Thoughts About Fan-Fiction

Fan-fiction has a bad name - or, rather, not the reputation it deserves. Yes, a lot of fan-fiction is not up to par with professional publications. But then, that’s only logical. Fan-fiction is written by fans for fans, it’s not meant to be professionally published and, of course, not proofread and edited the way a professional publication is. That doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not worth your time - or that the writers haven’t done a good job story-wise.

First of all, for those of you who haven’t heard of it before, what is fan-fiction?

Every story which makes use of the characters and worlds others have created without their consent (so not stories which are written about shared characters or worlds by several writers) is a fan-fiction story. The “Fifty Shades of Grey” series started its life as a BDSM fan-fiction of “Twilight.” A lot of media out there, from novels over movies and TV series to computer games and beyond, has fan-fiction. If you look long and hard enough, you will find fan-fiction for every piece of media, no matter how little-known it is.

Because of this, some people look down on the writers. Simply using the characters of someone else instead of inventing your own characters and worlds, seems a bit like cheating. However, every writer uncovers new aspects of a character or a world, diving into details which the creators might just have put in without much thought. They deepen the world and the characters.

Fan-fiction is also the birth place of the Mary Sue (see my post about the problem), which is another reason why it has a bad name.

However, let’s talk about fan-fiction as if it just were a way to use creativity and not something you need to damn or defend, okay?

For quite some writers, including me, fan-fiction has been a way into not only writing (I wrote before I discovered fan-fiction), but also into publishing. Places like Fanfiction.net or Wattpad and others are a way to put your own stories out without the hassle of self-publishing or finding a publisher. In addition, you can’t claim characters created by someone else for yourself (unless they’re out of copyright due to age).

The audience at a fan-fiction portal isn’t quite as strict as the audience of a professionally published book. That lies in the nature of things - fan-fiction is done by fans for fans, so less strict editing and proofreading are part of the package. Still, you will usually get reviews which can help you to write better in the future.

I have read fan-fiction which wasn’t much to write home about, but I’ve also read excellent fan-fiction which didn’t have to hide from the original media it was inspired by.

The bigger the mass of fans, the more fan-fiction you will normally find about something. “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” or “Harry Potter” (to throw around a few names) have huge amounts of fan-fiction. A lot of people read the books, watch the movies or TV shows, and write their own versions.

They bring together their favourite ‘ships’ (love relationships between characters, quite often against the official relationships within the original media).

They add characters which they feel were missing (like giving more diversity in race or sexual orientation to very old or conservative original media).

They put a spotlight on side characters or minor characters which are not explored in depth in the original media in question.

They create whole alternate universes (AU) or alternate realities (AR) to explore what could have been.

You can find fan-fictions with an explicitly sexual content (including the ‘slash’ fiction, which is defined by a relationship between two men, and the ‘femslash’ fiction, which does the same for two women). They’re sometimes marked down as ‘lemon’ or ‘lime,’ reviving the old UK tradition of binding sexually explicit material in yellow covers (the first edition of “Dracula” is bound in yellow, too, btw).

Fan-fiction is often consumed by women (according to Fanfiction.net, 80% of their writers and audience are or identify as female) and that might explain the many erotic stories. Women often turn to written erotica and pornography. They consume it, but they also enjoy writing it.

As mentioned, a lot of writers also add characters to the media which they feel are missing. Often, those are characters with a sexual orientation which is not heterosexual or characters who are part of a minority. They expand the universes of the original media by doing so.

On the other side stand those fans who don’t want their beloved media changed. Those who despise everyone who does and are quick to call them ‘Social Justice Warriors’ and worse for it. I still have no idea why they think being a warrior for social justice is something wrong, but they clearly do. As if it would destroy the Force if “Star Wars” included a few gay characters or magic if the world of “Harry Potter” were less white…

But then, all bigger groups of fans also have their ‘ship wars’ - they fight about why this unofficial ‘ship’ is right and that one is completely wrong…

Fan-fiction can be very interesting, there’s quite a number of fan-fiction stories I’ve read over time which were very engaging and kept me hurrying through, even though I had other stuff to do. But you need to be ready to excuse certain weaknesses in grammar, typing, or plot.

That is what a lot of those who look down on fan-fiction make their main complaint. They point out that quite often fan-fiction isn’t written well and full of errors. While this can be true (although quite some fan-fiction writers also have their betas and do a good editing), this isn’t exactly a reason not to read it. Yes, you have to be a little tolerant there (and I’m saying this as a former editor who does her own editing these days and has an eye for errors), but many of the stories will actually reward you for this with a very interesting plot and well-used characters.

Another aspect those who look down on it also seem to forget is this: it’s for free. A publisher or self-publisher preparing a story for publishing will put a lot of work into it. They’ll pay people very well to edit and proofread it. They’ll pay an artist well for the cover, too. There will be many eyes going over the future book. That pays off for the publisher once the book is out and people are paying money to read it. Fan-fiction is not professionally published, it’s out for free on the portals already mentioned. You’re not forced to pay money to publish or consume fan-fiction.

So, yes, you have to kiss quite some frogs to find a prince on the portals. You will probably start to read a few stories and then stop, because they’re not what you’re looking for. You will find stories which have been abandoned right in the middle (since many of the portals allow for publishing in chapters, which means some writers put up chapters as they are done, they don’t wait until all has been written). You will find stories which are, in every aspect from the writing over the plotting right down to the grammar, atrocious. But you will still find your gems in between - and enough of them to make it worth your time and effort.

Fan-fiction usually can’t keep up with professionally published stuff (even though a few stories might), but it’s still a very entertaining way to spend time - and one for free as well. So if you’ve never looked at fan-fiction before, I suggest you Google it and go out and have a look now. You might actually find quite some treasures which will brighten your day.

The Secret Diary of Mycroft Holmes Review

First of all, a word of warning: this isn’t a crime novel, despite the fact that it mentions Sherlock Holmes very regularly. Instead, the book gives a nice view into the mind of Mycroft Holmes and into the complicated and not at all normal Holmes family. Trust me - Mycroft and Sherlock are actually the two most normal members.

The diary claims to include the time from 1880 to 1888, but most of the actual diary entries are from early on (1880-1882), latter years only feature with a handful of entries, especially after Sherlock moves into Baker Street.

I read the book almost in one go - mostly because I actually started it in the evening and ran out of time. The diary is written from the point of view of Mycroft Holmes (rather logical, given that it’s his diary) and starts off on the 1st of January 1880. Mycroft has decided that if people can have their memoir written simply because they have ‘lived’ and if someone can fill several diaries with arguments with his wife, theatre visits, fire, and the plague, he can do a good job with his own life as well. It might be missing the wife and he’s not into theatre visits, fires might be confined to the hearth, and the plague wasn’t an actual problem in 1880, but he still has a life inside his government job. Not to mention he has a younger brother who seems set on tormenting him.

In the very first entry, which more or less sets the tone for the rest, Mycroft remembers how his brother arrived in the family - seven years after him and as a surprise to their father. Their mother had simply ‘forgotten’ to mention her state a few months earlier, because she was distracted by the new fashion. This (together with the fact that their parents got married, because his mother misheard a question from his father) is pretty much all you would need to know about the Holmes clan. But the other members of the family as they are mentioned are pretty weird as well. It seems the clan is pretty entertaining, as long as you don’t belong to it and have to owe up to being a Holmes.

In 1880, with Mycroft being 33 and Sherlock 26, the brothers are already orphaned, both of their parents are dead. Mycroft has a certain income inherited from their father and, of course, his salary from his government job (which is officially situated within accounting, but unofficially intelligence). Sherlock has nearly no income, because he’s still in the early stages of his career (the Montague Street years, before his move to Baker Street) and often takes cases merely out of interest, without demanding fees from his customers. Quite often, Mycroft is the one to pay his rent or other bills. This changes when the government changes (a new prime minister is elected and the government positions are thinned out) and Mycroft’s salary is reduced for a while.

Sherlock takes an argument they have a little later as motivation to change things, moves into Baker Street with Watson (whom Mycroft first takes for a lunatic - because who else would actually want to share rooms with Sherlock?), and starts taking regular fees from the customers. He builds up his reputation and really goes into the ‘trade’ he has worried Mycroft with (because, apparently, no member of the Holmes family has ever been a tradesman).

This doesn’t mean that there’s no mention of any cases. When Sherlock and Mycroft meet (usually in the Diogenes club - the diary makes Mycroft one of the founders), they often duel each other in deduction and every now and then even discuss a case. Mycroft himself solves a minor case of destruction in the club as well. The book, however, is not about any mysteries (except the mystery of how Mycroft and Sherlock actually get along well enough to meet more or less regularly). It’s a very nice read if you enjoy a look into other people’s minds.

It also shines a bright light on the chaotic Holmes clan. As mentioned above, compared to their aunts, uncles, cousins, and deceased parents, Sherlock and Mycroft actually are pretty normal. Their cousin Aubrey, for instance, tries his hands at art and poetry and chains himself to the railway, because he thinks fast travel is the worst which can happen to mankind. After his muse leaves him for a more wealthy guy, he considers the Foreign Legion, but balks at the thought of having to carry a gun and live in the desert. He also regularly tries to weasel money out of Mycroft, who seems to be the only Holmes with a regular income. Two of their cousins get into a food fight during a christening and Mycroft mentions that physical fights between the female members of the family (for something as trivial as wearing the same item of clothing) are not unusual. I have to admit I now want more stories about them. Perhaps the diary from after 1888?

The relationship between Mycroft and Sherlock is very interesting, because it’s pretty much a ‘normal’ relationship between two brothers - not what you might expect after reading the stories and novels by Doyle. The book has a light-hearted tone most of the time and Mycroft manages to make his rather regular life interesting by switching between his arguments with Sherlock, his work for the government, his time in the Diogenes club, and frequent memories of the Holmes clan.

Is “The Secret Diary of Mycroft Holmes” a good read? Definitely. Is it a typical Holmes story? Not at all. I’d suggest using the ‘Look Inside’ feature and seeing if you like the writing style. Just don’t expect it to be a mystery story.

Being A Discovery Writer

I only recently discovered the term ‘Discovery Writer’ for my style of writing, to be honest. A discovery writer is someone who writes as they develop the story, unlike an organized writer who first plots the story out and then writes it (perhaps even to the extent suggested in “First Draft in 30 Days”).

It’s not that I can’t plot. I have to, for my stories. Especially Inez and Tom, who will join the list of my published books in August, demand a lot of plotting, since they are jewel thieves and do heists together. Something similar can be said for the Black Knight Agency series, since Steven isn’t referring to himself as a ‘criminal mastermind’ there without reason.

What I can’t do, is sit down and plot out the whole story, scene by scene, before I write it. Oh, I certainly can do that, but if I do, I won’t be able to write the story. I need the thrill of writing blind, of finding out what happens while I’m in the story. I need to discover the story while I write it, hence the whole ‘Discovery Writer’ thing.

The good thing about being a discovery writer is that writing is fun, because you discover new things while you write. The bad thing about being a discovery writer is that you have to do a lot of editing afterwards. You will always have some logical mistakes and some content problems which need to be taken care of.

 It’s not a choice, though, you either are a discovery writer or you’re not. I tried my best to plot and plan and prepare a whole story before writing it. It didn’t work, I couldn’t finish the story. By now I have split it up and will work on it again, but with less prepared content.

What I do, however, is do a little preparation beforehand. That works for me.

When I start a new novella, I put down eight chapters (there might be more eventually) and add a line to every chapter about what I think it will be about. When I start a new novel, I put down twenty chapters (because 20x3,000 is 60,000, the minimum word count for a novel) and add a line to every chapter about what I think it will be about.

It’s not set in stone, of course. I often move those lines while writing, because I know I have to put something else in first, because I think the scenes will do better elsewhere in the story, or because I have realized the scenes will not fit and need to be removed. It’s just a very bare-bone map of the unknown territory I’m about to walk into.

While I’m working on a story, I usually do a chapter per day (that’s roundabout 3,000 words for a novel and 2,500 for a novella, since I try to keep my chapters at a similar length). On some days, I manage two chapters and, very rarely, I even manage three. It depends a lot on how much I know about the part of the story I’m writing. If I’ve already turned the content over in my head a lot, if I’ve played out the scenes several times already, I can write a chapter quickly, then two or even three are perfectly possible. If I’m stepping out of such an area, into the unknown, only aware of where the story as a such is going, I rarely get more than one chapter out.

Some days, I have to admit defeat and accept there’s not going to be a chapter that day. In such a case, I go for a walk, read, play a computer game, or watch TV or DVDs. I fill up my reserves and just allow my subconscious to do its work. Sooner or later, I will be ready to continue.

Perhaps because of this strategy, I haven’t encountered a really, really strong writer’s block in years. When I get a small one, there’s several strategies I employ.

The first is filling up my reserves by consuming media instead of creating it. I love reading and can read one to two books a day (provided they’re not 1,000+ pages books). I enjoy watching series and movies, both on TV or on DVD (or iTunes, where I also have a lot of podcasts I watch or listen to). I play computer games a lot, both the casual variety and the more ‘serious’ stuff (currently, as I write this, “Parker & Lane” was my last casual purchase and the “Jungle Adventures” game pack for Sims 4 was my last serious one, but I also played a lot of “Subnautica” those last few weeks). And I like going for walks, because sooner or later my head will start thinking up new stuff, new scenes which can come in handy, either immediately or over time.

The second is to turn to another story and leave the one I have problems with to its own devices for the moment. That might mean writing a short novella (like my erotica or, recently, an “Artemis Fowl” fan-fiction while I was fighting with the end of “Grave Diggers”). I usually have other projects somewhere as well, novellas or novels which are not yet finished. I try not to let my novels lie for too long, but some novellas (like “Hungry House,” the third Swenson & Carter novella) have been sitting on my HD for ages. They are projects to turn to when I can’t work on my main project because of a writer’s block.

I also remind myself regularly of the fact that a writer’s block has a lot to do with feeling like you’re not ‘good enough’ a writer and I exorcise that feeling as soon as I catch it. By now, being my own editor and proofreader, I have learned that there is a huge difference between the first draft you write to get the story on the pages and the finished product you allow others to read. All the bad writing has to go somewhere, I tell myself in such cases, and I will do the edit eventually and get it off the pages again.

I really don’t like the editing process, because it’s tedious and long, but I know it’s necessary, so I do it. I set a whole month aside for the editing process, going over the first draft several times. First, I look for the logic of the story and see if everything fits together. That usually means rewriting some parts, changing dialogue and scenes. Afterwards, I read the story out aloud several times to catch ‘bad writing’ (or, rather, bad phrasing) and all kinds of typing and grammar errors. I make a principle out of never editing immediately after I have finished a story, no matter how short or long it is. I need some distance from the story, so I can see it more clearly and work on it with less emotional attachment.

During that month, I usually also do my cover these days, because, sadly, my cover artist died last October. He left me a file to work with, thankfully, and it’s not too hard for me to do the covers, as long as I stay with his design. That doesn’t mean I don’t curse a lot - I’m a good writer, not a good designer.

I am a discovery writer and I have learned to embrace what comes with it, the good sides as well as the bad ones. I wouldn’t want it any other way, because I do enjoy the adventure of writing and am glad it doesn’t feel like work to me. For this, I accept the hard work of editing and proofreading.

Return to the Orion

1965/66, around the same time at which the Star Trek phenomenon was started with TOS, the Bavaria Studios of the ARD (first country-wide public station in Germany, composed of all local stations) produced a seven-part Sci-Fi series called “Raumpatrouille Orion” (“Space Patrol Orion”), the adventures of a spaceship crew made up of people from all over the world (who all happened to be played by white people, because we’re talking about middle-Sixties Germany here) who were dropped into a new adventure every episode.

The adventures of Commander Alistair McLane and his crew were diverse. In one episode, they’d drop down on a mining colony to find out that the robots had confined the human settlers below ground after their programming had been overloaded. In another episode, they sacrificed their ship (then the Orion 7) to destroy a planet-turned-supernova before it could reach and destroy Earth.

As enemies, introduced spookily in the first episode, served the mysterious extraterrestrial species known as ‘Frogs.’ (Yes, they were called that even in German.) The Frogs were introduced as a species of energy beings who couldn’t endure oxygen (which saved two crew members of the ship in the first episode) and were technologically far more advanced than mankind (they had pushed the planet mentioned above out of its system).

But it wasn’t always about the Frogs, some episodes, like the mine colony example above, dealt with self-made problems. The robots developed a neurosis while watching several humans kill each other - rule one and two of the robotic laws were at odds for them - and decided to lock the humans, sans weapons, below and take over the station.

The series was far less well-funded than Star Trek, of course. In the Sixties, not all that many households in Germany had their own TV sets, so the reach wasn’t that high (not to mention Germany had and has far less population than the US). That led to several changes which have their own good and bad sides.

Instead of the huge crew the Enterprise sported, the Orion had only six crew members and one of them was not a regular member, but a security officer from the secret service, supposed to keep an eye on the commander (who was an excellent commander, but a bit of a rogue). The ship was considerably smaller and more than capable of making planet-fall, even though it also had shuttles, but not transporter.

A lot of the insides of the ship couldn’t deny they’d come from your regular household. A clothing iron served as a scanner of sorts, the robots had ice-cream scoops for ‘hands’ to use the controls, and every base very much looked like the others (although that could be explained with pre-fabricated parts for quick assembly, of course). The aquarium of a member of the TV crew served as backdrop for the living quarters below Earth’s oceans. And they were dancing the weirdest dance I’ve ever seen anyone perform, but who am I to judge people’s dancing style?

Nevertheless, the storytelling was excellent, despite of the rather bad effects (small budget, as mentioned), and the actors had a good chemistry, especially the commander and his ‘babysitting’ security officer, who displayed the right amount of love-hate-relationship for things to stay interesting. As an afterthought, the space uniforms for men and women were rather similar: dark overalls (a lighter one for the security officer who, as mentioned, isn’t part of the regular fleet). Women wore skirts outside of duty, but not on duty, making them much more versatile during the adventures. Also, the skirts were no mini-skirts, but ended shortly above the knee.

The shorter run and much smaller crew allowed to put more focus on each crew member during the one-hour episodes of the series and to establish their relationships - including that of the security officer whose behaviour towards the crew changed slowly, the longer she was a team member.

Some episodes, like the aforementioned planet-turned-supernova one, also put quite a bit of focus on things happening on Earth while the crew was away. The discussions between secret service, politicians, and military about how to proceed if the planet couldn’t be stopped were a vital part, showing just how pressing the Orion’s mission was.

Other episodes, like one where the Orion seemingly deserted, showed that there is a huge difference between orders and actual actions, as the ship ordered to follow and destroy the Orion didn’t exactly hurry itself, since its commander, a good friend of McLane, wasn’t exactly hot on killing him without any talks beforehand.

Diversity - introduced through the ‘there are no local governments on Earth any longer’ part of the introduction - was mostly achieved by using a partially horrible combination of names. McLane got off easy, other characters went around with names like Tamara Jagellovsk, Mario di Monti, Hasso Sigbjörnson, Atan Shubashi, or Helga Legrelle (Lieutenant Jagellovsk being the security officer in question). That problem, of course, would have been much easier to solve in the US, but there were hardly any non-European actors available to the studio at that time.

Nevertheless, the series was successful, which was partially due to the good writing, to the good actors, but also to the inherent humour which was achieved by adding actors with comedic backgrounds (like Wolfgang Völz) to the crew. That made up for the rather low budget - especially as Germans weren’t really used to better effects at that time (Star Trek TOS didn’t run here until the early Seventies).

In 2003, the series was cut together to form a movie which actually was moderately successful in theatres, introducing a whole new generation of people to the “Raumpatrouille Orion.” The series was eventually released on DVD (including the 2003 movie) and can still be seen on German TV (usually at local stations) on occasion.

The series is nice to watch and still entertaining, even when seen with today’s eyes. The stories are good, the effects bad in a good way (if, like me, you also like B-movies), and the other shortcomings (like the diversity problem) excusable.