Fanfic vs. Profic
Apr. 24th, 2006 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
When I reviewed The Democratic Genre a couple posts back, some of the comments turned to a discussion of fanfic vs. profic.
executrix suggested I take that convo top-level, so here I am. Doing that. *g*
Anyway, I said that I think that fanfic and profic are equally challenging to read and write, and I don't privilege one over the other. I also said that fanfic and profic often have different aims and pull out different tools from the toolbox.
Now, I can't speak very much about the writing of profic, as I've never had anything published. However, I *read* a lot of profic, and some of my RL friends are writers and one of them in particular has been encouraging me to do some writing of original pieces (*nudge nudge*
krayat). So, from my position of dubious experience, here's a handful of comments about fanfic and profic.
I think that fanfic provides someone who's not interested in world building a way to write stories without having to worry about or spend time creating from whole cloth a universe for her characters to inhabit.
I think fanfic provides an excellent opportunity for creativity. Because the infrastructure already exists, doing something truly novel and shocking and intriguing takes a heck of a lot of work. Taking those bones and building something unexpected and different from the original model (or even just the original model from a different angle) on top of them makes for damn good reading. And because your readership is familiar with the original model, making it leaner or showing it only from the ass side immediately creates tension. Fanfic is, for me, all about subversion. Taking this thing that already exists and wringing the hell out of it--sometimes as Pugh says to make more of it and sometime to get more from it.
I know with this original fiction story I'mmaking pages of notes on and creating outlines and Venn diagrams for writing, I couldn't decide what to write about at first. And then I thought, "Wait! I'm an interesting person. All kinds of traumatic interesting things have happened to me. I'll just fanfic my life." And what I meant by that was, okay, I can take the bare bones of an event from my life and then fictionalize around that foundation. And I know it sounds like I'm calling fanfic a crutch here, but I'm really not. I *am* saying that reading/writing fanfic creates a different way of approaching reading/writing profic, at least for me.
Most profic I think also necessarily has to contain more descriptive passages than fanfic. For instance, most fanfic doesn't spend a lot of time describing characters physically because we all know what the characters look like. Same with, oh, the library in Sunndale or the lobby of the Hyperion. (0f course, always exceptions to the rule)
What do you guys think?
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Anyway, I said that I think that fanfic and profic are equally challenging to read and write, and I don't privilege one over the other. I also said that fanfic and profic often have different aims and pull out different tools from the toolbox.
Now, I can't speak very much about the writing of profic, as I've never had anything published. However, I *read* a lot of profic, and some of my RL friends are writers and one of them in particular has been encouraging me to do some writing of original pieces (*nudge nudge*
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I think that fanfic provides someone who's not interested in world building a way to write stories without having to worry about or spend time creating from whole cloth a universe for her characters to inhabit.
I think fanfic provides an excellent opportunity for creativity. Because the infrastructure already exists, doing something truly novel and shocking and intriguing takes a heck of a lot of work. Taking those bones and building something unexpected and different from the original model (or even just the original model from a different angle) on top of them makes for damn good reading. And because your readership is familiar with the original model, making it leaner or showing it only from the ass side immediately creates tension. Fanfic is, for me, all about subversion. Taking this thing that already exists and wringing the hell out of it--sometimes as Pugh says to make more of it and sometime to get more from it.
I know with this original fiction story I'm
Most profic I think also necessarily has to contain more descriptive passages than fanfic. For instance, most fanfic doesn't spend a lot of time describing characters physically because we all know what the characters look like. Same with, oh, the library in Sunndale or the lobby of the Hyperion. (0f course, always exceptions to the rule)
What do you guys think?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:59 am (UTC)I love the world-building aspect of post-everything or AU stories, because to me, that's the fun part of it all.
I'm writing something i hope to publish and it wasn't hard to start. I had a character in mind and a situation, i just needed to flesh it out. The process for that story has been the same for me as a fanfic story.
I think profic has some self-imposed rules and regulations that basically suck. I think the simple act of writing - and writing a lot, as i do with fanfic - will make getting past those rules easier.
And make what i write *better*.
An author i really admire once said not to describe 'the hero' too much, since it was easier for the reader to identify if there wasn't this specific description. She said 'never use mirrors'. I dunno about that - i don't become the character - i like to know what they look like. Too many fanfic writers spend too *much* time detailing Xander's 'chocolate orbs' and Spike's 'razor-sharp cheekbones'. Ack! Less is more, or at least - spread it out! Heh.
And you know me and description. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 01:10 pm (UTC)You're right. Plenty of fanfic writers do engage in worldbuilding--like you, or say Lazuli Kat in "Repossession" with all the backstory and the corporate world descriptions. All I meant was that if you're not interested in world-building, with fanfic you don't really have to. Someone mentions below that some profic doesn't require world-building, and this is true too.
I'm so glad you're having success with your profic piece. Was this the piece you began for NaMOOORSLSAJFIO (ha, I forget the acronymn *g*)
And you know me and description
You're one of those exceptions I was talking about. :) But with you, you're not rehashing Willow's auburn tresses or the swimming pool at Sunnydale High. Most of your description is about this new slice of the Jossverse you've made or what's happened to the Jossverse we already know as a result of some apocalypse or what have you. That's *new* information.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 03:15 pm (UTC)*ahem*
I guess it's 'cause i feel like it's a cheat to say 'oh, everybody knows everything about this, i don't have to do any description or building...' That's lazy and it also cheats your story to just make assumptions. It's a lot more fun - and interesting to the story - if you build a *little*. *Something*... Stories with almost no descriptive narrative just...leave me flat. It takes a very good writer for me to enjoy something without description, and then it's because they worked at emotion and inner life stuff so hard that i don't miss it.
Heee, yeah, it was what i was working on at NANONANO. Heh. Still working on it, still liking it a lot.
I think even in the most 'cliched' story you can still have new information - the fun part is figuring out where it comes from.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 04:06 am (UTC)Stories with almost no descriptive narrative just...leave me flat.
For the most part I agree with you, but I am finding that I sometimes enjoy stories that are almost entirely dialogue driven just as well.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 02:32 pm (UTC)Interesting.
I have mad love for A Tale of Two Cities from childhood, so I am untroubled by Dickensian adverbage, but I am really not particularly a visual person, so espcecially in fanfic where I already know what everyone looks like, I don't miss physical description at all. I want to be able to watch what's going on in my head, so I've been struggling with how to keep physical description of action in a fic without bogging down the narrative, and I'll mention a few grounding details of physical appearance of people or places, but when I'm reading fic I'm usually filling in based on what I've already seen (in canon or in my own experience). I tend not to remember visuals well unless I'm actually presented with them as visuals (i.e., onscreen, rather than described in words) so even when I do read description it usually doesn't stick much, and I would bet that informs the minimalism of description I do in my own writing.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 04:32 pm (UTC)I like to mention things about the character despite knowing what they look like. If you're having a conversation with someone, you tend to notice a ring, or how their hair looks in the light, or if their lips are chapped... stuff like that. So a Spander story might have Spike noticing that Xander's knuckles are scarred from work, or might have Xander thinking for a moment - to distract himself or whatever - about the paleness of Spike's shoulder and how he can see a vein just *there*... Nothing like 'the blond vampire!' but the little things you notice in other people, no matter how familiar.
I have to stop myself from going nuts with the descriptive stuff, heh. I'm thinking i've read some of your fic before, because your name is oh so familiar, but i can't remember!!
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:55 pm (UTC)My RL writer bud,
You may have read some of her fic before. I know I've recc'd her before. http://www.athenewriter.com/myfic.html Her fic page
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 06:12 pm (UTC)Thanks for the link!
:)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 03:03 pm (UTC)I know I've commented on at least one of your fics (the Connor/Spike one, complete with my asking what the title was since it was in the cut-tag but not in the entry itself) so maybe I'm familiar from that?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 03:43 pm (UTC)You never know. My brain is like Swiss Cheese most of the time. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:50 pm (UTC)I think that's one of the reasons I have trouble writing description. I don't *see* what's going on. When I write, it comes to me already in phrases or sentences, not images.
I think this is also why reading fanfic has very much changed my perception of canon. Because I don't see images when I read, the characters are not really conflated with the actors for me. I mean, when I really think about Xander, I see Nick Brendan, but when I'm reading fanfic, I don't really picture him. So Xander for me has become this weird hybrid of Nick Brendan and the Xander from countless stories I've read. I never thought DAvid Boreanz was attractive at all until I started reading fanfic. Now when I think about Angel, he's got the bare bones of DB's form, but he's all fleshed out by fanfic. I know this makes me startlingly weird. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 06:29 pm (UTC)Personally I think that fanfic tends to unflesh DB--there's a lot of him to love as the seasons go on. And fanfic versions are almost always taller than the actors who play their canon characters.
Touche
Date: 2006-04-29 04:26 am (UTC)BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHA
Re: Touche
Date: 2006-04-29 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 03:10 pm (UTC)Once I've seen an image, that is how I picture that thing from then on, hence my visceral reaction against books being made into movies, because even if I don't like or agree with how something got pictured, I can't get it out of my head (and since I only sort if picture stuff when I'm reading, it's not like I have a solid alternative image I can pull out and try to mask the movie image with in my head).
[And it's Nick BrendOn.]