'Your story is ready, please drive through', Is Fast food Fan fic a bad thing?

YOu know what I think?

I really think viggies are the lifeblood of f(an)f)iction), regardless of genre. They are quick, relatively easy to make, and so numerous that you'll probably never run out, just like real blood cells. However, this is not to belittle viggies (being the writer of two myself and nothing else), because they are wonderful in and of themselves, nto to mention endlessly compex and fascinating, and because they make epics and short stories, which are the works of perhaps more serious if not dedicated writers, more rare and more delectable by their variety, like vitamins running through blood instead of the usual oxygen. Jeezus, I am the QUEEN of run on sentences! Takes me three pages to write a short answer to a test! Anyway, to keep this semi-circulation running, viggies must flow, quality and quantitiy varying.

I, for one, love it.

 

I like linked viggies.

Every viggie I try to write spawns a 15,000 word story. Bragging or complaining??

That would be complaining...

 

Mind if I throw out a ridiculous idea? I don't even know if it could work, really.

I was listening to Linkin Park (ha ha ha, o_e) and there is a lyric, Same situation, just different faces. What if there were a challenge in which you thrust different characters into a situation? Such as Leia and Luke on Naboo during the blockade.

Just a stupid example for a stupid idea. But I had to say something because the bunny hurts!

 

That's a neat idea, VM. It would certainly show the contrasts of different characters.

 

That does sound like fun.

 

VadersMistress posted on 5/30/05 11:08am

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Mind if I throw out a ridiculous idea? I don't even know if it could work, really.

Just a stupid example for a stupid idea. But I had to say something because the bunny hurts! [face_happy]
[hr][/blockquote]

Make it a Challange in a new thread, I think it's a brilliant idea!

Call it a three in one, three stories, one situation, tie it all together.


* [face_drooling] [i]Meaty[/i] [face_drooling]

 

Meaty



Thanks guys! I may make into a new challenge, like Breezy suggested.

 

Do it do it do it!!!

 

So... I what? Just post a new thread?

Gosh darned OPPM! Die you OPPM dogs!

 

Yes, Start a new thread with the guidelines of the challange and a start date and have people link to their replies!

 

Duh on my part. See, this is what happens to my brain after I stay up all night reading...again.

This is your brain. This is your brain on books.

EDIT: I did it! Now, would anyone mind looking it over to see if I need to fix anything or even if you have a suggestion.

Yet Another Challenge Thread

 

Vignettes on the other hand are like steamy affairs.

Considering my long stories never get past chapter six, I guess it says much about my love life...


IMHO, story lenght depends as much on the author's personality as on the plot bunny. I have this tendency of saying it all in few words (not only in fan fiction, my college test answers also tend to be short), and a certain need to get rid of the bunnies pestering me as soon as possible. I tend to grow tired when writing anything longer. Could be some lack of maturity on my part - as you guys already mentioned, epics need commitment.

Or else it's just lack of talent really. Guess I'd have to submit something here to find out.

 

I don't write epics because I know I cannot write that much, my biggest writing flaw is I go through scenes fast, I have almost nonestop dialague action, not very good at the descriptive stuff, I believe my longest story (on theforce.net, I have some longer original work) capped out at 5000 Words and 10 Updates

-The Scummy-

 

As red_rose_knight said a story is as long as it needs to be, but as Prudence says it also depends on the authors personality.

My only epic (150 000 words of semi-detailed AU-SW planning) was based on a mission list I?d created for an XWA Campaign I?d planned. So for that story there are a lot of incidents and I wove subplots in and out of the backbone of the mission list (which defined the general direction of the story). Some people died, some people were promoted, some betrayed others?

But for a story here though I?d probably only write one ?mission.? A single incident or snapshot of events.
(Funnily enough on thinking about it that way I realised that the story I?m working on which is about twice the length would have been made as two XWA missions since there were two ?incidents? in it ).

But how many words that snapshot would take can vary greatly.

Sometimes a story needs to go through more time and detail before you reach a stopping point.

Sometimes a story might benefit from extra viewpoints with an extra couple of hundred words or more each, and these can add up to quite an increase in length. Conversely sometimes the story would be better without the extra viewpoints as taking the focus away from the main characters or events would lose some of the intensity of the story, and thus be shorter.

Another thing to consider is whether making the story longer would detract badly from it. The more poetic vignettes depend for their impact in part on the fact that the shorter length allows them to use the structure of the story to enhance this.

 

I have a couple hundred pager I've been working on for a bit now with a primarily OC cast, but I'm still not sure how I'll go about releasing it when it's done. I guess a staggered release, with a bit at a time. I guess I'll figure that out when I come to it.

I think a big problem with the epics is you really have to sit down and research and plan before you do it. If you don't at least have some idea of where you're going to end up and have a basic plot worked out before you start, then it becomes harder to keep any kind of focus and I think that shows up in the end result. And obviously, smaller works are much easier to pump out quickly.

 

I have one epic that I haven't continued for several months. It needs some polishing, but my biggest problem is time. Whether it's trying to continue my story, or read/write a new one. Vignettes, especially by the more established authors seem more practical for me to read through.

I am glad though, that a few readers have followed my works, though are still waiting for me to finish my long story. If plot bunnies would quit nipping at my heels, I might be able to get something done. I just started another story. Ugh. It's not a vignette, but nothing like my epic either. I guess that's about it. Thanks for listening. Can I have some extra pickles please?

 

That's a problem I've always had when writing anything taking longer than a week to finish. I'll get three quarters done, then all of a sudden get a new idea and start something new. So I end up with twelve hundred unfinished stories, with twenty going on at any given time...you can imagine how many pickles it will take to finish all of them.

 

Same problem I have. I get WB on one story and then I get an idea for another. Grrr.

 

As far as epic-length fanfics - I've written three novel-length fanfics in another fandom and they take months to complete. One of them, my favorite of the three, took over 7 months to complete, and that was with weekly updates of 5000-12,000 word chapters. I'd imagine there will be a good supply of RotS-based epics showing up in about a half year.

I've started a long SW fiction now, and as everyone says, it takes time to plot out, organize, and research. No one wants to read a rushed epic-length fiction, because it'll likely be weak and lose its focus quite easily. I did complete a vignette that was accepted to the archive (sadly, the archive's been down since a day after it was posted LOL!) and even that fic took me a few days to write.

 

I can't agree on the instant gratification thing, particularly as applied to teens. The factor with we younger readers/writers is, overwhelmingly, school. I've got an epic story (70,000+ words) posted on the boards, which hasn't been updated for five months because I'm going through a rough period at school and simply don't have the time to spend maybe eight hours of a weekend writing, rewriting, polishing and posting a new chapter.

In the two years I've been here I've turned out twenty-seven shorter pieces. Vigs I can turn out in an hour and a half, gun to tape, and lay the muse to rest for another month. It keeps me sane.

One thing I have noticed is that very few stories genuinely disappear because of lack of readers. If an author goes AWOL then obviously a fic will die, but most things tend to get read to some extent. These boards are huge, the Internet huger still. There's a niche for everyone. Epics still exist and if you write them, they'll be read. Except at the moment, not so many people are doing it.

Personally, I'm all for the viggie revolution. Stands to reason that trends in story-writing change. Maybe we've had the age of the communal RR and are into the time of the ROTS shortie. In two years' time maybe it'll be all about 500k myth cycles.

Good topic.

Nem

 

I was making the comment earlier to someone...oh, on the CRPA thread about short stories being the backbone of literature.

Not necessarily vignettes, though. I'm talking about bonefide short stories. Go through the entire bell curve of introduction, build up, climax and resolution. Edgar Allen Poe liked to be able to sit down for half an hour and read through a short story, and during the late 1800's and early 1900's they were the backbone of American and British literature.

Okay, so I'm being a snobby English major. But I really like short stories, which I think is why I tend to hang out more with the Battlestar Galactica people instead, since actual short stories is the preferred form of writing over there.

That's why the CRPA challenge is a vignette or a short story. It doesn't necessarily have to all be posted in one blow, because a short story can easily be posted into those four parts of introduction, build up, climax and resolution, but especially for people who are in school and working and don't have a lot of time to read, short stories are the way to go.

And I really like to go ahead and put a whole bunch of short stories together in a series. (The old serials from the 1900's anyone?)

Anyway. *hands $.02 to Breezy*

~Carr

 

Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart.

I often wonder what happened to those days where I could write a short story like "Jaina's Drunken Night". It was sort of thin on plot but thick on humor, and it was like writing a half hour episode for a TV sitcom. Just there to put everyone through a whirlwind only to end up in just about the same place as they started.

Back then I was just trying to get ANY response from readers, Plus, I only wrote when I had the time, which was a lot back then since I was on summer vacation from college.

I hate to say it, but I think after watching other epic writers, my style turned into that of an epic writer. I started promising a certain number of posts a week and delivered. I had a following because I was consistant, but I don't really think my quality went up when I upped the quantity. More like the opposite. I also realized how much I needed a beta to help me get from point A to point B. When both my beta and I left school and started working longer hours, it became harder to write epics. Imagine trying to plan out something so massive when you only have about five hours in between a long hard day and bed. I think only a few really driven people can accomplish this.

So I got burnt out. I also got married, and after that I promised I'd try and write some more. I don't think I'll be able to stomach another epic. I don't even think I'm going to do the song and dance to keep readers interested. I'm going to write 'fast food' because it's at least food. Better than going hungry.

Jae

 

Well, as far as it goes for me:

I like writing Viggies because it gets your name out there, and you don't just plunge into the whole pool of saga-writing immediatley. You get a chance to get used to the boards, get used to SW, and just kind of breathe for a little before you start turning out 600 page novels. I can understand the parallels between viggies and fast food though, lol. It is nice to start something and not have to finish it. You can just leave a viggie there and not have reviewers threaten your life for an update. I started a POTO fic awhile back on fanfiction.net, and my muse was flowing for a long time, and I got 12 chapters (100 pages!) and then my muse withered away and died. Not having to commit to a fic is nice, and it helps not just to jump headfirst.

I, being at the mercy of plot bunnies, will probably start an epic saga, but not for a little while. Viggies are nice for now.

 

I'm attempting to write an epic story here. One thing I've done though is that I script an outline of all I want to do and figure out plot points on how I'm going to get from point A-Z. More or less it's filling in the blanks as I mold the story. I also don't want to unleash it to the boards in pieces if I get burned out and suddenly stop writeing and don't finish it I don't want to disapoint those that do follow the story.

I think that what has kept people from writeing long stories is majorly because they are trying to get there feet wet like many of the previous posters have stated. They're trying to get a feel for there characters and then possibly jump off from there.