I Don’t Hate Fan Fiction, I Just Don’t Get It
Published November 6th, 2010 | 
The other day, I received an email from a perplexed young writer who wanted to know why I hate fan fiction. Well … hate is a strong word. I don’t "hate" fan fiction so much as I merely think it’s a stupid waste of words. Fan fiction is mostly written badly by bad writers for self-indulgent (translate: masturbatory) reasons. The very small percent of it that is fairly well-written to pay homage to the original creation only makes me wonder why a decent writer would spend so much energy in another writer’s imagination rather than creating original work. And, let’s face it, fan fiction is simply less valuable than the work it sprung from in the first place. Think about it: An artist creates a painting. maybe it’s worth several thousand dollars or millions and is beloved by the masses. So much so, it still remains in an art gallery centuries later, drawing people from all over to see it. Then, they make artwork prints — first the expensive kind and finally post cards, cheap posters and even t-shirts. The image may still hold some beauty, but its specialness is lost in the sea of copies.
Then we have a novel. Take Harry Potter. One can argue about the ultimate artistic merits of the original work, but it’s a popular series and will probably stand the test of time. But what about the hundreds of thousands of Harry Potter fan fictions out there? I noticed one site that, alone, offered 65000 Harry Potter fan fics. Are you going to tell me that 65000 Harry Potter stories on some fan fic site has real value as art? Sure, there are worse things than writing fan fiction and I’m not militant about it. I certainly have no real interest in stopping people from writing it (as if I could), but I simply don’t get why anyone older than 12 would waste their time writing it.
Hooking the Reader
Published September 13th, 2010 | Cargill stood beside a bush in front of Gus Grimes house, just outside the range of the landscape lights, waiting for Jimmy to arrive….
And so begins a tale, about what we do not know at this point. But, as a reader, do you want to know? Who is this Cargill character and why is he waiting outside this Grimes’s house waiting on Jimmy? Is this to be a friendly visit? If so, why wait outside for another party before knocking on the door? That sense of wanting to know what happens next is called “intrigue,” and intrigue is a way to hook a reader and get him engaged in a story.
There is a reason why young writers are often advised to begin a story in the middle of the action. It add tension and intrigue to a story. Begin a story with a woman snoring away in bed and the reader is bored before the action of the story really begins. Begin a story with that same woman waking up next to a dead body with his organs cut out and you have a hook to engage the reader’s interest into wanting to know more. And it doesn’t take a lot of exposition of explanation to do this. Just put your character in the middle of a situation. It could be a seemingly mundane situation imbued with underlying tension or it could start with a bang or big shock.
Return to Elsewhere
Published July 21st, 2010 | George stood in front of the gas station icing the cut on his forehead and staring at the flickering sign that read "Chicago auto repair".
"Like my new sign?" Horace asked.
George, still dizzy from hitting the dashboard, replied, "Am I in Chicago? This doesn’t look like Chicago."
"Chicago? No, this ain’t Chicago."
"I’m from Chicago originally."
"We all from someplace."
George’s Toyota Corolla had ended up in a ditch. George couldn’t remember how that had happened. He woke up with a gash on his head and a headache.
"How bad’s my car?"
Horace looked at it and shrugged. "The water pump for certain. But that’s the least of your worries. The whole front end real bad. Don’t know if it can be fixed. Right now, what you need is for that head wound to get looked at."
"Is there a hospital around here?"
"Nope. But there’s a veterinarian up the road a piece. Doc might be able to fix you up."
Horace snapped his fingers and a small man came out of the office. "Diego," Horace called, "take this man to see Doc."
Diego and George got into a rusty old pickup truck. Horace lit a cigarette. The sign flickered and changed. It now read: "Newark auto repair". A heavyset man on a Harley pulled into the garage.
Two customers in one day," Horace thought. "Things are looking up."
