Jealous

[igenlode]

A fanfiction writer I vaguely used to know has announced proudly that she has done a file-off-the-numbers job on one of her existing stories and it will now be published (in fact, she 'turned down a publishing house').

So I looked up the original story out of curiosity, and... ouch. I honestly can't tell any difference between the chapters where she said she had a beta-reader and the ones after she said she'd unfortunately lost her beta-reader. It's stiff with dangling participles, greengrocer's apostrophes, epithets in place of character names, malapropisms ("burdened with a heavy conscious") and sheer clumsy writing (the hero digs 'the pointy end' of an improvised weapon into a hostage's throat -- although the author refers to it as an "impromptu weapon"; I do not think that word means what you think it means).

All right, fair enough -- that was four years ago, and she may have done a *lot* of rewriting on it since then. In fact, she clearly has, since she's apparently turned a historical novel into a far-future SF military adventure -- thus ironing out the anachronisms, presumably. (Referring to the King and Queen as "the Royals", for instance, or having heroin around in an era that predates the existence even of morphine.)

But she is by no means a teenager, and her writing hadn't improved noticeably over the previous four years, after all. (And frankly the story doesn't particularly appeal to me; it's a classic case of wallowing in angst and character-torture to the degree that the only one of the characters I really recognise is the one who is allowed to retain his self-control. Perhaps I need to take a lesson from that over my own angst-filled tendencies ;-p)

But if someone like that can get something based on *that* published..!

---

Of course, instead of feeling bitter and jealous, what I ought to be doing is putting in some actual work on Arctic Raoul. It's very easy not to get published if you never even dare to try :-(

Comments

[erimia]

It pains me to see good writers ignored, which happens too often both in professional communities and in fandoms. Yes, I've definitely seen fandom authors who went professional whose writing I found mediocre at best, and it tended to have a lot of features common in fanfic that just don't look good in professional writing. Actually, I think that your writing is on professional level not only in quality, but in general style: it doesn't have "wallows" of any kind, lacks obsession with melodramatically intense emotions, has good descriptions of settings and surroundings, doesn't overfocus disproportionately on only one or few characters and relationships, doesn't neglect plot out of preference for writing about the feelings. Maybe the success of some of these fan writers is caused by the reasons not related with quality, like writing about the things popular among their audience or having connections in the literary world.

[igenlode]

Well, I do aim for professional quality because that's what I read most of the time (I think a lot of fanfiction suffers from being writen by people who only ever read other fanfictions), and so that's my level of normality, as it were. And I think I achieve it in terms of basic sentence structure etc. at least. Very few of the books to which I would give bad reviews have anything *like* the level of error that is rife in fanfiction; writing non-awkward sentences, punctuating properly, and proofreading to the level of a handful of slips per book constitute a baseline requirement in the outside world, rather than awards of outstanding achievement. Their flaws are on the next layer up, and are not errors so much as choices that as the reader I found unsatisfying. And I'm far from immune to that.

it doesn't have "wallows" of any kind, lacks obsession with melodramatically intense emotions, has good descriptions of settings and surroundings, doesn't overfocus disproportionately on only one or few characters and relationships, doesn't neglect plot out of preference for writing about the feelings

I think it pretty much unquestionably does all these things: how many stories have I written that *don't* focus on Raoul and/or his relationship with Christine, don't feature him experiencing melodramatically intense emotions (let's face it, Leroux-Raoul and LND-Raoul are both canonically overwrought!), and don't spend more time exploring the feelings of the characters than in much action actually happening? So presumably the implication of what you're saying is that I do all these things *well*, such that the reader isn't left uncomfortably conscious of it...

[erimia]

So presumably the implication of what you're saying is that I do all these things *well*, such that the reader isn't left uncomfortably conscious of it...

I'd say that those things in your stories don't give off the feeling of weird distortions and flatness that a lot of fanfiction writing gives. For example, of course your stories focus on Raoul and Christine, but it doesn't feel like the world outside of them is made of cardboard or revolves around them, while in a lot of fics it does. The melodrama, I'd say, is canonical for the Phantom of the Opera in general, but the dramatic emotions in your fics feel less, I don't know, "shapeless" and "endless" and "repetitive" than they tend to in less well-written fanfics. I don't really mind the stories where "no action happens" and that are based mostly on emotional lives of the characters, but when the author is not very skilled, such stories often end giving the impression that nothing at all happens, including in the said emotional lives. I'm not a writer, but I guess a lot of it depends on how good the author is in giving the story structure, and knowing what purpose each line serves.

[igenlode]

of course your stories focus on Raoul and Christine, but it doesn't feel like the world outside of them is made of cardboard or revolves around them, while in a lot of fics it does

I suspect that's a factor of my actually having some idea of what the contemporary world outside was like, whereas a lot of young authors really are writing in what amounts to a complete blank; I may not be all that well acquainted with 19th-century France, but I know 19th-century and Edwardian England quite well from a literary standpoint, and have at least a modicum of knowledge about the changes across the Channel. And I have personal experience of life without a lot of the modern conveniences young Americans take for granted, which probably helps from that perspective.

As for the world not revolving around the protagonists -- yes, that is something I've tried to make a conscious point of doing. Partly because I enjoy creating original characters, and like the idea that all these incidental spur-of-the-moment people have lives and histories of their own outside the brief moment when their lives intersect with those of the protagonists, even if I myself don't know anything more about them. Partly because (related) I tend to invent details on the fly as I go along, which gives the impression of an enormous hinterland of 'world-building' to support the story but that isn't really there ;-p

I don't sit down and work out a detailed backstory for characters or construct a society for them to move through before I start, and then only show the tip of my creation in the actual story (as some writing manuals recommend; hence 'character questionnaires', and elaborate maps and alien sociologies); it's more like turning a creative torch beam around a darkened room where an infinity of possibilities potentially exist, but have no defined reality until the authorial gaze happens to fall on them.

The world outside my immediate plot is there, going on with no relation to my story, but only the parts that happen to impinge upon the characters' consciousness actually get invented in order to be written about. Although it's the other way round, really. They get invented as a result of being written about; they are mentioned at random, and grow from that. To give a tangible example, I don't even know what my characters are wearing unless or until there is some active reason for someone to interact with some item of clothing -- and then you suddenly get a rush of detail, like the lumpiness of waistcoat buttons or the fastening of a collar-stud, or the roughness of stiffened broadcloth in a tailored jacket.

the dramatic emotions in your fics feel less, I don't know, "shapeless" and "endless" and "repetitive" than they tend to in less well-written fanfics.

I think (hope) that's probably because I know where they are going. The characters aren't just emoting at random for the sake of emotion; I have a target in mind. I don't always know how exactly I'm going to get there, but by the time I've got as far as writing the story I do know (having been through it all before in the process of experiencing the plot) where the scene is going to end.

On the rare occasions where I get an unanticipated extra chapter after the expected finale, as in "The Choices of Raoul de Chagny" or "Count Philippe Takes a Hand", the sensation of not knowing where I'm going is very tangible and rather frighteningly undefined.

I'm not a writer, but I guess a lot of it depends on how good the author is in giving the story structure, and knowing what purpose each line serves.

Unfortunately, for me at least it's pretty much a subconscious process; structure is held in the back of my mind, and lines don't serve a deliberate purpose other than sounding good and springing from what came before. (The latter, I think, is more important than one might expect -- poor-quality writing often seems to give the impression that people say and do things disjointedly and arbitrarily because the author wanted them to, rather than because it seemed like a natural consequence.)

[watervole]

I think that's one of the reasons I like Nevil Shute as a writer. The word 'wallow' cannot in any way be applied to his work - and that means he has to write far more subtly.

[betweensunandmoon]

I've read one or two published fanfictions in my day. They were...not very good, to say the least. I don't know what story you're referring to, but it seems to be on the same level of quality.

Just because she's getting published and you're not doesn't mean she's a better writer than you. In fact, from your description, I highly doubt that's the case. You needn't waste your time and energy envying her.

[igenlode]

I carefully didn't give enough detail to identify the story or writer, because it's not fair...

What she has done that I have not is to have the guts to finish something and rewrite it and hawk it round publishing houses in the face of rejection. My instinctive inclination is just to sit here and keep my head below the parapet.

(I mean, I'm even holding back subconsciously on publishing this new Raoul one-shot on fanfiction.net now, and I could upload that tomorrow full of mistakes if I wanted, and no-one would care or even notice them. But the driving urgency is to get the thing *written*, not to get it published. Getting it published involves inviting almost inevitable disappointment. While it's left still in potentia, there is still all the feeling of achievement, and none of the risk or [any more] hard work involved.)

[watervole]

Takes me back to when I edited fanzines, and I do mean edit. I used to put people through rewrites and taught them creative writing on the way.

One of the writers I edited ended up writing pro and had half a dozen romance novels that sold reasonably well (though not enough to write full time)

She was good (perfect spelling and grammar from the start), and she listened to advice on how to structure stories and got better.

[igenlode]

Takes me back to when I edited fanzines, and I do mean edit. I used to put people through rewrites and taught them creative writing on the way.

Yes, you taught me about points of view and inappropriate epithets... advice which I've subsquently passed on many times!

[watervole]

What name did you write under? I don't actually know who you are...

Very glad to know it was useful :)