Death by Chains
За родину и свободу!
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2015
- Messages
- 347
- Likes received
- 1,494
I recently saw this exchange on a Discord server:
... and it sparked a thought, which turned into this not-so-mini-rant. (I feel like this is something I've said here before, or certainly wanted to, so I apologise in advance if I'm retreading old territory.)
I spent several successive years of high school English going over novels and being told "this is [work], this is its theme/message, here's how you identify it; now write an essay about the theme of [work]", all aimed at getting me to pass the part of the School Certificate/Bursary English exam where I had to prove I could identify and write about the theme of a work. I wasn't sure I always agreed that [X] was the theme/message of [work Y], because it sounded like taking an interpretation of the words on the pages that I didn't see or may not have been intended by the author (not that Teenaged Me was all that interested in delving into the mindstate of someone I'd never met, considering that at times I had my hands full just understanding the people who were actually in the classroom!), but I dutifully wrote my essays and repeated them in the exams and scored decent marks for it. I was never taught how to write to a theme or message, but I avidly wanted to write works that evoked the things I'd read, Tolkien and Clancy and other published giants, and I've never really lost that. Lacking any formal education in creative writing, at any level (I did a tertiary qualification in IT instead because I thought that was where the money would be, not that I ever wound up using it), I ended up teaching myself by trying to imitate the examples set by the 'giants' (and probably ingrained a lot of really bad habits in doing so). I fell into Internet fan-fiction as a way to write in a context I shared with other fans, partly because that was a way to connect to the fan-community, but while I insisted on injecting Kiwi characters into particular properties so I could Write What I Knew, I never actively considered myself to be writing to any particular theme/message.
In the last few years, I've come to recognise that part of that is me having a lifelong resentment of American defaultism (dare I call it cultural imperialism/arrogance?) in media in general and on the Internet in particular, so my making such a show of representing New Zealand characters and culture and voices in my works was my personal form of pushback: "America is not the be-all and end-all of human existence, dammit."
In working on fics in one of my primary focal IPs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I also found myself coming to recognise, resent, and in fact reject one of Joss Whedon's characteristic story-beats. Yes, the central metaphor of Buffy is 'being a teenager is Really Hard [so let's make it a literal Fight to Survive]; high school is Hell for most people [so let's make it a war against literal demons]; and anyone who isn't in the same boat with you is always going to let you down [so anyone not a teenager has to be inept, corrupt, or actively Out To Get our Heroes]'... but on the latter two points of that, at least, that had not been my experience, so having that message pushed at me week after week felt off in a way I wasn't (am not?) well-equipped to define.
And in reading fics about Buffy, the focus is almost always on Sunnydale and the Scoobies (or one or two in particular) and often on their relationships, when I think there is more-than-ample narrative room for fics that happen in that universe but do not necessarily focus on events in that one little SoCal town and the lives of its particular band of Plucky Teenaged Defenders. Yes, Sunnydale is a Hellmouth, but it's established in Season Three that there are other Hellmouths (including Cleveland!) where similar events must be occurring. And if the Existence of the World depends on the doings of a conscripted teenaged superhero like the Slayer... what happens if she fails, even once? What happens if there's a crisis somewhere that she can't get to it, or may not even find out about it until Too Late? Maybe there are other people out there doing the same thing, in other places and probably other times, to make sure the world existed to be saved before Buffy showed up? Maybe those people have lives worth exploring, and stories worth telling?
So, yeah. In thinking about this over the last few years, I think I've finally identified the two main through-lines of what and how I want to write in Buffy fics, and just need to work out ways to incorporate these Themes into my writings in a way that doesn't club people over the head:
» Yes, being a teenager is hard, absolutely, especially when you're grappling with all kinds of Issues and realising for the first time that not all adults and social institutions have your best interests and wellbeing at heart... but you'd be surprised how many of them are on your side, or that are willing and able to help you, if you'll just talk to them instead of trying to wade through it alone! (To whit: I am trying to actively refute one of the original work's primary themes, or large portions thereof.)
» This struggle (being a teenager/Saving The World) is universal. It did not exist only in Sunnydale, California, USA, for Buffy Summers and her ragtag band of schoolmates; it did not exist only between 1997 and 2003. Other people have gone through it, are going through it, will go through it, in different places and different times. Hell, some of them may be adults and institutions that have decided to do what they can to make that struggle easier in their time and place! Their stories could be just as dramatic and compelling and (hopefully) fascinating as the Scoobies', and indeed the 'exoticism' of their taking place in times and places that are not the Whitest of White-bread Californian Suburbia could be part of the appeal, because they are not happening in the Default American Context and thus they're (slightly) less predictable!
Post-script (AKA 'semi-joking whinge')
Unfortunately, a lot of the draw of fan-fiction is that people know the default setting and cast going into a particular work, so by having that second through-line, which means many of my works necessarily focus on original characters, in unfamiliar contexts, I have to explain a lot of things and people and the reader has to get to know them... and it seems to filter out a lot of people.
(I dunno... sometimes it feels like fanfic is narrative comfort-food, and people are coming to a backyard barbecue (fic) expecting to be served American-style hot dogs and burgers, then being put off by the fact that I'm offering them a hearty feed of sausages on buttered bread with Watties' Tomato Sauce (fried onions available on request) and/or burgers with beetroot in them. The fact that it's not what you're used to doesn't automatically make it bad!)
... and it sparked a thought, which turned into this not-so-mini-rant. (I feel like this is something I've said here before, or certainly wanted to, so I apologise in advance if I'm retreading old territory.)
I spent several successive years of high school English going over novels and being told "this is [work], this is its theme/message, here's how you identify it; now write an essay about the theme of [work]", all aimed at getting me to pass the part of the School Certificate/Bursary English exam where I had to prove I could identify and write about the theme of a work. I wasn't sure I always agreed that [X] was the theme/message of [work Y], because it sounded like taking an interpretation of the words on the pages that I didn't see or may not have been intended by the author (not that Teenaged Me was all that interested in delving into the mindstate of someone I'd never met, considering that at times I had my hands full just understanding the people who were actually in the classroom!), but I dutifully wrote my essays and repeated them in the exams and scored decent marks for it. I was never taught how to write to a theme or message, but I avidly wanted to write works that evoked the things I'd read, Tolkien and Clancy and other published giants, and I've never really lost that. Lacking any formal education in creative writing, at any level (I did a tertiary qualification in IT instead because I thought that was where the money would be, not that I ever wound up using it), I ended up teaching myself by trying to imitate the examples set by the 'giants' (and probably ingrained a lot of really bad habits in doing so). I fell into Internet fan-fiction as a way to write in a context I shared with other fans, partly because that was a way to connect to the fan-community, but while I insisted on injecting Kiwi characters into particular properties so I could Write What I Knew, I never actively considered myself to be writing to any particular theme/message.
In the last few years, I've come to recognise that part of that is me having a lifelong resentment of American defaultism (dare I call it cultural imperialism/arrogance?) in media in general and on the Internet in particular, so my making such a show of representing New Zealand characters and culture and voices in my works was my personal form of pushback: "America is not the be-all and end-all of human existence, dammit."
In working on fics in one of my primary focal IPs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I also found myself coming to recognise, resent, and in fact reject one of Joss Whedon's characteristic story-beats. Yes, the central metaphor of Buffy is 'being a teenager is Really Hard [so let's make it a literal Fight to Survive]; high school is Hell for most people [so let's make it a war against literal demons]; and anyone who isn't in the same boat with you is always going to let you down [so anyone not a teenager has to be inept, corrupt, or actively Out To Get our Heroes]'... but on the latter two points of that, at least, that had not been my experience, so having that message pushed at me week after week felt off in a way I wasn't (am not?) well-equipped to define.
And in reading fics about Buffy, the focus is almost always on Sunnydale and the Scoobies (or one or two in particular) and often on their relationships, when I think there is more-than-ample narrative room for fics that happen in that universe but do not necessarily focus on events in that one little SoCal town and the lives of its particular band of Plucky Teenaged Defenders. Yes, Sunnydale is a Hellmouth, but it's established in Season Three that there are other Hellmouths (including Cleveland!) where similar events must be occurring. And if the Existence of the World depends on the doings of a conscripted teenaged superhero like the Slayer... what happens if she fails, even once? What happens if there's a crisis somewhere that she can't get to it, or may not even find out about it until Too Late? Maybe there are other people out there doing the same thing, in other places and probably other times, to make sure the world existed to be saved before Buffy showed up? Maybe those people have lives worth exploring, and stories worth telling?
So, yeah. In thinking about this over the last few years, I think I've finally identified the two main through-lines of what and how I want to write in Buffy fics, and just need to work out ways to incorporate these Themes into my writings in a way that doesn't club people over the head:
» Yes, being a teenager is hard, absolutely, especially when you're grappling with all kinds of Issues and realising for the first time that not all adults and social institutions have your best interests and wellbeing at heart... but you'd be surprised how many of them are on your side, or that are willing and able to help you, if you'll just talk to them instead of trying to wade through it alone! (To whit: I am trying to actively refute one of the original work's primary themes, or large portions thereof.)
» This struggle (being a teenager/Saving The World) is universal. It did not exist only in Sunnydale, California, USA, for Buffy Summers and her ragtag band of schoolmates; it did not exist only between 1997 and 2003. Other people have gone through it, are going through it, will go through it, in different places and different times. Hell, some of them may be adults and institutions that have decided to do what they can to make that struggle easier in their time and place! Their stories could be just as dramatic and compelling and (hopefully) fascinating as the Scoobies', and indeed the 'exoticism' of their taking place in times and places that are not the Whitest of White-bread Californian Suburbia could be part of the appeal, because they are not happening in the Default American Context and thus they're (slightly) less predictable!
Post-script (AKA 'semi-joking whinge')
Unfortunately, a lot of the draw of fan-fiction is that people know the default setting and cast going into a particular work, so by having that second through-line, which means many of my works necessarily focus on original characters, in unfamiliar contexts, I have to explain a lot of things and people and the reader has to get to know them... and it seems to filter out a lot of people.
(I dunno... sometimes it feels like fanfic is narrative comfort-food, and people are coming to a backyard barbecue (fic) expecting to be served American-style hot dogs and burgers, then being put off by the fact that I'm offering them a hearty feed of sausages on buttered bread with Watties' Tomato Sauce (fried onions available on request) and/or burgers with beetroot in them. The fact that it's not what you're used to doesn't automatically make it bad!)