Too Scary to Write?
Apr. 11th, 2013 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightOkay, let's have a post about writing that isn't All About Me.
Characters. We all have our favourites. We all have characters we feel more comfortable writing than others. Many (some?) of us have characters we're nervous about writing for fear of getting them wrong. Others of us have characters we actively dislike, would prefer to pretend don't exist, and therefore never write.
For me, my 'comfort zone' characters are the following: Spike, Angel, Wesley and Giles. Three of them are Brits, which helps, and I feel I have a handle on the Giles/Wesley milieu (if you see what I mean).
I'm also quite confident writing Darla and Buffy (up to a point, I do always have the sense that my Buffy isn't really canon Buffy but a reasonable extrapolation of her - though that's the same for every fanfic writer's Buffy, I suppose). I also think I write Drusilla okay, though she's tricky.
As for the other characters, I've written a large number of canon characters now - notable exceptions being Lindsey Macdonald and Tara, neither of whom I'm interested in enough to work out a way to include them in anything - and though I'm still nervous of writing some characters - Willow and Xander, for instance - the idea of having to write any of them doesn't fill me with dread.
But there are two characters I am interested in that I've never tackled (well, wrote one, but only in a comedy setting, where all she had to do was spout cliched lines), one of whom is Faith, and the other of whom is Robin Wood. I don't feel like I could do either justice. I like Faith but I just don't 'get' her, and I'm actively scared of getting Robin all wrong and massively offending someone (I know you're supposed to not let that put you off, and take your knocks if you mess up, but I'm a coward, okay?)
Then, the final category - characters you dislike so much you pretend they don't exist. Well, there's only one character in that category for me, and that's Andrew.
How about you? Any characters you don't feel confident/don't dare write? Any you would rather didn't exist? How about original characters? What function do you think they serve in fanfic?
Characters. We all have our favourites. We all have characters we feel more comfortable writing than others. Many (some?) of us have characters we're nervous about writing for fear of getting them wrong. Others of us have characters we actively dislike, would prefer to pretend don't exist, and therefore never write.
For me, my 'comfort zone' characters are the following: Spike, Angel, Wesley and Giles. Three of them are Brits, which helps, and I feel I have a handle on the Giles/Wesley milieu (if you see what I mean).
I'm also quite confident writing Darla and Buffy (up to a point, I do always have the sense that my Buffy isn't really canon Buffy but a reasonable extrapolation of her - though that's the same for every fanfic writer's Buffy, I suppose). I also think I write Drusilla okay, though she's tricky.
As for the other characters, I've written a large number of canon characters now - notable exceptions being Lindsey Macdonald and Tara, neither of whom I'm interested in enough to work out a way to include them in anything - and though I'm still nervous of writing some characters - Willow and Xander, for instance - the idea of having to write any of them doesn't fill me with dread.
But there are two characters I am interested in that I've never tackled (well, wrote one, but only in a comedy setting, where all she had to do was spout cliched lines), one of whom is Faith, and the other of whom is Robin Wood. I don't feel like I could do either justice. I like Faith but I just don't 'get' her, and I'm actively scared of getting Robin all wrong and massively offending someone (I know you're supposed to not let that put you off, and take your knocks if you mess up, but I'm a coward, okay?)
Then, the final category - characters you dislike so much you pretend they don't exist. Well, there's only one character in that category for me, and that's Andrew.
How about you? Any characters you don't feel confident/don't dare write? Any you would rather didn't exist? How about original characters? What function do you think they serve in fanfic?
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Date: 2013-04-15 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-17 03:20 pm (UTC)