and desist letters to bloggers who reviewed Ms. Marr’s book, and that was the final straw. One of my main rules is that you do not mess with reviewers. While I respect his need to protect his trademark, the idea that that would extend to third-party reviewers of the “offending” work is ridiculous. Those people play an important–and impartial–role in books and should be respected.

There are three main problems I have with Mr. Wild’s lawsuit/actions/person:

1) A trademark cannot be generic. Disney is allowed to trademark “Mickey Mouse” because the name Mickey Mouse was not a generic term generally known, before they created it. Likewise, JK Rowling can trademark “Harry Potter” because it is not generic. In contrast, Stephanie Meyer cannot trademark “Twilight” although she can trademark the concept of “Twilight” as a series about teenage vampires. No one else can write a series about teenage vampires and call it Twilight. Someone else can however, write a book about a young man going to a new country and call it “Twilight.” Stephanie Meyer cannot trademark the title. Similarly, Disney can trademark their image and idea of Cinderella, but not Cinderella overall.

(Mr. Wild also alleges that “Enter the Carnival” is part of his trademark. Seriously).

2) Mr. Wild already has one strike against him, in the fact that he’s pulled this kind of thing before. In 2010 he attempted to sue the TV show Heroes because of a storyline where the characters were in a carnival. The judge ultimately ruled against him, because the idea of a haunted/creepy carnival is generally known and therefore not the intellectual property of one person. A key point here is that even if one work is inspired or influenced by another, it is still protected if it is significantly different from the original. Ideas are worthless until someone writes them down and makes them real.

3) A big part of copyright/trademark law is the idea of competing works. In essence, the idea is that if you don’t copy something word-for-word but still take the main points, that is a form of plagiarism. Mr. Wild alleges that any book with Carnival of Souls as the title will confuse consumers and that HC is attempting to steal some of his relative success by using that title. Despite the obvious point that I’ve heard of Ms. Marr but never Mr. Wild, we also have to compare the books in question. Ms. Marr’s book is a prose-form YA fantasy about a teenage girl living in a city behold to a daiman circus. Mr. Wild’s work is a series of graphic novels (with a protagonist named Jazan *cough*) which contains stories about an evil, haunted carnival that takes people. Besides a carnival (which is probably where the names came from) these two stories bear little resemblance. In addition, the difference in formats (comic/prose), delivery method (Mr. Wild’s series is primarily e-book) and cover design show these to be different entities.

****************

It drives me absolutely mad when authors, or any other creators, pull stuff like this. Partly because this is why we have such a ridiculously overblown legal system, but mostly because this hurts authors. Ms. Marr is successful enough that she’ll be fine, but there are cases of this happening to smaller authors all the time–their title matches someone else’s, or there are similarities of plot, and suddenly its a lawsuit. Court is expensive and most small presses can’t afford that. It’s just a bad precedent.

If you’re interested in this case, I suggest you read the original Bookalicious article linked above, or read the court documents here.

Also, when Neil-effing-Gaiman tweets about you, you’d better be prepared for the storm. Just a warning, Mr. Wild.