It’s a Writer’s World

Posted by Meesh in Mouthing Off with Meesh | 4 comments

I’m a non-writer in a writer’s world. A year ago, I didn’t know what fanfiction was. Hell, I didn’t even know fanfiction existed. I was so pleasantly surprised when I found all the good stories about Twilight that were out there, especially since it meant I could continue my obsession about the saga, but I had no idea how rich this world of fanfiction really is.

Last week we had a lot of excitement here because of a post about cliques and bad behavior. I’m going to write about a different angle of “cliques”. Not about the bad behaviors that they can spawn, but rather about what it means to be living on the edges of a clique that is mostly a very positive and talented group of women.

Let’s start with the definition of the word. A clique is an exclusive group of people who share interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity. In fanfiction, it’s more the interests, views, and purposes, with some leaning toward the patterns of behavior, that make fanfiction writers a clique. There is a shared vocabulary, a lexicon. There are shared events and activities for writers of fanfiction, like the WCs. There are acronyms that even after almost a year I have to look up or ask. AH, AU, slash, lemons, limes, all these words and letters that have meaning for only fanfiction. Sure, the word “clique” can be thrown around as a perjorative, but it is also a group of people with commonalities that make them a community. In this article, I’m speaking of it in the good sense, the sense of family and community and shared purpose. Please accept what I say in that spirit.

I don’t write fiction. I am the co-owner of a site that is dedicated to fanfiction and I don’t write it. I can write non-fiction, long rambling tomes of research findings and what I think they mean. I can write blog posts and babble about some of my opinions. But I can’t write fiction. My brain isn’t geared for it. I can see the whole forest. I can see each of the trees. But there is a whole range of middle ground there that requires an ability to see and attend to details that my mind can’t seem to accommodate. And trust me, no one wants to read the crap I would write because the level of detail would be either so general that it wouldn’t mean anything or so minute that it would bore everyone to tears. Years of training in writing technical papers and social science research has left me without the means to write any other way, it seems.

The other three owners of MVF are talented writers and they know the fanfiction world. They run with other fanfic authors. They belong. I’ve listened to entire conversations where I barely had a clue of what they were speaking, because I don’t belong. I’m not “one of them”. I have never been made to feel like an outsider by my friends, but the feeling is there for me anyway. It’s kind of like being friends with the marching band geeks (going back to the high school analogy of cliques, and don’t freak – I was a marching band geek) but being the only one who doesn’t play an instrument. Sure, I can hang, but I can’t really HANG, because they all do things I can’t do, go places I can’t go. You can’t go march on the field at half time if you aren’t in the band, right? So basically I’m sitting on the sidelines watching my friends have fun and basking in the reflected glory.

As I said, none of the other owners have ever made me feel like I’m somehow lacking. The feeling is all my own. It’s a lot of admiration, part envy (okay, so a lot of it is envy), and part longing because I know that no matter how long I live here, I will never, ever truly be part of the inside workings of fanfiction. It also means that I will probably never understand the reaction to Sarah’s post last week, because I’m not sensitive to criticism. People can flame away at me, and I’ll either laugh at it or I’ll ignore it. Especially if I don’t agree with what is being said or feel it isn’t true. Not being a writer, I can’t understand how tender the feelings must be to react so vehemently, to feel the need to defend against that kind of slight, real or imagined. It’s very obvious how protective fanfiction writers are of this space, this universe, but being on the outskirts, I can only guess at the emotions that are being experienced in those instances.

All of that said, I love fanfiction and the world I get to be a part of, even if only on the periphery. I love the people I’ve met through this venue. I love, love, puffy heart love the other owners of MVF, as well as many of the members I’ve gotten to know, for being so dedicated to their craft, for being so passionate and creative, and for inviting me to join in the fun knowing that I won’t be able to contribute in the same way they do. And for loving me back. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a feeling of belonging as I do here, a place where I am so obviously not a native. That I can slip in here and feel like I’m home speaks volumes about the people who contribute to MVF. If ever there was a clique you all should be so proud to belong to, it is this one – not MVF specific, but fanfiction in general. Really and truly. Wear the badge proudly.

And PS to those people that got angry about the other post and went off to other places and slammed us where we couldn’t see or explain (and you know some people did that), I really don’t care that you were mad and wanted to vent in that way. But in the world of grown ups, it happens to all of us, we all get offended and angry and need to vent, but know that bashing should be done in the open and not in private. If I’m going to say something bad about someone, I do it where they can hear it and know it. To do otherwise is really bad form. Sarah said what she did out in the open and those that openly responded, especially those who disagreed with feeling, are to be respected. Anyone who slinked off to have fun flaming the shit out of us where we couldn’t see it, not so much. And that’s the last I’ll say about last week’s episode.

If you want to discuss this or any other topic, visit us at the lair