Humans suck

Well, not all of them, and probably even those who do don’t suck all the time, but still. The internet frequently manages to shatter my faith in humanity almost beyond repair T_T

I love being part of a fandom. Fandoms are great. You share something you love with a lot of people (most of whom are awesome), you get to enjoy what you like outside of the original show/book/game/obscure asian film, and you have something to obsess over and discuss in the middle of the night with your best friend who is just as crazy about the show as you are, possibly even crazier.

But then there are the days when I facepalm, headdesk, and do every other possible gesture that expresses an equal amount of embarrassment and “whhhyyy?!”. There are days when I am close to denying every connection I might have to the fandom in question, and pretend I don’t even know what XYZ is. Those are the days when I make the mistake of reading the comments to a fandom-related press release. (Yes, I should know better T_T)

Case in point: An article concerning John Hurt’s role in the next episode of Doctor Who (€dit because d’oh: Of course I mean the 50th anniversary special. Silly me.). Now, if you don’t want to hear, see, read or get signed by a deaf chimpanzee anything about the upcoming series finale, the special, or the series in general, stop reading. Now. I’m serious, go away now, or you will read things you might not want to know. You still here? Okay, I did warn you, don’t blame it on me if your fun gets spoiled.

 

:O

:(

:|

:)

:D

 

Okay, that’s the best I can do. From now on, this is a minefield of possible spoilers.

The article basically states that actor John Hurt (you know, that guy who played Ollivander in the Harry Potter films? Yep, that’s him.) will be in the 50th anniversary special, and he’s going to play the Ninth Doctor. Yes, that’s right. Rumour has it that Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor wasn’t Nine at all, but actually Ten. Which would make David Tennant Eleven, and Matt Smith Twelve. A fact that doesn’t sit well with a lot of fans. Outsiders wouldn’t believe the outrage in the fandom upon this news. Suddenly, the beloved, wonderful show isn’t wonderful at all, canon gets screwed and Steven Moffat is a jerk who has gone mad with power. There is so much hate directed towards him I’m wondering how he can stand going online anymore. People suddenly complain about everything he has ever done with Doctor Who, rant about how he has no right to do all this and that there is a canon to stick to, and even demand he give up his position as a showrunner. All because they don’t like this particular plot twist that might not even happen (after all, this could be a red red herring and not true at all).

Seriously, fandom? -.-

I understand how someone can feel let down by this, even gets a little angry. I mean, come on, I think George Lucas should have left well enough alone and never started “remastering” the original Star Wars trilogy (Han shot first! :P). But they are his films, and he has the right to do with them whatever he wants. Whoever created a piece of art has the right to change it as he pleases whenever the hell he feels like it. No-one can dictate the rules the artist has to stick to (well, unless the artist is paid to deliver a specific piece, but that’s beside the point here). That’s kind of the very definition of art – it comes from the heart and follows no rules.

And now this shouldn’t apply anymore because some condescending pricks don’t like what they get? Being a writer, there is no other answer for me to give than “What the fuck are you douchebags thinking?!” Just because you are fans you think you have the right to expect the creator to be at your beck and call and do exactly what you tell him to do? That’s not how it works, that’s not how it should ever work! Listen up, you may like what you get or not, but that doesn’t give you any right to pressure the creator into making what you think is a “better” and “more logical” decision. The latter one is especially true for Doctor Who. There IS. NO. LOGIC to this show. Whatever canon we think there is is vague at best and most of the time not canon at all. As far as I know, the Doctor never went and announced “I’m the eighth Doctor, don’t you forget!” He doesn’t count at all. I don’t think I ever heard anyone in the show address the “Which regeneration are you? Six or seven?” issue (haven’t seen all the classic episodes, though, so I might be wrong here). So any number we assign to a particular Doctor is purely to keep track of where we are in the Doctor’s life (and that might not even be true, since he could very well have an infinite number of regenerations; we don’t know). So bringing in John Hurt as the real Nine, making the current Doctor Twelve already (and confusing everyone with the whole “fall of the eleventh” thing, which doesn’t make sense anymore if that rumour is true…), is fine, doesn’t go against canon and doesn’t “screw up other writers’ work”, as some people put it. Doctor Who as a show is best summed up by the Doctor’s own words: a ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. There is virtually no way to defy canon, because there is no canon (other than the Doctor is a renegade Time Lord traveling time and space… yep, I think that’s about it). Hell, the whole regeneration thing was added on a whim because William Hartnell left the show! Talk about double standards here; apparently, “screwing with what came before you” is fine when it’s done before you were even born…

 

This whole thing kind of scares me a little. I usually think it would be really cool to be somewhat famous, have a fandom and all that stuff. But on days like this, I’m not so sure. You are constantly being judged by those people, not just as a writer, director or whatever you are, but as a human being. By people who never even met you. That’s just lousy behaviour. I’m fine with being judged as a writer based on my writing. I’m not cool with people judging me based on the fact that they don’t like what I write. Sure, there will always be people who are not happy with what I can give them (provided that I ever get published), who will call the book they read crappy and move on. But that’s fine, and that’s the mature thing to do. Move on. Don’t cling to your formerly-favourite-I-hope-it-will-be-again show (or, y’know, whatever) like a child and whine about how bad it is nowadays, don’t insult the writer just because he didn’t write a bunch of episodes tailored to your taste, and don’t think you are in a position to actually demand changes in the show just because you are such a loyal fan. If you don’t like it anymore, stop watching. That’s what I did with a couple of shows, with a couple of book series, and even with a few bands I used to love. I didn’t whine and scream and tell them to do what I like because I’m such a huge fan.

 

Sometimes I wonder if creators like the Moff, J.K. Rowling, George Lucas or Stephen King ever look at their fans and are appalled by what they see: A crowd of manic, rabid hatemongers who worship their own version of the source material, denying even the original creator the right to make even the smallest of changes. I think they do. And that’s really sad, if you think about it.

 

I have a great idea for all those idiots out there: Go and make your own show/book/film, get a fandom and watch it turn against you once you do something different than before. Maybe getting a taste of your own medicine will get that notion of fandom omnipotence out of your thick heads…

 

Yes, this was very rant-y. And I do know I did get kind of abusive towards that part of the fandom. But there are days when I don’t feel polite. This is one of them.

Also, you can’t reason with those people. They only respond with more insults. Might as well get a head start on those.

 

 

-Ricarda (now getting dinner and a glass of wine to calm down a bit)

Killing undead? Cool. Slaying dragons? No big deal. Doing homework? Ohcraphellno! (Also, some stuff about my NaNo novel…)

Randomness ahead, you have been warned.

 

A few signs that you have played way too many video games lately…

 

1. When someone asks you how you spent your weekend and you automatically reply “I killed some dragon champions and then defeated Napoleon’s army” before you realise that’s probably not what they meant.

 

2. When the Decision Of The Day involves choosing dialogue options based on the choice between “have threesome with knight and pirate” and “have threesome, then invite the elven assassin to join”.

 

3. When you deliberately buy food that can be eaten with one hand or with no hands at all, if necessary.

 

4. When you choose buying a new headset over buying new shoes. (Finally, Teamspeak, woohoo!^^)

 

5. When you start dreaming about attacking That One Mean Professor with fireballs before feeding him to an ogre, and you catch yourself making plans on how best to ambush him.

 

6. When your biggest problem is choosing between two equally awesome games you still have to beat that will both eat away your whole weekend (and possibly Monday morning, too).

 

7. When finishing a particularly difficult dungeon is the pathetic climax of your whole week…

 

…I can’t be the only one, can I?

 

 

And now for something entirely different.

I can’t help but feel like I’m sort of ruining my chances to ever get published. First, I create a character of an age apparently despised by publishers (my heroine is twenty-five! *le gasp* How dare I make her even a day older than seventeen?!), then I create an equally unloved plot (*insert shocked expression here* my MCs make morally ambiguous choices!), and now I decided to scratch the romantic subplot (without which no novel can survive these days. Or so it seems…). So I’m not even sure what is left to show editors and agents. Y’know, apart from the plot and the characters and the fact that it’s something that would be pretty much filling a niche in the market that’s been more or less ignored until now (the young adults who are, actually, young adults, and not whiny teenagers falling in love with supernatural creatures of varying creepiness).

Seriously though, how do I explain the lack of basically everything that appears to make a book sellable? o_O

 

 

-Ricarda

Things You Shouldn’t Do

Well, not as in “Never, ever do it or you’ll get your face eaten by a rabid grizzly bear”. Although there are things you should avoid in order to escape that particular fate… like hugging rabid grizzly bears.
Nope, this is just a list of my personal Don’ts when it comes to writing fiction. It’s not so much about style and rules and stuff, but about content. Like, what should NOT happen in your story if you want me to read it.

 
1. Teenage Protagonists Acting Like Adults

I already ranted about this one before, so I’ll keep it short. Basically, when the protagonist is seventeen, I expect them to act like they’re seventeen. Certainly NOT like they are actually thirty-five and just look seventeen to better sell it to the adolescent audience.

 

2. Love On First Sight and The Love Triangle

Okay, seriously, what’s with all the instant romance in fiction? How often do you see that kind of thing in real life? It might happen, maybe, sometimes, but it seems like every single romantic relationship in the books I read lately has some kind of instaRomance. Even Divergent, which in comparison took forever to introduce the actual romantic relationship, did this. It’s not that noticeable when you read it, it happens later in the book, but looking back, the whole story happened in about… three weeks? And the MCs didn’t spend that much time together. And when they did, the guy mostly yelled at the girl (for good reason, but still). What the hell?

The love triangle scenario makes this even worse. We are just expected to believe that the innocent, average, clumsy heroine suddenly holds the interest of not one, but two flawless hot guys. Said guys would very much like to maim and/or kill their rival, but don’t for the heroines sake, because she likes them both so much (she just doesn’t know whom she likes more). What makes this completely ridiculous is the fact that, no matter what, the girl will always, ALWAYS end up with the dude she first fell in love with, even if #1 runs off (or gets seemingly killed or something) and the girl actually got over him and found another guy who is actually much nicer than the first one. The whole point of The Love Triangle is to show that your first love is also your One True Love, no matter what. Really? How many people actually stick with the first person they dated? God, had I done that, I’d be pretty much screwed. (Well, not in the good way. Or maybe I would, I don’t know, we never did it. Anyways.) The point is, the fact that it always ends like that makes this scenario boring and predictable, so even if it weren’t overused, it would still be a huge turn-off for me.

 

3. The Mary Sue In Disguise

I assume we all know what a Mary Sue is by now (random fact: a male Mary Sue is called a Marty Stu or Gary Stu; I prefer the latter. It rhymes :P). It’s basically a no-no for every fiction writer. Even in fanfiction, where you generally get away with a lot more, Sues are frowned upon. So why on earth are published books full of them? I’m not going to talk about Bella Swan here (although she IS a fine example of Sue-dom). I’m talking about the MCs who don’t seem like the perfect, pretty and skilled Mary Sue, but if you look closer, all her flaws either turn into “endearing quirks” or just plain vanish because the heroine (or hero, but in the books I read, Sues are more often the MCs than Stus are) learned her lesson and got over them. Again, how often does that happen in real life? I mean, yeah, you can get rid of annoying habits, but our real flaws, the facets of our character that make life harder for us, won’t go away that easily. If I were a run-of-the-mill YA heroine, I’d be described as “socially awkward (but in a very cute way, and talking to The Guys That Matter isn’t a problem)”. In real life, I’m more of a hermit crab than anything. I used to be afraid of people! It got better over time, but it’ll never entirely go away. Same goes for that tendency to yell at people and run off fuming when I get into arguments I obviously can’t win, or for my habit of getting all teary and whiny and close to giving up when I screw up, even if it’s just a stupid test at uni (doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it’s bad).

The Sues in the books don’t seem to have that kind of traits, ever. There is nothing about them that will stay with them all their lives, that will be a constant obstacle and make life harder every single day. When they encounter something that poses a problem, they miraculously find a way to make it go away with very little effort, or they find out they have a hidden skill that just now comes in handy. That. Doesn’t. Happen. So please don’t mock me by making it seem like it does – just not to me. How can I possibly relate to someone who never has to struggle, when I have to all the time?

 

4. The Chosen One

Let me clarify: This is not about actual Chosen Ones, like the Harry Potter kind, or King Arthur. It’s about those characters who aren’t all that important, or charming, or smart, or whatever, but somehow turn out to be the one single person without whom The Rebellion (or any big event, really) couldn’t happen. Sometimes it’s well done, like in The Hunger Games, where Katniss doesn’t even realise what’s going on until someone tells her, and even then, she doesn’t play her role all that well right until the end. And she kind of does set the events in motion with her berry stunt. But then there are the Chosen Ones who clearly aren’t all that important – the author just makes them important to justify their status as protagonist. One example are all the ladies in the Immortal Brotherhood series. Basically, some viking dudes are cursed to be immortal weres (not the good kind), and only love can break the curse. Interesting enough, it’s not the good old “true love”, it’s merely “a woman who loves them even knowing what they are”. So it could be any woman who really loves one of them. And you’d think after a couple centuries, at least a few of them should have found a girl who truly loves them, right? But no, it’s another chosen one scenario: There is only one woman for every guy, and no other will do the trick. Hell, the leader of the group has to wait eight-hundred years for his woman, simply because she won’t reincarnate any sooner (or something like that, we’re just at volume three, but it’s strongly implied).

I just find it hard to believe that there should be no-one else in the entire world suitable for the job. That’s just so totally unlikely…

 

Well, that turned out way wordier than I intended oO

Also, sad news: Otfried Preußler is dead :´( He wrote some of my favourite books from when I was little…

 

*achem* Right. Now, for some lighter mood at the end: random randomness!^^

 

Well, I was going for “novels”, but apparently, a bazillion others before me had a different idea…

 

And I still find it incredibly funny when a TV show references Myspace as THE hottest website where everyone has to be^^

 

 

-Ricarda

 

 

€dit: Also, I would so watch this XD

Too AU? Never mind, nbd :)

Anecdote time!^^

This actually happens.

This is what happened to me. More precisely, this is how my last NaNo novel came to be :) It started out as a songfic when I first heard a new song from my favourite band, became a generic fanfic involving a very Sue-like protagonist and a supporting cast that looked suspiciously like a few certain musicians, and then, while I was working on a different project and not looking, ran away with some crazy sparks of imagination and produced a healthy, happy novel idea some nine months later. Sort of.

It’s really weird how things turn out if you don’t pay attention for a while. I really wonder just how many published novels out there started out as something entirely different. Cheesy poems maybe, or a rant about why soy milk is evil, and rice and beans are great. Or maybe even grocery lists. With strawberries and apple pie at the very top.

I should eat lunch now.

But I still think Stephen King’s CELL happened because his cell phone broke when he was in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire, and he decided to write the manufacturer a flaming letter of hate. Which then turned into a book. Because good old Stephen just can’t keep it short.

 

On a different note, I hate my job. Well, I wish it were a job, actually, not just a hobby-that’ll-hopefully-turn-into-a-job. Anyways. Do you know that feeling, when you try to decide on a narrator? I really, really hate writing in first person (partially because I hate reading it; too many books use bad first person narration these days…). But I think for the rewrite of Runaway, first person would be kinda interesting. And now I need to decide quickly, before I lose all motivation I managed to come up with… *sighs* I should’ve become a librarian or something. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with those damn decisions…

 

 

-Ricarda

Editing Hell and Writing Limbo

Okay folks, time for an entirely personal rant about writing. And editing. And tea. God, I need a cup of tea right now…

 

So, I have this novel I’m editing right now, and it gives me hell. It’s not just that I have to disguise a dozen plotholes as actual plot (thankfully, I have help with that; I’ve been co-writing that novel with a friend, so we will both have to fix this swiss cheese of a plot^^), it’s all the little technicalities that drive me up the wall. We are both writers, and we both format differently out of habit. Meaning that we have to figure out which way we do it so it looks somewhat consistent. Then there’s the question which orthography we use (during the past ten years, we had about the same amount of spelling reforms, leaving 90% of the nation utterly confused; the rest are toddlers who can’t write).  Compound or separate spelling, how many e’s in “Schneeeule” (yes, that’s an actual word…) and stuff like that.

How the hell does anybody voluntarily do this more than once?!

 

Second; the novel I’m writing (and have been for the past… one and a half years?). Not only am I told by my main characters that they plan to fall in love much sooner than I had planned (thus rendering a huge chunk of the first part of the book obsolete), now I constantly find out that I have to delete the last 5-10 pages I wrote and re-write the part. Three times since November. And I have barely added 30 pages since then, although I must’ve written about twice as much; minimum. Which isn’t that much at all, but it was a busy time…

 

Third; tea. Why is it that I overcome years of coffee addiction just to end up hooked on Earl Grey?!

 

…okay, done, just had to get that out…

 

—

 

Das Fegefeuer des Autorendaseins…

 

So, Zeit für eine ganz persönliche Tirade zum Thema überarbeiten. Und schreiben. Und Tee. Gott, ich brauch jetzt ‘ne Tasse Tee…

 

Da wäre das Buch, das ich gerade überarbeite (Zombies und Tulpen, falls es jemanden interessiert), und das macht mit gerade das Leben zur Hölle. Ich muss nicht bloß ein Dutzend Plotlöcher als echten Plot darstellen (da hab ich aber glücklicherweise Hilfe von meiner Mitautorin…), sondern mich auch um die ganzen technischen Details kümmern, die mich in den Wahnsinn treiben. Wir schreiben beide, und formatieren tun wir aus Gewohnheit völlig unterschiedlich. Da müssen wir irgendwie ein einheitliches Bild bekommen. Wir müssen uns auf eine Rechtschreibung festlegen (von den zehn Varianten, die wir über die letzten Jahre präsentiert bekommen haben -.-). Zusammen, getrennt, wie viele E’s stecken in der Schneeeule und so weiter und so fort… argh.

Wie kommt’s, dass das jemand freiwillig mehr als einmal macht?!

 

Dann das Buch, an dem ich gerade arbeite (seit anderthalb Jahren, in etwa). Erst erzählen mir meine Hauptfiguren, dass sie sich weitaus früher ineinander vergucken, als ich das geplant hatte (und so ein gutes Stück des ersten Teils der Handlung überflüssig machen), in letzter Zeit merke ich immer öfter, dass ich den letzten fünf bis zehn Seiten, die ich drangehängt habe, löschen und komplett umschreiben muss. Dreimal seit November. Und ich hab seitdem sowieso bloß knapp 30 Seiten geschafft, obwohl ich mindestens doppelt so viel geschrieben habe. Das ist eigentlich auch nichtmal viel, aber es waren irgendwie hektische Monate…

 

Drittens: Tee. Wie zum Teufel konnte es passieren, dass ich eine jahrelange Kaffeesucht überwinde, nur um dann quasi süchtig nach Earl Grey zu werden?!

 

…okay, das musste ich bloß mal loswerden…

 

 

 

-Ricarda