Writing Style and Fingerprints

I spend a decent amount of time in the fanfiction community. I read, I write, occasionally I comment (I’m really bad about reviewing, sorry). I know that sometimes, authors adopt fics that have been abandoned by the original author. I have no problem with this practice, but it got me thinking.

When you adopt a fic, there are several ways to go about it. One is to post what the first author has written and just add onto the end. But with this, I think that the transition isn’t very smooth. Writers have different styles. No two people write the same way, the way no two people have the same fingerprints. So you can tell, without being told, that one author has taken over for the other author. And it’s not that it bothers me, but if it were me, I would fuss about being compared to the original author and falling short. And it would really bother me.

Another option is to take the story and re-write it from the beginning, so that your style is the only one present. If I was to ever adopt a story, this is probably what I would do, because it would have me stamped all over it. Sounds kind of obnoxious, but there you go.

And I suppose that really great writers can adapt their writing style to match someone else, but why would you want to? It’s your style that you’ve cultivated and honed over the years, so why try and mimic someone else at this stage?

I’m not dissing anyone’s style. Each person’s is unique and different and that’s great. Because each is unique, I wouldn’t want to try to match someone’s or have them try to match mine.

Just something I’m fussing with at the moment. Feel free to ignore my rants.

The Need for Organization

This is a completely personal thing, but I need most of my life organized. When I write, I do enough preliminary work to be able to re-create whatever story I’m working on, in case it gets lost. Also, doing character profiles, maps, outlines and everything, helps me to figure out where I want the story to go and to have a solid foundation to go back to if I get stuck. And I file all this information away so that I’ll know where it is at any given moment.

My life is scheduled almost to the minute sometimes. Between work, school, church, sunday school and youth group, meetings and classes and assignments… everything gets organised into nice categories so that I can find time to breathe in between everything.

The one thing that isn’t organized as much as I would like are youth group meetings. I tend to step back and take a junior role, simply because I a) don’t have the experience and b) don’t really have the time. But there are meetings where we have very little planned and the youth just sit around and talk. They could have done that at home and I could have been doing something else with my time. I don’t really mean to sound so nasty, but I have moments where I think, ‘I could have gotten that essay done,’ while I’m at a meeting.

I really, really like my life to be organized. It just makes it so much easier.

Influences

Since I have been writing, I have sucked up influence from everything, from the movies I watch to the books that I read. Some of them are:

Movies

Labyrinth,
Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3
Lord of the Rings 1, 2, and 3
Dragonheart
Moulin Rouge

Books

Christine Feehan: The Dark Series
Tamora Pierce: Her Tortall Series
The Magic and the Healing
Crown Duel
Beauty

These are a few of the major influences on Draca Chronicles, which is my major work. From some of them, I got characters, from others just ideas and setting. for the most part, I absorbed nearly everything that I come across, at least fantasy-wise, as it is my favorite genre to write.

Another influence in my life is mythology in general, from the Greek Gods and further back to the Assyrian Goddesses. But I don’t draw a lot of influence from modern time.

Except for the modern influences of my favorite authors. I try to read articles by Nora Roberts, Janet Evanovich, Jennifer Cruise, Tamora Pierce and Christine Feehan. One of my favorite books on writing is by Janet Evanovich.

Overall, I try to take bits and pieces from everywhere, so that I can keep enriching myself and my writing.

Many from One

“The anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones. MUDs make possible the creation of an identity so fluid and multiple that it strains the limits of the notion. Identity, after all, refers to the sameness between two qualities, in this case between a person and his or her persona. But in MUDs, one can be many.” (“Who Am We?, Sherry Turkle)

Having multiple personas is something that I have done for a while. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have several views running around in my head, each a bit like me and what I wanted to become. The Internet is one place where people can become someone they’re not and books and writing are the medium that I use.

On-line, I have this blog, which is a form of persona, my livejournal persona, who is self-centered and occassionally very vengeful and bitter, and for a while, my fanfiction account, who was a dreamer and rather flighty. Each one captured part of who I was.

Writing is the same thing. Chloe takes on my responsible and self-sacrificing nature (okay, so she’s a bit of a righteous martyr). Faith is my freedom and desire to be on my own, but also sheltered. Garnet is me when I feel stifled. Leslie has magic that I wish I had. Liana is mothering aspect.

And not only are each of my characters a persona, but so is each story. I have two tones that I write with, one significantly darker than the other. The darker one I intend to publish under a pseudonym.

I think that everyone creates personas, on-line and off, in order to express the parts of their personalities that others don’t always see. Personas are safe outlets for personalities that are buried beneath what we are expected to be or for personalities that we wish we had. They can also be extensions of ourselves.

So, sometimes I admit to answering the voices in my head and sometimes I answer “We are confused” for just myself, because everyone does have multiple personas. And some have multiple personalities, which makes life really interesting.

But, for the most part, there is no harm in expressing our personas, especially the ones that are more interesting than we really are.

Just Slightly Paranoid

I have always been very protective of my writing. I am very reluctant to let other people read my uncompleted works and even more reluctant to give out my completed works, even just for people to read and edit. On a few occasions, I have given ot stories as gifts, and have come to regret it.

I am so paranoid about people claiming my work as their own, that I don’t even share my work with some of my family members, people who I used to tell everything to.  But as we have grown up, I find myself distrusting of others and keep my ideas very close to me.

With one of Stephanie Meyer’s drafts for Midnight Sun being leaked (for full story, visit Midnight Sun Leak), I have started worrying even more. There are stories that I gave to people as gifts a while ago, and since then we have stopped talking and one person I am no longer friends with. Part of me knows that I should trust these people, but part of me thinks that they are no longer trustworthy and will do something to claim my hard work as their own. And I get very upset about that. Some of these stories I have worked on for five years or more; I put a lot of time and effort into them and to have someone else claim that they wrote them would be unbearable.

What do you think? Do I have a right to be worried about my work, at least when I’m not friends with the people I gave it to? Or am I being overly paranoid and should get over myself?

Why I Write

Initially, this post was going to be influences on my writing, but when I began thinking about my influences, I came up with two categories: the influences on my writing and the influences that prompted me to write. This post will deal with the latter.

What sparked me into writing is my younger sister. She was about 10 at the time and the only person that I would bother with my various story ideas. One day, she got tired of me bursting into her room with another anecdote that she looked at me and told me to go write it down, she would read it when I finished and not before.

She was the one who told me to get my butt in gear and write. In addition to that, my cousins, sister and I were big on make-believe and pretend. My first story was spawned from one of the role-plays that we used to do. And a lot of the role-plays are based off of dreams that I can remember.

So, what prompts me to sit and write are dreams, role-plays, and most importantly, my sister, who had the guts to tell me “Just write the stupid thing down already, I’ll read it when you’re done!”

On Playing God

Expanding on the idea of writers as gods, I have to admit that when I am writing, I really do feel like a deity. When I sit and type out a story, I feel as if I am playing god. To the reality and characters that I have created, I am fate, destiny, the higher power; although I am not the same as the God of today’s religion. I am the god that has complete control of the world I rule over; I am a god that is a manipulator and puppet-master, pulling the strings.

In some way, that is a frightening god. A God who has complete control is a god who doesn’t allow for choice. But as an author, choice and free will are not things that I can give characters, because they do not act independently and can’t.

Also, my characters do not have faith or a belief in me. They don’t know that I exist and can’t pray or plead with me for their lives to go a certain way.

And yet, I hold their lives and their reactions in my hands. I decide what will happen in their lives, what they look like, where they lives, how they react. I am a god because I have complete control over their lives; it does not make me a good or benelovent god, but it still makes me a god.