Fanfic - where have all the guys gone? Or how we discuss things in Fan Fic...

it was far from a myth ... you're speaking to a veteran ...

 

I don't think the topic of this thread is old board drama. Let's keep things focused on something constructive pertaining to the original query posted by Geo.

 

NICE Men, Brian - Those are the rare ones! There are far more Han Solo's on the Boards then there are Lukes!!!

And as 5 year (happy anniversary to me!) veteran of these boards, I can tell you that all things are cycledic. I remember back in the day when we had quite a few 'guys' who wrote - Scruffylooking was one of the undisputed "Kings" of post "Clones" epics...

 

*Raises hand* Here's one!


I've never actually checked what my readership happens to be! I think I've got a good mixture of male/female, though. I do have something to add on the assuming that some board users are male, though it might have been said already, if so disregard. Women are much more likely to have an icon of a man than a man is likely to have one of a woman. Make sense? Alot of the time I see some female posters who have an image of Anakin, or Obi-Wan, and just assume they are men. Closer thinking leads to me to believe that the vast majority of them are probably women who rather like seeing Anakin's face every time they make a post Who can blame them, am I right ladies?

 

Hey, I'm a nice man, Breezy.

And you're right, Oqi ... let the past stay in the past

 

EDIT


(kidding! kidding! Carry on...)



not funny
--oqidaun

 

I really thought I had everyone fooled with the pink...


Come to think of it, if you look at the Fan Fic Survey results, a lot of people mentioned the welcoming atmosphere as a plus. I wonder, does that have anything to do with the abundance of females? Or do we all just like fresh blood?


Oh, and those usernames - if it's something with "Goddess" or "Lady" or "Loves" I assume the person is female. Anything technical-sounding I attribute to males. If it's an OC, I match OC gender to user gender. And one that clearly expresses love for a certain 'ship gets marked "female" in my book.

But I've been wrong before.

 

Baiting. --oqidaun

 

Excuse me? A person expressing their opinion about whether or not a post is funny is now baiting? I think you need a refresher mod course. You can't edit someone just because they disagree with you.

 

AimChatowned

 

You want to talk about our modding practices, send us a PM or talk to the admins. This thread goes back to the original topic now, or it gets locked.

 

Uh oh ... this isn't gonna end well ...

 

What did I just say...

Sorry, folks. Locking until further notice.

 

Er, wow, this thread moves like lightning. It's hard to keep up.

I'm with Souderwan here--I think diversity in our fan fiction community is a good thing. I also know that I'm a hypocrite for saying that, because I sit with six different 'fic fragments languishing on my hard drive while I spend my free time translating Korean modernist poetry and watching baseball.

But the reason I even consider writing fan fiction is because, as much as I love to read it, I've found that there are habitual patterns of character representation and style and subject and theme and so on, which can leave gaps in our examination of the Star Wars universe. I don't know whether this is affected by having a majority female population here or not, but I do know that the writers I tend to read and admire most are the ones who tinker the most with the status quo.

I have a notebook with pages' worth of story ideas--I mean, literally close to a hundred. I'll probably never write even half of them. But every one of them has been prompted by something my copious reading of fanfiction here has left unsatisfied. Even something as simple as Beyond writers dismissing Alema Rar as a, well, shallow loose woman, has inspired all sorts of ideas for a story.

Again, I'm not sure if gender ratios have anything to do with overall writing trends--the sample size is too small to make any real judgement--but I do think we can all benefit from what diversity already exists here. And I think we can do a better job as a community, too, encouraging authors to stretch themselves as writers.

I also just want to mention, from a less opinionated standpoint, that, while I can't necessarily explain the reason why, I've found reading romance in stories written by men feels fresher than in stories by women. I'm sure part of it is some subtle difference in the way I psychologically view romantic relationships that makes me more sympathetic to the as-yet-undefined male perspective on it all; but also I think it's just because it's nice to see something less common. Especially when you get into introspection, cross-gender writing can be quite a challenge without serious thought and research. For the most part, all I need to do to tell if a writer is a man or a woman is to take a look at the way they have their male and female characters interact. I don't think it's failed me yet, at least for the ones I couldn't tell from other cues.

Anyways... I'm mostly rambling now. I always have more to say, but I'll leave it for later.

EDIT: Wow... what the eff happened while I was posting?

 

This is a great thread and we appreciate the comments that have been made on the topic posted by Geo.
Please keep this thread on topic.

 

So am I a pregnant guy pretending to be a woman or a man pretending to be a pregnant chick? It just gets so complicated

I've also noticed the tend towards female domination but don't have a plausible plan to fix it *shrugs*

 

Maybe it really does have something to do with what rebel_cheese posted earlier. When you look at the films and novels, you see a lot of epic storytelling, space battles, and humor. You don't see too much romance. It's interesting that the couples who have stayed together over the years don't have many "falling in love" scenes. People (women?) want to see more, so they write it. Then you look at couples yet to be determined - J/J, J/Z, K/J, Valin/Tahiri/Syal/etc etc etc. Profic doesn't give people (women?) enough of what they want, so they happily turn to fanfic. I don't call myself a girly girl, but there are so many times when I look at a novel and think, "Can you just get them together already? Enough dancing around, I can't take it!" Sometimes I even flip through it in the bookstore to see if there's some good mushy dialogue.

Character introspection is another thing I often wonder about. Who writes them more, guys or girls, and why? And can you tell the difference between an introspection written by a guy, and one written by a girl?

 

I never notice if my readers are male or female or what sex the authors are that I read. All I care about is a good story.

I am curious to know what things Gunrays Lawyer was talking about - Women tended to pick up different things from his posts than men (I'm paraphrasing). Which things were they? I'm really interested to know.

And for the men, if you know most of your readership is women, do you ever write differently than you would to a solely male audience?



Edit: Didn't see your post, Jade.
Profic doesn't give people (women?) enough of what they want, so they happily turn to fanfic. I don't call myself a girly girl, but there are so many times when I look at a novel and think, "Can you just get them together already? Enough dancing around, I can't take it!"

You said it! I agree 100%. Not enough romance and I often flip through the books for the part where the hero and heroine get together. Heck, in Zahn's Vision of the Future, the pages where Luke and Mara finally admit their feelings are well worn...

 

Maybe we should ban Romance so more guys would come to the fanfic boards?

Or better allow higher rated Romance and they will come to the fanfic boards too

 

I've often wondered if more women write/participate in fanfic simply because the female characters don't get enough strong, action-oriented roles in the SW movies and books. For instance, as a woman I like Obi-Wan and Han, but I can't identify as easily with them. Stylisticially, I understand the relegation of Padme's role in the movies to the backburner, but as a woman I wanted to see more of her role in the SW universe. Same could be said of Jaina's role in the EU. Fanfic gives women the outlet to explore those possibilities.

Just a thought...

 

That's interesting, TKL, because I rarely write women. I'm just more comfortable with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan than Padme or Leia or even Mara.

I also wonder if sometime the male characters are written by women in a way that is too feminine for male readers to take. Would men see things that might be off for male characters and not the women? I just don't know. Comments?

 

LOL! But there are some damn fine male writers-of-romance around.

 

I?m glad this thread was re-opened. Amid the various derailments, from sexist fluff to ancient history, we?ve had the genesis of some interesting discussion.

TKL This thread moved so fast last night I missed your post. Thanks for the stats.

The Crazy Rodian But the reason I even consider writing fan fiction is because, as much as I love to read it, I've found that there are habitual patterns of character representation and style and subject and theme and so on, which can leave gaps in our examination of the Star Wars universe. I don't know whether this is affected by having a majority female population here or not, but I do know that the writers I tend to read and admire most are the ones who tinker the most with the status quo.

Oh, absolutely! You?ve hit the core of what I?ve been wondering about. I get the feeling that people are less comfortable discussing questions of gender than they are with joking about it, but this is precisely the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

? ? habitual patterns of character representation and style?? That?s so well put! I think we all recognize these patterns. I suppose the differences lie in whether we feel comfortable with them and prefer to perpetuate them, or whether we, as you put it, prefer to ?tinker with the status quo.? I think that?s what souderwan meant when he brought up the idea of diversity in the context of fanfic ? the idea of fresh perspectives, of original thinking about characterization ? heck, the idea of original thinking about every aspect of the story.

I have a notebook with pages' worth of story ideas--I mean, literally close to a hundred. I'll probably never write even half of them. But every one of them has been prompted by something my copious reading of fanfiction here has left unsatisfied. Even something as simple as Beyond writers dismissing Alema Rar as a, well, shallow loose woman, has inspired all sorts of ideas for a story.

I always thought that most fanfic is prompted by a sense of having been left unsatisfied by the original material ? the need not just for ?more,? but for ?better,? ?more plausible,? ?more heartfelt,? ?more in-depth,? ?more insightful,? or whatever. So your motivation would be the next iteration ? dissatisfaction with existing fanfic. That?s the essence of the creative impulse, I guess. We see/read, we internalize, and we add our own ideas and carry the original forward with them. Bravo to that!

I also just want to mention, from a less opinionated standpoint, that, while I can't necessarily explain the reason why, I've found reading romance in stories written by men feels fresher than in stories by women. I'm sure part of it is some subtle difference in the way I psychologically view romantic relationships that makes me more sympathetic to the as-yet-undefined male perspective on it all; but also I think it's just because it's nice to see something less common.

As a matter of fact, I?ve been actively searching for stories ? published and fanfic - that deal with romantic relationships, but are written by men. My quest began after I read Stephen Gould?s ?Blind Waves,? one of his lesser known novels. It?s futuristic, it?s about adventures and submarines, and it?s full of his usual loving detail about all of those things; but it is also, at heart, a love story told from the male protagonist?s POV. I did find it fresh ? very much so. I couldn?t get enough of the male perspective, whereas I can?t pick up a traditional ?female-oriented? romance novel and have the patience to read it. And that?s just one example of changing the traditional boundaries of genre.

Or maybe rigid adherence to categroies of genre is part of the problem?

Especially when you get into introspection, cross-gender writing can be quite a challenge without serious thought and research.

I love it when people make the effort, though.

For the most part, all I need to do to tell if a writer is a man or a woman is to take a look at the way they have their male and femal

 

Once again, I'll point to Scruffy-Looking as an example (now complete with a link!) as a male user from days gone by who wrote stories because of the 'something's missing' factor. He managed to combine action with quite a bit of Romance, and did it well...

 

I agree with this. In the movies, we pretty much just have Padme and Leia. I see Jaina becoming more of a "woman's woman" in EU, simply because she seems to blend many positive aspects of being a woman into one. She's interested in romance, but doesn't let it scare her or make her defensive, but she doesn't make that her impetus for living, either. She's a pilot, a daughter, a friend, a twin and a Jedi. Ugh. Too many commas.