tonight’s twitter discourse:

this thread (all their takes after the initial tweet are bad too)

https://twitter.com/benedict_rs/status/1349954211358924800

i don’t know if they wanted to become a more popular writer or podcaster but they’re getting ratioed by the minute. 

i’ve been finding new authors to follow by digging in the quote-retweets

The best part of this this thread is watching the OP desperately trying to ignore all the award-winning authors showing up to patiently explain why she’s wrong.

The best part after that is knowing that she runs a podcast telling people how to be better writers and has just alienated at least half her potential listeners and guests.

The part that hurts my head most is someone with a (small) handful of short-story (and one novella?) writing credits to her name claiming the right to run a podcast telling other people how to write. 

I did not have time to wade into this fight again, at least in part because anyone coming to Twitter with this “hot take” in 2021 has already decided not to read or pay attention to any of the people who have already said very smart things on the topic.

In case anyone isn’t completely convinced: This is not how learning works, and definitely not how learning to write works holy shit.

There are a number of specific skills that fanfiction cannot teach you. Introducing and establishing character tends to be one of those; with fanfiction you’re typically working with already established characters with established characterization, whereas in original fiction you have to do the establishing yourself.

There’s also worldbuilding, and if you want to write fantasy, worldbuilding is important.

And so on and so on.

But.

You do not become a worse writer by writing imperfect stories. Any variation on “writing can make you a worse writer” is, without exaggeration, the worst possible writing advice, because 90% of getting better at writing is literally the exact opposite, which is writing insane amounts of whatever shit you can scoop out of your brain until you’re getting carpal tunnel in your dreams.

Of course, this is not even getting into the things that fanfiction does a better job at teaching you than whatever is considered to be Real Writing:

• Time management and deadlines. Most fanfic writers update their stories chapter-by-chapter in a serial manner, which means they’re not only beholden to other people (which is itself something writers need to learn to adjust to), they’re also learning to work more-or-less regularly.
• Relationship dynamics. Fanfic is typically very centered on relationships and the development of those relationships between characters and their interactions. I mention this because so much original fiction (obviously not all! but too much) is so ABYSMALLY bad at showing that two characters like or care about each other.
• On that note: TROPES. The fact that fanfic has popularized specific terminology for the tropes that occur within a story is fantastic, because the fact that fanfic writers can identify a “found family” relationship dynamic means that those writers are aware of what they’re trying to do, what is effective and appealing about it, and what elements go into it. This is, again, obviously not a broad universal statement, but many original fiction writers don’t appear to purposefully use tropes or understand what they’re trying to accomplish with them. Original fiction teaches you to fashion characters, worldbuilding, and events, and even though there are general rules to what produces a good story, they’re just that…general rules. Most of the technical knowledge of fiction writing that is like…taught in creative writing classes does not classify by function.
• what I’m getting at is, there’s knowing what an antihero is, and there’s understanding what about an angsty self-destructive sadboy pushes all the right buttons in you, whether those are catharsis, trauma processing, the fantasy of being deemed deserving of love despite hating oneself and pushing others away, the projection of future healing and ability to change, or just “what if I made all the bad, self-destructive choices that I’m glad I didn’t make?”
• still more of a continuation of the last point but fanfic is a LOT more in tune with how specific stories fulfill specific emotional needs in people, and this makes complete sense because fanfic more or less exists because the source material leaves those things unfulfilled. Sure, fanfiction is often more about scratching an emotional itch than developing a grand, complex story, but that’s not a bad thing for developing storytelling skills. I think it’s great that writers are starting out with the understanding that resolving the main plot doesn’t necessarily mean a full emotional resolution to the story, and that leaving the reader satisfied emotionally is important. Seriously. So many awful endings are awful specifically because they ignore or leave unresolved the changes characters would undergo, traumas they would carry, and healing they would have to do, ending their story without fully acknowledging how the story has changed the character. Not just like, in an obvious sense of Values and stuff, but in terms of what they need and want from life.

also, this reminded me of this xkcd:

…which in turn reminded me of James Joyce’s love letters (repressed memory), which itself became a reminder of something I think is a very good final point: There are outliers, but most fanfiction authors can write a far better sex scene than almost any old straight white guy writing Literary fiction. Literally just clearing the bar of having both characters appear to be actually enjoying it and calling a dick a dick instead of a “bulbous salutation” is acceptable. I know the horribleness of fanfic sex scenes is renowned but. Y’all. Have you EVER read any “literary” adult novel I swear to god I have read so many sex scenes that are just the WORST they’re so uncomfortable

…anyway.

Also, while fanfiction won’t teach you everything you need to know to write original fiction, that's… not actually a flaw in the form?

I mean, by that logic, poets should be shit writers. Because what the fuck are they learning? Weird structures, often way too much description, not enough plot, sometimes no characters at all— not to mention the fact that most of it is just too damn short to ever be a novel.

Or screenwriters! This time not enough description, and they’re definitely not learning how to frame dialogue properly, or communicate where the characters are without literally printing it in capital letters at the top of the page.

Short story writers don’t learn how to manage a longer narrative spanning multiple chapters; novelists may never figure out how to cram a satisfying story into just a few hundred words— it’s almost as if these are all completely different forms with completely different purposes.

Fanfiction is fanfiction, it’s not Baby’s First Practice Writing For Before You Write Your Real Novel.

The only reason it sometimes comes across as more amateurish than ‘proper writing’ is because it’s one of the only forms where the average reader is regularly exposed to work from new writers. Very few people will sit down to write their first story ever and immediately churn out something that ends up getting traditionally published, while most people will happily post their first fanfic online.

(It’s also a form of writing that is exclusively done For Fun— when fanfic is legally done for money it morphs into ‘adaptation’ or ‘tribute’ and tends to traitorously ally itself with the likes of Proper Fiction— which in some cases probably does lead to lower standards. Personally, I don’t edit my fics nearly as much as I edit my original stuff. They would almost certainly be better if they did, but this is For Fun, and editing is Not Fun for me.)

This doesn’t mean that those first time writers (or longtime slackers, like me) will become worse writers because of it. Not only will a lot of the skills they learn from fanfic transfer over to original but, whatever happens, writing a lot of fanfiction will definitely make you better at fanfiction. And that’s not an unworthy goal.

Also, fanfiction CAN teach you worldbuilding and character building, depending on what kind of fanfiction you write.

If you write extensive AUs, you’re probably learning how to worldbuild, because you absolutely have to. You’re creating a new universe for the characters to play in, and you’re often altering the characters somewhat so they fit this new world you’ve made. If you write a lot of OC fic, you have to learn how to introduce characters and integrate them into the world. So saying fanfiction can’t teach you these things is disingenuous and ignores a whole lot of the fanfic that’s out there doing…..exactly that.

Which, again, doesn’t mean that fanfiction needs to be doing any of these things to be valid, but it can and does, because not all fic is canon compliant relationship studies focused only on canon characters!

This ^^^^

Also you probably don’t have to wonder completely into another universe to need to do or practice worldbuilding. Sometimes you may want to take a route that is different from canon and the information you need just isn’t there or you have trouble finding it. Eg. If canon took a primarily action packed route but you want to try talking and politics. You may have very little, if any, information to start building on or maybe the knowledge gets you part way but you have to figure it out yourself past a certain point.

Part of worldbuilding could also be deciding what to include or not include, getting inspiration from all over the place, and figuring out how all of these things work together and impact each other. Which is something fan creators do all the time. Sometimes because they go ‘I don’t like these bits but I like those bits of canon’ or ‘What happens if I just give things a little twist here, what ripple effects does that have?’ or ‘Ooh that looks cool I’m incorporating that!’ or ‘canon is doing my head in with all these contradictions, I need to pick one or create some sort of mix mash or something and then stick with it’

So in a way even if you aren’t building an entire world, you are still playing around with world building skills.

yes yes yes, all of this too!! fic that focuses on underexplored parts of canon or that incorporates bits and pieces from different parts of a canon or what have you is also worldbuilding!!! you’re creating something new, and even if there’s a skeleton there you’re still doing a LOT of work adding to it!! thank you @moon6shadow-bookmark-writing!!

You know what’s really quite funny about this? People pulled the receipts and turns out that said twitter person’s ‘original’ writing includes a Modern Retelling of a historic event with Urban Legendish/Fae aspects. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, technically makes it fanfiction of a specific story.