My Fan Fic Shame
I have of late, i know not why, become a regular visitor at www.fanfiction.net. more shamefully i have been a regular reader of a small sample of the over two million harry potter fan stories that reside there. why oh why should i be plumbing these most ignoble of depths? firstly i blame rowling and her infectious tales- yes i know harry potter is derivative, the dialogue is often clunky and setting so over familiar. and yet every time i am sucked in, drawn into the plot by her fiendishly enigmatic methods. the next thing i know i have read six hundred pages and am begging for more. it is so comforting, the britishness of it, the way the characters are all so supportive of harry, the way rowling kills of people with wyndham like unsentimentality. in short i fucking love the potter.
It is the love of that brought me to try harder drugs, what with rowling taking a year to write another book. i hauled my ass downtown and offered a vein to the dirty skag of fanfiction, in the hope it would help me deal with potter withdrawal.
the fanfiction i have so far read is without a doubt utter shite. it is universally written by americans who think harry should be with hermione and who fill their stories with americanisms, bad plots and far too much sex between characters. As most of the writers are either angsty teenagers or horny mid thirties women this is hardly surprising. the whole gay slash subculture is driven mostly by women and extends to manga, as with most things weird and sexual the japanese were doing it first and with style.
so as i trawl these shitty fan dreams i start to think the unthinkable, the one thing i promised myself i would never do, the depth i hoped never to sink, that is write my own Potter fanfiction. it would be so good, the littel voice inside tells me, you could make it like the real thing because you actually are british and not semi literate. But i must not, i cannot betray my literary pretensions by going down that route. but then, you could argue, so much of great literature is basically fanfiction- was gaiman just writing very good mythological fanfiction in sandman? what about the writers of any comic book character they did not invent themselves?
its all just an excuse though, i know very soon i will weaken and out it will come, the harry potter adventure i have been secretly planning where he forgets he was ever a wizard and works in an office run by voldemort who has also lost his. i just like the idea that if harry didn't have hogwarts he'd be a dysfunctional, lonely orphan boy. years of bullying by the dursley's would have rendered him socially inadequate and severly under confident. Like if he found out Hogwarts was just something he imagined to distract from he's years of abuse. just throw in being discovered by Ron and Hermione and bingo! instant fanfic under a crappy pseudonym to protect my guilty name.
damn you Rowling!
It is the love of that brought me to try harder drugs, what with rowling taking a year to write another book. i hauled my ass downtown and offered a vein to the dirty skag of fanfiction, in the hope it would help me deal with potter withdrawal.
the fanfiction i have so far read is without a doubt utter shite. it is universally written by americans who think harry should be with hermione and who fill their stories with americanisms, bad plots and far too much sex between characters. As most of the writers are either angsty teenagers or horny mid thirties women this is hardly surprising. the whole gay slash subculture is driven mostly by women and extends to manga, as with most things weird and sexual the japanese were doing it first and with style.
so as i trawl these shitty fan dreams i start to think the unthinkable, the one thing i promised myself i would never do, the depth i hoped never to sink, that is write my own Potter fanfiction. it would be so good, the littel voice inside tells me, you could make it like the real thing because you actually are british and not semi literate. But i must not, i cannot betray my literary pretensions by going down that route. but then, you could argue, so much of great literature is basically fanfiction- was gaiman just writing very good mythological fanfiction in sandman? what about the writers of any comic book character they did not invent themselves?
its all just an excuse though, i know very soon i will weaken and out it will come, the harry potter adventure i have been secretly planning where he forgets he was ever a wizard and works in an office run by voldemort who has also lost his. i just like the idea that if harry didn't have hogwarts he'd be a dysfunctional, lonely orphan boy. years of bullying by the dursley's would have rendered him socially inadequate and severly under confident. Like if he found out Hogwarts was just something he imagined to distract from he's years of abuse. just throw in being discovered by Ron and Hermione and bingo! instant fanfic under a crappy pseudonym to protect my guilty name.
damn you Rowling!
posted by Marcel at 3:33 pm
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