Who do you want to be today?
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| Title: | Who do you want to be today? |
| Creator: | The Divine Adoratrice |
| Date(s): | September 1, 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | none |
| Topic: | anonymity and pseudonyms and others |
| External Links: | Who do you want to be today? |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Who do you want to be today? is a 1999 essay by The Divine Adoratrice at The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind.
"You don't have to say who you are, but you should be who you are. Or something."
Some Topics Discussed
Excerpts
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm against someone saying "Check your spelling" and the rest of it. It's just that from their introductory material, they were presenting themselves as daring iconoclasts who were here to bring enlightenment to us all. Problem is, people who care about their writing already care enough to tend to the mechanics. People who don't care... well, they're not going to take Jane and Virginia's advice in any event.So why the uproar? Well, part of it is undoubtedly because of the confrontational tone of much of the original material. They didn't just say that there was a lot of bad fanfic out there, they took the position that fanfic is inherently inferior to anything about original characters, and that the existence of so much poor writing proves that fanfic is inferior. Of course, they then went on to list the Nifty Archives on their link page, presumably as a resource to find examples of good original writing. Has everyone heard about the child who finds a pile of manure beneath the Christmas tree, and plows right into it because darn, all that shit means there must be a pony underneath? That's how I feel when I go to the NA. There's some good stuff there but frankly, I don't want a pony bad enough to shovel that much shit out of the way. And the fact that Jane and Virginia feel free to recommend that site, and yet condemn fanfic as a whole because a lot of it is bad, indicates that maybe they haven't thought this critiquing business all the way through.
Another reason, one that hasn't been mentioned by too many others but that's been nagging at me, is Jane and Virginia's claim that they put up the page because they didn't receive any feedback beyond "Good story." Ordinarily, I don't think much of people who say "Duh." But, well... duh. If you post a story to a fanfic list or on a fanfic archive, it will be read by people who are fans. QED. True, some of those fans will be writers or editors or what have you. But the function of a fanfic list is emphatically not to teach people how to write; it's simply to share our visions of the characters. If you get a "good story!" letter, that tells you that on whatever level, you succeeded at least that far -- and really, that's as much as any of us can reasonably expect. Complaining that you didn't get useful writing criticism from a fanfic list is akin to complaining that your cat doesn't have supper on the table when you get home for work. It ain't supposed to, and only a fool would expect it. If you're primarily interested in improving your craft, it only makes sense to focus your efforts on those resources that are most likely to help you: writer's groups. There are lots of them out there, geared both to fanfic and original writing.
Of course, something that a lot of people have focused on is the fact that Jane and Virginia aren't "Jane and Virginia." Yep, we're now venturing into the wild world of pseudonyms. They state very clearly that they've published fiction, both professionally and on a fan level, but that they have no intention of revealing what they've written "for fear of retribution for rocking the fanfiction boat."
Oh... dear.
Now, there's nothing wrong with someone using a pseudonym for their writing. (A better question is why anyone wouldn't use a pseud. Lord almighty, what was I thinking?) For that matter, I know writers who use different pseuds for different fandoms, or for slash and gen, or for fiction and nonfiction -- or for fanfic and professional writing. No biggie. The liberating thing about the Internet is that it allows us some degree of control over how we are perceived. If someone writes humor in X-Files and heavy h/c angst in Highlander, it's perfectly understandable that she'd want to keep those areas separate. I think the reason some people have a problem with the CABS writers is because of the bald statement that they're remaining anonymous because they don't want to rock the boat, and that they can't let anyone know what they've written because the readers will then judge them unfairly, as a form of revenge.
Finally, on a purely visceral (and admittedly petty) level, I'm getting a little tired of people pompously proclaiming, "I take my writing seriously!" It implies that everyone else wears a Groucho Marx nose and sits on a whoopee cushion when they write. Just... knock it off, okay?