Random

On Transitioning from Fanfiction to My Novel

I'm standing on the edge of the precipice, ready to take the leap, ready to start writing this novel again. I wrote a draft, years ago now, that got to about 25,000 words, one fifth the length of The Girl with the Chikorita. 25,000 words felt long then.

I opened up that file yesterday. I paged down, looking for a scene that I distinctly remembered writing. It was a very particular scene that had been really good. Or so I thought. I was very disappointed when I read it - bare bones, limited descriptions, lacking in emotional depth. I can do so much better now, I realized. I recalled Chapter 18 - Rain of Getting Out of Fuchsia, Chapter 38 - Meltdown of The Girl with the Chikorita, and many others. As I've written my fan fiction, I've found my way to that emotional depth that I was previously afraid to dip too far into.

And I've gotten used to writing every day. I am used to forging ahead, one chapter at a time. I have gotten used to producing new material and lots of it. I woke up this morning and wanted to write like that, but my novel isn't ready. There is research to be done. There are characters to be fleshed out. There is background to be established.

This novel that I'm planning to write is big, in more ways than one. The characters, the perspectives, the realism, all are combining to make my task a daunting one. I'm afraid that I won't be able to pull it off. It's the biggest writing challenge that I have ever faced.

But I'm realizing now that such a novel has to be built. Three days ago, I wrote a practice scene, fleshing out background and creating a personality for an entire character who will most likely never even appear in the book itself. She will, however, be central in her influence upon a major character who I am seeking to better understand. I wanted to write scenes like this quickly, briefly, creating little sketches that pinpoint the moments in time that will be most important, jumping from one to the next like leapfrogging. But I'm realizing that I may have to stumble around a little and waste time. I might have to write scenes that will never be useful for anything. I might even have to write scenes from the novel itself that I know will only be discarded later on.

That's difficult to accept, but I see now that it may be a necessary part of the process. I truly can make use of that desire to endlessly write new material even as the pieces of the puzzle are scattered all around the table. I can afford to write scenes that will be thrown away, and I know that doing so will bring me closer to the final picture. You can sit and stare at your puzzle pieces until you're absolutely certain that this piece links up with that, but it will be much better for you if you try and fail with many pieces that might be the one you're looking for.

I'm realizing, too, that writing a piece set in the real world is, in a way, just like writing a piece of fan fiction. Getting Out of Fuchsia and The Girl with the Chikorita have original characters, original plots, original everything except for the world in which they take place. The Pokémon world was pre-created, something I didn't make up for myself, but so is the real world. The real world is there for me to study and fictionalize off of, just as the Pokémon world was a set of ideas that I could research by playing the games and watching the television show and reading wiki articles from my best research buddy Bulbapedia. And in writing fiction, I am allowed to take a few liberties, just as I took a few liberties in shaping around the Pokémon world.

The biggest difference is that, while I could potentially learn almost everything there is to know about the Pokémon world and could certainly gain quick overview of all the official knowledge about one city or one Pokémon in particular, the real world is endlessly complex. No matter how long I study, there will always be more to learn. That is a big challenge, but it is also incredibly exciting. I believe I can work with a world built with more detail and complexity than the canon version of the Pokémon world has to offer, and this gives me the chance to soar as high as I can.

I've heard before that some writers compare writing fanfiction to playing in a sandbox. These writers imagine it as one way to begin, to toy around with writing concepts in an easier way. I think they almost see it as eating baby food - all pre-chewed for you. You take characters that aren't your own, a setting that's not your own, perhaps plot lines that aren't your own, and thus you have so much less to worry about. You write the easy way until you can step up to the real world of writing.

I don't really see it that way. Every author uses some of those things. The real world is a predefined world, too, and even worlds that are imagined by the author take this world as their base. Authors base characters on people that they know or have known or at least form characters from combinations of traits that they have seen in real people. To a greater extent or a lesser one, everyone is copying and recreating from somewhere. It's just that only some forms of copying are allowed. We've seen enough fanfictions shift their way into "real" books (a la Fifty Shades of Gray) to see just how slight the difference can be.

I don't feel as though I've been playing in a sandbox all this time and am finally stepping out into the real world, but I do feel that writing fanfiction has taught me things that I am going to use in writing "real" fiction. I've realized some of those things today, and now I'm going to do my best to forge ahead.