On Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 08:10:57PM -0000, Leia Fee wrote:
Helen wrote...
So, tell me, why does a peerson write it out if they don't care if anyone reads it? As a record of their imaginings? I'm seriously curious.
I starting writing fanfic before I knew that's what I was doing, just to amuse myself. I'm not sure there's a simple answer why though. I write stories I wish someone else had written so I could read them...sort of...
Yeah. I write the stories *I* want to read, because there aren't enough. (And often enough with fanfic, that also might involve "fixing up" things that I wanted fixed up, whether that be saving Our Heros or putting in a missing scene or something). Would I write if there wasn't an audience? I'm not sure. Various factors contribute their different weights -- if it's a scenario demanding to be written (like, I *really* want to fix something up desperately) then the presence of an audience is less of a factor. On the other hand, if I feel like a bit of egoboo, and there's a particular audience out there whom I know from past experience is more likely to give me some nice feedback, then I might write for them -- not so much writing for *them* (because the first principle still holds -- I write stories *I* want to read) but putting a particular story idea higher on the list of things-to-do than what might otherwise be the case (one reason why all of my recent stuff has been Sentinel rather than B7...)
Unfortunately a negative factor from an audience is if I feel as if I'm being pressured to write something (for example, a sequel, or for a zine *deadline*) -- because that makes it so much of a drag, being under pressure, that my Muse flees screaming into the night (or, in other words, I don't wanna write it, no, no, no).
Poetry, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of aquatic creatures. For me, poetry is catharsis, and it wouldn't matter a bit if nobody ever saw it (and there are some poems I've written which nobody will ever see).
Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Are you the police?" "No Ma'am. We're Musicians" -Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers