My Escape

In my first ever blog, I told you about the reasons I write, but there's one which I haven't mentioned yet, mostly because it wasn't really relevant to anything I've talked about at all so far. Then I watched the series finale of ER. I've been watching it since I was 11 years old, so for 10 of the 14 years it was on. Now, when I was a kid, I was painfully shy. I had a few friends but I was frequently too shy to ask them to play, so as a result, I spent a lot of time watching TV. And that's when it all really started. I would watch my shows and I would be swept away into a land where I could empathize with these characters; feel what they were feeling, feel the affection that they felt for the people in their lives deep down inside, especially friendships. I think this ability to empathize with characters is a large part of why I am (not to toot my own horn) a good writer and I hope this has reflected in my fan fiction writing. Simply, it was an escape from my life. Admittedly, crippling shyness and lack of social life aside, I can't say I had a horrendous childhood, but outside of my love for writing, I can't say I was truly happy then either. Sad? Maybe. But it was all I had and I, for the most part, was okay with it. This...I don't know if it's a song or a poem, but it really describes me back then...not as much the last verse because I wasn't going crazy, but I can even relate to that a bit because, back then, relating to characters on TV was much easier than trying to do it in my own life...

A lot has changed since then; since I graduated high school. I'm no longer painfully shy; for that matter I don't even classify myself as shy anymore. I have little to no problem talking in groups and in class or making friends. Though I was happy with all the time I spent writing, generally all of this has made me much of a more well-rounded person. But as much as I enjoy being with people, I cherish my time alone. My time to be by myself, to think, to write, to appreciate relationships and experiences so different from my own. My time to just be.

I really think that watching the series finale of ER is what made me think of all this. It reminded me of a time where 'my time to just be' was really all I had. After I finished watching it, I felt this sense of awe and love for being alone with my own thoughts and writing them down that I haven't truly felt in a long time, since I became more social, that I felt near constantly growing up. It comes from my ability to become so deeply caught up in these fictional worlds; like I'm part of them. Everybody needs to get away from the world for a while; I just feel it more so than others is all. I know that so many people wouldn't be able to imagine that, but that's what's made me who I am. Writing fan fiction may not be all that I have anymore and I may have changed so much in my life and I'm glad for it, but it will always be a part of me and the part of myself that I cherish most. It's my place where I can just be; my escape from reality. For no matter how social I get or how many friends I make, I will always treasure and need my escape; my world.

Food for Thought - Literally!

Just when I thought I knew essentially everything there is to know about fan fiction, I come across something that teaches me that there are always new things to learn about anything, even in a topic you think you know so well. The thing that brought this realization on was reading this article titled 'Do You Feed Your Muse Well?' A muse is a term invented by writers that basically means the little voice in your head that comes up with your story ideas. One thing I've learned about my muse is that it's become highly ADD since I hit college. This article gave me a theory to why that possibly is. From the beginning of the article, I was able to relate to what the author was saying: I’m either overflowing with fantastic ideas and thoughts about everything under the sun, or I’m staring at a blank page thinking my muse went and died on me. I wasn’t even invited to the funeral. This fits me perfectly. I can't count the number of times I've had a fantastic idea in my head then by the time I have the time to actually sit down in front of my computer to write it, what comes out is typically nowhere near the degree of awesomeness that it was when I wrote it in my head. It's also typical for my muse to come up with a hundred ideas while I'm under pressure from schoolwork and don't have time to write, but the minute a school break hits and I have time to write, I'm sitting in front of a blank Word document trying desperately to remember the amazing ideas I had just a short couple of weeks ago or I jump around from story idea to story idea to story idea never being able to stick to one long enough to finish it.

The author of this article went on to explain how he learned that a lack of eating regularly and/or healthily leads to a lack of energy that causes our brains to come up with great story ideas. This theory makes a lot of sense, especially in my own case. I eat horribly; I admit it. For one thing, I'm a college student balancing two majors plus a plethora of other stuff, which doesn’t leave much time to make healthy meals. I also have a childish belief that I'm not hungry unless my stomach is growling, which stems from a childhood mantra that I developed to 'not eat if I wasn't hungry' because I had a random fear of becoming fat (not that anyone ever told me I was fat-in fact my mom would get mad if I ever said I needed to lose weight, I just had the same body issues most girls have, even when there's no reason to have them), a small appetite, a hatred of most lunch foods and a love of nighttime junk food snacking. I'm not typically hungry at mid day anyway and 'why eat something I don't like when I'm not hungry, thus making me not hungry for dinner and subsequently eating things that I actually like late at night?'

But it's when I do eat three meals a day that I can write better. Back in middle and high school when my meals were regulated partially by school schedule and partially by my mother's insistence on regular, balanced family meals, I would have what I termed my writing "sessions", where I would sit down in front of my computer and be able to type for hours on end, emerging immensely pleased with the results. But since college, I haven't been able to do that, and I've missed it. I dismissed this by assuming it was the combination of more things to do and less time to do them in that comes from being in college and while, admittedly, this might be part of the problem, I now know that it's not the entire problem.

So will I start eating better? I can't honestly say yes, but I'm going to try. The author of the article said that he makes himself eat a bowl of granola and milk every morning whether he feels like it or not, so I think I have to do something like this. I am learning though. As I write this, it is about noon and even though I'm not incredibly hungry, I am eating a sandwich. Bottom line, I can't keep eating, well, like a college student. I may not be overweight, but with my eating habits plus the fact I don't exercise, I'm not exactly healthy either. And most of all, it causes the lack of energy I need to write productively. And while my sweet tooth might hate me for giving up my nighttime junk in favor of a mid day meal, the energy to write that eating better will bring will more than make up for it. Like the article said at the end: "And for seven days straight, my brain was on superpower. Just three weeks in and the results are all systems go. I'm less tired. I write easily. Ideas flow. So do the words. My creative muse wasn't dead. I'd just been starving her - literally. Food for thought, no?

A Little Dose of Reality

This article spoke volumes to me. It was about not letting your fear of the unknown control the situation you put your characters in. Even though I have an ability to easily empathize with my characters, I don't particularly have a problem doing this. My main genre is angst, after all. Though I don't have a problem with what the article was trying to teach its readers to do, I could still relate to it nonetheless.

At one point, the article said: Characters – true, multifaceted characters – are people we care about. We created them, and we shaped them to the perfection of our mind’s eye. We love them. They are parts of our heart, our imagination and our soul. They are parts of us. The pain they’ll experience, be it physical, emotional or mental, is pain we’ll have to experience, too. We’ll feel it as if the wound was our own, and we’ll ache with the people on our pages. And while this is so true, what you, as a writer, need to remember is simply, without conflict, you don't have a story. Without conflict, Scrubs wouldn't be as interesting if JD and Elliot stayed together since the first season like Turk and Carla did and there wouldn't be that dynamic 'Will they, won't they?' tension. Even in Turk and Carla's case, though we all know they're meant for each other, the fact that they had issues the first year they were married shows that not even the most established couple on that show is perfect. And there you have it. Giving your characters conflict shows that they're only human, just like you and me. Turk and Carla's marriage wouldn't be as realistic if they were all happy and "I love you more!" "No, I love you more!" all the time. Sure, someone could argue that we watch TV to escape reality, but without a little reality, you wouldn't be able to relate to the characters.

So the next time you find yourself shying away from giving your characters a little trouble cause you don't want to hurt them (and yourself), my advice to you is don't do it! Break up that established relationship! Put that guy into a coma! Like the article said: Realize that by hurting your own characters, you are not a sadist. You are not deliberately hurting your loved ones merely to watch them suffer. You’re giving a gift. You’re helping them grow and develop. It's the same way in real life. What doesn't kill you does make you stronger, after all. Isn't the happy ending better in the end, once they've learned something from the experience, than the beginning? You can get them back together or fix whatever situation you've put your characters in in the end (we readers would be disappointed if you didn't!), but like they say, the journey is more important than the destination. And in the meantime, watching how your characters react to whatever situation you've put them in plus the anticipation of when and how the situation will get resolved makes for some great entertainment.

Spelling Counts!

It wuz a boring day at NCIS headquarters. Specail Agent Anthony DiNozzo wuz dealing with it by being more annoying than usual. He kept throughing little pieces of paper at his partner Ziva David, then looking away when she terned to glare at him. "Tony, if you do that one more time, I swear I am going to shoot you" "But, Zee-vaa," Tony whined, streching out Ziva's name to annoy her "Its boring here". "Tony, this may be a wierd concept for u to get, but no one cares" snapped Gibbs. "What?" sed Tony "He's saying your arrogant, Tony" put in Timothy McGee.

So what was the point of that, you ask? To illustrate the spelling errors I frequently see when reading fan fiction. And just saying in the author's note "Oh Im a horrible speller, dont get made at me, but enjoy my story neway!" isn't an excuse (FYI: The spelling errors were put there deliberately to further prove my point). Most word-processing software comes with this handy little button called the spell-checker. They put it in for a reason; use it, please! Don't have a word processing program? Well, it's your lucky day! On the home page of fanfiction.net, there are links to download free word-processing programs. Also, there's a spell checker built right into the document manager where you upload your stories. You're using it anyway, so you might as well use that spell checker.

I have one tip that might help you with those pesky contractions that was drilled into me in school and a lot of people don't know it. Contractions stand for something, like "you're" stands for "you are", "that's" stands for "that is", "it's" stands for "it is" and so on. If you're confused as to which to use, then think if the long form of the contraction will make sense in your sentence. If it does, then use the contraction, if not, don't. So to use my example at the top, McGee is telling DiNozzo that he is arrogant. So which one is correct, "You're" or "your"? "You are arrogant, Tony" fits the sentence better than the "Your arrogant, Tony" that I purposely used. "Your" means possession, like if I was referring to "your" mitten. The mitten belongs to you. As an additional note, do NOT under ANY circumstances use chat speak in a story. Like how I used "wuz" instead of "was" in my example. Not to sound rude, but if you can't take the time to put in the effort to spell everything out in non-chat speak words, then why are you bothering putting the time into writing a story? This, even more so then spelling errors, makes you look dumb and most of all, lazy. There is a place for chat speak and this is not it.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a spelling Nazi, but it's honestly hard to enjoy a story with so many spelling errors. For one thing, it communicates to the reader that you, as the writer, are not that intelligent and they don't take you seriously as a result. They won't read any of your stories and isn't that why you posted them in the first place? Secondly, it's hard to understand what you're trying to say if there are so many spelling errors. Thirdly, and most importantly in my opinion, it ruins the story. I've seen so many stories that seem like they're going to have a great plot, yet there are so many spelling errors, I can't get into them.

Contrary to popular belief, spelling does count. You may not lose points in a grade, but you'll lose readers if you post stories with sloppy spelling. Anything that has the primary purpose of being read by the public take the time to spell everything right and not in chat speak; you wouldn't read them otherwise. The same thing applies for fan fiction. A couple of spelling errors, fine, nobody's perfect, but a whole chapter full of spelling errors and chat speak is inexcusable. Here's a link to a list of some Common Spelling Mistakes. Your story has the potential for greatness and if you just remember the tips I gave you here, you'll turn your adequate, misspelled story into a great one in no time! It make take a few extra minutes to click that little check mark, but if you really and truly care about your story and what people will think of it, then those few extra minutes will be nothing.

The Problem With Time Travel Fan Fictions

A common theme of fan fiction is the "What would happen if..." theme. I've noticed this especially in Lord of the Rings fan fiction. It's also on somewhat of a similar vein to Mary-Sue fan fiction as many people like to do the typical "What would happen if my friends and I were magically transported to Middle Earth?" storyline. Other common "What would happen if..." story lines include "What would happen if there were a 1oth member to the Fellowship?" To be honest, I don't read a lot of this type of fan fictions. I can be as anti-canon as the next person, but there are limits to how anti-canon I am. I don't particularly like stories that throw people from current times into stories set in not current universes. It just doesn't seem right to me to have people talking about cars and the Internet in a Lord of the Rings fan fiction because Lord of the Rings is supposed to have been set eons ago. (I know, it's also odd for a girl who's a fan of Back to the Future to not like time travel stories, but whatever). I can't quite put my finger on why I dislike this specific type; possibly it's because this theme is overdone, or possibly because the few I have read simply retell the story.

And that's my point of the day. I'm sure there are great stories that throw people from current time into the Lord of the Rings universe somewhere out there (if anyone knows of any, please let me know!), but when they just retell the story, honestly, what's the point of reading them? The whole point of fan fiction is to develop your own ideas of something that could happen and use these characters (and some of your own if you like) to tell it.

This concept is different from a story that takes an event that occurred in one of the books (or movies) and shows it through someone else's eyes, for example: the events of what happened in Bree where the four hobbits meet up with Aragorn told through Aragorn's eyes. This is different because, though the scene has occurred in the story, we didn't see it from Aragorn's point of view. It's someone's idea of what Aragorn might have been thinking. It may contain minimal dialogue copied from that scene to get the story going or end it, but it's mostly description; it's mostly Aragorn's thoughts, what he was thinking while watching the hobbits.

A story that simply retells the story of Lord of the Rings with one minor change, is just redundant, actually comes very close to copyright infringement and is another reason why many authors (and others) have issues with fan fiction; because people are taking (near) their exact words and ideas and passing them off as their own. And that's the kind of stuff that give fan fiction a bad name.

Despite my mixed feelings towards throwing characters from current times into Lord of the Rings, there's really nothing wrong with it as long as you do it appropriately. Meaning, COME UP WITH YOUR OWN REASONS FOR PUTTING THESE CHARACTERS THERE! If you want your character to be part of the Fellowship, fine, just, maybe invent another world-saving quest for them to go on where your character is the one who everything depends on, not Frodo, don't just make them the 10th member of Frodo's quest. If you want Legolas to fall madly in love with your character, perhaps have him meet her (or him, depending) before or after Leoglas goes on the quest. Or even nix the time travel idea and just make your character into an elf who's lived in Middle Earth all along (rather than a story I tried to read where 3 girls from present day were sucked into Middle Earth and turned into elves). You can still be you falling in love with Legolas even if you change the time period you're living in. Time travel stories are difficult ones to write and still keep true to the story without sounding childish. If you're going to do one, just please make up your own idea. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has already been written, thanks. If you're interested in checking out some Lord of the Rings fan fiction, click the link and it'll take you to the Lord of the Rings page on fanfiction.net!

Fan Fiction's Positive Affect on My Writing

This article Why Heather Can Write quite frankly was fantastic. I actually read it twice. A lot of the things really hit home for me and allowed me to reflect on my writing in a way that would never have occurred to me otherwise.

What difference will it make, over time, if a growing percentage of young writers begin publishing and getting feedback on their work while they are still in high school? And what happens when those young writers compare notes, becoming critics, editors, and mentors? Will they develop their craft more quickly-and develop a critical vocabulary for thinking about storytelling?

I know for a fact that writing fan fiction has definitely enhanced my writing capabilities. Sure, we did writing in high school; I had to do the term papers and whatnot, but I rarely got the opportunity to write fiction and when I did, I completely ate it up (and not to brag, wowed my teachers). Even at my college there is no creative writing course. I got a bit of creative writing when I took a short story class a couple of years ago, but not a lot. The writing instruction at my high school in general was simply: Write this, not: This is how you write. Rarely got grammar instruction either after elementary school (which would explain my occasional problems with grammar). But it was in writing fan fiction that I got my best chances to really focus on developing my writing skills and I applied what I learned there to not only my fan fiction writing, but my school writing as well, not the other way around. And again, to go back to betas, they can teach you about some aspects of grammar and other aspects of writing that your own education may have missed. Overall, my grammar might be messed up sometimes, but any improvements I have made on it have been through writing fan fiction.

Editing: A Fresh Pair of Eyes

Not only is editing yourself as much as possible key to a successful story, it's also a good thing to have someone else look over your work too. In the fan fiction world, this is called a beta reader. On fanfiction.net, there is a whole section that lists beta readers. Like this awesome article I found says, beta readers will read your stories and give you constructive criticism with an objective eye on everything from characterization to spelling and grammar to story pacing to pretty much anything you can think of. The key of this is constructive criticism. Some people get defensive at any form of criticism, but that's not what the average beta reader is going for at all. They're not saying your story is bad, they just want to help you make the best possible story you can. Sometimes you miss things when you're looking at your own work. You may know what you're trying to say and as a result, your brain may skip over things or add in details you think aren't crucial, but are needed to understand the story. The average reader doesn't have the advantage of being a mind reader or being in your head; they may have no idea and a beta reader can help you with that.

I know having a beta helped me for the brief time I had one while writing Wedding Bells and Bomb Shells. She helped me clear up the issues I have with punctuation and a lot of other stuff. I was quite grateful for all of her help. Unfortunately, in rereading my story a while back, I think I may have accidentally insulted her by implying that her not getting back to me on a chapter was the reason for a long break I had between updates, when it wasn't; I was just busy. So if you ever wrote under the pen name Mirandabelle and beta read a story called Wedding Bells and Bomb Shells and you're reading this, I'm sorry if I insulted you! I didn't mean it like that; I'm just really good at putting my foot in my mouth at times! So yeah, the moral of this particular story is don't insult your beta.

No one likes to read a story with obvious errors (and sometimes even non-obvious ones!) that could have been fixed by simply having another pair of eyes looking at your story. It's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of having the maturity to want to make your story the best that it can be.