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sarasa_catIn either late 2008 or sometime in early 2009 I wrote the first few chapters of a fanfic story as a writing exercise where I purposefully mimicked the style of a specific author/poet. Classic writing exercise. Did it. Posted it. Done.
At that time, I wasn't sure what I thought of the final stylistic flow of the piece. Readers liked it and they particularly liked the way the writing handled imagery, but something felt a little off for me except I couldn't put my finger on what was off.
... time passes ...
... and, by that, I mean a lot of time passes ...
It's late 2015 and a good 1.25 to 1.5 million words of fiction barf separates where I was then and where I am now.
It's late 2015 I am feeling the burning need I felt in early 2015 to go through my all old fan fic and revisit it for the sake of personal discovery.
So I find this old piece, make a copy of it, and start rewriting it in one of my two "typical" styles regarding how I currently write.
Immediately the prose clicks and these are the realizations I had:
1. Although the rewritten paragraphs give the same information and have almost the same texture, the sound feels very different.
2. Had I not done this exercise in late 2008, I might have never thought of creating the level and style of imagery I created.
3. Although it may be because I picked a good piece of writing to work from, I am finding a LOT of value in revisiting old stuff (really old stuff), and rewriting / repackaging it.
...
Assuming I get around to posting this reworked story (and, to be honest, as I have said year in and year out, I write fanfic primarily for myself, which means I just don't get fussed over getting fanfic finished and done and posted for others to consume because that requires time that is sometimes better spent on other things, unless I'm in a community of writers who are interested in fanfic as writerly exercises) I am still in a quandary of where to post.
I think I lost interest in posting fanfic when fandom drifted over to AO3.
Let me be honest: I have never liked AO3. I deleted my AO3 account and all the stories in it in 2010, only to reactivate it again in 2012 when fandom made clear that this is where you need to post if you want to contribute to various fandom events (like Big Bangs, etc.).
My reasons for not liking AO3 are numerous. The interface, the tags, the lack of organization/neighborhoods/communities, but the biggest problem I have with it is that it is too difficult to organize a work on AO3 that is *not* a chapter-based fiction posted in linear order.
On LJ (and DW), it was possible to create alternate ways of allowing a reader to experience your fiction while also allowing the writer to publish in a non-linear fashion.
I'm not interested in posting fanfic in a reader-friendly order because I just don't have the time for it. I'm not interested in creating fanfic as a consumable product. I create fanfic for my own reasons but when I post it, I'm sharing it with others and I would like them to have the best possible experience navigating it. That just isn't possible on a site like AO3.
For this reason, I'm thinking I probably keep all of my fanfic (from now on) on a website I control and/or pay for. Of course, that means I am making a trade off in that my fanfic will be harder to find because most people assume that AO3 is the only place for fanfiction. ;)
I'm considering what this trade off means in the long run...
At that time, I wasn't sure what I thought of the final stylistic flow of the piece. Readers liked it and they particularly liked the way the writing handled imagery, but something felt a little off for me except I couldn't put my finger on what was off.
... time passes ...
... and, by that, I mean a lot of time passes ...
It's late 2015 and a good 1.25 to 1.5 million words of fiction barf separates where I was then and where I am now.
It's late 2015 I am feeling the burning need I felt in early 2015 to go through my all old fan fic and revisit it for the sake of personal discovery.
So I find this old piece, make a copy of it, and start rewriting it in one of my two "typical" styles regarding how I currently write.
Immediately the prose clicks and these are the realizations I had:
1. Although the rewritten paragraphs give the same information and have almost the same texture, the sound feels very different.
2. Had I not done this exercise in late 2008, I might have never thought of creating the level and style of imagery I created.
3. Although it may be because I picked a good piece of writing to work from, I am finding a LOT of value in revisiting old stuff (really old stuff), and rewriting / repackaging it.
...
Assuming I get around to posting this reworked story (and, to be honest, as I have said year in and year out, I write fanfic primarily for myself, which means I just don't get fussed over getting fanfic finished and done and posted for others to consume because that requires time that is sometimes better spent on other things, unless I'm in a community of writers who are interested in fanfic as writerly exercises) I am still in a quandary of where to post.
I think I lost interest in posting fanfic when fandom drifted over to AO3.
Let me be honest: I have never liked AO3. I deleted my AO3 account and all the stories in it in 2010, only to reactivate it again in 2012 when fandom made clear that this is where you need to post if you want to contribute to various fandom events (like Big Bangs, etc.).
My reasons for not liking AO3 are numerous. The interface, the tags, the lack of organization/neighborhoods/communities, but the biggest problem I have with it is that it is too difficult to organize a work on AO3 that is *not* a chapter-based fiction posted in linear order.
On LJ (and DW), it was possible to create alternate ways of allowing a reader to experience your fiction while also allowing the writer to publish in a non-linear fashion.
I'm not interested in posting fanfic in a reader-friendly order because I just don't have the time for it. I'm not interested in creating fanfic as a consumable product. I create fanfic for my own reasons but when I post it, I'm sharing it with others and I would like them to have the best possible experience navigating it. That just isn't possible on a site like AO3.
For this reason, I'm thinking I probably keep all of my fanfic (from now on) on a website I control and/or pay for. Of course, that means I am making a trade off in that my fanfic will be harder to find because most people assume that AO3 is the only place for fanfiction. ;)
I'm considering what this trade off means in the long run...
