We got an AWESOME mail call today from one of our awesome Basement Geeks from the UK, Mr Dave, and OMG. So much stuff! Batman, and Buffy, and Mega Man, and Star Trek, and Terminator, and Doctor Who, and even MORE! You’ve just gotta check it out…there was too much awesome to type about. XD
Tag: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“F” is for “Fangirl” – An A-to-Z Blogging Challenge Post
For the A-to-Z Challenge 2017 I’m writing all about myself. Every post will be some random fact or bit of information about me that you may or may not have already known. Maybe you’ll learn something! Feel free to let me know! ^_^
I am an enormous fangirl in every sense of the word. I’ve often been teased – both on and off of my YouTube channel – for the massive number of Funko Pops I’ve amassed, but the fact of the matter is that it’s less about the Pop figures themselves and more about the fact that I love so many franchises. Let’s just try to list a few, shall we?
We’ve got… Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Supernatural, some of the DC television universe (Arrow, Flash), pretty much all of the Marvel cinematic universe (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Avengers, etc.), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a ton of anime (Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Attack on Titan, Gintama, etc.), lots of comics – specifically Deadpool, tons of video game franchises (Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Gears of War, etc.), X-Files, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Predator, Die Hard, Alien, Disney in general, Harry Potter (movies and books), Stranger Things, Power Rangers, horror stuff in general (but 80’s slashers specifically)…
Need I go on?
Basically, I just love so many things, and I rarely ever stop loving something. I’m still hooked on stuff today that I first discovered when I was a kid, and the list is always growing with new (and new-to-me) discoveries, to the point that I’m practically the definition of FANGIRL nowadays. And I wear that badge with pride. XD
Are you a fanboy/fangirl for any particular franchises, or a million of them like me? Feel free to leave a comment!
Nerd Block Unboxing and Review for July 2015
This week I have a series of late unboxing videos, owing to the fact that precisely nothing came before I left for out West last month. Starting out of the gates we have the Nerd Block for July 2015, for which the theme was “Humanity’s Last Hope”. Check out the unboxing video:
Right off the bat I’ll go ahead and admit that this was actually a half-decent Nerd Block, as compared to previous boxes. I was not disappointed, is what I’m saying. So let’s go ahead and look at the breakdown:
“Sweep the Leg” t-shirt:
So, I totally didn’t get this, but this shirt is supposed to be a G.I. Joe/Karate Kid mash-up. I figured that it was Cobra Commander, but I really wouldn’t have guessed that it was also supposed to be a Karate Kid reference as well. It’s not really very clever at all, honestly. That said, it’s not a terrible shirt, and I will wear it. One thumb up and one thumb down for this one, and a standard shirt value of $15.
Transformers dangler:
As I said in the video, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these things, and honestly I’m not a big fan of them. I already have a couple from previous boxes and I’ve never used them because, a) my phone doesn’t have a spot to dangle anything from, and b) even if it did I’m pretty sure a dangler would just end up scratching my screen since I keep my phone in my pocket most of the time. These go for about $5.
Iron Man Pocket Pop keychain:
Okay, I’m definitely happy with this particular item. I love Pops, and though I do think that some of their expanded line of products are a little silly, I do like the keychains and will be happy to use this one. It’s Mark 43 Iron Man! I love him! He’s so cute! Okay, okay, hold it together Tracey. It’s all good. These Pocket Pops are a little overpriced, in my opinion; on average they seem to go for about $10 wherever I’ve found them.
Ghostbusters TYVEK wallet:
This item is very deceptive; it honestly feels like you could easily rip it into a million pieces with your bare hands, but it is, in fact, made of TYVEK, which is supposed to be practically indestructible. This is a pretty neat thing to have, although it’s not exactly huge, so you couldn’t fit all too much in it. My husband gave me the idea of using this wallet specifically for nerdy cards and the like (such as our EB Games discount card, for instance), so I’ll definitely consider that. This wallet is a Nerd Block exclusive, but I’ve found similar wallets going for $15.
“Spike” Titan vinyl figure:
Here’s another one that I can definitely say I love. You guys know that I prefer Pops to Titans, but some of the Titans are pretty cool, and the Buffy line falls amongst those. I also love how this little Spike figure comes with Giles’ mug filled with blood; that’s a cute little addition that makes him even more recognizable. Two thumbs up for this one! Similarly to Pops, these Titan figures go for an average of about $12, depending on where you get them.
Mad Max: Fury Road comic:
My brain totally turned off when I came around to this item. As my husband so kindly pointed out, I really could have talked about the movie a bit when this comic came out of the box, but it was like a switch turned off in my brain and I was just done. Anyway, we watched Fury Road not that long ago and I really enjoyed it a lot. It’s definitely over-the-top and pretty silly, but it was tons of fun, so go watch it right now! As far as the comic is concerned, it’s another one to add to the collection, but I don’t have much more to say than that. I’ll give this one a standard comic issue value of about $5.
Total approximate value of box: $62
Total cost to me: $41
So there you go… Honestly this box was pretty good, especially compared to other recent boxes. The big problem with Nerd Block is that the cost is way too much considering that you’re not likely to be happy with every single item, and the reason the cost is too much is because of the shipping. The base price of $20 for a Nerd Block is completely acceptable, but you end up doubling that price by the time the shipping is added. Comparatively, Loot Crate is a base $30, with the shipping automatically worked in there, so it ends up being cheaper than Nerd Block by a few dollars and is consistently more enjoyable.
So that’s the main reason why I’ve decided to finally cancel Nerd Block. Perhaps I might consider resubscribing in the future, but I don’t think it’s very likely any time soon, unless the Canadian dollar comes back up considerably.
What did you think of Nerd Block for July 2015? Did you receive one? What was your favorite item? Least favorite? What do you think of the cost issue? Please share!
Still a Nerd, Just One Who Hates the Cold
I’ve always found it interesting how people change as they grow up; or rather, how they both do and don’t change.
A lot of it, of course, is because of what side of a situation you are on. When I was a kid, for example, I absolutely loved the winter. Snow was one of the greatest things ever. I could bundle up and spend all day outside, digging tunnels, making snow angels, building snowmen. Sometimes my mother would have to tell me to come in and eat, because I’d completely lose track of time. I didn’t even feel the cold, because I was too busy having fun. I could never understand how my parents could hate winter so much, and get more and more frustrated every time it snowed. How could they hate snow? Snow was so awesome!
Now, of course, I’m a grown adult and I’m on the other side of the situation. When it snows, my husband and I have to shovel. When it snows a lot, we have to shovel a lot. We spend a great deal of money keeping our house warm while it gets colder and colder outside. We have to put up with the disgusting mess that seems to end up everywhere as a result of the half-slush-half-mud crap that inevitably becomes the most common substance in the world during the winter months. We curse and growl while trying to de-ice the windshield in the morning while our daughter laughs from the inside of the car and declares that she loves snow. In short: I’m a cranky adult and I hate winter now.
This is an example of how people can change as they get older, and there are plenty more. I think a fair bit of the music I listened to as a kid is complete trash, because my musical palette has matured. Some of the foods I used to eat daily as a kid now make me gag because just knowing how bad they are for you changes my ability to taste them the same way. I care a hell of a lot less about what other people think about me because I’ve found myself in the excellent position to understand that in most cases it doesn’t matter two iotas what other people think of me. I’ve changed over the years. My thoughts and opinions have changed, sometimes dramatically.
But then there’s the exception side of the coin, because no one ever really changes completely, do they? There are always going to be remnants of who you were in an earlier time.
For me, you can see it in my nerdiness. I still love almost all of the fandoms I loved as a kid. To this day I can happily sit down and watch and entire season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without coming up for breath. I’ve been known to track down shows like Sailor Moon and Pokemon just to see if I can still stomach them and found myself curling up to binge-watch with a stupid, giddy smile on my face. I don’t watch Star Wars nearly as often as I used to, but I can still kick a lot of ass at trivia games because all that useless info seems so important to my brain for some reason. I was genuinely upset to find out that they only make three of the Power Rangers as Funko Pop figures because I would kill to have the whole set. I have almost every gaming console that has been available over the past two decades, but I will still happily curl up and play an entire run-through of Final Fantasy III or Chrono Trigger. And the thing is, maybe I’m wrong (because who can really tell?), but I don’t see any of this changing any time soon. I mean, if I’m still playing Final Fantasy III almost twenty years after first discovering it, then there’s probably a pretty good chance that I’ll be playing it in the nursing home when I’m 90, while complaining to the nurses about how this virtual reality junk that the kids play today is nothing compared to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
I don’t know. It just seems funny to me how some attitudes and options can change so dramatically, and yet other things can stick to you like glue throughout your entire life. There’s a psychology research paper in there somewhere, I think.
What about you? Which aspects of your personality have changed so much that the younger version of you wouldn’t understand what the hell had happened, and which things are so much the same that part of you wonders if you ever really grew up at all?
Blogging 101, Day Nine: Inspire Yourself
For day nine of the Blogging 101 course, Michelle W. asks us to write a post inspired by your About page or widget. The idea is that your About page (which you should have upgraded on day eight) is just the “beginning of your story”, and that you can use the information you came up with for your About page as a way to speak to the key themes of your blog. Seems straight forward? I didn’t think so. I read through the assignment post several times before I started to write this and I’m still not entirely sure I know exactly what Michelle is going for. It’s not really such a confusing concept, I suppose; I think it’s just that it feels a bit obvious to me…like, since I mentioned in my About page that I’m a writer hoping to become published, chances are that I’m going to write about writing and publishing.
In the end I decided to ignore most of the bulk of Michelle’s post (sorry, Michelle…you’re doing a great job, seriously) and just focus on the actual assignment sentence: write a post inspired by your About page or widget. To that end, I thought I’d reference my About page to write a little more detail about myself, my background, and my intentions:
Growing up I was was always a nerdy kid. I loved school, especially math, and I absolutely loved reading. I used to kick the crap out of any reading challenges the school put on during the summer months, and I’m sure my parents spent upwards of $2000 on Babysitter’s Club books for me, not even to mention all the books they bought me through those Scholastic book fairs. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, but the ones I had were the best friends in the world and I grew up with a large extended family including several cousins of my age, so I wasn’t exactly lonely.
Some of my favorite things as a kid were RPG video games, Star Wars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now that I’m an adult some of my favorite things are RPG video games, Star Wars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But don’t worry…I’ve expanded my interests. I also now love zombie shoot-’em-up video games, Star Trek, and True Blood. And of course I’m just teasing. I love all of those things, but I have plenty of other favs, including a more-recent obsession with Doctor Who, pretty much anything that happens within the Marvel Universe, and tea in a great variety of options. Mmm. Tea.
Though I was always an intellectual kind of kid growing up, I leaned more and more to the artsy side of things as time went on. I took piano lessons for years before eventually moving on to the guitar. My bedroom walls were often papered in my own drawings, which were mostly of my favorite video game and anime characters. In the third grade, after writing a short story for a project, I decided I wanted to be a writer, professionally. Things went a little sideways in high school when I realized that I also wanted to have some kind of financial security, and so I chose a more technological profession, but I’m still working on that whole writer thing, seriously.
What else is there to know about me? I prefer jeans, t-shirts, and ponytails, but sometimes I get super girly and like to play around with nail polish and cute shoes and whatnot. I love laying in the warm sun, but I also kinda dislike being outdoors in general because I can’t turn off the part of my brain that tells me I should be doing something. Oh, and I’ve got a thing for dragons. McFarlane has made a wee bit of money off of me.
My husband and my three-year-old daughter are the most important people in the world to me, and though it may only be a pipe dream I would love to someday be able to live on my writing so that I wouldn’t have to regularly leave them to work out in the Alberta oil sands. I’m currently in the process of running the final edits on my zombie apocalypse novel, and once that is sent off to the printers I plan to get to work on a project that I’ve been working on for a decade, completely revising it into a YA series. It is my sincere hope that by the time I hit forty (that’s ten years from now) I’ll have at least five self-published books and a healthy following on this blog. So feel free to tell your friends (*hint hint*).
All in all, I blog because it’s fun, I love interacting with readers and writers alike, and it keeps me writing even when I feel like I can’t write. How’s that? Feel like you know me now? 😉
A to Z Challenge Day 24: Xander Harris (the Lovable Sidekick)
Near the beginning of this challenge I talked about Buffy Summers and how her vampire-ass-kicking powers were a favorite of mine growing up. But there was another part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Universe that made the show a huge winner with me, and that was the excellent support staff. Buffy wasn’t alone in her fight. She had a mysterious vampire with a soul watching over her from the shadows. She had a diligent Watcher who wanted nothing more than to keep her safe and ensure her continuing success. She had a brainy best friend who helped her with the research and helped keep her from flunking out of all of her classes. And then she had Xander.
Alexander Harris, known as Xander to his friends, is strictly speaking, the loser of the group. Right from the beginning of the show he’s a bit of a dweeb. He has very few friends. He is completely average when it comes to schoolwork. He’s not the jock type or the popular type in any way, shape, or form. In the first couple of seasons he has an enormous crush on Buffy, which she does not reciprocate, making him think even less of himself than he already does. When it comes to the actual monster-fighting, he’s the one who is always getting beat down, beat up, and humiliated because he has no discernible skills what-so-ever. He regularly makes stupid mistakes that actually case more damage than there might have otherwise been. And to top it all off, he has a pretty crappy home life because most of his family are drunks and/or abusive.
But the thing is, Xander has an outrageous amount of heart. He cares about his friends so much that he regularly puts himself in harm’s way in order to help them out. More than once he is able to avert disaster simply by refusing to back down when the odds were against him, and at least once he actually saves the world just by talking, because he knew exactly what the big bad evil at the time needed to hear.
The character played by Nicholas Brendon was never perfect. It took him the larger part of the running of the series to come into his own, and he made some huge mistakes both before and after those personal improvements. But he has always been real and easy for a bit of a nerd like me to relate to, and for that I love him.
A to Z Challenge Day 2: Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer)
You wouldn’t know it by looking at the types of books I read or some of the scenes I, myself, have written, but when I was younger I was quite a wuss. I was a Disney kid who liked puppies and kittens and was too shy for her own good, so scary stuff wasn’t really my thing. To explain to you just how much of a wuss I was, it took several years for me to make it all the way through Pinocchio because I was scared half to death of Monstro the whale. I had more than a few nightmares about that devil-whale.
Yet, despite the adrenaline that would kick up the second something even began to consider being scary, there were a few ghosts-and-monsters related shows that I loved to watch, most of them on YTV on Friday nights. One such show was Buffy the Vampire slayer, which I began watching right from the very beginning. At this point in my life I’d never seen the original movie version of Buffy, but I took immediately to the show, and to Buffy in particular.
There have been many arguments on both sides of the fence when it comes to this particular show, but all I can say either way is that I’ve loved it from the moment I first discovered it, and Buffy immediately became one of my favorite characters ever. She was created by (in my opinion) a brilliant writer in Joss Whedon, and brought to live by (in my opinion) a wonderful actress in Sarah Michelle Gellar, but neither of those things were the reason why I took to Buffy so well.
When I was a kid things were starting to sway, but it was still the “way” of things for the guy to be the hero. The handsome jock would lead the team (Power Rangers), the men would be responsible for the most important battles (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo), the charming prince would rescue the damsel in distress (so many examples I couldn’t possibly list them all). In a world where, for the most part, the girls were the background characters or constantly being rescued, here was a female character who was front line and center. She was the main character, strong and powerful and could totally kick ass, and she was the one doing 99% of the saving. And for all her strength and Chosen One-liness, she was at the core just a regular girl. Her strength didn’t come from size, nor her abilities from super-intelligence. She was just a girl. She had been a cheerleader. She had been totally full of herself, as many teenage girls are. In other words, she could have been anyone. She could have been me, or my best friend, or that really quiet girl in my class who was sweet but shy, or the loud-mouth popular girl who everyone secretly hated.
That appealed to me as a kid. The idea that any random, completely typical teenage girl could just up and become a superhero was a huge thing.
But – and here’s the important part that Whedon and Gellar had a huge influence on – even though she was the center of the monster-slaying universe, and was the most important character, and was the kick-ass female hero, Buffy was not by any means infallible or invulnerable. She made huge mistakes. She got her butt handed to her on multiple occasions. She fell into deep depressions. She hurt the ones she loved and then made herself miserable trying to fix things. She saved the world, but she couldn’t always save all the victims. And that just made her that much more real, that much easier to relate to, that much easier to care for. Buffy Summers is one of those characters whom I became so fond of, so invested in, that it hurt me physically to see her in any kind of pain.
It’s been 17 years since the first time I watched a Buffy episode, and over the course of those 17 years I’ve watched every Buffy episode at least three or four times. Some episodes were better than others, and I will readily agree with some that the first couple of seasons were leaps and bounds over the last couple, but in the end I loved them all. Buffy was one of the first fictional characters to make me bawl like a little girl, something I am none too embarrassed to admit, but as crying for a fictional character is not exactly a common occurrence for me, I think that just goes to prove how awesome Buffy really was.
Laugh, Cry, and Scream
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of jumping between stories. Within my own work I’ve been moving between zombie apocalypses and werewolf romances, between epic fantasies and personal journeys. At the same time I’ve been reading books, watching movies and TV shows, and playing video games. All this going back and forth between different stories with different characters has gotten me thinking about what makes a truly memorable character. What is it that makes a particular person in a book, tv show, movie, or game become this amazing character whom you can’t get enough of? What makes a character great?
I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve come up with three answers, three things that make a character great, in my opinion.
Great characters make you laugh.
Humor is almost a given, isn’t it? Laughter is like a drug, one for which the only side effects are happiness and maybe some pleasantly sore muscles. Mentally and physically, our bodies get high on humor, which is why we love comedies so much, why we appreciate friends and loved ones who can make us chuckle, and why we tend to gravitate toward peers who share our appreciation for what is or isn’t funny. Sense of humor is not universal, of course, but almost everyone will find themselves drawn toward a character who can make them laugh, especially if that laughter is of the deep-down, belly-rumbling, gasping-for-air variety.
Characters who give me the giggles:
Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory – He’s just so absurd and stoic in everything he says and does that it’s absolutely hysterical. I genuinely don’t know how the actors of this show make it through their lines sometimes.
Tyrion Lanister from the A Song of Ice and Fire series (G.R.R. Martin) – I’ve rarely read a character so damn witty. His humor is rude and crude one minute, and exceptionally intellegent the next. Every second line out of his mouth makes me go “HA!”
Great characters make you cry.
Sadness is a little less obvious, but whether you might believe it or not sometimes we crave a good sob-fest. Why else would movies like The Notebook be so popular? The thing is, crying is cathartic; even if you didn’t realize you were stressed out or upset, crying gets all the pent-up bad mojo out, and while no one wants to be sad for real-life reasons, being sad for a character allows you to experience that release of emotions. Being able to feel for a character, to be truly empathetic toward them and experience their pain, releases a host of hormones and chemicals that leaves you feeling somehow refreshed and rejuvinated.
Characters who give me the sniffles:
Dean Winchester from Supernatural – It’s one part great writing and one part awesome acting on behalf of Jensen Ackles, and the combination is a character who has made me exceptionally weepy on more than one occasion (but don’t tell my husband…I always turn to my side so he doesn’t see).
Simba from The Lion King – There is one scene in particular that I’m talking about, and if you don’t automatically know which one I’m talking about you can’t possibly have ever seen The Lion King, so GO WATCH THE LION KING RIGHT NOW, YOU FREAK.
Great characters make you scream.
Fear is another thing entirely. Though there are always going to be some people who run in the other direction when faced with fear, quite a lot of us love it. Fear gives a person a unique rush of adrenaline and “fight or flight” hormones that can be obtained in no other way, and how better to experience such a thing than from the comfort of your own home while reading a scary book or watching a horror movie? When a character makes your heart beat faster, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and gives you a nervous twtich because of the incredible tension, that is something real and visceral that you won’t soon forget. If the eventual result is actual nightmares, the character has really done their job.
Characters who give me the wiggins:
The creepy ghost girl from Shutter (original Thai version) – There is one thing I will give to the Asians…they know how to do ghosts, and this chick in particular had me literally watching the movie from between my fingers. Bonus points for totally freaking out my husband and father-in-law.
The Joker from The Dark Knight – He may not be scary in the “I’m going to have nightmares forever!” sense, but Heath Ledger’s maniacal version of The Joker creeped me out more than I can tell. He was truly, entirely mad, and that is a frightening concept.
There are, of course, lots of other factors that go into making a good character. The protagonist should be likable but also have real flaws, the antagonist should be hateful but have relatable qualities as well… You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure, or if you haven’t I’m sure you know most of the rules without even realizing it; that’s how you as the consumer recognize the characters you like. But in my opinion, the three things I’ve mentioned above are what take a character from simply enjoyable, to positively incredible. And if you can somehow incorporate all three of these types of characters into one story…wow. Just wow.
Character (groups) that have made me giggle, sniffle, and wig out:
The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) – Fear doesn’t necessarily apply anymore, but I watched this show when I was young and significantly more innocent, so hear me out. Back in the day the monsters creeped me the hell out, the banter between characters (good and bad) constantly had me laughing, and the misery that several of the characters went through made me (on more than one occasion) bawl like a little girl. To me, that is seriously a winning combination, and that is why this show is one of my all-time favorites to this day.
The characters from Invitation to the Game (Monica Hughes) – The characters in this book were witty and amusing, went through a tense, frightening situation that threatened their lives, and experienced a plethora of negative emotions and miseries. I’ve read this book dozens of times and I still experience an emotional rollercoaster whenever I read it.
As a writer I now find myself in the position of trying to incorporate these factors into my characters, which is a much more difficult endevour than simply pointing them out in the books I read and the movies and shows I watch. Humor isn’t my strong point, although I’ve been told by readers of my fanfiction that I’ve made them chuckle a time or two. I strive to incorporate fear into my horror and fantasy pieces, and I hope it comes across, but I haven’t been in the position yet to have anyone tell me one way or the other. Misery seems to be my “thing” (what does that say about me…?), as I love to torture my characters and I’ve had a number of people inform me that I was successful in drawing out those tears. It’s a very difficult thing striking all three, but as other writers will attest, writing is rarely easy and creating excellent characters can often feel like an exercise in futility. Regardless, now that I’ve beaten down exactly what it is that creates characters I’ve come to love, you can be damn sure that I’ll be keeping these three factors in mind whenever I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
What about you? What characters have made you laugh until your belly hurt? Sob like a baby? Cower under a blanket? Are there other factors that make a character great for you? Please share!
5 Reasons You Should Be Writing Fan Fiction
As I mentioned yesterday in my accountability post, for the next little while I’m setting aside my work-in-progress and picking up my Final Fantasy III/VI novelization fan fiction. Now here’s the thing… There are a lot of writers (and readers) out there who think very poorly of fan fiction. They think its not “real” writing, or they associate it with a bunch of creepy, sweaty fanboys/girls sitting in a dark room, plucking out a wish fulfillment fantasy where a disturbingly perfect character who just so happens to have their exact name gets it on with Buffy or Edward Cullen, or one of the My Little Ponies (*wigged-out-shudder*). And yes, that stuff does exist, and there’s a special place for it far, far away from me, but there is also a lot of good fan fiction out there if you care to look for it, and I personally believe that fan fiction serves several very important purposes in the writing community.
1. It gives you a break and let’s you enjoy writing for a while.
Even those of us who love writing with all out heart and soul want to smash our computer against a wall and/or burn all our notebooks every now and then. Things happen (writer’s block, bad critiques, lost work that wasn’t backed up, etc) that enrage us and make us want to give up on writing forever. That’s where fan fiction can be helpful; it’s easy (because the world is already created for you), it’s fun (because you get to write your favorite characters), and it keeps you moving forward. You might even find, while writing fan fiction, that you come up with a great idea to continue that original fiction you so recently considered tossing off a cliff. Seriously, give it a try…you might find that writing a bit of fan fiction considerably lowers your writing-related stress.
2. It gives you practice and let’s you get the “bad” out.
Yes, I’ll admit it, a lot of the fan fiction out there is beyond awful. But have you ever heard that oft-repeated adage: “Practice makes perfect”? Lame, perhaps, but true. No one ever wrote a masterpiece on their very first try. With the vast, near limitless options to toy with, fan fiction offers you that ability to keep practicing and practicing and practicing, which can only help you become better. Scrawling fan fiction helps you to get down your bad writing, see that it’s bad, and then make it better. Any writing will do this, of course, but fan fiction makes it easier because instead of struggling with your one story over and over again, or constantly wracking your brain to come up with new ideas, you can just jump in someone else’s sandbox and play away.
3. You can just jump in someone else’s sandbox and play away.
Some people say that nothing worth doing is easy. I beg to differ. Yes, effort is a big deal and most things in life are going to be difficult, but sometimes, to keep ourselves from going mad, we have to find the easy out. Fan fiction is that in spades. This is a whole world that has already been created for you, with established characters who have already had tons of work put into them. All you have to do is think of something for them to be doing. That’s it. Play away. Have some fun! Explore! As children this is how we learn and grow, but as adults we forget the importance of real play. Take a page out of the book of babies and toddlers and learn via good old fun and exploration!
4. The community is extremely powerful.
There are lots of websites out there for sharing fan fiction, but the one in particular that I use is FanFiction.net. It’s a great site with a great community, and chances are if you share something there someone is going to find it, read it, and comment on it, and that is pure gold for a writer. We crave feedback, even if its not necessarily good feedback. We want to know, at the very least, that someone is reading. Fan fiction is wonderful for this because of the vast numbers of people who enjoy it. For example, years back I wrote a Harry Potter fan fiction featuring the Marauders. I finished that story years ago, and to this day I get the occasional review landing in my inbox. It might not sound like much, but a single review on a story you wrote ages ago can really mean a lot when you’re currently struggling with your current works. Community is important to keep a writer sane and moving forward, and the fan fiction community is a surprisingly strong one.
5. It keeps you writing.
When you’re a writer (or you aspire to be) actually writing is the most important thing to do. In this brave new world of writing conventions, social media, and author platforms, writers tend to forget that the real deal is putting words to paper. Fan fiction helps with this. Any kind of writing – even the creepy kind I mentioned earlier that I have a restraining order out against – is worth doing if it keeps you putting words to paper. There is no writer without the process of writing, so whatever you can write to keep that process moving forward is a good thing to write.
So now that I’ve thoroughly convinced you, what are you waiting for? Fan fiction could be just the thing you need! I know it’s what I need right now, so I’ll see you all on the other side of a new chapter of Returning Hope.
Simplicity
A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.
12. What novelists can learn from screenplays
I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever written a screenplay. I’ve once or twice considered participating in Script Frenzy, which is run by the same people who do NaNoWriMo and is basically a challenge to write a screenplay in one month, but I’ve never gotten around to it. I prefer prose, so my motivation to actually take part in this challenge is low. But I have actually read a couple of screenplays, mostly because my best friend gave me a Buffy the Vampire Slayer screenplay book that she needed for one of her courses in college. So I’m going to base my meager response on that book…bear with me.
I think one major thing that novelists can learn from screenplays is simplicity. Screenplays are mostly dialogue with a bit of description thrown in as a general idea of what’s happening nearby. Many novels are the exact opposite. I’m as guilty as any other author for over-describing things, or so I’ve been told by critique-readers. As the creator of an entire world, writers tend to want to describe everything down to the tiniest detail, so that the reader can see it exactly as they’re imagining it. The problem with that is that half the fun is in the imagination part. Sometimes the reader wants to be able to figure it out themselves, instead of having a million-and-one details shoved down their throat. George R.R. Martin is famous for this. He creates an amazingly expansive world with characters upon characters upon characters, but his descriptive style leaves the reader constantly struggling to hold torrents of information in their brain, only to eventually realize that 99% of that information was completely irrelevant to the plot.
So, yeah. Simplicity. Learn how to use it.
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