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This week: Fanfiction: Inspiration and Practice!
Edited by: Jay (414)
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Table of Contents [#401437]
Table of ContentsTable of Contents [#401437]
Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter [#401439]
About This NewsletterAbout This Newsletter [#401439]
About This Newsletter

Fanfiction: Inspiration and Practice!

Fanfiction is complicated, but here's an argument in favor of fanfiction to practice storytelling and inspire yourself!

Have you ever written any fanfiction? Have you ever read a fanfiction story--or one you suspect might be fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off? *Laugh*

Word from our sponsor [#401440]
Word from our sponsorWord from our sponsor [#401440]
Word from our sponsor


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Letter from the editor [#401442]
Letter from the editorLetter from the editor [#401442]
Letter from the editor

A new year is upon us, and I'm all about finding new ways to think about my craft as a writer and editor. This year, one of the things I want from my work is a stronger sense of enjoyment from the craft itself, finding things to write that make me excited to write again. Especially since I'm hoping to take more editing work this year; I'm finding in my first few years of professional editing that it saps some of my drive to create new work, so I have to cautiously find some new sources of joy and imagination.

Enter: fanfiction. I'm not here to give you the long and storied history of the craft of fanwork, I'm just here to talk about some cool ways to use it to expand your own writing skills.

The nice thing about fanfiction is that it's not any less legitimate than other forms of fiction. Yes, there are limitations to what you can do with fanfiction, but even if publication is off the table for fanworks, they can still be a way to draw in new readers--through posting on blogs or other fansites, or even right here in your Writing.Com Portfolio! Fanfiction has been around on this site from the beginning.

One of my favorite things about fanfiction is that it removes some of the perfection pressure that I get from work for publication. I can focus on using existing character details instead of needing to invent them all from scratch; I can think about ways to mesh personality types in new ways without having to think too much about the abstract. I can choose to make up an alternate universe for the characters I love, or I can choose to create new stories in a setting I love, or some amalgamation of all of these elements. I can play with overused tropes or revise bad plotlines to write what I think might be a better ending... It forces me to think differently than I do about my original fiction, and I think that's helpful, important stuff. Good exercise when one is stuck in a rut and needs a nudge.

A group of my friends and I all did a fanfiction exchange this winter as a sort of holiday gift that wouldn't require any additional spending or clutter, and we were all surprised by how varied and fun the various stories were. The rules we set were simple: we each filled out a form with likes and dislikes, favorite characters and stories--once the assignments were passed out, it was a fun challenge to work with the parameters we were given. Even though we had initially set out to write gifts just to be shared with the original recipient, each of us enjoyed the stories we got so much that we all ended up sharing and passing every story around!

I think my takeaway from that experience is that there is a freeing, cathartic aspect to fanfiction as well--it was wonderful to have a space where we could write beautiful things for each other with some expectation that they were meant for a specific, interested audience--it also added some pressure before all the reveals, but once we had unmasked the writer of each fic, the result was a lot of work we could all be proud of, in our own ways.

Have you ever written fanfiction? Or even just incorporated little bits of some other story that you love into your own work? I think it's important to know what your influences are--and it can be really fun to play with them, even if it's just for a short piece you never show anyone else. Find a story or a character or a world that has always captivated you, and see if it can't lead you to some new stories, when you're not sure what else to write. Who knows what you'll find?

Until Next Issue,
Take care and Write on!
Jay

Editor's Picks [#401445]
Editor's PicksEditor's Picks [#401445]
Editor's Picks

Short Stories for your reading enjoyment this issue:



Blue [13+]
When a woman calls to surrender her dog, Roxanne comes to the rescue.
by Charity is back to work. Yay! (173)

The Wishing Tree [E]
Wanders and wishes in the autumn of our lives
by Catch-up Fyn (803)

Invalid Item []

by A Guest Visitor

The Island Of Dr. Ellington [13+]
A Man Senses Danger On An Abandoned Island (Daily FF Winner)
by Angus (948)



A New Beginning [13+]
For the Metamorphosis Contest:change a fairy tale, The Tinderbox, to a present setting.
by Kotaro (159)

Invalid Item []

by A Guest Visitor

Search for Hope [13+]
Oi searches for hope in a time when there is none.
by Schnujo Got Into USC in LA (664)


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Word From Writing.Com [#401447]
Word from Writing.ComWord From Writing.Com [#401447]
Word from Writing.Com

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Ask & Answer [#401448]
Ask & AnswerAsk & Answer [#401448]
Ask & Answer

Feedback from "Room to Grow"


Elisa the Snowman Stik writes:
While I haven't really posted much here in a while, I have been writing. The pattern that I've noticed in many of my works (finished or not) is rather specific: strong female characters who know too much. They deal with daunting secrets that much of the time aren't theirs and don't trust people enough to gain enough allies. When they do, they actually tend to reveal their information in rather dramatic/traumatic fashion. That said, the way that each character reveal the information has changed a bit over the years. Up until the last six or so years, the ladies have been bent on destruction when they choose to reveal the information they have. Nowadays, they are more willing to make these revelations to protect others. I'm not sure how or why that transition occurred, but at this point I'm just going along with it.

I know what you mean, about the motif shifting. I have a story I've been trying to tell for a really long time, and it seems to hold the same general contents, but the shape is rarely the same.


Osirantinous writes:
Hi Jay, this NL resonated with me a bit because I've recently just realised that a lot of my romantic pairs of characters are cut from the same sort of cloth in terms of one being young/one being older (and as I get older I find that my characters have to be older because I start thinking anyone in their 20s is not mature enough to fit my 'older' character mode. Anyway.... I've got at least four of these pairs and there are other similarities too, yet each character is very distinctly individual. Perhaps that's why it took so long to notice the 'theme'. I'm not going to change it since it seems to be working. As for evolution of process - I'm not sure I've evolved. I've always written to inspiration, started wherever the characters tell me to start, and generally don't finish anything. I always find most joy in the 'journey'. Novels anyway. Short stories are 'new' to me, having only really come to them when I joined WDC. I'm not sure I've even got a process for them yet (bar lengthening them out into novels) but I find I can barely write them unless I have just the perfect inspiration-thumping prompt.

I definitely know what you mean, and I think it was a similar discovery in my own work that led me to that observation. Relationships in particular have a way of repeating themselves and I wonder how much of that is human nature and how much of that is our imaginations writ large.


Editing is BLUE writes:
Yes, I find I have the same problems. I don't know how to make them act differently. It's a challenge to make them mean or nasty. I can make them DO things that show them in a bad light but the other is hard. I'm going to try to break the mold by writing something for the Dec What a Character contest.
Scrooge deconstructed.

That sounds like a great way to test your skills--good luck in What A Character, and I know what you mean in terms of having trouble writing nasty characters... though in my case I think I struggle more writing the nice folks. (I will kindly ask the peanut gallery not to speculate toooo hard on what that says about me. *Laugh*)

Questions or comments? I would love to hear from you!


All the best,
Jay


Writing Effective Flash Fiction






*Buttonb* What makes a story flash fiction?

*Bullet* Flash fiction is short.
. . . Whether a piece qualifies as flash fiction on word count depends on who you ask. Everybody has their own opinion of what short means. Some of the popular fixed lengths for flash fiction have been 55, 100, and 300 words. Some people go as high as 1000 words.

Sometimes it seems like the limited word count is the only part of the definition of flash fiction that gets considered. However, there are other, more important considerations in the definition. After all, other types of writing besides flash fiction are short.

*Bullet* Flash fiction is a story -- it has a plot and character development related to the character's efforts to solve a problem: something changes.
. . . It is not a vignette or a slice of life.

*Bullet* Flash fiction is vivid and shows what happens using precise details.
. . . It is not a story summary that tells.

*Bullet* Flash fiction uses wording that has been pared down to the absolute essentials.
. . . It is not wordy. It has no filler.

*Bullet* Some flash fiction has nameless characters.
. . . This is a separate factor and more of a style choice to be in the experimental category. Using names doesn't make the piece longer, can be necessary for clarity, and the choice of name can contribute information.


*Buttonb* When people try to write flash fiction, the most common mistake is that the piece lacks a plot and character development.

How do you know whether your story has a plot and character development?

It can help to have something to compare it to, like a yardstick, to see whether it measures up.


*Pencil* [Yardstick #1]

Consider this basic three-part story structure.

The main character suddenly has a problem.
He tries one thing to solve it and it doesn't work.
He tries another thing to solve it, and that makes things even worse.
The third time he tries, he has either learned something from his failures or obtained something from them, which makes it possible for him either to succeed or to choose a different outcome (the problem gets resolved in a negative but satisfactory way).


As stories get shorter, they start later in the story structure and cover a narrower interval around the turning point. For the shorter word counts, that may mean that the first and second tries are implied or mentioned rather than shown. Any necessary backstory is usually implied or integrated like description. The conflict gets resolved, but the results are usually implied.

Even though the story structure is condensed and some of it might be implied and not actually on the page, the reader still needs to be able to identify the parts of the story. Things need to happen. The character needs to act to solve his own problem, and he needs to change and evolve in response to trying to deal with that problem. The story ending needs to match the problem it sets up in the beginning.

To do this with showing, you have to pick the few details that show the most information. They'll probably be actions. You also have to pick the few words that pack the most punch. Use strong, specific words rather than weak, generic, or general ones, and edit out the filler. (Using a pronoun instead of a name is one way of being generic.)


*Pencil* [Yardstick #2]

Another way to check whether all the parts of a story are present is to use the Gary Provost Paragraph as a checklist. It describes the plot 90% of the time.

Once upon a time, something happened to someone, and he decided that he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action, and even though there were forces trying to stop him, he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. And just as things seemed as bad as they could get, he learned an important lesson, and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously, he had to decide whether or not to take it, and in making that decision he satisfied a need that had been created by something in his past.


If you can write an equivalent paragraph with the pertinent details from your flash fiction -- from what's on the page, not what's in your head -- then you've probably got a story in your flash fiction.

If you can't, the gaps in your paragraph show you what's missing.


This week: Elements of Story Structure in Brief


Whenever I'm feeling stuck for story and structure help (like I am right now, as we speak, unfortunately) I like to retreat into Jeff Vandermeer's Wonderbook for some insight and suggestions.

Wonderbook is aimed at fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other speculative subgenres, but really, much of the advice is nuts-and-bolts practical; it's just presented in a way that is geared toward the fantastical (in the same way that many other well-regarded books of writing advice are aimed at mainstream genres).

The core elements of narrative are something I've been picking at recently as I have discovered that some of these things are much weaker in my work than I want them to be. These core elements are: characterization, point of view, setting, situation, dialogue, description, and style. Each of these components factor in some way into a written narrative that we would classify as a short story. (There are some formats of short story that call for the elimination of one or more of these elements--that doesn't mean those elements don't factor in; they simply factor in as "not used in this piece," if that makes sense.)

I don't want to simply reproduce the essay here, but I figured I would follow on from my discussion last week about using description as a jumping-off point, since we spent lots of time on that last week!

Each of these elements is vital in its own way, and what is most important will vary from writer to writer. Character is one of my personal preferences as a starting point for my stories. If I'm not invested in the people, I'm not interested enough to write the rest. (This is why I really struggle with certain types of writing prompts!)

Point of view is linked with character and provides a window into one or more of your characters' perspective. Controlling this will give you ways to provide insight, done well, and engage your reader in the events of the story. The events themselves need to make sense for the set of characters you have chosen--an important thing to consider is how and why these characters would be in this situation, in my style of writing. For other types of writers, it's more interesting to come up with the events first and then figure out the characters who fit.

Dialogue, for me, is one of the strongest elements of characterization. Not merely what a character says, but how they say it, why they say it, and how they receive the interactions with the other characters--all of that stuff is catnip to me. One has to be careful with it, though, as it is easy to end up in the weeds discussing something totally irrelevant! All story dialogue should serve the purpose of driving the story forward while also allowing the reader another glimpse inside the inner workings.

A trick I've found for making dialogue work for me is to do my first drafts with dialogue where the characters speak very directly about their wants, needs, inner knowledge, secrets--and then I obfuscate it as appropriate in revisions. If left to my own devices, my characters would simply hint at everything they want to talk about and it's super frustrating to fix, so I have found I now vastly prefer the more direct stuff.

Setting is another thing many people like to start with first, especially in my chosen genres, but I find that I often like to let my characters and situation control my scene-building. There's no one right way!

Style: ah, style. I'm not touching that question with a ten-foot pole, at least not in this particular breakdown. I could dedicate a series of newsletters to it and never begin to give out anything bordering on useful advice--your style is your own. Try stuff. Experiment. Tear it down, spackle it back together.

Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
Jay

Editor's Picks [#401445]
Editor's Picks