Old Shame

On Monday before last, while searching for a hard copy of a science fiction novel I plan to revise, I found a hard copy of another long story, a dystopia with intended moral ambiguity and a boarding school of horrors. Immediately I put it away and hid it in the drawer, along with the poems and short stories that had earned me A's in middle and high school. The shame colored me all evening, to think that I had written something so laughably terrible and dark.

Last Tuesday, coincidentally, AvannaK on Tumblr posted a few old Naruto fanfics that she had written when she was younger, with apologies for characterization and shipping. I thought they were well written and had less obsessive shipping than a few young adult novels I had read over the weekend, and told her so. So did a few followers, but she still responded with modesty:

Jumping7Salon:Awwwwwww I want to give 20 year old Avanna a hug!!
AvannaK: or a smack in the face with a dictionary

Image source: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2332/2223106956_af70c2bdf1_z_d.jpg


Writers always have that interesting contradiction: the egotistic ones, like me, know that we can write well, and we submit works when we feel they are ready to be published, but we also have some works that can never reach the proper light of day, and when they do, they are like the rogue dandelions that the gardeners could not pull out. I don't think I can ever read the bad fanfiction that I wrote when I was a teenager, but a few of them are still floating around online; half a dozen more disappeared when I switched computer hard drives. No, I will not tell you that pseudonym I used.


We writers have one thing in common when we have success, big or small: self-deprecation. Our old works embarrass us because we know what we did wrong then, and that we can do better now. AvannaK's concern involved her not knowing how to characterize Sakura in Naruto fanfiction, since it seems that when we fanfiction writers started out we tended to make our girl characters obsessed with the guys or vice versa, giving no thoughts to canon. With that said, she still finds the right words and phrasing to paint vivid scenes.  

For context, Sakura takes a bit to warm up to Naruto in canon.

Image source: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2253/2434786922_bce339e47a_z_d.jpg?zz=1

 

When submitting I try to hold onto my ego and belief that "THIS story is good!" and I ride on a high that it's going well, that "THIS story" will be the one to earn professional rates. The few times that I get an acceptance on the first try, like with "The Opera Singer," it brings a great sense of vindication especially when those stories come from a dark place. The times when a story that I work hard on gets nothing? I feel like a wave has flipped me over, and that the story isn't good enough. That it has lost my edge.

Some of these stories, I have retired because I run out of places to send them. I don't delete them like I used to, but I feel ready to move on to other stories, that feel right, and get back to the troubled ones when I know how to fix them. Probably when I have more energy I'll deal with them properly, and understand what to change. My endings are still fairly weak, but I'm getting better at them. 

Image source: https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5096/5459331064_b824d401d5_z_d.jpg
In the meantime? I'll watch the embarrassing dandelions bloom in my garden of stories. They deserve a small place, for having helped me start.  And I'll keep praising Avanna's works, old and new,  because her dandelions are undiluted power.

Respect the Source: Why Fifty Shades Irks Me

Hi all,

Happy belated International Women's Day! Finished with final exams (finally) for the first part of the semester, so I can blog! Going to be flying to India for a week, so will be offline in all likelihood.

 Recently on Tumblr, I found out that a lot of young-adult and fantasy authors post material there; one of my new favorite blogs posted this interesting bit on how Fifty Shades of Grey did well at the box office and on the bestseller list. For those who don't know, Fifty Shades is an erotic adult trilogy about how an ordinary college graduate ends up in a legally binding, non-consensual BDSM relationship with Christian Grey, a millionaire that has better things to do than to micromanage another adult's life. A film version premiered on Valentine's Day this year and has grossed $150,048,805 in ticket sales.
 
I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, let's get that out of the way first. While considering it, two separate people that I know and trust instructed me NOT to read it, and it's a red flag when the actors for the film adaptation describe their discomfort with acting out the book's scenes. With that said, I have heard bits of the prose and marvel at how people find it unintentionally funny. Doug Walker and his brother Rob describe that part of the book's fun lies in its terrible writing, and comment on how the actors make a valiant effort at genuinely playing out the parts.

It's not just the fact that Fifty Shades has terrible writing according to my friends, or that it was originally posted as Twilight fanfiction on the Internet and remains 89 percent similar to its incarnation. What troubles me is the sensation that author E.L. James cheated when writing her novel, that she played some sort of a practical joke on the writing world and the publishing industry. As Bookshelves of Doom pointed out, if James had chosen a more "high-brow" young-adult trilogy to inspire her work, like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, she would have received more flak.

Image source: https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6709267351_71a9d64fd6_z_d.jpg

This sensation did not feel rational; I've written my fair share of fanfiction and enjoy it, and Neil Gaiman has pointed out that no idea is original; Rudyard Kipling inspired Gaiman's Newberry winner The Graveyard Book, and Gaiman wrote a troubling response to the Narnia books via "The Problem of Susan". C.S. Lewis in turn took inspiration from the Bible for the Narnia books, and despite disagreements over how he treated Susan, he does know how to tell a story.       

Matt Anderson and I were talking about the uncomfortable sensation that I got from Fifty Shades's success, from the fact that it was inspired by a troubling young-adult trilogy that disappointed the reader, and he pinned it down: Fifty Shades despite having terrible writing became a success, either because people purchased the book to mock it or to enjoy the more erotic elements. James's trilogy didn't add anything to the book world or to the fanfiction world. She didn't explore a different side of an "ordinary" girl getting involved with an emotionally abusive, powerful partner as Bella Swan got involved with Edward in Twilight, or perhaps even a unique take on the premise that vampires have carnivorous relationships with humans.

Image source: https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7233/7159605420_f1e6133713_z_d.jpg

Fanfiction by itself has a vague definition; copyright laws determine what characters and settings are public domain and what aren't. Many Lovecraft anthologies have filled the publishing world this year, for example, while Sherlock Holmes's copyright becomes murkier. With that said, the best fanfiction tends to supercede the original author's purpose and dive into a new world, either literally or figuratively, while showing knowledge of this strange territory; Hitchups for example depicts how Hiccup's wanderlust in a deviation, combined with loyalty to his dragon, leads him to becoming a different kind of hero that he becomes in canon, one that cannot tie himself to Earth but still needs bonds to his old home. In contrast, later fanfiction that took the same idea of Hiccup leaving before his final examination tread on similar territory, sometimes condemning the characters that stayed on Berk outright or offering minimal sympathy.

I see inspiration as a springboard into a large swimming pool; you take a leap off established solid ground and end up in a flurry of different water, sometimes aching if you did a belly flop. As long as you make your mark, no matter what the distance from the original starting point, then you have the right to call that story your own. At the same time, one must show that we know the starting point's location, no matter how far we've deviated from it, and pay homage to its origin. To do so otherwise, by weak characterization or convoluted plots, shows disregard for your source and for the reader.

Mel Brooks once said that "You cannot have fun with anything that you don't love or admire or respect." Having done various parodies such as Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs, Brooks knows how to make any mockery work and to tastefully cross lines. In addition to parodies, inspired works ideally ought to follow similar guidelines so that  "love," "admire," and "respect" become the key words. One must act to respect original sources, to remember to pay homage to what made the previous stories great.

Image source: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2624/3790520713_27b4946e23_z_d.jpg?zz=1

The Graveyard Book won the Newberry Medal because while paying homage to an English classic that barely avoided racism, Gaiman understood the intelligent prose and themes that children and adults craved, about the power of living and facing down evil. Spaceballs became a classic cult film because while mocking Darth Vader's impact it told a cohesive if absurd story about stealing precious oxygen and rescuing a rebellious princess, showing regard for the hero's goals to discover his identity and earn a reward. Even Shrek, for all the original film's bitter blows towards Disney and fairy tales, displayed a belief in true love breaking curses and outsiders finding happy endings. Fifty Shades despite purporting to have "true love" only reinforces the idea that people ought to be in sadomasochistic relationships with no boundaries, which Twilight already portrayed for a younger audience. The setting and characters were different, but the central idea remained the same, and many readers bought it.

If you're going to write because another author's story inspired you, take that leap and remember your original source. Respect your audience's intelligent and desire for a good story. 

Last Post on Fanfiction: OCs That Add to Narrative

Happy belated Easter, everyone! I'm so sorry for not updating recently. The past few months haven't been that busy, although Alban Lake accepted one of my short stories for publication, and my real reason for not posting is that I didn't have decent topics, what with writing fiction for anthologies and such.

A while  back, Matt Anderson wrote a blog entry on Revamping established works through photo manipulations, fanfiction, and television show gags. Essentially, these works served as a springboard for new ideas and interpretations, whether they involve the Super Sentai becoming an American phenomenon as the Power Rangers or Harry Potter having rationalist foster parents. New stories emerged, new possibilities. Matt is even writing a wonderful serial called Duke Forever, in which a black Time Lord explores various worlds with an elevator-shaped time-ship and Stargates.

There comes one question, however: if you change so much about the established work, then why not make it your own story, with an original setting and all?

My argument is that the fine line relies on the established world. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, changed the world of slasher film genres and vampire lore by mandating a chosen girl to stake vampires and protect humans from evil creatures, rather than mandating that monsters and serials go for the cheerleaders first. Joss Whedon changed the role for pretty girls in the horror genre, giving them a reason to fight monsters rather than to run. He rewrote the role to the point that when Buffy meets Dracula, the original famous vampire, she squeals over meeting him rather than running for her life, and learns about her Slayer legacy from him.

Image source: https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3548/3442653657_5bae19d6fc_b_d.jpg

With other established worlds, however, we find it much harder to build new settings for different characters. We liked Harry Potter not just because of the title character, but also because of the fascinating Wizarding World behind the Leaky Cauldron; they even built a theme park around the concept of visiting Diagon Alley and Hogwarts. We want to participate in that world despite the abuse of Memory Charms, prejudice against house elves and Muggleborn wizards, and Dolores Umbridge. We want to buy wands that choose the wizard, and to deliver notes via owl post. It's not a perfect world or a perfect story, but it's close enough and vibrant to the reader.

Image source: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4113/5039294976_32b03a5cfb_z_d.jpg

World-building is hard work for a writer, especially for one inspired by a complicated world. If we derive too much from the established work, then we run into the risk of plagiarism. One author, Dmitri Yemets, found that out the hard way when he wrote a book called Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass, which he claimed was a parody of Harry Potter. He faced a legal dispute from J.K. Rowling on releasing the book in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, though he managed to keep publishing in Russian, and later on in Dutch. Yemets maintains that Tanya Grotter was a parody, and even wrote a book depicting the legal battle in this different fantasy world, taking a cheap shot to vent his anger.

I've recently encountered this interesting situation while writing original fiction based on How to Train Your Dragon. These stories don't feature dragons or Vikings, but they feature a nugget from the original book series that stuck with me. In one case, I changed the setting completely and wrote the story like a Criminal Minds episode, so that it's completely different from the original source. It blossomed into an emotional narrative and took a life of its own, all while I was writing dramatic fanfiction at the same time.  

The world has the last word, because setting defines the story as much as characters and plot do. If you want to write about scientists encountering magic wands in Harry Potter and avoid the lawsuits from J.K. Rowling, then transplant your characters in a new setting, finding that springboard of inspiration. Turn a genre cliche on its head, and allow the cheerleader to stake her vampires.

Good luck, fellow writers. A little bit of inspiration is full of surprises. 

Fanfiction, Fandoms, and Fear of the Mary Sue

            Happy New Year, everyone. Apologies for not blogging, but here is post three on Fanfiction. We're entering dangerous waters now.

 Source: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/59/212677871_451eda44c6.jpg

Matt Anderson has read my HTTYD fanfiction, and he asked me why I didn't introduce an OC -- an original character-- into the HTTYD universe, or make the story more accessible to readers who weren't familiar with the movie or the show's villains. He even wrote a blog post about context, how such knowledge can make or break a fanfiction if the audience becomes privy to the information.

I had a perfectly logical explanation for why I didn't include an OC until diving into Norse and Germanic mythology and using obscure deities: I didn't want to create a Mary Sue. I didn't want to put an idealized version of myself, or any unnecessary character, into a world filled with imperfect characters and fun banter. In my view, HTTYD was already filled with enough interesting characters that I wanted to chronicle, and to put them through the wringer.

For those who don't know, the Mary Sue as described by TV Tropes is "a character that is important in the story, possesses unusual physical traits, and has an irrelevantly over-skilled or over-idealized nature." The male version is called Marty or Gary Stu, though the term Mary Sue was coined in response to female authors inserting female characters into the Star Trek fandom, usually avatars of their female selves.  

Source: http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1020/873797895_8084d78cab.jpg

As you can imagine, Mary and Gary don't have a good reputation, and they exist in every established fandom. Shows like NCIS and The Big Bang Theory have made reference to inserting oneself into an established canon, all for the sake of entering that particular world and escaping reality. In essence, the female or male author bares his real self, and expects that in this fictional world that everyone will like him or her.

One fact about Mary Sue characters: they don't last long in anyone's mind, even the author's. I learned it the hard way, by drawing bad hero comics in elementary school, and then switching to Harry Potter fanfiction that has (mercifully) vanished; my bad hero comics had me flying around, being the only survivor of a disaster, and defeating the strangely gun-shaped bad guys. Around the same time this happened, I lost my elementary school friends after inserting them as the rest of a hero team that I concocted, though I'm not sure if the events were related.

 

Did I learn from my early storytelling mistakes? Heck no! I inserted a character like myself AGAIN, this time into the animated Teen Titans fandom, though at least I had the sense to make her imperfect and not liked by everyone. Even so, I never finished her stories because they weren't fulfilling enough, not when I knew myself better than anyone else did, and there were no surprises for me when digging for hidden depths. I borrowed plot lines from Japanese anime and the Teen Titans comics, without seeing what I could do on my own. Thus, when I returned to the realm of fanfiction fall 2011, I vowed to use no OCs, since canon seemed to have enough character fodder and not enough plot resolution for my liking. When I did decide to break that rule, I went into Norse mythology as mentioned before and helped myself to the more obscure gods.

   

Image source: http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4108/5186407183_ea3c1ee740.jpg

One year later, however, I remember one other important thing; all Mary Sues are OCs, but not all OCs are Mary Sues. This is an important truth for fanfiction writers, and even for those pursuing original fiction, because original characters are just that: original characters. Going back to Hitchups, the OCs there range from foreign Viking warriors to Timberjack dragons to mermaids, and even then AvannaK relies heavily on mythology to support her narrative. LuciferDragon's fanfiction series about the Boogieman family depicts a very brash and imperfect spirit of Halloween, who while dealing with serial killer revenants and the devil, gets varying reactions from her partner, child and coworkers.

Matt, when I discussed benefits of the Mary Sue with him, brought up the good points of having such a character:

"Well, for one, familiarity breeds understanding. If the character is you, you understand them entirely. You know their deal and what they want. For two, the character wins all the time. It gets us into the mindset of continuing a character through their story as the hero. But if we learn that these characters can evolve, have flaws . . . yet still win, we can have a golden combination."

Most writers advocate writing what you know, and for the most part we know ourselves the best, our favorite food, if we sleep with the lights off, and what books we'll keep by our beds. We also have less trouble when facing the infamous writer's block.

There is another reason, however, why new writers should practice with the Mary Sue, within or outside of fanfiction, because the Mary Sue inspires us to keep writing. The comic below illustrates that reason perfectly:

Source: http://assets.amuniversal.com/86fa06e05e2f012ee3bf00163e41dd5b

Roger Fox's novel, about himself as a James Bond agent that attracts all the ladies' eyes, is terrible. I would recommend reading the rest of the hilarious storyline and thus his novel, but essentially Roger pens adventure and romance he would like to have, and he chronicles these exploits in a weekend. If he had decided to follow Matt's advice, to make his alter ego less perfect and endure a stronger narrative arc, then he could have been a prolific writer. 

Embrace your inner Mary Sue if you're a beginning writer; don't be afraid to put yourself on the written page, even with your physical or personality traits changed. Just be aware that Mary Sues don't have to be your only OCs. Be willing to write about grumpy blacksmiths or crazy cat lovers, or even the police officer helping the good guys out.

We Need Fanfiction: An Analysis of Hitchups and More

Second post on fanfiction and partly an opinion piece inspired by this StoryDam prompt.

Most published authors will not read fanfiction of their work. They do not avoid fan works because of arrogant sentiments or feelings; authors have legal issues to worry about. Tamora Pierce, YA fantasy author and  puts it best on her website: 

"Sometimes in the heat of the battle with a book, we grab any idea that surfaces, without necessarily knowing where it came from. I've since gone back to find things I've fitted to my use in books and movies I read years ago. I can't take the chance that someone else's ideas might enter the stew where my creativity happens, to surface years later: that's how writers get sued for copyright infringement/theft. It's nothing against fanfics or their writers, and everything to do with me covering my behind."

Tamora Pierce also encourages young writers to write fanfiction to gain writing experience, but one can learn more than structuring a plot the way that I did. One can also learn how to ask the tough questions, to disrupt order in an established world.

One can make characters extremely imperfect and have them go through personal changes. That's what one epic, famous fanfiction did for the film How to Train Your Dragon.

What Hitchups Taught Me

Hitchups is an HTTYD fanfiction, an epic adventure of Tolkien length and Alternate Universe of what happened in the movie. Do not read past this line for spoilers of Hitchups, or for the movie How to Train Your Dragon. You have been warned.

Image source: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/333/a/b/hitchupscover_small_by_ch4rms-d4hpucw.png

Fanfiction for particular works of fiction can have subcategories, variations of the same idea; HTTYD fanfiction is not exception. These subcategories do not define HTTYD fanfiction rigidly, and I know I haven't followed them, but they ask similar questions regarding the narrative. Hitchups follows one question that the movie couldn't have answered: "What if Hiccup had run away during the third act?"

My former screenwriting professor Tom Musca always talked about "tyranny of the narrative," a constraint upon the characters' actions and the consequences they face within two hours of screen time. The movie format imposes this "tyranny" by forcing the protagonists and antagonists to make decisions that will tell a story. Not all films follow such a format, and art films make a point of ignoring conventions, but most adventure stories have to conform.

Because HTTYD is an adventure story, it must conform to tyranny of the narrative. This creative obligation comes to full force in HTTYD's third act, when Hiccup nearly leaves his home, the island of Berk. His love interest Astrid comes in on the scene and grounds him, leading to one of the most hilarious Toothless moments and a romantic flight through a cloudy sky. The audience knows that he won't run off with his dragon Toothless because we have twenty minutes of film left, but fanfiction has explored what would have happened without that tyrannical narrative.

"Hitchups"was one of the first "what if Hiccup ran away" variations, and it remains the best that I have read so far. I will outline my reasons below, but these reasons are based on the following facts that writers can learn:

1) No story is perfect, especially a story that sacrifices characterization for plot necessities.

2) It is all right to acknowledge that a story is imperfect, while enjoying it thoroughly.

3)  Fanfiction can help us address a story's imperfections, and to correct them with the written word.

"Hitchups" first addresses one of the pressing issues in HTTYD: female character development. The movie has two notable females: Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup's rival and love interest in Dragon Training, and the Village Elder Gothi. Gothi only has a few minutes of screen time, but her decision to choose Hiccup to slay a dragon impacts the third act. Astrid also impacts the third act by changing her mind about dragons, after going on a wild ride with Hiccup and Toothless. Nevertheless, the characters exist in only how they determine Hiccup's subsequent actions.

The movie limits Astrid's character  by delegating her as the love interest who keeps Hiccup on Berk. Astrid, who at first surpasses Hiccup and the other teens when battling dragons, starts offering advice on how to save the island, so that Hiccup can be the hero in the climactic battle. Before, she was more concerned about competition and coming out on top in Dragon Training, and she loses that aggression after seeing Hiccup as a romantic partner. AvannaK has written numerous analyses on HTTYD and its characters; in a telling post about Astrid, she emphasizes that her dislike is that Miss Hofferson's "purpose is to better Hiccup, to act as a reward or punishment" as opposed to achieving personal growth on her own.This purpose persists through subsequent animation projects in the HTTYD franchise, except for one television episode where we witness the reason for Astrid's competitive spirit. 

In "Hitchups," both Gothi and Astrid receive more notable screen time; in Gothi's case, she helps shape Hiccup's path without him realizing for about thirty chapters. Mentors matter as much as love interests, and Gothi also guides Hiccup into understanding his bond with Toothless better, the price that boy and dragon pay to live together. Gothi sees hope for Berk, and for the Vikings in this unlikely pair, and thus serves as mediator and guide between them. Her presence helps the pair survive a few close calls; when Hiccup sacrifices himself to save Toothless from a lethal axe blow, Gothi's connection to Hiccup allows her to surpass the laws of life and death.  

 

Image source: http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/300W/i/2011/232/5/4/integrated_ii_by_avannak-d40dr1c.png

Although Astrid remains competitive and aloof in "Hitchups," she remains an independent character who undergoing necessary development. Instead of a focus on Hiccup, AvannaK focuses on Astrid's loyalty to Berk and commitment to Viking war tradition, while inside she feels empty and unfocused. After revealing Hiccup's secret to the village, and becoming the temporary hero for a few weeks, Astrid pushes herself to fight against dragons harder, to prove herself and serve Berk. She quickly rises to the top of the village pecking order, able to choose a betrothed if she wishes, but soon doesn't know what she desires when the dragons may wipe them out. As Avanna writes in "Without a Hitch," "Astrid wanted her wants to matter, but they didn't. Only Berk mattered." 

 

Image source: http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/300W/i/2011/139/8/3/hitchups__agreed_by_avannak-d3grd3g.jpg

 Because Astrid has time to realize her lack of purpose, and her fears of not living to the war's end, she thus can handle Hiccup's return with more realistic, conflicted emotions. Two years also makes a difference when the two have an argument:

"Hiccup bared a passion in his expression that Astrid was unprepared for, and the first wisps of guilt began to fester. She stamped them out, holding onto her arguments, refusing to play the bad guy to his choices. Her own righteous anger was no longer enough to fuel her belligerence, so Astrid thought of Stoick, of the defeat and grief that poisoned the rest of their village. She thought of the way Hiccup hurt the classmates that looked up to him—Fishlegs, especially." 

Astrid's commitment to tradition conflicts with her desire to help Berk by using unconventional, almost treacherous means to end the war between dragons and Vikings. She hates Hiccup for choosing a dragon over the village, for violating tradition, while ignoring her part in his departure, her unwillingness to listen. Hiccup only convinces her to ride Toothless when, after their argument, he pursues her and asks for her help. He does not force her to get on, and Toothless does not intimidate her into an apology; Hiccup merely sits on his dragon and lets Astrid make the choice, treating her with respect. Astrid after the ride understands what he had protected, her full role in his exile, and how she can help the village change. As they utilize dragons to protect Berk from the raids, and they have a chance to end the war, Astrid sees herself fulfilling the leadership role that Hiccup never wants, to become chief of Berk, and regains her purpose. Hiccup spends too much time traveling to spread knowledge about training dragons or to lead the village, Snotlout and the twins are too grounded on Berk to become proper teachers, and Fishlegs concerns himself more with dragon-related statistics than with practical application. Astrid not only has the courage to face such creatures, but also the willingness to seek them out and explore uncharted waters.

I must emphasize, however, that Astrid does NOT take that role out of guilt for getting Hiccup exiled. She takes Hiccup's place to both improve Berk and to ground herself within changing world, to gain a solid footing as Vikings befriend dragons. She explains in "Without a Hitch" why she decides to leave Berk and assist dragon expert Fishlegs with gathering more knowledge: "She had to separate herself from her nearly crippling desire to please her village and find a solid understand of what she wanted. She experienced too much war in too little time and not enough of life." Astrid recognizes that she wants to have control over her destiny, and managing Berk ensures that control till the end of her days, even at the cost of civil war with the heir Snotlout.

"Hitchups" thus far is the only HTTYD fanfiction that explores such character depth, especially for the two most significant women in the story. I do not include Ruffnut, the female twin who serves as comic relief, because she does not impact the plot despite having more than a few lines. Nor do I include Phelgma, Stoick's second in command, because while she serves best in battle with STOICK, she has few interactions with Hiccup. Very few "what if Hiccup left" fanfiction focuses on empathy for those left behind on Berk, and thesecond-best contender, "Truth and Reconciliation," features too much Stoick hatred for my taste, and not enough sympathy for the characters on Berk. That's a rant of Tumblr worth, however, and we are not talking about variation fics.

I have to confess one thing, however: it took me months to get into "Hitchups," because the opening chapters made me cry when showing Hiccup's departure and the consequences that result on Berk. One consequence, all the Kill Ring dragons getting executed, was a punch in the gut because we get to know those dragons better in the show and cartoon shorts, but it was also necessary to drive home how Hiccup hurt his village by leaving. I dived into the story in the middle, when Hiccup was recovering from a near-death experience. Then I read backwards, so that I could handle the sad bits and enjoy the adventure in full. It's only by reading Avanna's Tumblr posts and analyses on Astrid that I can see the value behind such a story, that it needed to be written.

HTTYD is a boy and dragon story depicting a boy's world, but that does not mean that we have to drop in a new female character to make it a girl's world. A woman wrote the original book series, after all, with strong women featured within it. "Hitchups" takes the same approach; despite focusing on Hiccup and Toothless's travels returns to the two most important women in the plot and define them as people, not love interests. We do not need to accept the limitations that canon imposes, and we should play with such limits. That way, when we write our original stories, we can learn to surpass those limits and write sympathetic, powerful characters.

One-Year and Three-Month Anniversary: Why I Started Writing Fanfiction Again

This is the first in a series of blog posts about fanfiction. 

One year ago, on October 10, 2012, I started updating fanfiction for the first time since 2003. That was because that year, a new show had started airing in the fall: Dragons: Riders of Berk. The show was based off the film How to Train Your Dragon, which in turn was based off a book series, and promised to bring one of the books' greatest villains to the screen: Alvin the Treacherous. Alvin didn't disappoint in his first appearance, where he succeeded in invading the island of Berk and taking a hostage to find the "Dragon Conqueror," who turned out to be little Hiccup. Even though a skinny teenager kicked his butt with a few dragons, Alvin decided that he would recruit Hiccup to train dragons for him after seeing how Night Furies and Gronckles changed the playing field for battles.

"They ride dragons! We get that boy, and WE'LL ride dragons!"

Image source:  http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbdp63fGHw1ryxe54o1_500.jpg

I asked myself a question after seeing that episode: "Alvin knows that the dragons protect Berk, and Hiccup. Invading again would be a waste of effort for him. Why doesn't he just put a bounty on the Dragon Conqueror, and let other dishonorable Vikings wear out Berk's defenses?"

The result was updating my journal on Deviantart two or three days a week with eight hundred words of prose, centered on that idea. In "How to Protect a Dragon Conqueror," Alvin's men riddle Toothless with poisoned arrows and incapacitate him for two-thirds of the story. Hiccup has to learn to defend himself without a dragon, while realizing that he will injure enemies in cold blood and that Alvin has smeared his reputation in the Archipelago.

This was actual fanart for "How to Protect a Dragon Conqueror", from the opening scene with the arrows impaling Toothless and Hiccup fleeing the scene.

Image source: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/022/7/3/wings_of_arrows_by_ivangriscenko-d5sdem2.jpg

I am an obsessed HTTYD fan, hence why I wrote several blog posts about the movie, and the themes that it presented. This idea of a bounty on Hiccup's head, when I was so obsessed with the show that I'd rewatch my favorite episodes and analyze them, stayed with me, and I finally wrote it down and updated it on my Deviant journal. Then, with my commitment to finish every story that I could, including ones that suddenly gained an influx of readers that wanted to murder Alvin for hurting Toothless.

As it turned out, canon didn't go that far with Alvin. I won't spoil the plot details for those who wish to explore the show for themselves, but the show writers decided to focus on him getting defeated more often than obtaining what he wanted, though he had a few temporary ones and a permanent victory. For each victory, I incorporated them into "Dragon Conqueror" and made the blows against Hiccup and Berk more powerful. The more that I wrote, the more canon disappointed, to the point that my obsession with the show started to wane. A new villain has kept me interested, as has the teaser trailer for the sequel, but I no longer live, breathe and eat fanfiction the way that I used to, though I still write for the HTTYD fandom. That is both a relief and a disappointment, for reasons I'll explain below.

When you use someone else's prose without claiming it as your own -- and if you do, you will find yourself in oodles of legal trouble-- you don't have to create a new world, or new characters. More often than not, as I was, you'll be writing about your favorite characters and espousing their virtues and flaws. I had a major crush on Hiccup, for example, because he was snarky, brilliant and impulsive. With original fiction, the creator has less admiration for her character, more a need to render them as living breathing beings, discovering aspects of their personality as the writing progresses. Original fiction requires rendering shapes and figures on a blank canvas, while fanfiction allows one to merely add brush strokes to a finished canvas.

I learned this lesson while switching back to original fiction for a few days, after writing "Dragon Conqueror." The words felt emptier, less unsure of themselves, like blobs of paint. As a result, I started writing another short HTTYD fanfiction, as a contest entry, in December. Come January, I was writing the sequel to "Dragon Conqueror," which I called "How to Court a Dragon Prince." By the spring, I started an "HTTYD Easter Special" which soon climbed into the 90,000 word count, almost novel-length. "Dragon Prince" concluded in October of this year, and I have only written short one-shots, some pure fluff and some pure drama. The thrill from writing prose with well-defined, established characters did wonders when I exited my comfort zone and practiced world building with different characters.

Writing fanfiction also taught me confidence, that I could write well and earn readers; I learned that action and conflicted characters snag readers, as do action scenes and lots of peril. After I finished Dragon Conqueror in December and started interning for a local theater, I found the courage to rewrite my fantasy wolf novel and to pretend it was fanfiction so that I could revise it with the same vigor that came from writing about Hiccup and Astrid and the Berk gang.  I also made it a personal goal to submit one short story a week this year, after learning that people wanted my prose. So far I have sold about five short stories and have received payment for two of them, so I remain confident that I'm going down the right path.

Let me reiterate one element: you will never, and SHOULD never make money writing fanfiction. Another writer already crafted the territory in which you have made your mark, and he or she will hunt you down for trying to stake a claim on it. I will write another post on plagiarism, and on famous examples that have landed authors in hot water, but I hope that you take that message to heart.

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I didn't write "Dragon Conqueror" expecting to make a penny off it. I knew I never would, and so I wrote it for myself. I wrote a story that would never work with the twenty episode format, and probably would never fly with the Cartoon Network censors. I wrote the story that I wanted to see on the screen, with characters undergoing personal changes and exiting their comfort zones. I was just lucky that other readers and Riders of Berk fans wanted to see that story as well. 

Neil Gaiman put it best: "Writing isn't all about pleasing other people. You've got a story to tell, and you're the only one who can tell it."  I can proudly say that I'm the only fanfiction writer who has written about putting a bounty on Hiccup's head, but I would never try to make a profit off that idea.

Next post, I'll talk about the purpose that fanfiction serves for readers, about the gaps that the fandom prose fills with imagination and logical questions. It will probably feature a long discussion on one of the best HTTYD fanfictions out there, "Hitchups," and the gaps that it filled for unsatisfied readers.