[ SECRET POST #2392 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2392 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #342.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/9eg3EQq.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. It would also be like fannish history too, because haven't fandom/slash tropes changed in the last 30 years? I read these so long ago that I wouldn't have noticed. I don't think it would bother me, considering that I definitely notice fandom tropes while I'm reading fic and I still enjoy the crap out of them.

[sootyowl]

At least she's not against fanfiction? Or took a fanfic and turned it into a best selling novel?

I believe there are other authors who started as fanfic writers. I don't see anything wrong with that. You're still honing your skills.

[(Anonymous)]

she used to be anti-fanfic, which was pretty hypocritical, but later relaxed her stance and said it's a good way to get into writing.

[thene]

Above anon is incorrect; she wasn't anti-fanfic but instead wanted to keep it all firmly corralled in an official fanzine, and said she didn't want anyone to be out there sharing fanfic in the normal fandom way. Needless to say the internet disagreed. A few years ago she publicly recanted her previous opinion due to pressure from Cory Doctorow. Now she says she's fine with people posting fanfic wherever, so long as anything above PG-13 is under wraps. The internet still disagrees.

[galerian-ash.livejournal.com]

If you genuinely didn't realize it before, I don't get why it should matter. I mean, the books are still the same as when you first read them! People change as they grow older, and what type of stories they like might also change -- but merely finding out that she used to write fanfiction is of little importance.

[(Anonymous)]

How about look at it this way? Tropes are in fanfiction and elsewhere because they appeal to people. Yes, they can be written poorly, but if well done, the appeal is obviously there for many people, so why worry about it? :) If you wanted to read "Great Literature*" you'd already be reading it, so you clearly enjoyed this books at some point, and probably some of the tropes (that were hopefully well-written) in there. :)


*dull and boring classics~! I said it! I went there!

[(Anonymous)]

As opposed to the well established tropes of other published fiction? (which are if not the same pretty similar to the fanfic tropes)

If you didn't notice them before you knew she wrote fanfic then it means that she integrated the tropes well; now you just know her influences.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved those books when I was 15-16 and sucking up every gay-protagonist fantasy I could find (there wasn't that much). It was the point in my life where I was very much in love with every one of those super angsty "drop a mountain on them" (in th words of the author) tropes. By now, I think they're so OTT it's ridiculous. And very much bad whump/woobie fanfic material. Also, rape as a plot device is never a good idea.
But back in the day, I was so fond of it, so nostalgia keeps me from throwing the books out.

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the cover of the books "Magic's Pawn", "Magic's Promise" and "Magic's Price" by Mercedes Lackey. They all feature a pale-skinned man with medium-length black hair wearing fantasy-style clothes and standing with a white horse.]

I regret finding out that she got her start writing fanfiction because now I can't unsee how full of typical fandom tropes her work is.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, there are a lot of writers who either start out writing fanfic, or also write fanfic. It doesn't make them any better or worse as writers, and I'm not sure why you'd care with her - particularly since fandom *has* changed since she's probably written in it.

As far as her books go...I like some of series - but the Valdemar series, as much nostalgia as it gives me, does seem to have gone a bit downhill in her recent books, and really gotten into reusing tricks and tropes in un-creative [and some times awkwardly obvious] ways. But that has little do with her having written fanfiction.

[deadtree]

I dislike that series less because the tropes are fanfiction-y and more because those are tropes I don't like even in fanfiction-- whiny woobie protagonist who turns out to be the saviour of everything but everything bad ever happens to him anyway... yawn.

[(Anonymous)]

Please, tell me how you are so good at being a critic now that you've read tvtropes. Don't you just love being an elitist snob.

[queerwolf]

It shouldn't really matter, though. You've already read and enjoyed the books. I couldn't bring myself to care about the whole Cassandra Clare debacle because I read the Mortal Instruments books (at least the first three) before I knew anything about her. Sure they're not my favorite books by any means but I still enjoyed them.

Same thing with Ender's Game. I read and loved it a long time before I knew that Card is an asshat. I still love the book even though I'm gay and the author makes me want to hit something.

[dragonimp]

Y'know, the line between fandom tropes and just plain writing tropes is ... uh ... nonexistent.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious, do you know what she wrote fanfic for?

[thene]

Just forget about it and read this fic, I swear it will make everything better.

dumb question

[(Anonymous)]

Aren't fanfic tropes just literature tropes?
I've read many books that felt toally 'fanficcy' to me and I doub that all the authors have been writing fanfiction before they started writing stories with their own characters and worlds.

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmm... nope. Nothing changed for me. Still love her books.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. All it made me think was, "Well that explains a lot."

Not that it really changes what I think, since I do find what I've read of hers to be rather uncomfortable due to her use of some iffy tropes in general, but it's nice when a new piece of information fits so cleanly in with my impression of her.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved these books when I was a kid, goddamn. The Black Gryphon was one of the first things I read after I learned to read.

[dinogrrl]

Her books do have a lot of tropes. I still really like her worldbuilding and ideas despite this. Though her habit of writing about twice as many words as are needed to actually convey the story kinda takes the enjoyment down a few notches for me. >>

[harp]

Sort of the same vein- I regret reading TV Tropes dot com. Seeing the laundry list of "tropes committed" by everything in every media made me feel miserable and like nothing could ever be written without someone wanting to point out about how so-and-so did it already.

Then I made the mistake of clicking one character type trope, expecting at most four or five examples but seeing... a lot. I felt pretty miserable and like asking "so what's the point of creating anything ever then? If it's already been done?" But then after thinking about it, I decided that being miserable about the hypothetical "That's your character? Way to be a trope, Tropey!" was about as logical as being upset when meeting a person you have a lot in common with and bonding over "Oh my GOD, I used to make tidal waves in the bath tub, too!"

So I got out of there quick and haven't been back since because all Trope Finding is going to point out is how creative works have similar themes and situations.

I decided this, and I hope this can help you reclaim some of your joy, OP: humans are going to have a lot of the same experiences as one-another and will use it in their writing. It makes sense that your author will have something in common with other people who write in that genre. That doesn't mean the story is not worth telling.

I have no idea what those books are about, so please forgive this example, but just tell those tropes in your head "Yeah, I know lots of magic users have shown up on white horses. This is his story about it, so kindly shut up while he tells it because I want to hear it."

[diet_poison]

Yeah, just going to add my voice: all stories use tropes and they're all drawn from basically the same pool of literary tropes. You really can't find a book without them. Why let that take away from your enjoyment?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I guess that answers my question of whether or not she intentionally referenced Terry Pratchett's 'Mort' in that book about fairy godmothers.