reading and writing fanfic

[tielan]

Is there anyone on the f-list who both reads a lot of fanfic and writes a lot of fanfic?

I tend to find that reading fanfic can throw me out of writing it - ideas that conflict with my own, new plotbunnies popping up all over the meadow, or a character depiction throwing me out of the writing mood. There are times when even the act of reading the f-list can be bad for my muse. Which is why I'm not very comment-y.

I find that people tend to be either writers or readers and was wondering if there are people who straddle both. And how do they find it?

Comments

[shusu.livejournal.com]

*drops by*

Sure. They tend to go hand in hand for me. Last week I spammed with two completed trilogies and churned out the databurst. But then, I can leave read-fic behind pretty easily. That's one reason why I even do the databurst -- I'd forget everything I read in the previous week, and I usually only take an hour or two a day reading.

It's preference, really. I find I have your difficulty when I'm reading or watching canon. Fanfic? Not so much.

[tielan]

Canon tends to inspire me - in this show, it's more often because the things that the characters do are not things I would have had them do, and so I head off into the wonderful world of fanfic to try to deal with what is unsatisfactory in canon.

(Which is possibly why BSG doesn't hit my fanfic buttons half as hard as Atlantis does. It's a lot more difficult for me to conceive the BSG characters doing anything other than what they do in the show.)

There's a meta in there about the difference between treating characters as pawns-in-the-story and treating them as people-in-a-universe. But not right now. :)

[shusu.livejournal.com]

*g* I love everything SGA characters do. I like it more when they do it exactly wrong, partly because I'm sensitive to character archetypes and I've just seen it so. many. times. that SGA is a breath of fresh air -- a show dependent on the vitality of its acting for once and not the script.

Haha, the lure of meta. I do both at once. I describe my stories as kids, and in the past I've described my muses as kids in the backseat during a long car ride, hitting and poking and making each other scream -- but I can always stop the car or, I dunno, bribe them with slushies. What I say always goes, though.

[tielan]

I like it more when they do it exactly wrong,

You know, I have absolutely no issue with the things they do wrong - the things that the characters do "wrong" are precisely how I conceive them acting! (as presented by the bits and bobs of their character)

But I hate it when the writers seem to try to whitewash the characters' actions, or make them seem extra heroic just so they can be heroes. I find myself in a state of perpetual *wince* while watching.