After Snuff.....

[high eight]

I did sign up because I enjoyed and enjoy the books (except for UA) and was looking for a place to share thoughts and views, without getting flamed, bashed, etc for having a negative opinion on something if I can provide reasons.
But apparently this isn't the place I was looking for.

Your opinion, your choice.

With the possible exception of my vocal dislike of fanfiction, which you have taken exception to for personal reasons, I think I have been pretty reasonable. I could have just said "You don't like a book that I do like, so you can bugger off" and stalked you around the forum making snerky comments at all your posts. I could have tried to get other members on my side against you.

Instead I have written paragraphs of replies to your (frankly, imo, rather petty) criticism of the book and attempted to rehabilitate a character that you seem to have developed a (again imo, rather irrationional) dislike of. Paragraphs I suspect that you haven't even bothered to read or, at best, skimmed.

If you can't take my digs at fanfiction, or the fact that I have a different opinion of UA than you - well, tough. Your problem.

[LilMaibe]

If you can't take my digs at fanfiction, or the fact that I have a different opinion of UA than you - well, tough. Your problem.

If it would just be that you dislike fanfiction, that'd be okay. But, as said before, to me you treat those that do enjoy it as inferior and act as if their thoughts and opinions don't matter.

[high eight]

If you can't take my digs at fanfiction, or the fact that I have a different opinion of UA than you - well, tough. Your problem.

If it would just be that you dislike fanfiction, that'd be okay. But, as said before, to me you treat those that do enjoy it as inferior and act as if their thoughts and opinions don't matter.

No I don't - and frankly I am rather offended at the suggestion that I do. I make sarcastic comments about people who write and enjoy fanfiction, yes. I'm a sarcastic person. Too bad.

[LilMaibe]

If you can't take my digs at fanfiction, or the fact that I have a different opinion of UA than you - well, tough. Your problem.

If it would just be that you dislike fanfiction, that'd be okay. But, as said before, to me you treat those that do enjoy it as inferior and act as if their thoughts and opinions don't matter.

No I don't - and frankly I am rather offended at the suggestion that I do. I make sarcastic comments about people who write and enjoy fanfiction, yes. I'm a sarcastic person. Too bad.

Then mark them with smileys, please. It is rather hard to tell whether or not you are serious.
But it still is not really nice to view them as idiots, just because they enjoy fanfiction (especially since fanfiction has such a wide range. It isn't all what you might think it is)

[Archaeologist]

(Ah, it's been a while!)

If you don't mind me butting in with my honest opinion, fanfiction is quite often better than true published stories. But if it's the ideology behind fanfiction that might be the bother, then I suppose that's not important...

------

But on a completely different note, I think a witches book is probably due - it's been a while, hasn't it? But in the next few books I'd want to see Moist again that's more in the vein of Going Postal. I reread Making Money and found it...disappointing.

[high eight]

(Ah, it's been a while!) If you don't mind me butting in with my honest opinion, fanfiction is quite often better than true published stories.

Only if its Twilight or Piers-bloody-Anthony fanfiction.

But if it's the ideology behind fanfiction that might be the bother, then I suppose that's not important...

Not so much the ideology as the sheer bare-faced cheek. And the egoism.

But on a completely different note, I think a witches book is probably due - it's been a while, hasn't it? But in the next few books I'd want to see Moist again that's more in the vein of Going Postal. I reread Making Money and found it...disappointing.

Not that keen on Moist, especially Making Money. I suppose that, as a diabetic, I don't find jokes about gangrene of the extremities that funny.......

[rockershovel]

FWIW ... I don't much care for fanfiction, either. The reason being, that Discworld is written by a professional author with a great deal of experience built upon a training as a journalist. Fanfiction isn't and it shows.

You don't have to read too much DW to realise that the continuity is quite loose and quite a few elements are simply not consistent, although the individual books are internally consistent. The Patrick O'Brien books are like this, and so what?


Lookimg forward, I'd be quite interested to hear more about The Undertaking, and how Moist's putative career as Master of Taxes fits in with this. This is a classic A-M non-seqitur in itself, because I rather doubt that Vetinari would allow such a crucial function to run on as a neglected backwater, which appears to be the inference at the end of Making Money. However, I'd agree that MM is too much like a re-tread of Going Postal, the golems sub-plot is more wierd than useful, and Moist and Adora Belle seem to have progressed either quite a long way quite quickly, or stood still, depending on where you are in the book.

[LilMaibe]

FWIW ... I don't much care for fanfiction, either. The reason being, that Discworld is written by a professional author with a great deal of experience built upon a training as a journalist. Fanfiction isn't and it shows.

Question here:
What if people use fanfictionwriting as training to improve their skills? Not everyone has the luck to get a job as a journalist or someting related.
There might be many fanfictionwriters out there trying too hard to copy a style.
I try telling a story in my own style and thereby improving it before I go and try to get my own stuff published.

[raisindot]

FWIW ... I don't much care for fanfiction, either. The reason being, that Discworld is written by a professional author with a great deal of experience built upon a training as a journalist. Fanfiction isn't and it shows.

Question here:
What if people use fanfictionwriting as training to improve their skills? Not everyone has the luck to get a job as a journalist or someting related.
There might be many fanfictionwriters out there trying too hard to copy a style.
I try telling a story in my own style and thereby improving it before I go and try to get my own stuff published.

Journalism is not a pre-requisite for becoming a professional author (although it certainly can help in terms of developing good research habits, attention to deal, and an ability to publish prolifically). Most great fiction authors didn't start out as journalists, but it's probably safe to say that next to none of them started out as fanfiction writers. 80% of successful fiction writing is coming up with an idea that hasn't been done before--the rest is assembly line work. As someone who has had both fiction and nonfiction published over the years, I'd recommend to any aspiring fiction writer that the path to success rests more on developing originality that on developing a style. There are plenty of great stylistic writers out there who are absolute barren of original ideas. Whereas, it's the literary hacks who have 'novel' ideas that tend to get published more often (Dan Brown, anyone?).

[Tonyblack]

FWIW ... I don't much care for fanfiction, either. The reason being, that Discworld is written by a professional author with a great deal of experience built upon a training as a journalist. Fanfiction isn't and it shows.

Question here:
What if people use fanfictionwriting as training to improve their skills? Not everyone has the luck to get a job as a journalist or someting related.
There might be many fanfictionwriters out there trying too hard to copy a style.
I try telling a story in my own style and thereby improving it before I go and try to get my own stuff published.

I'd have a lot more respect for new writers who created their own worlds and characters, rather than using someone else's.

If you want to improve your skills, and you consider yourself creative, then write something original.

[LilMaibe]

Thing is: If I'd do that, I'd lose any chance of getting published in Germany.

[rockershovel]

Speaking as someone who spends much more time than he wants to reading technical reports and publications that have to be returned to the author for re-writing before they can be accepted, I'd say that the "assembly line work" is a large part of the whole. That said, having a publishable idea is also essential.

There's nothing new about writing with other people's characters and settings, or expanding them in new directions - the "Man-Kzin Wars" books are a case in point - but it's customary to do so with the permission, and generally with the invitation, of the original author.

I'd have to suspect that the chances of being published in Germany, or anywhere else where copyright law applies, without such approval was negligible.

[LilMaibe]

No,no, I'm of course NOT talking about publishing fanfiction (seriously, how stupid does one has to be to actually try THAT?!)

I'm talking about original stuff.
Various publishers I asked about the general way to hand a manuscript in etc told me if I have anything original published elsewhere my chances to get published professionally are below zero.
And they meant EVERYTHING original.
It wouldn't matter if the text online appears nowhere in the manuscript. Or if it is even related to the text one's trying to get printed.

It's ridiculous.

[rockershovel]

I'm afraid that I don't even begin to understand that last post, especially in context with some of your other posts.

If you go to a publisher with something that may result in a copyright infringement, no publisher will even look at it. If you go to a publisher in an attempt to circumvent a contract you have signed elsewhere, you are wasting your time. If you go to a publisher having been published elsewhere and failed to sell, that won't help you either.

Frankly, I'm completely unable to understand what you are attempting to do.

[LilMaibe]

Trying nothing of these.

But it's the following:

If I have a single original work on the net, for example on fictionpress or the like, aka somewhere where it is available for free, I won't be able to get published professional, aka, contract and all.
It doesn't matter if the work on the net is, for example, some romance short story, while what I try to get published is a alternate history-sci-fi novel. (Which is one of the things I'm working on, actually).
The laws here suck like that.