Subject: Re: Badfic Reports and Claims
Author:
Posted on: 2009-12-21 03:05:00 UTC
I liked the Silvermoon one. What's wrong with it?
Subject: Re: Badfic Reports and Claims
Author:
Posted on: 2009-12-21 03:05:00 UTC
I liked the Silvermoon one. What's wrong with it?
Well, I've once more gone wandering at ff.net and found a few horrifying things to share. I've got two claims and three badfics up for grabs. All of the three up for grabs are Harry Potter, one of the claims is, too, and the other is Dragonriders of Pern. All ratings are those the original authors gave.
The ones up for grabs are:
Someone To Love Me by Yaoiluvergirl. M
Harry’s twin is chosen as the Boy-Who-Lived and since that night, life’s loveless for him. How very cliché, but one that I like. SLASH. CD/DM/TR/HP Abuse,Neglect and Potter, Weasel bashing. Dont like Dont read. A Vamp!Fic. You have been forewarned.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5466979/1/SomeoneToLoveMe
It's only a song by voguesque-mia. K+
What happens when a new girl arrives during Harry's sixth year? What will happen when she gets involved in the lives of others? Will she ruin the Trio's friendship? Or make it stronger?
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5569078/1/Itsonlyasong">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5569078/1/Itsonlyasong
and
Silvermoon Rebels! by 4421marr. M
What if there was a fifth house in Hogwarts? Read about the adventures first-year Luna Lovegood gets herself into with her friends in Silvermoon! Yeah I suck at summaries. Rated M for language and possible lemoney situations in the future. Also romance.
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5587528/1/SilvermoonRebels">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5587528/1/SilvermoonRebels
The ones I'm claiming are:
Mirrors by Provorse. M
Entering his 7th year at Hogwarts, after the horrifying defeat of Voldemort, Harry is shunned and feared by all at school, but worse something is happening to Harry- has the battle really ended? DARK HARRY
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5533209/1/Mirrors
and
The Golden Queen and her Brown by dragonlore266. M
Stanor wasn't looking for trouble he just wanted to be a rider like everybody else on pern but what happens when Stanor and his lover break a rule that was never set in stone.
<a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540978/1/TheGoldenQueenandherBrown">http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5540978/1/TheGoldenQueenandher_Brown
Hello Anity, I see my fiction has been posted under Badfic Reports and Claims. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised- after all I kinda just stick commas where ever I please, and if it wasn’t for spell check my entire story would be unreadable. Horrifying I know!
Curse it! Why oh why didn’t I pay attention in English!?!
Oh well! Despite you little 'Claim' I'm still gonna keep on writing - and theres NOTHING you can do about it!
MUHAHAHAHA!
Don’t get me wrong I love constructive criticism, but don’t be cowardly about it- I can take anything you've got to say!
As for me, I fully support young people who have an ambition for this art (no matter how bad their grammar may be) if its something you love- don’t stop!
And as Iris Murdoch once said "A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia"
And wouldn’t you know it its raining cats and dogs down here in Texas :)
-PROVORSE-
I liked the Silvermoon one. What's wrong with it?
Luna is so out of character I'm not even sure it's still her; a non-canon fifth Hogwarts house for speshul people, which has no Head of House and no uniform; the fact that someone seemed to know Luna and her friends would go there before the Sorting Ceremony; a wand made out of silver and other Magical Mary-Sue Artifacts; a Cute Animal Friend (Othello the Miniature Eagle Owl); making dignified adults (i.e. Mr. Ollivander and Madam Hooch) faint at "Luna's" awesomeness; and of course the poor spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.
~Neshomeh
Um... Didn't Ollivander faint because of the fact that the wand was silver. I don't think it was because of Luna.
It's still not likely that someone like Ollivander, who's seen more strange things than most, would actually faint over something like that. Therefore, it's the author's/self-insert's/Sue's doing. Anyway, that's just one quibble in a list of the fic's errors.
... You're new around here, aren't you? What brings you to the Board?
~Neshomeh
Wee, isn't that what fanfiction is for? I don't believe there are any good or bad fanfics. It's just the author's imagination on what they think how something should have gone. Or just mindless drabbles on daydreams they had on the certain topic.
Also,I came here because I was interested.
To quote the PPC's founders:
"We love fanfic. Honestly, we do.
"But changing the *main plotline* of the canon story is ridiculous. (Except in speculative AU "what-if" type stories.) And Mary Sues upstage the canonical main characters, which really should not happen. If you want to be the main character, try doing original fiction."
To rephrase, yes, fanfic is for exploring possibilities left open by the canon, but there's a right and a wrong way to do it. In general, good "what-if" or Alternate Universe fics take one point in the story and explore a singular alternative. "What if Luna's mother hadn't died?" "What if there were five houses in Hogwarts?" "What if Luna had become Harry's best friend instead of Hermione?" "What if Luna was the one in the prophecy?" Stuff like that. Once the writer asks a question like that (usually just one, since it's more difficult to write a believable AU the more things you change), their challenge is to answer it while also staying true to the spirit of the original canon, and that's where a lot of writers miss the mark and stray from legitimate AU or "what-if" fic into badfic.
To run with the Silvermoon fic as an example, there are things she could have improved to make it more believable as an AU. First and foremost, there's no escaping the fact that Luna is completely out of character. It's a big problem because we love Luna for her quirky personality and the weird things she says and does, and there's none of that in the fic. If the author didn't want to write about that Luna, she shouldn't have used her at all.
It's the same problem with Ollivander and Madam Hooch: that wasn't the wise, strange Ollivander I read about in Harry Potter; it was some flaky old guy with blood pressure issues. It wasn't the strict, competent Madam Hooch, either.
It's the same problem again with adding another house, especially the way she did it here. The writer claimed it was a new house, that it had no Head of House, and that the students didn't have to wear the Hogwarts uniform. That doesn't fit in the Hogwarts I know and love. It throws Hogwarts out of character, if you like. The new house has no history, no depth, and nothing to help it fit in with the canon: it exists simply because the author wanted to make her cast of characters stand out, which is something a good writer should be able to do without gimmicks.
Remember, the writer was attracted to Luna for some reason in the first place. Presumably Luna stood out to her for some reason; but in her fic, whatever that reason was is erased and ineffectively replaced with gimmicks and shiny baubles.
... That's a lot of text. I hope I'm not stretching your patience too much; I'm just trying to explain my standpoint and that of most people on this Board as completely as possible. Do you understand what I'm getting at?
~Neshomeh
I suppose I do, but what I am saying is that this is the writers 'imagination'. Some might imagine Luna being that way, and some characters don't have a solid personality. There are plenty of open endings for us to fill in. Like ,for example, how we don't know if Luna was always the way she is, or how Madame Hooch behaves. In fact, to many, even coming up with a name of Luna’s mother can change the whole entire canon personality! The very definition of fanfiction is fiction written by fans of a TV series, movie, etc., using existing characters and situations to develop new plots. And to not all is it ridiculous. In fact, that is just an opinion. Some find it quite alright to change the main plot of the story.
Also, they might not in fact be doing so. If they are telling the story from a different point of view, why should they include what's going on in someone else’s life, if, in fact, they are focusing on another?
And who says there is a right or wrong way in fanfiction.The plot of a fanfic is supposed to be completely up to the author of said fanfic. And who said that what we see is the true personality of Luna. She is a fictional character. Yes in many she is just as real as anyone else, but is it right to give her a strict personality? There are many thing that are unexplained in her life that can leave to new possibilities, and possibly a whole new Luna.
And yes that may be the Hogwarts you know an love, but to others it is not. In fact, to some people it may be a spy organization!
Now do you understand where I am getting at?
To be honest, I don't really understand your point of view. I don't understand how you can say there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, because I think a world without those things would be drab, lifeless, and boring. It excludes the possibility of the very good just as surely as it excludes the possibility of the very bad, and I just don't want to live in a world without the very good.
Some of the things you say are true; for example, the writer is entitled to her imagination, and the plot of a fanfic is completely up to its author. However, the writer is not entitled to everyone thinking the product of her imagination is a good read, and just because a fanfic author CAN write whatever they want, that doesn't mean that they executed it well, or that I have to like it.
I think we have a different concept of what "canon" means. To me, canon is to fiction as the laws of physics are to reality: you can't change them and expect the world to be right. Furthermore, the original author (the one whose name is on the books) is to canon as God is to the Bible. So, when you say Hogwarts might be a spy organization, I say, "No, it isn't, because J. K. Rowling says so and she created the thing, so she should know." Same goes for the rest: J. K. Rowling made the Harry Potter characters the way they are, and since it's her world, she's the ultimate authority.
(For the record, I'm not a very religious person, and I'm especially not about to worship a work of fiction or its author. It's just an analogy.)
Anyway, if a fanfic writer wants to change things for the sake of imagination, I'm fine with that. I just expect it to be done with regard to the canon and to have some kind of logical reason and explanation behind it in the fic. I call that well-executed. If a fic isn't well-executed, I call it a badfic and I'm not going to take it seriously.
Closing thoughts: If you don't love Hogwarts and its people as they are in the books, how can you call yourself a fan of them? Isn't a fan someone who loves something?
~Neshomeh (who is going to bed now)
Exactly as you say it, that is the way YOU think. We might be able to cintinue later, but not now.
Good night!
Interesting conversation. For myself, I can see your point, in that fanfic is a work of fiction coming from the ficcer's imagination, and in that sense, there should be no limit to it. If you want to create a new character and call her "Luna Lovegood", what's to stop you? That freedom is part of what's so awesome about writing.
However, even in the sphere of original fiction, there are restrictions on this freedom. Principally, the reader. A storyteller has to be able to pull the reader into the story. The reader has to feel that it's real, for the time that she is reading. That's hard to do if the reader can't suspend her sense of disbelief about the whole thing. That's why many readers of fanfic insist on things like characterization and setting consistent with canon. I hate to start reading a fanfic, expecting the characters and setting that I grew to love in the original, only to find a strange world populated with people I don't recognize. It breaks the spell. Of course, this doesn't bother everyone, any more than shoddy characterization and weak plotting bothers everyone who reads a book or watches a movie. But we don't lower our standards for them to the lowest common denominator.
But I have a question: You said you came here because you were "interested." Interested in what? You may cite opinion, but the violations Neshomeh cited are standard for the PPC. They were decided upon way back when the PPC started, and we, as a community, have decided to work by them. They are not merely her opinion, but all of ours. So my question is, have you come here because you are interested in the PPC as a community and story-universe, or have you come here because you are interested in criticizing our standards for fanfiction?
Hello again. {= )
As I was saying, a lot of the things I've said are kinda the general consensus hereabouts. You might want to have a look at the FAQ: For Other People on our Wiki. Its tone is often snarky, but that's because we're used to dealing with people who aren't good sports and we get a little impatient. Please forgive us. It does, however, thoroughly answer the questions we've encountered over the years.
As for WHY we have these opinions, let me try another analogy:
Many, many people have compared writing to giving birth, and one famous male author (whose name I cannot for the life of me come up with) said something to the effect that writing is the closest men can come to bearing a child. So, consider that an author's work is like their child; their characters are their children. Lots of authors are good enough to let other aspiring authors play with their children, because they know it's a good way for the aspiring authors to learn. That's fanfic.
Now, is it right for the fanfic writers to do anything they can think of to someone else's children just because they can? Is it right to ignore the way the child was brought up and to try to force them to become something else, whether it's right for them or not? I don't think so. Some authors don't think so, either--that's why they don't allow fanfic of their works. The ones that do are trusting us to play nicely with their children, and as an aspiring author myself, I respect that.
So, that's why I feel the way I do. It's a matter of respect for the original author, whose pure creative genius created the world they're graciously allowing us to play in. Their house, their rules; have fun, but don't break anything; and so forth.
~Neshomeh
Sorry, typo. I meant Well. Mindless error.
It's just that, aside from being amateurish, I don't think there's much wrong with it. Yes, all the Weyrs are made up; yes, he's a HAD; yes, there are some little things off... but I don't think Stanor is a 'Stu, at least not yet. The spirit of Pern seems to be there, as far as I can tell.
I'm gonna leave him some concrit. Hopefully it will help.
~Neshomeh
But the complete lack of commas is somewhat horrifying. If you think it's not bad enough to kill, I can find something else, though.
If he becomes more Stuish later on, by all means, kill it. But for the moment, though, he only really has about one chapter's worth of material and not much to go on, IMO.
~Neshomeh