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Apr. 26th, 2006 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethIn a comments thread on a page about the Great Fanfic Debate, a writer said fanfic isn't usually very good, "because the characters didn't translate well when written by someone who wasn't carrying all that backstory in their heads."
I'm still poking at this thought to make it make sense, so I post it here rather than as a direct reply, but...
Backstory is irrelevant.
Unless the reader can see it, and would therefore be carrying it in their head when they go to write.
While an author might know that, for instance, when Giles was 27 he had a brief and hot love affair with a rock star, and while this might be very important to Giles, it is utterly irrelevant to the reader unless and until it comes up in the course of the story.
Same with any world building stuff. If the story doesn't say something is/isn't possible, if it doesn't even imply it, then it isn't relevant one way or the other.
What goes in to thinking up a story is not necessarily what goes *in* to the story, what is there once it is baked and presented to the world. And a reader can only go by what is in that finished version.
So fanfic writers can carry around all the *relevant* backstory, because it was there in the source text. Anything not in that text isn't relevant at all, and in fact in cases I'm familiar with is subject to change without notice anyway (eg Spike's background).
Characters might not match the author's vision, but that too is somewhat irrelevant. They can match what the author has presented.
Sometimes I think 'having the backstory' is detrimental to some texts. Because the author knows what is going on, they can sometimes forget to tell the rest of us. Or they can build from things they hadn't actually stated. Rather like Riley and the picnic.
I'm still having this thought. I post this and go read more of the comment thread.
This is what I'm talking about, and it is full of interesting and brilliance. Like the comment about Jesus as a Mary Sue - an author insert :)
I'm still poking at this thought to make it make sense, so I post it here rather than as a direct reply, but...
Backstory is irrelevant.
Unless the reader can see it, and would therefore be carrying it in their head when they go to write.
While an author might know that, for instance, when Giles was 27 he had a brief and hot love affair with a rock star, and while this might be very important to Giles, it is utterly irrelevant to the reader unless and until it comes up in the course of the story.
Same with any world building stuff. If the story doesn't say something is/isn't possible, if it doesn't even imply it, then it isn't relevant one way or the other.
What goes in to thinking up a story is not necessarily what goes *in* to the story, what is there once it is baked and presented to the world. And a reader can only go by what is in that finished version.
So fanfic writers can carry around all the *relevant* backstory, because it was there in the source text. Anything not in that text isn't relevant at all, and in fact in cases I'm familiar with is subject to change without notice anyway (eg Spike's background).
Characters might not match the author's vision, but that too is somewhat irrelevant. They can match what the author has presented.
Sometimes I think 'having the backstory' is detrimental to some texts. Because the author knows what is going on, they can sometimes forget to tell the rest of us. Or they can build from things they hadn't actually stated. Rather like Riley and the picnic.
I'm still having this thought. I post this and go read more of the comment thread.
This is what I'm talking about, and it is full of interesting and brilliance. Like the comment about Jesus as a Mary Sue - an author insert :)