~~ world peace anyone?
Feb. 18th, 2004 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI want to write the way I want to live: mindfully, honestly, fearlessly-- with full intent. I want to write what I believe. I want to -live- what I believe. What else is there to want out of life?
If I write humor or sex or angst, I want it to be because that is how life is, to me. If I wrote angst without humor, I'd be lying. If I wrote love without sex, I'd be lying. If I wrote darkness without light or vice versa, I'd be committing some sort of sin I can't even articulate. That is the ultimate lie. So if I write a character as in love or in lust or in anything with another character, I want it to be because that is how I see them-- that is what they tell me they are. The honesty I'm talking about is the only real possible honesty-- the 'to thine own self be true' kind. I want my characters to be true to themselves the way I want to be myself, even if I constantly fail, even though I constantly make a fool of myself. Even when I think life is one big joke-- and the joke's on me-- I want to never stop trying.
The reason I think about pairings so much is because I believe that who we love (and hate, and need) defines us, shapes us on a basic level. If a person cannot be expected to always gravitate to the same people, no matter how specific events in their lives may theoretically change (with every story), then either they are living a lie or they're not the same person they had been to start with. That is to say, either their life is a lie or -they're- a lie. Or both.
This is interesting 'cause I insist on writing about two characters who will never gravitate to each other in their "real" story. I would not write it if I didn't believe, as far as my own personal truths go, that any story where they (Harry & Draco) aren't at least -potentially- on the road to love is a lie. Therefore, yes, canon will always be untrue to me on some level, as far as personal reality goes.
It's nothing to do with "fate" or destiny and everything to do with identity. I think of characters as sets of ideas, as -meaning- something unique and pretty static even as elastic as identity is throughout one's life. Every character I feel I have an understanding of -means- something to me. Their lives have a self-defining purpose, just as all of us have a purpose we create as we live, also. And as we create -it-, it creates -us-. Our own stories, which we tell to ourselves, which we -live-. The characters may not know that purpose-- and as a writer, I may not, either-- but the process of writing parallels the process of living in that way. As the writer, I want to discover the truth about the being I chronicle. And of course, anyone's purpose in life is intimately tied with who they love and therefore share it with.
Someone said once that writing is the process of discovering what you believe, and I think that's very true for me. In this way, I think that separating writing fanfiction and writing "original fiction" is counterproductive. It creates a barrier, this assumption. It implies that this particular writing is "different", less important, has lower standards of this need for discovery, perhaps.
Writing is writing because the process always remains the same. So if there's a pre-existing source, so what? There's always -some- pre-existing source, some inspiration-- whether it be real life or some piece of history or something someone told you or a gorgeous view. I realize some people have some issues with the idea that what they're doing is "for real"-- anxiety issues-- and I understand that. I have anxiety all the time. I -still- don't finish my original fic most of the time, and I can't seem to finish more than half my fanfic, either. It's all tied up with fear.
We say "it's only fanfic" because we're afraid. We're afraid of ourselves and of our true faces, we're afraid we have no talent and we're afraid what actually possessing said talent would mean, if we -did-. People either shout themselves hoarse begging for feedback or they hide their works away, hoarding it all like their lives depend on not being heard. If we're still like mice, maybe life will pass us by and we can get on with pretending.
This has nothing to do with "reality" and yet everything to do with it. In "reality", no one outside the community would acknowledge one's writing if it's fanfic. So? The point isn't what happens -after-, it's what happens -during- that's important. And I don't mean whether one writes for oneself or for others-- that's a different issue. What I mean is... -everyone- writes for themselves and -everyone- writes for others, to some extent. It's all about owning what you say, believing what you say, not being ashamed of what you say. There is such a thing as "good quality" vs. "bad quality", in writing just as in nearly everything else, but there's nothing that says "quality" is the -point- of the -process- of writing itself. The process has no quality except as far as it expresses the truth of what the writer willed.
Thus, any shame or downgrading of one's writing seems akin to the downgrading of one's soul. And this is only in respect to one's own relationship to it, like I said. Because other people will always judge-- you can't get away from it. They will have their own relationship with your work, and you as the writer will have nothing to do with it. You-as-author will be but a vague idea in the readers' minds. You will have nothing to do with -their- process, as readers, just as you-as-reader have always had your own relationship with others' writing. But the central writer's self-judgement is really simple-- is this the truth? And if it's the truth as you see it, then it's pure writer's gold. It's the real thing, baby.
I feel I should say that this is my ideal-- I definitely don't actually always write that way -or- live that way, and I suffer for it. I really do. I beat my head against the wall, hating the way I trap myself within paradigms I don't believe in. It hurts, which is why I feel there should be another way, actually.
My point was basically A) fanfiction is the same as any fiction because the process stays constant; B) writing characters without a semi-constant guiding principle in mind doesn't make sense, to me, as being good writing. I don't think I've actually defended those points very well, but then, I don't actually think point B can be defended. It's just a personal truth, really, nothing I can get away with projecting onto others. Just because I'm so truth-conscious and I see truth as being tied with this-or-that, doesn't really imply anything about other writers' beliefs, naturally. I'm just a freak.
Point B is one I keep coming back to partly whenever I see someone who seems to write many different pairings for the same character, but mostly when I see someone who goes against an established pattern in their own writing and writes the character as totally different. Not just as a one-shot experiment, but as a serious work where they establish a whole new set of "truths" for that character. It just messes with my mind, even though I -know- other people don't work the same way I do, no need to tell me that. *sigh*
I actually understand why people don't have consistent pairings or OTPs or whatever, in their own writing (or reading, though it'd be interesting to see if there's separation there). Not everyone sees love the same way-- to make a huge understatement. Hell, some people don't even recognize other people's idea of love as "love". It's such a funny thing, too, 'cause people do agree so much more about all the other emotions-- it's just love that gets mangled every which way. So really, it only bothers me when I see the writer as having a sort of OTP they don't acknowledge-- and I don't know how I can even tell that, but it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Know what you believe, and then own it. That's all I want to see.
Yeah, it'd be nice if there was world peace, too, I know, I know. *grumbles*
~~
Oh, and btw. I really dunno how much of an HP-centric journal this is anymore. Or -what- the hell I'm doing, frankly. So if you're here looking for more H/D rants or whatever... er... well.... What can I say. I'll always be "meta", but my actual primary "fandom" has always probably been Story itself.
If I write humor or sex or angst, I want it to be because that is how life is, to me. If I wrote angst without humor, I'd be lying. If I wrote love without sex, I'd be lying. If I wrote darkness without light or vice versa, I'd be committing some sort of sin I can't even articulate. That is the ultimate lie. So if I write a character as in love or in lust or in anything with another character, I want it to be because that is how I see them-- that is what they tell me they are. The honesty I'm talking about is the only real possible honesty-- the 'to thine own self be true' kind. I want my characters to be true to themselves the way I want to be myself, even if I constantly fail, even though I constantly make a fool of myself. Even when I think life is one big joke-- and the joke's on me-- I want to never stop trying.
The reason I think about pairings so much is because I believe that who we love (and hate, and need) defines us, shapes us on a basic level. If a person cannot be expected to always gravitate to the same people, no matter how specific events in their lives may theoretically change (with every story), then either they are living a lie or they're not the same person they had been to start with. That is to say, either their life is a lie or -they're- a lie. Or both.
This is interesting 'cause I insist on writing about two characters who will never gravitate to each other in their "real" story. I would not write it if I didn't believe, as far as my own personal truths go, that any story where they (Harry & Draco) aren't at least -potentially- on the road to love is a lie. Therefore, yes, canon will always be untrue to me on some level, as far as personal reality goes.
It's nothing to do with "fate" or destiny and everything to do with identity. I think of characters as sets of ideas, as -meaning- something unique and pretty static even as elastic as identity is throughout one's life. Every character I feel I have an understanding of -means- something to me. Their lives have a self-defining purpose, just as all of us have a purpose we create as we live, also. And as we create -it-, it creates -us-. Our own stories, which we tell to ourselves, which we -live-. The characters may not know that purpose-- and as a writer, I may not, either-- but the process of writing parallels the process of living in that way. As the writer, I want to discover the truth about the being I chronicle. And of course, anyone's purpose in life is intimately tied with who they love and therefore share it with.
Someone said once that writing is the process of discovering what you believe, and I think that's very true for me. In this way, I think that separating writing fanfiction and writing "original fiction" is counterproductive. It creates a barrier, this assumption. It implies that this particular writing is "different", less important, has lower standards of this need for discovery, perhaps.
Writing is writing because the process always remains the same. So if there's a pre-existing source, so what? There's always -some- pre-existing source, some inspiration-- whether it be real life or some piece of history or something someone told you or a gorgeous view. I realize some people have some issues with the idea that what they're doing is "for real"-- anxiety issues-- and I understand that. I have anxiety all the time. I -still- don't finish my original fic most of the time, and I can't seem to finish more than half my fanfic, either. It's all tied up with fear.
We say "it's only fanfic" because we're afraid. We're afraid of ourselves and of our true faces, we're afraid we have no talent and we're afraid what actually possessing said talent would mean, if we -did-. People either shout themselves hoarse begging for feedback or they hide their works away, hoarding it all like their lives depend on not being heard. If we're still like mice, maybe life will pass us by and we can get on with pretending.
This has nothing to do with "reality" and yet everything to do with it. In "reality", no one outside the community would acknowledge one's writing if it's fanfic. So? The point isn't what happens -after-, it's what happens -during- that's important. And I don't mean whether one writes for oneself or for others-- that's a different issue. What I mean is... -everyone- writes for themselves and -everyone- writes for others, to some extent. It's all about owning what you say, believing what you say, not being ashamed of what you say. There is such a thing as "good quality" vs. "bad quality", in writing just as in nearly everything else, but there's nothing that says "quality" is the -point- of the -process- of writing itself. The process has no quality except as far as it expresses the truth of what the writer willed.
Thus, any shame or downgrading of one's writing seems akin to the downgrading of one's soul. And this is only in respect to one's own relationship to it, like I said. Because other people will always judge-- you can't get away from it. They will have their own relationship with your work, and you as the writer will have nothing to do with it. You-as-author will be but a vague idea in the readers' minds. You will have nothing to do with -their- process, as readers, just as you-as-reader have always had your own relationship with others' writing. But the central writer's self-judgement is really simple-- is this the truth? And if it's the truth as you see it, then it's pure writer's gold. It's the real thing, baby.
I feel I should say that this is my ideal-- I definitely don't actually always write that way -or- live that way, and I suffer for it. I really do. I beat my head against the wall, hating the way I trap myself within paradigms I don't believe in. It hurts, which is why I feel there should be another way, actually.
My point was basically A) fanfiction is the same as any fiction because the process stays constant; B) writing characters without a semi-constant guiding principle in mind doesn't make sense, to me, as being good writing. I don't think I've actually defended those points very well, but then, I don't actually think point B can be defended. It's just a personal truth, really, nothing I can get away with projecting onto others. Just because I'm so truth-conscious and I see truth as being tied with this-or-that, doesn't really imply anything about other writers' beliefs, naturally. I'm just a freak.
Point B is one I keep coming back to partly whenever I see someone who seems to write many different pairings for the same character, but mostly when I see someone who goes against an established pattern in their own writing and writes the character as totally different. Not just as a one-shot experiment, but as a serious work where they establish a whole new set of "truths" for that character. It just messes with my mind, even though I -know- other people don't work the same way I do, no need to tell me that. *sigh*
I actually understand why people don't have consistent pairings or OTPs or whatever, in their own writing (or reading, though it'd be interesting to see if there's separation there). Not everyone sees love the same way-- to make a huge understatement. Hell, some people don't even recognize other people's idea of love as "love". It's such a funny thing, too, 'cause people do agree so much more about all the other emotions-- it's just love that gets mangled every which way. So really, it only bothers me when I see the writer as having a sort of OTP they don't acknowledge-- and I don't know how I can even tell that, but it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Know what you believe, and then own it. That's all I want to see.
Yeah, it'd be nice if there was world peace, too, I know, I know. *grumbles*
~~
Oh, and btw. I really dunno how much of an HP-centric journal this is anymore. Or -what- the hell I'm doing, frankly. So if you're here looking for more H/D rants or whatever... er... well.... What can I say. I'll always be "meta", but my actual primary "fandom" has always probably been Story itself.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 10:13 pm (UTC)A part of me thinks I should lay off the archetype addiction, 'cause I'm sure there's life Out There, without them, y'know, and reasons for writing that have nothing at all to do with universal truths or whatever, but thinking that just hurts my head. ^^;
Your saying that about it being characters... hm. I feel like... both of us are pretty tied up with character-centric fannishness, right. But may some people are... like, maybe some people -use- them instead of seeing where the characters want to go. Like... they have ideas to start with, tnd they press them onto characters, like temporary tattoos. So there you have some very OOC but well-written fics, y'know? And pairings like Fleur/Gabrielle or Snape/Filch (both of which I've seen). It's like people have a certain scenario they're pursuing, or a certain world-view they're espousing, and they sort of fit the characters & pairing & scenario to that model.
Writing that way is very alien to me, btw. I've never really -used- any characters y'know? I've always been more of a discoverer, always thought that was the way to write -the truth-. Believed that the truth -existed-, even in fiction. Especially in fiction, maybe.
And what you described about playing around with characters in different situations seems like a pretty "intellectual" reason. I mean, compared to "they would look so hot if they did it". Or, "I just want to use the line, 'Oh Professor Snape, FUCK ME". ahahah. I think people use their intellect in different ways. Which is to say... man. People confuse me ^^;
A part of me feels like I should be ashamed for even believing in "True Love"-- ie, like one can only "really" love one person. Whereas clearly in "real life" that's not true-- one loves a number of people in different ways. So, trying to be reasonable, all I'd say was that I want to always see the -possibility- of this love, eheheh~:)
Which is why every non-H/D fic I've written is actually still secretly H/D in my mind :D :D!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 10:33 pm (UTC)-_- Oh man, that is so unfair. Did you *read* the Snape/Filch? That was about as IC a fic as I could imagine. It may have pushed together two characters I never would have imagined as a pairing, but it did so a lot more convincingly than most H/D or H/S I read.
I mean, the critique you are leveling at these writers is precisely what another person could level at you. You have all these ideas about truth and beauty and love and whatnot, and you are imposing them on the characters, regardless of how much they fit the material as given in canon. And that's cool, but ... for you to dismiss certain kinds of fics as just intellectual masturbation, essentially, and elevate others as passionate quests for truth is really unfair to people whose emotional investment in fanfic is just as genuine -- albeit differently conceived and expressed -- as your own.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 11:48 pm (UTC)Was it the charge of OOCness? That was vaguely unrelated, actually, 'cause there -are- people who write OOC-but-well-written stuff, and it actually exists across the board with all pairings, so maybe there I was being sloppy. You tend to take my sloppiness for some sort of intentional attack often enough, and I guess... almost always, I wasn't trying to do that. I would never "level" a critique unless something -really- reallyreallyreally personally offended me. This doesn't happen all that often, even though I'm easily irritated. Heh.
Anyway, yeah, you're right. Any pairing/style/whatever can be IC or OOC. I was mixing up different ideas, I think. The reason I said that was because I was thinking... okay, -what if- some people -aren't- character-centric (trying to imagine something different, playing devil's advocate, trying to be -fair-, actually). So if they aren't obsessed with character-as-central-pillar, it stands to reason they'd write things OOC moreso than someone who has a very firm idea of some characterization. It's just weird.
It's also funny that you say that... about my ideals, I mean. As I said... most times I -don't- write with any particular intent. That's what I said I -want- to do, not what I -do-. At heart, I'm a very instinctual, non-planning writer, remember? Hee. I never plan things out, never have a "point", never -try- to have a plot or a direction. I know, hard to believe, but it's true! It bothers me, though. I -want- to have a point. I -want- to talk about truth & beauty, though for all -I- know, I'm usually talking about pancakes, y'know?
I think of -my- fics as intellectual masturbation, -easily-. Just yesterday I compared my writing process to peeing, man, in my other journal. I don't propose these "truths" as being something i'd need to impose. I hate imposing things. That's why I was stressing the word "discover". Or I meant to stress it even if I didn't. I'm all about the -discovery- of truth, not the imposition of it, 'cause that defeats the purpose of truth, if you think you already know what it is, to me.
My ideals don't really interact with my writing. It hurts because I feel split in two, kinda. One part of me thinks, and the other writes. It's... uncomfrtable at best. I want to unite those halves, want to -mean- what I say, what to -own- what I say. I'm reeeeeeally a long ways off. The idea of writing my H/D epic where I try to dig into my feelings on them in any depth -terrifies- me and I haven't touched it in ages. I seem to be unable to write when I'm consciously trying to say something, forget imposing things. Ahaha. Um. *coughs* The idea of imposing things was actually what was bothering me :>
no subject
Date: 2004-02-19 10:32 am (UTC)Argh ... the thing I was trying to say is that people can be just as committed to character as you are, it's just that they write character differently and they can imagine someone like Snape, for example, in more than one pairing.
And as I've often noted, it's the people who have the firmest idea of characterization who often write the character most OOC in terms of canon. I mean, look at DT or IP or most of the huge fics in fandom. They're incredibly OOC, because the author let her vision of the characters completely overwhelm the material canon gave her. And that's fine, really, because obviously it works for her and a lot of other people, but it's not fair to say that people who are in love with the characteres write them more IC as those who don't. I mean, Telanu writes an incredibly IC Draco, and she hates his guts.
The problem here for me is that because you fail to grasp something on an emotional level, you tend to acknowledge that this emotional level exists, and you dismiss what folks are doing as just intellectual playing-around or not taking characterization seriously or whatever. But the point is that they are just as passionate as you are. Just differently.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-19 03:53 pm (UTC)I was never connecting passion with whether someone takes characterization seriously or not. That is just something that wouldn't occur to me. I mean... my point was pretty far from all this stuff about ICness & OOCness. At heart, that doesn't even -matter- to me. I don't care one way or the other, man, even if some versions of some characters irritate me. My original point that had any relationship to this was that I want to see a writer who is honest with themselves about their characterization or whatever else.
How can I tell if they are? Is it even an issue for anyone but me? Er.... I dunno. It's not about being in love with the characters. I feel like I've confused both you & me now. To me, what's important is emotional truth, universal this-is-how-people-are truth, rather than canon truth. Because remember, my point about how fanfiction is the same as any other fiction? That's partly what I meant. In the end, what matters is that one writes what's real, in terms of one's process as a writer. If it's not good fanfiction, then fine, but who cares? It being good fiction is all that matters to me, and I don't mean that in a "good quality" vs "bad quality" way.
I feel like I'm dancing around my point and the more I talk/dance the further I leave it behind. I would never judge someone's level of passion, really. I mean, what would be the point? This whole judging thing confuses me, 'cause I really promise you-- I promise you-- I don't mean to do it. I don't think I'm doing it when you tell me I am, even if I am, so it's just confusing. I just don't explain myself very well.
But I see your point about people who know what they believe being more liable to write more OOC characterizations vs. people who play around. That is just far from where I was originally going, so it requires a mental shift, maybe. When I talked about belief... I wasn't talking about specific things about one's characterization, necessarily. It's hard to articulate because these ideas are so large and amorphous and sloppy in my head. Playing around is good-- keeps one's mind limber. I do it all the time, anyway. It's not really about being in love or not in love with the characters... 'cause that's not related to the truth as one sees it, it just clouds the truth often enough.
Hell, I don't know what I'm saying, do I. -.-
Anyway, the reason I wrote what I did (not in response to SM, which was -in response- to what she said about people's being character-centric and thus writing fanfiction in the first place)-- was because I wanted to have more conscious intent in my writing. I want to figure out what I want to say & then say it, at least moreso than I do now, which is pretty much zero percent of the time. I actually -respect- people who have Ideas, who are not just driven by passion, like I am. I want to be -like them-. That was my point. Well, more that I want to merge my ideas & my passion, make my passion conscious.
Eh. In the end, it's all just a leeetle too new-agey & sloppy, isn't it. -.-