Fan Fiction, part 2

Last week, I talked about my personal, and to some degree irrational, bias against fan fiction. I don't like having irrational biases, so I've worked on finding positive uses for fan fiction. I've concluded that beginning writers may want to start writing fan fiction, on the condition that these writers are serious about improving their fiction skills. I can also say I don't remember ever hearing or reading any writing instructor suggest using fan fiction in the way I'm about to, so as far as I can tell, my advice here is original.

A beginning writer attempting a complex story--especially a story set in any world that is not pretty much the same one the reader lives in--has a lot of work to do. The world has to be introduced, characters have to be introduced, some kind of problem has to be introduced... it's a lot to grasp for someone just starting out.

Fan fiction does a lot of the work for you. Let's say you're going to write a fanfic episode of the now-finished TV show Eureka from the Sci-Fi channel. (Oops, I mean "SyFy" channel--don't get me started.) Your setting is pre-made: a town full of genius scientists, most of whom are weird in some way. Your characters are set and you've got a broad range to choose from. Your plot is half-set; virtually every Eureka episode is about Sheriff Carter and his allies trying to solve a mystery caused by one or more crazy experiments that have gone wrong. And best of all, since fan fiction is written by and for fans of an existing fictional world, all your readers will already know this world, these characters, and this kind of plot. So look at all the work you will not have to do! You don't even have to describe what these people look like, if you don't want to. Your readers already know. All you have to focus on is your story, which is the fun part.

And yet...

If you take this exercise seriously, and show your fanfic to cooperative fans of the show, then readers will complain if your version of the show's characters don't act right. If you get basic facts wrong, you'd better be clear you're writing some kind of alternative version of the show or you'll get negative reactions, too.

Fan fiction, when taken seriously, forces writers to think about their characters and the story's world. You have to constantly ask questions like, "How would Sheriff Carter react if...", and "Does that really sound like a line of dialogue Jo Lupo would say, especially that early in the morning?"

Nor can you ignore tone. Does your Eureka episode read more like an episode of The X-Files? Eureka isn't that creepy/paranoid/dark. Does it read like Law & Order? Now you're being too procedural and probably not weird enough.

Fan fiction can be a great exercise for writers who struggle with worldbuilding, character development, getting different characters' dialogue to sound different, and tone. And probably some other things.

On the other hand, it won't help with pacing, an area where most fan fiction is especially dreadful. The fanfic I've forced my way through generally wastes page after page describing events and scenes of no importance to the story. If you're on page 20 of your Eureka story and nothing strange has happened yet, you're doing it wrong. 

Next week, I'll tell you how I think fan fiction can help you improve your pacing. But for now, have fun with this link, in which Kate Lawrence pokes fun at some of the worst excesses of fan fiction's fringes. (You'll need to scroll down a bit; there are ads at top.) Articles like hers make me feel my irrational dislike of fan fiction might not be quite so irrational after all.

Fan Fiction, part 1

For a long time, I've held such a strong bias against fan fiction that I've felt it had to be irrational. Fan fiction has never done me any harm, so why does it make me cringe? Because so much of it is wall-to-wall bad writing? Sure, that's part of it, but there's more. So first, I'll explain my personal bias against fan fiction, then I'll show how I've come to appreciate fan fiction as a great tool for learning how to write better. (Seriously.)

FanFiction.net holds, thoroughly classifies, and cross-indexes over four million pieces of fan fiction, nearly none of which would qualify as well-written enough for On The Premises even if we accepted fan fiction, which we don't. (The exact number of stories is difficult to determine; see this article if you're interested.) And that site holds only the fan fiction that would be rated "R" or less if it were a movie. I can't figure out how to estimate the number of X-rated fan fiction pieces there are on the Web, but I'd be willing to be there's at least one X-rated piece for every piece that isn't.

I've started reading a few of these stories. Generally I get about three sentences into them before the editor in me cringes.

That's a reason to dislike individual pieces of fan fiction, but a terrible reason to dislike fan fiction itself. That's like saying all TV is garbage because you were repelled by one episode of one show. Fan fiction is a medium unto itself and to say "I don't like fan fiction" is like saying "I don't like novels" or "I don't like jazz." Surely there's some example of the medium I'd like?

Well, sure. Good writers trying hard to write well and choosing to use pre-existing characters in a pre-existing fictional world can produce stories I admire. I've seen a few. 

My problem with fan fiction is that virtually none of it is written by anybody who cares whether they're writing well. And that's okay if you're a young enough writer. Nobody expects a 12-year-old to produce literature. (Though I remember being a 12-year-old who thought, at the time, he was trying his hardest to produce literature, but that's another story). I do, however, expect people to want to improve, and to understate things, I get the sense that "learning how to write better" is not the point of most fan fiction. (cough wish fulfillment cough)

I used to be a serious jazz saxophonist, which means at one point I was a total beginner. I remember thinking even as a little kid in fifth-grade band that it was silly for adults to come listen to me and my bandmates play in our first ever live performance, because by any objective standard we were terrible. In other words, even back then, I was embarrassed at my lack of skill. Years later, I felt a lot better about playing for audiences when I knew I could produce music that adults didn't have to make apologies for. ("They're just kids! Clap, dear.")

(That raises a separate point--it's very hard for many adults to learn how to do anything complex well, like writing or playing a musical instrument or a speaking a foreign language. Adults are used to being pretty good at most things and it's embarrassing to realize that you may be 50 years old but when it comes to the guitar, you may as well be six, you're so bad at it. You have to put your pride aside and be willing to be very bad for a long time, or you'll never be very good. Many adults get embarrassed and quit, rather than struggle through the "I suck at this" phase. Which is a shame.)

Anyway, the point is, I've always demanded high quality output from myself and it grates on my nerves that so many fan fiction writers don't. They don't care, their (quite small) audience doesn't care... it bugs me. At least when I was a terrible writer, at some level, I knew I was terrible and I wanted to get better. Everybody starts out terrible, but no one has to stay that way, and I have issues with people who are proud to stay that way. 

But that's my problem, not theirs. Furthermore, I've come to believe that fan fiction can be a tremendous tool for teaching those serious few how to improve their writing skills, because in fan fiction, a lot of what's hardest about writing fiction is done for you. That'll be the subject of the next couple of posts. In the meantime, I welcome feedback from people who are true fans of even the worst-written fan fiction, because I enjoy hearing from smart people who disagree with me.

A Tough Editing Decision

The most recent issue of One Story magazine (issue #166) showcases the story World's End by Clare Beams. Below are two versions of a short excerpt from the story. One version is exactly as it is published. The other version, I've altered. I'm wondering if you can guess which one is the version actually published.

To set the scene, Robert Cale, a wealthy businessman, is talking to an architect he's hired and is meeting for the first time.

Version one:

"What I want to do is put up houses. Sell them. People said I should talk to somebody before I bring in the builders, so we put everything in the right place. You're younger than I thought."

Version two:

"What I want to do is put up houses. Sell them. People said I should talk to somebody before I bring in the builders, so we put everything in the right place." Then, with no audible pause, "You're younger than I thought."

I'm assuming Clare Beams (or her editor) recognized both versions were possible, and I'd guess Clare (or her editor) thought long and hard about which version was preferable. The second version tells you that there's "no...pause" between two sentences, but by adding the words that tell you there's no pause, the story pauses. I see a conflict between what the text says and what the story does.

If you don't believe me, then try this third version, which I definitely made up:

"...so we put everything in the right place." Then, he didn't pause at all, he just went right on talking with no hesitation, no delay, no amount of time spent being silent between words... nope, he just went on to his next sentence and you couldn't have blinked twice in the time between his previous and his next sentence: "You're younger than I thought."

You see the problem.

I also wonder about the word "audible" in "no audible pause." Why not just "Then, with no pause..."? A pause in dialogue can be only heard. It can't be smelled or seen or tasted. Imagine the author writing "Then, with no smellable pause..." Ridiculous. So I wonder if "no audible pause" in this case contains a redundancy.

By now you've probably guessed that version two, with the spelled-out lack of an audible pause, is the one the author or editor chose. I wish I knew why. The only argument for it I can think of is to prepare the reader for a change in the subject of Robert's dialogue. It's a sudden change. Version one above might surprise readers enough that they'd have to re-read that bit. So I can see the need for something to mark the transition. But why "Then, with no audible pause..."? Why not "Then he changed the subject." or "His eyes narrowed as he added," or something much better written than either of these suggestions? There has to be a better "beat" available than one that blatantly contradicts itself, especially since self-contradiction plays no role in the story, thematically or otherwise.

See what happens when you take editing seriously? I can't just read stories anymore, I have to play around with the parts that bug me.

Sometimes We Really Can Help Other Writers

Not so long ago, I critiqued a contest entry called "A Trip to America" that didn't make the final judging round of our contest. We liked the story and thought it had good potential. We also pointed out some specific areas where we didn't think it worked as well as it could have, and made suggestions about how to strengthen it.

The author just emailed us to say that he rewrote the story, at least partially based on our critique, and now it's published in a magazine called Litro. That makes somewhere around five to seven stories that our critiques have helped get published in other magazines.

I'm proud to show off "A Trip to America" by Tony Concannon. I hope you like it as much as we do. Congratulations, Tony!

 

Why Fiction Based on Real Life Often Fails

Since late 2009, we've sent out over 130 paid critiques of rejected stories, and only two have generated what I'd call unhappy responses. In both cases, the authors felt I'd either missed or misinterpreted critical information in the story. And in both cases, the stories were based on real life to such a degree that I'm not sure either contest entry qualifies as fiction. I don't think it's a coincidence that my most negative reactions came from critiques of stories based on real life.

For one thing, it must feel kind of insulting to be told we don't believe your story that really happened. There's no solution to that problem, though, because On The Premises is a fiction magazine that emphasizes creativity, so we're going to keep assuming that the stories we receive are at least 90% made up. (If you want to write about your real thoughts and feelings, then give your real thoughts and feelings to made up characters and put them in made up situations that would evoke your real thoughts and feelings.)

To show why stories based on real life can often fail, I'll transcribe a conversation between me and an imaginary author who wrote an imaginary story called "Sister From Hell." (We have never received any story with that title, or any story similar to the one I'm about to describe.)

ME: ...so to summarize, we didn't believe the extreme behavior change shown by the narrator's sister at the end of the story. Since the whole story hinges on that change in behavior, it's fair to say we didn't believe the whole story, and that's why "Sister From Hell" didn't make the final round of judging.

AUTHOR: Well of course you didn't believe it. She fools everybody.

ME: ?????

AUTHOR: The story's based on my real sister, who fools everybody into thinking she's the nicest person in the world, then stabs you in the back.

ME: Okay, but we're talking about the narrator's sister in "Sister From Hell."

AUTHOR: I'm the narrator! I'm writing about me and my sister.

ME: First, if we'd known the story was non-fiction, we'd have disqualified it from our contest. Second, we're not concerned with your real sister here, we're concerned with the character as described in "Sister From Hell."

AUTHOR: I just told you they're the same thing.

ME: Look, you have a great deal of personal history with your real sister. How did you learn she's lying when she's acting all nice to everybody?

AUTHOR: [Gives many long, detailed examples of sister's deceitful behavior, and the clues the author discovered that proved the sister was lying.]

ME: Great. The problem is, none of that information appears in the current draft of "Sister From Hell." The story we received spends ten pages showing the narrator's sister performing such selfless, kind acts that we were ready to nominate her for sainthood. Then on page eleven she burns down an orphanage and laughs at all the dying children. 

AUTHOR: Okay that never really happened, but it's the kind of thing she'd do if she could get away with it.

ME: My point is, there's nothing IN THE STORY to make us believe she's anything except what she appears to be: nice, sweet, etc. Not until she burns down an orphanage. To us readers, that act came out of nowhere. I think the real problem here is, you know your material so well, you forgot that we DON'T already know it. If we knew all along your sister was a psychopath, "Sister From Hell" would probably have worked better for us. Since we didn't know that, the last part made no sense to us.

AUTHOR: My gosh, you're right! [Author goes on to write best-selling novels, win a Pulitzer Prize, and publicly credit me as a mentor, thus helping me teach creative writing somewhere. Like I said, the author's imaginary.]

I think the biggest problem with the advice to "Write What You Know" is, it's too easy to forget your readers don't also know it. If you write what you make up, you'll ask important questions about your characters, plot, and story's world because you probably don't know the answers to those questions either. As you develop the answers to those questions, many of them will appear in your story, probably because that's how you're coming up with the answers. If you already have all the answers, you might leave out something your readers will need to know.

Sentences Within Sentences

With the publication of Issue #17, the OTP blog returns!

A writing technique I've seen few authors get away with is the placement of complete sentences within other complete sentences. Below is what I consider a particularly telling example of what can go wrong when you try to put too much information into one sentence.

The quote comes from Statistical and Machine-Learning Data Mining: Techniques for Better Predictive Modeling and Analysis of Big Data, Second Edition, by Bruce Ratner.

(Don't worry if you don't fully understand the technical content. Just examine it as one huge sentence. And it's a real shame this sentence had the same effect on my reading that a speed bump has on my driving, because for the most part, I thought Ratner's book was well done. In fact, his explanation of CHAID and related techniques is the best I've read to date. All that aside, I wish someone had revised this next bit before it went to print:)

CHAID is a popular technique, especially among wannabe regression modelers with no significant statistical training because (1) CHAID regression tree models are easy to build, understand, and implement; and (2) CHAID underpinnings are quite attractive: CHAID is an assumption-free method, meaning there are no formal theoretical assumptions to meet (traditional regression models are assumption full, which makes them susceptible to risky results). 

That was published as one sentence! I count five distinct sentences in all that text. Here's how I'd rewrite it. For clarity, I put a number in brackets in front of each separate sentence.

[1] CHAID is a popular technique, especially among wannabe regression modelers with no significant statistical training. [2] First, CHAID regression tree models are easy to build, understand, and implement. [3] Second, CHAID underpinnings are quite attractive. [4] It's an assumption-free method, meaning there are no formal theoretical assumptions to meet. [5] (Traditional regression models are full of assumptions, which makes them susceptible to risky results.)

I see such beyond-run-on-sentences quite frequently, especially in technical and academic writing aimed at audiences with a specific educational background. I know it's easy to get carried away with long sentences; I do it myself. When revising, examine those long sentences carefully and ask yourself if splitting them into shorter sentences would work better.

(As a real example, I considered removing the semi-colon in the "I know it's easy..." sentence. After some thought, I decided "I do it myself" is attached enough to the prior idea that the semi-colon works. However, the prior two sentences were originally one long one. Yes, that's right, I violated the very rule I'm talking about while drafting an example of not violating the rule. That's how ingrained long sentences are in me! Sad, isn't it?)