Lauren's 303 Multimedia Writing Blog

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2146831/


Characters:
Alistair
Ohgren
Wynne
Leliana
Zevran
Morrigan
Shale
The Dog

The status of my creative gallery is that I am pretty much finished. I've so far written three fan fictions, totaling about 15 pages. I am tentatively working on another one, but it is a multi-chapter fan fiction, instead of the previous short story fan fictions I have written, and may not be ready to be published until well after this class is over.

After publishing my fan fictions to FanFiction.net, I've received 11 reviews in total from other authors and readers. Many people have also added my stories to their favorites lists, and many have added me as a favorite author. A total confidence boost to be sure.

I also have to say that fan fiction is hard to write! I never knew it, but it is so much easier to write your own character, because you know exactly what that person will do or say, or even how they will react in a given situation. In fan fiction, you have to get inside the mind of a character that you didn't write, and try to mimic exactly how they think and talk and react. It's very hard. I can honestly say, I find myself sitting and staring at the screen when I'm writing these fan fictions, desperatly wracking my brain to find a accuarate way to portray these characters.

I may try to make a quick slideshow on the characters in my story, to try to give a visualization of who they are, since I'm sure many people haven't heard of, or played the game Dragon Age: Origins.

In the modern world today, everything that a person needs to know is on the Internet. Our global society is influenced by it, and everyone who comes in contact with the giant entity that is the Internet comes away with something. Ideas and information flow freely from site to site.

If something becomes popular in an Internet community, it can be rapidly transmitted through various sites that can be accessed around the world. Many things that are popular online are popular because they have been copied and mimicked so many times, that most everyone is aware of them, such as Internet memes. Then, there is something like fan fiction, which uses the Internet as a place to share and read and thus enhances its popularity.

The genre of fan fiction is quite popular on the Internet, and could not have been disseminated so widely without being online first. Fan fiction, as defined on Wikipedia is “a fiction, [that is] both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe and simultaneously existing outside the canon of that universe.” A fan fiction is a work that borrows the ideas of an original author, like J.K Rowling, and creates a new story. While most of these stories contain original characters or settings, the plot, or problems the main characters must work through are different, depending on the ideas of the fan fiction author. However, not all of these fan fictions contain ideas that the original author, or canon author, have used.

Original character fan fictions, or OC fan fiction as it is labeled on popular sites like Fanfiction.net, are fan fictions that contains the addition of a new character that is not featured in the canon author’s work. An example is the introduction of Krista, a muggle girl that works together with Sirius Black, into the world of Harry Potter. In OC fan fictions, the story’s focus is shifted to this new character, and no longer focuses on the canon story’s main character, in this case, Harry Potter. These OC characters, like Krista, are attributed to the fan fiction author’s imagination and are wholly of their own creation. Despite this fact, many of these OC characters are eerily similar, so much so that they have their own title in the fan fiction community, Mary Sues.

Mary Sues, and their less seen male counterparts Gary Stus, can be defined many ways. Wikipedia defines these characters as “a fictional character that is portrayed in an idealized way and lacks noteworthy flaws,". One writer, TA Maxwell, writes in their fan fiction, The Official Mary Sue Manual "Simply, a Mary Sue, or for the male population “Marty Stu, is a representation of either the writer or the person the writer would most like to be. They are referred to as “perfect” characters," (1). However, another view states that Mary Sues are simply a way to rewrite a canonical to "better represent oneself," (Chander and Sunder 598). Through all of these definitions, there is one constant. The Mary Sue is representative of something the writer desires, whether to better represent themselves in a text they admire, or to create and empower a character to a high degree.

However, the amount of perfection these Mary Sues contain has led many fan fiction readers to avoid stories that contain OC characters in them, simply because they are so unrealistic. Despite this, OC fan fictions are still very popular, and many people acclaim the new additions to the original canon story. OC fan fiction is a genre of fan fiction that is written for either personal or creative reasons and seeks recognition from their fan fiction community, and not the canon community, although it does further the canon community through the Internet.

One question that often arises about OC fan fiction is why these authors do not simply write their own stories, instead of remixing or transforming the work of another, with the addition of their own character. There are many reasons, and many of them come from the needs of the individual writers themselves. Some prefer to write OC fan fiction because it is easier for them to work with a character that is their own. Others prefer to start out in a canon world with their OC character, because it is familiar to them, and they do not have to concentrate on creating a whole new world. Some writer’s of OC fan fiction find it more creative than regular fan fiction that follows canon characters. And finally, there are some authors who use OC fan fiction as practice, before they begin to work on their own original stories, (Mibba forums). These are all creative reasons as to why some write fan fiction. There are other, more personal reasons why some write OC fan fiction.

OC fan fictions that stem from more personal reasons usually contain self insertion. The idea of self insertion is that an author puts themselves into the character. This is a case of write what you know, but often it goes further than this.

While self insertion can sometimes mean that an author inserts some of their self into their character, OC fan fictions use self insertion as the premise for an author to completely submerge themselves in their new character, and make them the vehicle for their desires. The author and the new character are one and the same, and the author, as Barthes states, never “dies” or becomes something that we ourselves, as the readers, can imagine. We already know who this author is. Not every OC story has self insertion, but the ones that do can often contain the Mary Sue character.

The Mary Sue character stems from an author’s desire of that character. “The author of a Mary Sue Adventure operates on the simple principle of wanting to be liked, thus he or she makes their character likable,” (Self Insertion And Mary Sues). But, besides this, the author can also endow their character with other traits. Some notable Mary Sue characteristics are extreme beauty and physical attractiveness, several otherworldly or unusual powers, having skill levels that were attained without training or hard work, or an extreme amount of perfection. Some Mary Sue characters contain no flaws.

While these Mary Sues do not contain self insertion in that way per se, they are the ultimate vision of the author. This can be illustrated best in the fan fiction, My Immortal. This fan fiction is very strongly labled a self insertion OC tale by the fan fiction community because of the author’s blatant use of her own personal hobbies and fascinations, and the fact that she inserts her friend as a character into it. Not only this, but the author uses her story to act out what she wishes she could do in the Harry Potter universe. What the author longs or hopes to be is what the character, and the story, eventually becomes.

This can sometimes lead to an alienation of the reader. “Unfortunately that runs against the readers' fundamental wishes. The readers don't want a character they can like, they want a character they can identify with,” (Self Insertion and Mary Sues). Essentially, OC fan fictions that contain self insertion are more about pleasing the author than the fan fiction community, though the author does want recognition for their character.

Recognition is a large part of the fan fiction community, and it is a way for fan fiction authors to gain the feedback and positive reviews from people that enjoy their writing. This is in direct contrast to wanting any sort of recognition from the canon community. The canon community, for the purposes of this paper, consists of the original author of a work, for example J.K Rowling, and anyone else who would credit recognition to an author of a novel or other such work, like publishing companies.

A fan fiction writer, especially an OC fan fiction writer, will never gain any sort of recognition from the canon community. Recognition from the canon community might be considered being published, or receiving money for a story written. Fan fiction writers are still taking an element from the canon author and remixing it to their liking. Even though an OC writer has created something original, they are still borrowing the story from the canon author. However, this sort of recognition is not what fan fiction writers are looking for when they post their stories to Fanfiction.net or other popular websites.

The fan fiction community is huge. There are thousands upon thousands of stories online, written by fan fiction authors who want the recognition of the community they belong to. Whether it is constructive criticism on writing techniques, or simply a gushing paragraph of praise, fan fiction authors enjoy reviews from other authors, readers and general fans of whatever canon subject they have chosen to write about. OC fan fiction is no different from regular fan fiction in this regard.

Authors of OC fan fiction are sometimes avoided because there may be a potential Mary Sue character in their work. But, for every person that avoids them, there are at least two more people who enjoy the idea of a new character being introduced into their favorite canon story. OC fan fiction authors want recognition just as any other fan fiction authors do. Not only do they want recognition, but OC fan fiction authors want others to see how much they enjoy the subject that they are writing about. OC fan fiction authors, despite the fact they have added something wholly new, further the popularity of the canon work that they love.

People who love fan fiction, and those who author it, do not read and write fan fictions to change the original work, or to somehow gain money from their labor. The main reason that most people pen fan fiction is to share their own interpretation of it, or to explore the “what ifs” of a tale. Thus, even if a canon story is deemed completed by its original author, it continues to grow and evolve online, in the form of fan fiction. Even if the addition of a new character, in the case of OC fan fictions, radically changes the canon, it is still another way for a fan to enjoy their favorite tale.

Fan fiction keeps stories alive and changing. Constantly remixing canon works may change them in essence, but it never really detracts from the canon. The canon story, like Harry Potter, will always exist. Remixing it and adding new characters to it only gives a reader a new way to look at their favorite story. OC fan fictions sometimes are looked at in a negative light because of Mary Sues, or self insertion, but they are important to the fan fiction community. The authors that write OC fan fiction are doing what everyone else in the community does. They are taking something that they are a fan of, adding a character of their own design, and making the canon their own in some small way.

View class stuff in a larger map

I'm not sure. I was thinking that maybe I could make a youtube video...but of what, I don't really know yet. I was thinking I could put together a lot of the images I've found online that contain references to Mary Sues and try to make a story out of what they've mentioned. Sort of like my own fanfiction about fanfictions.

Or, I could put various parts of stories together, add in something of my own, and remake it into a Oc fanfiction told through a video. These are just a few ideas, but I'm sure after today's class, I'll have more ideas and a better direction in which to head in.

After today's class, I think I want to do a remix, and take lots of lines from different fanfiction stories and sort of mesh them together to create a new story, and maybe put it into a video that plays through. I'm not sure how feasible this is going to be, but I can give it a shot.

First draft of my paper.

In response to the first draft of my paper, I'd say everything needs work. It is a draft after all. So far, I've gotten what I'd ideally like to say about fanfiction and oc fanfiction in general. I have my intro paragraphs and my topic sentence is fairly good. I also have a small outline on what topics I'm going to need to elaborate on. It's going to need a lot more overhaul of course. A lot more.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYy_y8QlOplcZHFyOXg0el8xNGZtcHM1MmM2&hl=en

So far in my project, I have a lot of ideas that I have gained from my research. I've discovered a lot about fanfiction that I never knew before. There are a few ideas that dominate my topic. Why people write these fanfictions if they get no credit, and why are some of the elements of original fanfictions that same?

The problem of turning this into an essay or paper is that I have no idea where to start. I'm honestly a little lost with this idea, mostly because I'm still trying to figure out what I want to prove. I guess I'd probably like to talk about fanfiction and oc fanfiction in general and the idea of Mary Sues. I'd also like to discuss the fanfiction community a bit, and how the idea of recognition plays into writing fanfiction. I have so many ideas that I'm sort of confused as to how to even begin to structure my paper.

I think that organizing all my ideas and then trying to figure out what I'd like to prove would be first. I want to gather together my resources and really try to take the elements that I need from them. Then, I need to briefly write out a small outline of what I'd like to talk about. My paper definitely needs to be thought about a bit more before I can begin to write it.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYy_y8QlOplcZHFyOXg0el8xM2RxOXJzNHBw&hl=en

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AYy_y8QlOplcZHFyOXg0el8wZmhxZmdzdGY&hl=en

So far, I'm feeling pretty good about my topic. Fanfiction has long been an interest of mine, and being able to research it a little more, and go more in depth, has been enjoyable. I'm feeling great about all the research I have done, and some of the things I have found have influenced my topic a great deal. They have also made me laugh, which is a nice side effect.

On the other hand, I do feel a bit lost. I know that I want to research original fanfiction. My theory about OC fanfiction worries me a bit though. I feel I have a stable enough theory, but I think that adjusting it a bit might go a long way to clearing up my doubts. Perhaps gaining some feedback would as well.

Fanfiction, especially OC fanfiction, really brings up a big question for me. Why do it? As a writer myself, I often have trouble crafting every detail in a story. So I understand the attraction of fanfiction. Why spend the time crafting a whole world to fit your character in, when you can just shove them into a setting that is pre-crafted, and already adored by many. And some do this successfully. They are, in a way, the "new" authors. But, from all that I've found, they can never be true authors. They can be recognized by their peers, but never by anyone who will give them fame, fortune, and a copyright.

OC fanfiction writers also write for another reason. To self insert themselves into stories. I'd never really heard of this before, but I think I was aware of it. I feel like its mostly females who do it, but males do it too. These people craft unbelievable amazing people to insert into a pre-crafted story. These Mary Sues/Gary Stus have so many amazing qualities, that in the end, no one who reads the story likes them much.

I've discovered a lot about fanfiction, and it makes me want to research it more. I hope that I am on the right track with all that I've discovered, and I hope that I can tightenen my theory so that it works well with my research.

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AYy_y8QlOplcZHFyOXg0el8wZmhxZmdzdGY&hl=en

The most interesting idea on the identity of a writer for me comes from Foucault. His ideas about the author and lack of an author intrigue me. We talked about it a bit in class, but there are some things in the world that do not need authors. There are some works or items that are created that need no sense of "ownership". We simply accept them. And then some works, mostly the books we read, that we would not be interested in as much if they had no author.

I think that for multimedia writers, it is more important that they disseminate their ideas than it is for them to proclaim their ownership of the ideas. For everyone who writes on the Internet, the words that they use don't belong to them. Many sites have rules that state that anything that is written on said site, no longer solely belongs to the original author. The ideas flow freely over the Internet, and anyone has access to them.

I'm not sure where fan fiction falls under this discourse. Even though fan fiction uses other ideas freely, the authors of these fan fictions protect their creations. Plagiarizing other fan fiction stories is frowned upon. So, while these people do not actually have direct ownership of their stories, they claim ownership of their ideas that have inserted into the stories. So, I believe that many OC fan fiction writers take the ideas of others that they enjoy and insert their own ideas or "fantasies" into another story because they like it, and wish to share it, not because they'd like to be recognized as a great writer.

Fan fiction is a genre of writing that is based off the ideas of another writer. It is not a work wholly created by imaginative thought, but by the building off of, or even sometimes direct copying of another writer's work to form a new, yet very similar work. There are also fan fictions called original character, or OC fan fictions. OC fan fictions include a new character into a familiar story. This character is the creation of the author of the fan fiction, and is completely of their own design. However, many of these original characters, albeit creations of the author, display many of the same characteristics of other original characters. So, are these OC fan fictions plagiarism? Or could they be considered a remix of the original author’s work? Would their creations ever belong to them, and could they publish their ideas? And finally, if many of these OC fan fictions contain characters that are similar, are they really new and original, or are they simply another plagiarism?

Many OC fan fictions are actually avoided by fan fiction readers, mostly because of the idea of the OC Mary Sue. Many traits make a Mary Sue or Gary Stu, which is an original character that is not based on reality, by more of the author’s fantasy. These characters display so many of the same traits that there are tests for authors, just to make sure that their original character is not a Mary Sue.

I plan to research this idea of the original fan fiction author primarily using the site FanFiction.net. From there, I can look at many different fan fictions, and groups devoted to picking out OC fan fictions. I’d also like to research why people insert their own characters into someone else’s work and if this entitles them to any sort of recognition. In addition, I want to research the various pitfalls of OC fan fiction and how people are advised to create this. I also expect to find some useful articles on JStor and Project Muse on fan fiction.

"The Official Mary Sue Manual, a General fanfic - FictionPress.com." Let the Words Flow - FictionPress.com. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. .

"The Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus Test." Ponyland Press. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. .

"Plagiarism -." Fan History Wiki. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. .

Unleash Your Imagination - FanFiction.Net. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. .

Fan fiction is a genre of writing that is based off the ideas of another writer. It is not a work wholly created by imaginative thought, but by the building off of, or even sometimes direct copying of another writer's work to form a new, yet very similar work. Fans take a concept from a book, a video game or a movie they like, and then spin the story the way that they would like to see it. This new author receives no credit and no money for their new ideas, but it could still be considered a direct form of plagiarism.

There are also fan fictions described as OC or original character. These are the ones that I would like to like to research. OC fan fictions are fan fan fictions that include a new character into a familiar story. This character is the creation of the author of the fan fiction, and is completely of their own design. I think that this topic gives new meaning to the idea of multimedia authorship. These fan fictions are not just taking what another author has written and altering the story to suit the new authors desires. These fan fictions have ideas that are completely new to the original story. The author has built upon the original story with ideas of their own. So, I wonder, is this plagiarism? Or is this a new form of authorship? Could these authors be considered new authors, because they have work of their own? Would this story that they have created ever belong to them? And finally, why would these authors choose to include a character of their own creation?

I plan to research this idea of the original fan fiction author primarily using the site FanFiction.net. From there, I can look at many different fan fictions, as well as the rules and rights that the site has laid down for its users. I also want to research the various pitfalls of OC fan fiction and how people are advised to create this. I also expect to find some useful articles on JStor and Project Muse on fan fiction.

www.fanfiction.net
http://www.ponylandpress.com/ms-test.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Plagiarism, as far as I can tell, has always been looked at as a bad thing. It is disgraceful to steal others ideas and present them as your own ideas. Today, schools even implement tools such as Turn it In, to make sure that their students only produce work that contains their original ideas, and not those copied from whatever sources they looked at.

But that brings up a question. Are the ideas that they produce "originally" really theirs? To some extent, we are all exposed and shaped by what is around us. Our ideas, hopes, dreams. Are they really original? So many times I've come up with a thought and then stopped and wondered, "How many people around the world just stopped and thought of that? Did anyone else? Or am I the only one that thinks that way?"

The reality of it is, I can't be the only one that thinks a certain way. And the same can be said for those writing papers, or original works. People often ask famous creators, "What was your influence?" Their influences helped them to create whatever it is they made. Is this plagiarism? Because it seems without these influences, it stands to reason they never would have created what they did in the first place. It's a really sticky issue to address when you look at it intently. Because of the Internet, and the thousands upon thousands of things that people are influenced by that they never could have gotten their hands on without the Internet, plagiarism is evolving. Just like technology evolves, so does plagiarism. And I think that perhaps one day, it won't be viewed so negatively. But, it's only a thought; and it probably isn't an original one.

I could definitely be considered a digital native. My father was interested in computers and technology, and as the Internet and PCs became more popular, my family began using it quite often. The Internet was used a lot as I was growing up. Not as much during my younger childhood of course, mostly because I was too young to understand it. But from about 10 years old, the Internet was a huge part of my life. My entire family used it quite often, using it to e-mail friends and family, look up interesting things, or to play games.

My earliest memories of using the web were playing a game with my little brother called EverQuest. It's kind of dorky I suppose, but my little brother and I used to play that game all the time. It required the Internet and I guess it was the first MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game to come out at the time. I remember it so well because it seemed so amazing to me at the time that so many people could occupy one space and communicate with each other. You could have a conversation with someone from Europe or Australia, or even China, and still be sitting at home in the US.

I use the web a lot, mostly to read the news lately. I like being able to find multiple stories that relate to the world, and not just a region. I'm also addicted to looking things up on Wikipedia when I need information. I both love the web and fear it. It's a useful thing to have and I suppose I couldn't live without it, but I sort of fear it as well. Nothing is private on the web, and lots of people can access things about you, even just by accident.

I visit a lot of sites, mostly news sites. I have a myspace and a facebook, but I rarely use them. I like to use the Internet to gain information about things I wouldn't normally come in contact with.