On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Ryoga Hibiki wrote:

On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Ben Kosse wrote:

     I hope that you read this and can see where I'm coming from. I agree
that you must write in whatever way you can do best (I just sit down and
write, others plan their story before touching it). But, fanfics require
that the author pay attention to someone else's characters and universe. Not
following those will usually detract from the entertainment value of a story.

	But isn't it just as wrong to follow an EXACT set of someone 
else's guidelines?  Is it forbidden to tamper with characters just 
because someone else created them?  If so, then half the stuff written is 
a hideous perversion of the truth and everyone who wrote them should be 
executed.

Yes, it's bad to slavishly follow someone else's guidelines - but 
nobody's suggesting that.  All people have been doing is saying what 
makes for a good fanfic in their eyes.  One of the main purposes of 
fanfic, or any sort of writing, after all, is to entertain others - and 
these people are just saying what entertains them best.  I doubt anyone 
would be slighted if a prospective writer looked at their posts and said, 
"No, I don't think this would work for me at all."  They just want them 
to look, and consider whether or not it'd work for them.  In most 
people's experience, it has.

	The point I'm trying to make is that while giving advice is good, 
TOO MUCH advice can weaken an author to the point where it no longer 
becomes that author's work.  And THAT is a bigger sin than any anyone has 
listed, myself included.

Only if the author takes the advice not as advice, but as commands.  It's 
never bad to have advice available, as long as the author has enough 
sense to balance the advice with his own objectives.  Yes, in the end, 
you're the master of your own writing - but does that mean you should 
scorn everyone else's experience just because you can?

--
Scott Johnson |
zagyg@io.com  |           This space intentionally left blank.