Musing on reading and writing and fanfic

[sholio]

I started reading "Grass" by Sheri S. Tepper last night, and it is so good! I've bounced off Tepper's novels in the past -- finding them dense, depressing and unengaging -- but maybe I just tried mediocre ones, or maybe I wasn't in the right mental place for them. I was at the library yesterday, though, and figured that if I can't get into one of her most famous novels, then I'll never manage to do it at all -- but so far I'm loving it, and I'm totally caught up in the slowly unraveling mystery and the characters' troubled, complex lives. (If you've read it, please don't spoil me! I'm having a lot of fun not having a clue what will happen next!)

Most of what I've been reading lately (aside from fanfic) has been nonfiction, novels I've read before, or the newest books in various series that I'm already following. It's been awhile since I've experienced the delight of being introduced to an entirely new set of characters and a brand new world, and getting to slowly discover it. (ETA: Er, in book form, anyway. Kinda forgot about Homestuck. *facepalm*)

This is why, as much as I love fanfic, I can't even imagine reading nothing but fanfic for any length of time. Even though some fanfic is excellently written, and the best fanfic explores the familiar in new, interesting ways, it's still a riff on familiar themes and characters. The characters are known, and very few writers take them very far outside their canonical relationships and characterizations ... which, besides, is not what I go to fanfic for -- except in rare cases, it's more of the characters that I want; I'm not really interested in having canon completely uprooted and reading about OCs with the characters' faces. It's the familiarity that I go to fanfic (or sequels) for -- the coziness of snuggling up with familiar characters, and having at least a reasonable expectation that things will turn out okay.

But one of the delights of original fiction is getting to know a new cast of characters, and sussing out all their many and varied undercurrents, the things they say and the things they don't say, having each of them go from being a total unknown to something a little more familiar. It stretches your brain a little bit, in new and interesting ways -- like going to a brand-new town for the first time, rather than just going to your favorite places (or even exploring a new neighborhood) in a familiar town.

I recently read this post by Jo Walton aka papersky on the "long spear" metaphor in writing: in order for a spearpoint to hit you (that is, in order to get the full emotional impact of a scene), it has to have the whole spear behind it. It got me to thinking that this is actually one of the big things that fanfic can potentially deliver for us, as fanfic readers but especially as writers, that original fiction can't -- you can skip straight to the payoff (the heroic sacrifice, the kiss, the moment of emotional truth) without having to write 400 pages of buildup beforehand. And I really appreciate that about fanfic! Sometimes I just want the payoff.

But in a good writer's hands, the buildup is anything but dull ... the slow exploration of the characters and world, the careful laying of clues, the ratcheting of tension. I am having loads of fun exploring the planet Grass along with the characters: learning about the world, being creeped out by the sense of the unknown, and wondering how many of the characters will make it out alive.

Comments

[calime]

Just a drive-by-yay - I love Grass!

[sholio]

I'm definitely loving it! Only a few chapters from the end (it takes me so much longer to read books these days than it used to, though I'm not sure why!).

[astridv]

This is interesting because I don't feel like that at all, re. original fiction and getting to know new characters. On the contrary, it takes an awful lot for an original author to actually get me interested in their characters quickly enough to distract me from the ones I'm already in love with. The Hunger Games were the most recent exception, before it was your original novel actually. Before that... hm, can't remember, must've been a few months. Oh yeah, two of Sherman Alexie's books.

I suppose it's part of the whole fandom-serial-monogamist deal - I also watch very little tv outside my current fandom. I've felt like that since I discovered fanfic. Fic was the thing that'd been missing from my life. Before that I used to devour original fiction non-stop and now that I no longer do that I *should* feel like I'm missing out but for some reason I just... don't? :)

Oh, but I've started to read graphic novels again. Found some interesting stuff, I should make some recs.

[sholio]

The Hunger Games were the most recent exception, before it was your original novel actually.

Oh wow, thank you! <3 <3 <3 (That really is high praise, if it's not a usual thing for you.)

I think with me, it kinda cycles. During the last few months, when I've been really into White Collar and trying hard to focus on my novel, I haven't wanted to have a bunch of new characters sharing brainspace with the old ones. Sticking to nonfiction and things I'd read before helped me say focused. Plus, the handful of novels that I have tried to read lately haven't really engaged me. There were times when I wondered if I'd lost the ability to lose myself in a novel like I used to. But, no, it's just that I had been reading dull novels. *g* And maybe partly that I wasn't in a mental place that would easily allow me to do that.

[springwoof]

I love Tepper, but admit that some of her work can be hard to get into. Grass, though, is probably her best novel, at least I love it best, and is a great intro to her work. Hooray that you've discovered it and yay that you're enjoying it! It will NOT disappoint!

I also love Beauty, and still adore (and highly recommend) a bunch of her earlier books: The Marianne series, The True Game Series, the Mavin Manyshaped series, and the Jinian series. Good adventure-type science fiction, with strong female characters (which was still somewhat rare at the time the books were written).

Tepper also writes under the pseudonym B. J. Oliphant: a mystery series set in the American West with great characters and lovingly drawn settings.

[sholio]

I also picked up a few of her other books while I was at the library, in case I enjoyed the first one, so I'll see about the rest of them! And thanks for the B.J. Oliphant tip - never even heard that name, but I'll see if I can get my hands on one or two of those as well.