The Siren Call
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Siren Call |
| Creator: | Emily Brunson |
| Date(s): | January 23, 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction, Sports Night |
| External Links: | The Siren Call/WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Siren Call is an essay by Emily Brunson.
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
Excerpts
It's so hard to resist writing in a new fandom. A whole new world is waiting for you, whispering in your ear with story ideas, images, concepts...and you can't wait to get started.I'm sure I'm not the only person who's seen this type of note to a mailing list: "I haven't watched many eps yet (or any), but I just can't wait to write my Magnum Opus in this new fandom. I just *love* so-and-so!" Or variations on that essential theme.
Do your readers a favor, and resist that siren call for a while.
Why? Bluntly: because you don't know enough yet about how these people work to do them justice in fiction.
Let me use Sports Night as an example, since it's 1) a new fandom, 2) a new fandom I follow, and 3) it's a tough fandom.
When you write without sufficient background data and knowledge of the characters' personalities, habits, and other quirks, you run the risk of a story that does that awful thing writers don't want to do: You don't tell the story you want to tell. You may think you do. But without that kind of information, you take a chance. And your readers will notice.Don't jump in just because it looks like fun. Don't write a nifty idea you had just because the idea's nifty. Don't post a dashed-off story because it seems like people want to read more fic. (They do want more fic, but they want good fic, not a story with guys who bear only the most passing of resemblances to the ones we all see on screen.)
Give it some time. Let the ideas cook on the back burner while you watch and learn and absorb. And wait until you can provide a full-color picture, and not just a blurry black-and-white image of something barely recognizable as the guys we know. It's not fair to them, it's not fair to the reader -- and it's not fair to you, as the author.