bevisat min styrka genom strid

Belgrade

'Scottish Nocturne' by Brian Angus.

Goldcrest/kungsfågel. Värmland, Sweden (January 12, 2019).

fascinating that when you tell people "you have to learn the rules to break them" when talking about drawing/painting etc everyone nods and agrees but the second you say "you have to read books if you want to write better" there's a horde of contrarians begging to be the wrongest people ever all of a sudden

if one more person in the notes of this post says "omg op has clearly never talked to a beginner artist!!" as if im not a literal professional artist and was making a broad point........ this time im really gonna do it

and reading only fanfiction does not count as reading books to get better at writing. Fanfiction, where everyone reading it already knows who the characters are and what their relationships are and what the setting is and all that crap, is not the same thing as reading an original self-contained story.

If you only read fanfiction, you will not be able to write original stories well.

Reading books does not have to be expensive. It can be completely free. Project Gutenberg exists. So does the Internet Archive's lending library.

Fanfiction works in ways that original fiction doesn't. You can't write original fiction like it's fanfiction if you want your story to actually be well written and interesting.

I think it's important to point out why fanfiction is different - so much context and interest hooks depend on you already being interested in the source. You are familiar with these characters and therefore don't need to have the basics built into the story. With original work, you need all that underlying character development to be in the story you're writing to make us want to read it. You could 'cheat' and give us a modern Sherlock Holmes - but we still need your version explored in narrative to actually care about it. Dr. House is more than just Sherlock Holmes in a hospital, he has his own issues and foils and quirks. The Holmes from the TV show Sherlock and Elementary are vastly different takes on the same character. You need to read original fiction in order to learn how to do that in your own original fiction. Fanfic is great, but it intentional has gaps that make it a different form.

Fanfiction also is generally structurally different.

If you want to write a novel, you are kept to a pretty strict word range--generally 70-120k words, though that varies a bit up or down depending on the genre. Some genres have fairly strict structural and plot expectations, as well.

A romance novel is a specific thing. A mystery novel is a specific thing. Being able to write a shippy fanfic, even one of the correct length to count as a romance novel, does not necessarily mean that you know how to write a romance novel--because there are different expectations between them.

Fanfiction is often in conversation with other fanfiction, and published fiction is often to varying degrees in conversation with other published fiction--but despite what a lot of people seem to think, published fiction is often not actually in conversation with fanfiction, even if fanfiction is in conversation with published fiction.

One thing that you tend to see with people writing original fiction for publication who don't really read much published fiction in that genre is that they will sometimes approach it with the attitude that they are writing something that nobody has ever thought of before. It is a new, different, groundbreaking approach, with new, different, groundbreaking ideas that nobody else has done and nothing can compare to--

And that simply is not usually the case. Finding comps can be hard, it's one of the worst parts about querying, etc., etc., but in many genres, you are not inventing something totally new. You are not the first person to think, what if this romance novel doesn't need to have a happy ending (spoiler alert: it's not a romance novel). You are not the first person to write queer polyamorous urban fantasy. You are not the first person to write a book with queer characters or disabled characters or non-white characters or non-Christian characters. Your groundbreaking new idea for a sci fi thing that you repurposed from a fanfic, that just feels dated and derivative, because it is, and anyone who knows the genre would know that.

That arrogance and that dismissal of existing publishing history and norms shows in people's writing.

Anyway, read books. They're actually pretty great.

^this!!!!

(also, while the story “authors who started out in fanfiction” has pretty bad rep due to fifty shades of gray and more recently that one harry style one that i can’t recall the name of right now, something to note is that you can write both good fanfiction and good original fiction—writers like tamsyn muir and naomi novik are proof of that, it just requires a different set of muscles, so to speak. but yes, if you want to write good original fiction, you absolutely should read published original works.)

(and yes, if you dig deeper into your chosen genre, there are absolutely these wild conversations happening about gender and power and genre conventions. want a timeloop story about the cyclical effects of violence? read the six deaths of the saint. want a first contact-ish story with non-heteronormative aliens? read the left hand of darkness. there is truly so much out there to enjoy discovering.)

the obsession some people have with their ships being canonized…..who are you, the catholic church

Śnieżka, Poland by Karol Nienartowicz

Viimsi vabaõhumuuseum

Jせんせも…まるさんも…

オトシヨリはみんな　ねてるですので

こふちゃん　おかさんに

あそんでもらうんでち　ぐふふふふ

Master J... and bro-Maru...both OLD men are sleeping, so Kofu am going to play with mom, ghehehehehe

Miss Jocelyn Stebbins and Buzzer (1912-1913). Photo Arnold Genthe.

I hate the “open floor plan” that everyone is obsessed with in houses now. I want nooks and crannies and bizarre floor plans. I don’t need to be able to see what someone is doing on the other side of the house. I want places to hide and lurk and dwell in the shadows. I am the beast who awaits in the labyrinth

you kind of do have to let multiple layers of meaning and metaphor coexist rather than claiming one is the true reading if you want to get fucking anything out of art

don't fall off the platform challenge impossible