I just got cool pictures from the ballet Wizard of Oz but I already made a post about that so I'm gonna cheer this post up with pictures from it, (mostly me as Glinda and the Wizard) even though they've got nothing to do with the topic.
All photos by Piia Kinnunen (@piijjakinnunen)
I used to have kind of a love-hate relationship with fanfiction and that's something I've been thinking about recently. For a long time I had this arbitrary rule for myself that I don't read or write it. Mostly because when I tried to read it, it just usually disappointed me, and the one time that I made a long fan comic in high school, it consumed me and held me back from writing my original stuff. When I grew out of that comic I decided I wouldn't make fanfiction again, because it wasn't as productive as making my original stuff.
But the thing is I loved making that comic. I was more into it than any of my original stories at the time. It was simply the one that interested me the most during that year. I think there was no way that I wouldn't have drawn it, I was that obsessed with the anime/visual novel: Fate/Stay Night, and so dissatisfied with the ending that there was no other way for me to get over it.
I was able to stick to my rule after that because I just wasn't as obsessed with any series after that in many years. Momentarily, sure, but if a series has a completely satisfying ending I'll usually just have a hangover about it for a week or a month or so during which I may fantasize about how the characters' lives go on, but it's not going to last long enough to be so strong that I'll HAVE to write about it. With Fate it turned to years and I thought about how I saw the story continuing every single day. That didn't happen to me for years after I got over Fate.
Until about three years ago when I almost accidentally watched an anime. Kuroko no Basket.
Oh dear. That was a rabbit hole.
Long story short, I've written close to 300 000 words of fan fiction about that series now. And for the first few months I felt so guilty about it. Like I was doing something despicable.
When you think about it objectively, it can't be. Especially when it comes to anime and manga, since in Japan they actually sell fan works, like, technically you could be a professional doujinshi artist. So, the moral side of it is definitely safe. Even if the original creator was bothered by some material that others make of his characters, considering the content people make of it and get actual money from, I don't see how my fic could be offensive in any way.
So, obviously that's not where my guilt was coming from. I didn't think it was bad to write fan fiction in general. For some reason I just didn't think it was okay for me.
Well, that's kind of hypocritical isn't it? And I guess it was that thought what made me realize what this was about.
I just didn't identify as a "fanfiction writer".
But the truth is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you write if you have a passion for it. That's all that matters. And I've always been saying this, so it's kind of funny to find this hypocritical side of me.
I mean, it's not different. The way I feel about writing someone else's characters, the obsession I have for the story, the drive to put it into words is exactly the same as it is when I write my own stuff. So, just because, at one moment the story that I care about the most happens to have come from someone else's story, shouldn't make it less valuable. If I feel that strongly about it, I should just write it.
Now, I know that this may sound far-fetched, but thinking like this brought to my mind how often I had ranted about heteronormative people seeing love between people of the same sex as something "other". Using words like "gay love". Oh, how I ranted about love being just love! About how there's no such thing as "gay love". About how, no matter what sex or gender the people in love are or who they're in love with, it's going to feel exactly the same, (as far as love feels the same to people to begin with). It's not "other" and it's not less valuable. For some reason people just feel a need to alienate themselves from expressions of love they're not familiar with. They're afraid to empathize with it because they still see there's something wrong with it, even if they technically aren't against it.
Well.
Isn't that exactly how I felt about fanfiction!
I guess realizing that I was doing exactly what I criticized other people about in another context, was exactly what I needed. It released me from all guilt and made me embrace what I was doing more freely than I had before.
And guess what? I've still written two original novels during the year I've written this super long fanfiction piece. Because working on what you love doesn't drain your creative energy. It can make you more creative. Giving myself the freedom to do what I want, when I want, and not having the obligation to always write just my original stuff makes me more productive than I would be if I forced myself to write something else when I'm really into another thing. While it's true that you can't run solely on inspiration, and sometimes work is just work, and as a professional there's going to be deadlines too, still, in general, being able to do what inspires you the most at the moment, is way more beneficial for your creative energy than forcing yourself to work on the second or third best project at the time.
So what, if what I want to write the most at one moment happens to be someone else's characters?
Writing a story is, in a way, being in love. At least, I believe that the best stories come from being in love with the story and the characters. And our stories always come from somewhere anyway. Just because something is "original" as in, it can't be obviously traced back to one source, doesn't necessarily make it that original in the end. It's always coming from somewhere. Original fiction is just a more complicated synthesis of different things we've absorbed. With fan fiction the primary source of inspiration is more clear cut. However, that doesn't necessarily make it unoriginal, either. What you do with the characters, might still be something the original creator would've never thought of, and it can still be exactly what someone else needed to read. It can still be profound, nuanced, and make for great fiction. An "original" story could be a total rip off and a fan fiction story could be the most touching, well written and authentic piece you've read in a while. Original doesn't always mean better.
I've also realized that I have writing skills that come out in fanfiction differently than they do in my own writing. I've always gotten good feedback on my characters, how they're easy to grasp and like. That I'm good at writing different personalities and viewpoints. In fanfiction, this means that I'm good at maintaining everyone in character. I have a good grasp on other people's characters like I have on my own, and it makes my fanfiction easy to read and relate to, since the characters feel like they feel in the original work. (This is what people have told me, and I believe it, because it makes sense.)
However, I also have a strong drive to interpret things, not just replicate them, so my versions of other people's characters are always going to have some additional depth. In fact, I've come to think that characters that inspire me to write fanfiction fall on a specific point in a spectrum regarding character depth: They have a lot of potential depth that doesn't quite show in the original work. And that's what inspires me to bring it out of them.
So far it seems that I'm definitely not the only one who gets something out of my interpretations, so that's been a really cool experience!
I've come to realize that the same things that I always think, should apply to fanfiction. If I love it, if I have a drive for it, if I feel like I have something to give or contribute in it, I should just do it.
That kind of thinking is what has lead me to the stage, doing these roles in these pictures too, so why the heck should fanfiction be any different?
Sure, a new obsession is time consuming. But if it's meant to be, it's just meant to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment