^
In an ideal world, I would see a number of succesful authors band together to form a publishing company specifically aimed at giving new writers a shot. Mine would, of course, be the first story they'd publish - just as a heads up to everyone else (It is my ideal world, after all)!
^
In an ideal world, I would see a number of succesful authors band together to form a publishing company specifically aimed at giving new writers a shot. Mine would, of course, be the first story they'd publish - just as a heads up to everyone else (It is my ideal world, after all)!
It's been tried.
The big publishing houses do NOT appreciate the competition. They tend to start with lawyers and THEN they get NASTY.
It's been tried.
The big publishing houses do NOT appreciate the competition. They tend to start with lawyers and THEN they get NASTY.
Mean.
For me its two fold.
One reason is to practice. I am an aspring (professional) writer and I use fan fic as a tripple A/ labratory to test out new ideas in a safe and (relatively) harmless environment.
And, with DA in particular, when the game and its characters are there characters it is also mine, the main character. And there is a certain satisfaction in carrying on their stories.
It's been tried.
The big publishing houses do NOT appreciate the competition. They tend to start with lawyers and THEN they get NASTY.
IDK given with all the ways for new authors to get published these days it might be like playing whack-a-mole.
That can work. Especially if the writer is prolific.
Getting a publisher to even LOOK at a new author is a PAIN IN THE ASS. This is nothing new.
Madeleine L'Engle wrote 'A Wrinkle In Time', one of the BEST fantasy stories I have ever read in 1953 and it took her 10 YEARS to get it published. Not because it wasn't good, because EVERYONE said it WAS. But the reason was that the publishers could not classify it. It is not religious, it is not science fiction, it is not fantasy, it is not a children's book, it is ALL of these and NONE. (and it is AWESOME, read it if you haven't!)
Even that book or more recently, J.K Rowling's Harry Potter series, were GAMBLES. Those paid off, but such are rare in the literary world. Publishers DO NOT like gambles, they want sure things. They want solid. They want dependable, even if it is boring as hell. This is why Diana Cross and James Patterson sell so well. The books are often boring and predictable. But people want more. So they sell. Money talks.
Every single publisher I have contacted has said the same thing: 'We don't know you. Get lost.'
Agents can be a good thing or a horrible thing, depending on the agent. I self published my own story because I didn't trust the single agent who deigned to talk to me. (He wanted 50%. HELL NO!) But publishers are and always have been a pain in the ass. They likely always will be.
I haven't read "A Wrinkle in Time". Thank you for the suggestion.
I'm not sure does it help writers to get readers when they can publish their work in digital form. There are places where I can read couple of pages for free and then decide should I buy that book. As a reader I like that because that way I can try out books which I wouldn't otherwise try out.
I'm actually an agented author -- pretty far down the track of getting traditionally published. (Hopefully my book will sell soon ::laughs:: ::cries:: )
And I write fanfiction, too. It's a super easy creative outlet. Not only do I have a prebuilt world to play in, but I have prebuilt characters and a plot if I want to use it. Your audience already knows that world and those characters and that plot, too, so you get to pick and choose what to focus on without fear of being horrifically confusing.
I basically get to make a main character and then string words together -- and there's nothing I like better than stringing words together. It's super low pressure. You have instant access to readers. A couple typos never hurt anyone.
Playing with fanfiction doesn't mean I'm *not* working on my Very Serious Novel. (I mean. It's YA fantasy. So not *that* serious). It's also a wonderful distraction for all those times when I'm about to have a publishing industry induced existential crisis.
I started writing fanfiction because I started reading it, and thought the same thing: "Why are people doing this?" And then...I found myself wanting to write, too.
Because when I play, say, Inquisition, I love the game. But I love more than just the game. I love the conversations I start imagining in my mind - the ones the characters don't say. I love the dialog options i didn't get to say. And I love the other possibilities. for example, I kept thinking, well, my other Trevelyan would have come along with this one, right? And they both might have lived, even if only this one got the mark. so add a few more OCs, add some romance and action and...suddenly i'm writing.
In short, I love playing video games. But as I play, I then want it to be like the novel that starts writing itself in my mind, so I start writing the novel, and then the next thing I know, hey, we're at 140k+ and still not slowing down.
TL;DR - Fanfic Happens. If you know how to stop a writer from writing, that's the better question.
(oh, and in there, somewhere, should be a HUGE thanks to bioware for such a fun world, characters, and such excellent source material and being so willing to let fans enjoy their worlds)
Why? I like writing, and I like Dragon Age. And it's a nice cushy buffer between school, work, and my own original fiction.
One thing I think might be worth mentioning is the fact that the Dragon Age world is one that actively encourages its audience to use their imagination. When we play the games, we're told to create our own hero and to decide what they're like. We have a say over how a great deal of things turn out and a chance to shape the world. A lot of the choices we make in the games have consequences that we get to see, but plenty don't. Thedas has always been a playground where we get to decide a lot of how the story goes, and this creates a lot for a writer to explore.
That's essentially my personal reason for writing Dragon Age fan fiction, having never felt compelled to write for another fandom.
Also, fiction can delve into a lot of things that don't make for great gameplay or that the games just don't have time to get into. There's room to go into character interaction in a lot more depth; from silly things like who always burns the food at camp to heartbreaking things like how it feels to learn your whole clan has been wiped out. Getting to expand on ideas left unexplored by the games themselves is fulfilling in its own way, I find.
Retour en haut