Forsher wrote:Unitaristic Regions wrote:Guys, this is really taking too long. I hope I don't sound like a complete twat saying this, but it's probably been a month without progress now, I do think this is justified. I would propose just canceling this contest and coming up with a new system to judge, trying to use judges that have proven they can stick to a deadline.
I've never been a fan of this argument. All written work is derivative and formulaic to an extent. The rules for writing you use? Thought up by another. The words, grammar and letters? Communal inventions. The themes your genre uses (in Fantasy that would be the monomyth and good vs evil) have already been thought up. Writers use clichéd similes like 'white as snow' which have been invented by others and unconsciously copy things they thought were cool.
Fan fiction simply goes a step further, using a particular world and a particular set of characters: but it can still come up with an original story, which can easily tear it loose from most derivative constraints if originally plotted. In that matter, books that are not originally plotted (like Eragon) are more derivative than fan fiction. For example, I could write two stories about president Obama set in New York or Washington, using a few core characters that would be the same in each book, and yet write completely different stories. Because working within the world of New York I can still create 'sub-realms' (like cafés) which are original, create new characters, and have the existing ones develop differently in both stories.
I have no patience for authors who complain about their 'creations' yet cannot realize they took their knowledge from those that came before. That's just arrogance.
The question is not whether, say, extended teddy bear metaphors are, for instance, derivative but whether or not it's materially relevant.
Consider, for instance, the Autumn 2014 contest. At the time I'd probably just finished my exams/was still in the middle of them and had been not studying by watching episodes of Avatar (the real one, so no space)... I was, in fact, particularly enthused by the desert like state of several episodes in Book Two. My story was set in a desert world as such (hence the cabbages were, in fact, a homage; although it also allowed a joke). However, it was a different desert world with what is, in my opinion, more Middle Eastern or African (for instance Boku Desert) than Chinese influences. It also ultimately, plot wise, ended up borrowing a much older idea of mine (I have, for several years, been trying to write a story about escaped slaves). This wasn't fan fiction but it did have a particularly obvious influence (compare and contrast my entry in the contest before that which was basically any espionage plot).
Now, there was probably no reason why, given the plot, that I couldn't have set the thing in the Avatar-verse. I mean, it wouldn't have been as fun for me to write because I wanted to explore a desert environment but I could've done that (I think the sandbenders would've been suitably amoral traders). Fundamentally, nothing probably would've changed about the story, yet the praise I got for the world-building (from two judges) would've rung hollow. In the context of the rubric we had at the time (rather than the rough guide we have here), writing fanfic basically means that the hard work in establishing a world and/or characters is done. Sure, you've got to express and execute this stuff yourself, but you're also going to take a hit on the creativity (depending how it is interpreted*).
For instance, when I was judging I basically took all the elements that were in the story and considered how they were used. (Current Judges read no further.) For instance, you might look at the story I wrote in this contest and consider: lazy (and unclean) king, vizier with plans (but barely competent, and unselfish plans), medieval-ish and whatever else you find relevant (dodgy people in dodgy public houses etc.), put it in some kind of context... such as the story clearly, at times, being designed for humour... and then decide what that means in terms of creativity. This will pick up what you're saying about being derivative... yet you see immediately that if you have lazy, unclean kings and semi-competent unselfish viziers in a serious plot it is, if not more creative, definitely more daring than if it is included in something like the end product I actually produced here.
In this sense I am saying that creativity depends as much on the context that all the elements of a plot appear in matters as least as much as the plot itself.
Yes, but what I'm saying again and again is that that fanfic still morphs world and character by developing character and world further. So the elements of the plot aren't identical. But I can emphatize when you say praise would ring hollow if you'd just used the world of Avatar. When I write a story I also like to invent everything myself, but that's because I'm a rigid purist at heart, not because I disagree with borrowing used settings XD. Actually, I've written Avatar fanfic. It was the first and last time I wrote fanfic.
. I don't like online discussion all that much anymore, so I'm going to reply once.
. It's not worth it to just put it on hold forever, hoping someone will finally judge it.
