Dialogue Quotes from Amateur/Unpublished authors...

No. What you did was make a personal attack actually. Calling out a BS assertion need not include telling someone they are talentless and will never be any good. Calling it out would have been....actually that's not true, there's a lot of good fanfic writing done by professional authors etc. Or something to that effect. I'm not particularly bothered by your assessment of my talent, but feel the need to let you know the difference between refuting an argument and just getting nasty.

For what it's worth, my comments were not to say that the writing of fanfic couldn't be artful and good. There are some excellent knockoff designer handbags, difficult to distinguish from the original. My comments were to the effect that I'm not particularly interested in reading a reinterpretation of a milieu and characters by someone other than the originator. Why do I feel this way? Because I believe the original author had a particular idea in mind when they wrote that story. I don't want my love for a character or story to be ruined by a rehashing of it, when the original was perfectly good.

 

There's a big difference between saying you personally don't care to read fanfic, and blasting every writer of fanfic as some kind of wastrel. And, btw, if you don't want nasty responses, you might be a bit more cognizant of your own wording. Nasty is what you get when you insult others.

 

@PensiveQuill

Just as I respect a lack of interest in looking for hidden gems, I also respect a lack of interest in reinterpretations of familiar characters. Your loss. I get it, though. There are some things I bet I would enjoy if only I acquired the taste for them. Thing is, I have no problem admitting my tastes are narrow. I feel no need to defend my decision not to try something by asserting it is not worth trying; therefore, I do not come across as an ignorant fool to people who have acquired the taste for it.

See the difference between {"I am not interested in _____" or "I have not acquired the taste for _____"} and "_____ is a wasteful, desperate attempt to be meaningful"?

If it must be spelled out: the former is a factual statement about something you know about (yourself); the latter is a value judgment of something you know nothing about. "_____ is meaningless" is another way of saying either "I have not bothered to examine _____" or "I lack the mental capacity to grasp the meaning of _____."

This should be a helpful lesson on how to formulate a thought:

"I do not read fanfiction. It is like buying Prada in Thailand. I want Prada because it is Prada. I like the brand. An imitator of Prada is not Prada, regardless of its quality. Likewise, I want to see how the originator of a character develops that character because I am only interested in the originator's ideas. Other people's ideas are not the originator's ideas, no matter how good they are."

 

There have been a few misunderstandings on this thread. Let's all pull the reigns back a bit, ok? Wouldn't want to see this thread closed down or something.

 

@daemon

You should try published novels. The fan fic you linked is surprisingly good, for a fan fic (and the quotes you posted are not terrible) but you might be surprised by the astounding quality of some of the greats out there. Every time I read a new one, I am once again amazed.

 

A lot of passages and sentences have astounded me in the manuscripts I've beta-read. Of course, those passages may have changed in the last draft, but there have definitely been gems even in unpublished works. I'm just finding it difficult to find them now 'cause my beta-reading files are all over the place. Plus I'm not sure if their owners would appreciate me sharing pieces from their drafts, especially since some of the writers are members here.

And please try not to derail the thread from its original topic. You can search for older threads that discuss the pros and cons of fan fiction, or start a new one, thank you.

 

I do read them. I posted fanfiction because the thread calls for unpublished novels.

 

You are 100% right. My bad.

 

I would love to see this.

 

There are huge amounts of unpublished/amateur fiction out there. I really wasn't referring to fanfiction at all.

 

That was not what I was after. I didn't want to see self-quotes because it would turn this thread into little more than a medium for people to gratify themselves with quotes from their own work, which really wasn't the aim. Also, if it's published, there's a good chance lots of people already know the quote. We've all heard great quotes from great authors, I just wanted to see some great quotes from relatively unknown writers.

There are plenty of sites for amateur fiction. You can find amateur fiction all over the internet. No psychic powers or MC Escher drawings required, just a just a search engine.

 

I know, I was just being a fool.