I have achieved a milestone reserved only for accomplished writers and it has made my weekend: I have, through one of my blogs (my Harry Potter blog), been trolled.
I woke up this morning, checked out my Blogger homepage, and found the following comment posted on a blog entry from a year or so ago in which I discussed Harry Potter fan fiction, including my own Harry Potter novel: "write your own story dont steal other peoples work. loser".
For some reason, this comment brought me great joy. Thank you, Himmelfahrstrasse Stormalong, for this delightful surprise.
I honestly don't understand my own raucous response to this little piece of trolling -- why something that was apparently intended to be nasty has made me so happy I'm not sure. But it made me laugh out loud... and I've already shared it on Facebook and on Twitter.
The underlying issue, however, is an interesting one. Is there a problem, moral, philosophical, creative, with writing what is commonly known as "fan fiction".
The timing of this comment, and this discussion, couldn't be better. Just yesterday, I sat in a sandwich shop with my new writing partner on my historically-based children's stories and discussed the challenge of creating something entirely new, whether that involves introducing a new character to an established set of stories, introducing a new location or creating an entirely new novel.
In every such situation, the writer must make an almost infinite number of decisions, from the smallest detail to the largest strategic question, from what detail to include to what the detail entails.
And my troll has a point, one with which I have wrestled for some time. I have written three hard-boiled detective fiction novels, a creative task made somewhat easier by the fact that the genre has so many conventions that a significant number of creative decisions are already made for the writer. I don't have to make a decision on narrative point of view: the genre demands a first person narrator. I don't have to worry about tone: the tone of voice is acerbic, witty, dry. I have to follow certain rules of plot and characterization that are standard to the genre. Yes, there are still millions of creative decisions for me, as the author, to make but some decisions, at least, are made for me.
I have written and published a series of children's stories, set in a real location in the 1940s. I deliberately chose to pattern the writing style for these stories after the old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books -- stories that were written in my target time period, for my target audience. Again, setting my stories in a real train station and hotel in a real town saved me from having to make an infinite number of decision relating to the setting. And deciding to pattern them in tone and narrative style after an existing set of stories meant I had a strong base from which to work.
But fan fiction is another step along that road entirely. Fan fiction involves using the characters, settings, situations, relationships, the entirety of another author's work as the base from which to build your own story. It's almost like creating an app for an iPad: someone else did all the very difficult, creative work of conceptualising the device, designing it, building it, creating the proprietary software that runs it and you just come along and add a little piece of new software and claim to be a creator.
Is that wrong? Is it stealing, as my apparently German troll has suggested?
Fan fiction is something of an industry in and of itself. Dozens of writers have fashioned very nice careers for themselves writing fan fiction novels using the original Star Trek material created by Gene Roddenberry and others. Is that theft? Is it morally wrong?
I agree that writing fan fiction is, like writing fiction that is set in a real place, involves taking something of a creative short cut. I also agree that it is a significant creative achievement to create your own work from scratch and even more significant to create a fictional world, as Rowling has done, that is not even based on our current reality.
But I don't know if I would go so far as to agree that writing fan fiction is theft. Or even wrong. As long as proper attribution and credit is part of the process and as long as no profit is made without the permission of the original creator.
Showing posts with label children's story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children's story. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Taking nothing for granted
I submitted my first ever application for an arts grant this week. What an interesting experience!
It is a pretty exacting process. You have to make sure that you submit exactly what the funding body requires as part of the application, right down to the number of copies, the size of the paper and the colour of the ink.
I actually quite enjoyed the experience. Part of the package the funding body required was my writing CV, including all of my publication credits, all media coverage I have received and all of the training and education, related to writing, I have pursued.
It was a lot of work, to be honest, but the final product was a bit of an eye-opener. I guess I have lost track, over the years, of just how much I have accomplished as a writer.
The only problem, at least from the stand point of the application, is that the funding body wants to know what category of writer I fall into and then to receive evidence that I meet the criteria they have established to qualify as a professional writer in that particular genre.
In constructing my CV, I came to realise that I am a writer of middling accomplishment in three different "artistic" genres -- literature, poetry and script writing -- as well as several genres of writing for which they do not provide funding, such as legal texts, magazine and newspaper articles.
And, while my grant application is intended to attract support for my proposal to adapt my Christmas novella into a play, I would most likely qualify as a professional writer only in the category of a writer of fiction (literature).
If I recall the standards correctly, someone who has published 10 poems would qualify as a professional poet. Someone who has published a single collection of stories or a single novel with a known publisher would be considered a professional literary writer, no matter how many copies their books sold. And a person who has written a single play that has been mounted by a professional theatre company might earn the title of professional dramatist.
So, while I have written 9 published poems, an award-winning short story, a legal text book (in two published editions), parts of four other legal text books, four collections of children's stories (self-published but quite successful), a self-published novella, a coffee table book and two plays that have been produced at an amateur level and video-taped for training purposes, as well as literally hundreds of articles in newspaper and magazines, I may not qualify as a "professional writer" for the purposes of this grant.
Strange. I can only hope that the jury that considers my application will be willing to recognise the breadth and depth of my writing accomplishments across these genres in making its determination as to the merits of my application.
And funny. The most important thing I've written recently is a grant application that, if successful, would put me in a position to adapt my well-received Christmas novella into a stage play.
It is a pretty exacting process. You have to make sure that you submit exactly what the funding body requires as part of the application, right down to the number of copies, the size of the paper and the colour of the ink.
I actually quite enjoyed the experience. Part of the package the funding body required was my writing CV, including all of my publication credits, all media coverage I have received and all of the training and education, related to writing, I have pursued.
It was a lot of work, to be honest, but the final product was a bit of an eye-opener. I guess I have lost track, over the years, of just how much I have accomplished as a writer.
The only problem, at least from the stand point of the application, is that the funding body wants to know what category of writer I fall into and then to receive evidence that I meet the criteria they have established to qualify as a professional writer in that particular genre.
In constructing my CV, I came to realise that I am a writer of middling accomplishment in three different "artistic" genres -- literature, poetry and script writing -- as well as several genres of writing for which they do not provide funding, such as legal texts, magazine and newspaper articles.
And, while my grant application is intended to attract support for my proposal to adapt my Christmas novella into a play, I would most likely qualify as a professional writer only in the category of a writer of fiction (literature).
If I recall the standards correctly, someone who has published 10 poems would qualify as a professional poet. Someone who has published a single collection of stories or a single novel with a known publisher would be considered a professional literary writer, no matter how many copies their books sold. And a person who has written a single play that has been mounted by a professional theatre company might earn the title of professional dramatist.
So, while I have written 9 published poems, an award-winning short story, a legal text book (in two published editions), parts of four other legal text books, four collections of children's stories (self-published but quite successful), a self-published novella, a coffee table book and two plays that have been produced at an amateur level and video-taped for training purposes, as well as literally hundreds of articles in newspaper and magazines, I may not qualify as a "professional writer" for the purposes of this grant.
Strange. I can only hope that the jury that considers my application will be willing to recognise the breadth and depth of my writing accomplishments across these genres in making its determination as to the merits of my application.
And funny. The most important thing I've written recently is a grant application that, if successful, would put me in a position to adapt my well-received Christmas novella into a stage play.
Monday, February 15, 2016
In the groove with a more mature Abigail storyline
After complaining about being tasked with writing five scripts for the proposed web series, The Station, I find myself in the position where I have to offer an apology. I shouldn't have complained.
I am actually quite enjoying the experience. And I've completed the first drafts of three scripts already.
It's an interesting challenge, to be honest. My colleague, Nancy Lynch, and I have agreed that the web series should be based on the Abigail Massey children's stories but should aim for an older, more mature audience. As a result, I basically need to re-write the larger Abigail story arc, adding depth and detail and a great deal more conflict.
Where Abigail Massey of the children's stories responds to tense situations with an "Oh, golly" and a can-do attitude, Abigail of the web series will be forced to face much more difficult situations and much more challenging moral questions.
I'm having fun with the project. I don't want to give too many details away -- we are hopeful of securing funding for the series and then revealing details over the course of the show's first season -- but I will say that Abigail's family relationships aren't quite so rosy in the new series, her love life is more complicated and the group of young women she meets at the Station include not just a couple of nice girls like Jenny and Alice but also a group of "Mean Girls", as I've dubbed them in early drafts.
My sister, Lynn, suggested that I should name the two main "Mean Girls" after her and my other sister, Janice. But, when I explained to Lynn some of the things the Mean Girls get up to, she quickly retracted the suggestion. Yes, they are that mean...
What's fun for me is that, now that I have made the adjustment from writing stories for 8-12 year olds to writing scripts for teens and adults, I am finding myself in the same writing groove I have so enjoyed over the first five books of Abigail stories.
I feel I have a strong understanding of the characters, the setting and the overall arc of our storylines -- and that makes the writing easy and enjoyable.
Let's hope it keeps flowing along so well for the final two draft scripts.
I am actually quite enjoying the experience. And I've completed the first drafts of three scripts already.
It's an interesting challenge, to be honest. My colleague, Nancy Lynch, and I have agreed that the web series should be based on the Abigail Massey children's stories but should aim for an older, more mature audience. As a result, I basically need to re-write the larger Abigail story arc, adding depth and detail and a great deal more conflict.
Where Abigail Massey of the children's stories responds to tense situations with an "Oh, golly" and a can-do attitude, Abigail of the web series will be forced to face much more difficult situations and much more challenging moral questions.
I'm having fun with the project. I don't want to give too many details away -- we are hopeful of securing funding for the series and then revealing details over the course of the show's first season -- but I will say that Abigail's family relationships aren't quite so rosy in the new series, her love life is more complicated and the group of young women she meets at the Station include not just a couple of nice girls like Jenny and Alice but also a group of "Mean Girls", as I've dubbed them in early drafts.
My sister, Lynn, suggested that I should name the two main "Mean Girls" after her and my other sister, Janice. But, when I explained to Lynn some of the things the Mean Girls get up to, she quickly retracted the suggestion. Yes, they are that mean...
What's fun for me is that, now that I have made the adjustment from writing stories for 8-12 year olds to writing scripts for teens and adults, I am finding myself in the same writing groove I have so enjoyed over the first five books of Abigail stories.
I feel I have a strong understanding of the characters, the setting and the overall arc of our storylines -- and that makes the writing easy and enjoyable.
Let's hope it keeps flowing along so well for the final two draft scripts.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Promoting is always more challenging than writing your stories
Awesome book launch event last Sunday afternoon for Volume 4 of the Abigail Massey stories. After some tense early moments, we ended up with a full house and a great crowd of supportive people.
My colleague, Mary, for whom this was the first real event to feature her creative work, seemed to enjoy herself very much and spoke beautifully. I did my bit and we ended up selling more than $1,000 worth of books.
All in all, an excellent day.
And now the real work begins. We have no fewer than eight promotional events on the slate for the next two months, plus media interviews, email campaigns and all kinds of other things we need to do to get people interested in the books.
It's fun but, to be honest, I find it hard. And extremely tiring. While I really enjoy the writing and I find it fun to do the public presentation part (both at speaking engagements and with the media), I do find the pace and the demands rather challenging.
You get yourself into a place where you don't want to miss any opportunity to promote the book so you have a very hard time saying no. You check your email constantly, you're always on Facebook or Twitter or Youtube tracking the progress of your various campaigns and you always... ALWAYS... feel like you have to respond fully and immediately to any request.
No matter how run down I get during these periods, I keep reminding myself that I should be grateful that anyone is taking an interest in the books. That I should be (and I really am, to be honest) delighted when the media calls wanting to cover the story and promote the book. That I should be honoured (and I ALWAYS am) that someone wants to spend his or her hard-earned money on the book that I wrote, over all the competing priorities in their lives.
Speaking of the media, I enjoyed a really fun interview this morning with a reporter for one of the bigger New Brunswick newspapers and I am very grateful that the Abigail books will be featured in a publication of that size and reach. The reporter was very nice and very well prepared, with great questions. Even better, she actually listened to what I had to say and asked excellent follow-up questions.
One thing that threw me, however, was that she didn't have a pen nor a single piece of paper with her. She read her prepared questions from her smart phone. She recorded our conversation on her smart phone. And when I gave her contact names and information for further research, she typed that directly into her smart phone.
Wow. It's a brave new world.
My colleague, Mary, for whom this was the first real event to feature her creative work, seemed to enjoy herself very much and spoke beautifully. I did my bit and we ended up selling more than $1,000 worth of books.
All in all, an excellent day.
And now the real work begins. We have no fewer than eight promotional events on the slate for the next two months, plus media interviews, email campaigns and all kinds of other things we need to do to get people interested in the books.
It's fun but, to be honest, I find it hard. And extremely tiring. While I really enjoy the writing and I find it fun to do the public presentation part (both at speaking engagements and with the media), I do find the pace and the demands rather challenging.
You get yourself into a place where you don't want to miss any opportunity to promote the book so you have a very hard time saying no. You check your email constantly, you're always on Facebook or Twitter or Youtube tracking the progress of your various campaigns and you always... ALWAYS... feel like you have to respond fully and immediately to any request.
No matter how run down I get during these periods, I keep reminding myself that I should be grateful that anyone is taking an interest in the books. That I should be (and I really am, to be honest) delighted when the media calls wanting to cover the story and promote the book. That I should be honoured (and I ALWAYS am) that someone wants to spend his or her hard-earned money on the book that I wrote, over all the competing priorities in their lives.
Speaking of the media, I enjoyed a really fun interview this morning with a reporter for one of the bigger New Brunswick newspapers and I am very grateful that the Abigail books will be featured in a publication of that size and reach. The reporter was very nice and very well prepared, with great questions. Even better, she actually listened to what I had to say and asked excellent follow-up questions.
One thing that threw me, however, was that she didn't have a pen nor a single piece of paper with her. She read her prepared questions from her smart phone. She recorded our conversation on her smart phone. And when I gave her contact names and information for further research, she typed that directly into her smart phone.
Wow. It's a brave new world.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Arriving at a creative crossroads...
I have to admit it. I'm at something of a crossroads.
I have been working to promote my children's books, written, self-published and sold with all proceeds going to support the renovation of a local historical landmark, in every way possible.
With my sister and the rest of our team of volunteers, I've done everything the writers' magazines and websites have advised:
Frankly, I don't know what more I can do.
The response has been very positive in a lot of ways. To our surprise, the first volume of stories sold more than 1,200 copies very quickly.
We were on a high. We were riding a wave. The media was interested, people were coming out to our public appearances. It was all good.
Sales of the second and third volumes, however, were not quite as overwhelming. Sure, selling 500 copies of each one is pretty good. Outstanding, to be honest, if you figure we don't have a publisher with a promotions arm to support us and we're only for sale at a small number of outlets in a limited geographic area.
But I just don't know where to go from here. How do we push this project to the next level?
How do we break out of the geographic limitations we're facing to reach a wider audience? How do we get national media interested? How do we reach readers who don't even know our books exist?
Or do I simply publish the fourth book (a Christmas novella, coming this November), promote it as best I can, and then move on to other projects?
After all, I've got an idea for a comic novel that is just itching to get out of my brain and onto the page. Should I call it a day on the children's story project and move on?
I have been working to promote my children's books, written, self-published and sold with all proceeds going to support the renovation of a local historical landmark, in every way possible.
With my sister and the rest of our team of volunteers, I've done everything the writers' magazines and websites have advised:
- We've made public appearances;
- We've worked hard to stir up interest in the media (with moderate success);
- We've created a website, a Facebook site, and a Twitter account for the books and our main character;
- I personally have been on the web as much as possible, trying to promote my own brand;
- I am writing regularly for at least four different blogs, including this one
- We've produced promotional mugs and fridge magnets, advertising posters and free bookmarks promoting the stories;
- We've designed and created an interesting point-of-sale display to help sell books in the various shops that offer them to the public; and
- Now, finally, we've produced an audio book of the stories in the first book.
Frankly, I don't know what more I can do.
The response has been very positive in a lot of ways. To our surprise, the first volume of stories sold more than 1,200 copies very quickly.
We were on a high. We were riding a wave. The media was interested, people were coming out to our public appearances. It was all good.
Sales of the second and third volumes, however, were not quite as overwhelming. Sure, selling 500 copies of each one is pretty good. Outstanding, to be honest, if you figure we don't have a publisher with a promotions arm to support us and we're only for sale at a small number of outlets in a limited geographic area.
But I just don't know where to go from here. How do we push this project to the next level?
How do we break out of the geographic limitations we're facing to reach a wider audience? How do we get national media interested? How do we reach readers who don't even know our books exist?
Or do I simply publish the fourth book (a Christmas novella, coming this November), promote it as best I can, and then move on to other projects?
After all, I've got an idea for a comic novel that is just itching to get out of my brain and onto the page. Should I call it a day on the children's story project and move on?
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