How to use this Page

Erika Wassall, the Jersey Farm Scribe here with…

Alternative Endings… for someone else!

One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever received as a writer was so simple.

Write every day.

Every. Single. Day.

It’s not an easy feat. Even if you don’t count Sundays, because… well honestly, because it’s just a good excuse to have a day off… that’s still a LOT of writing.

Whether I’m freelance writing for a catalog or magazine, polishing up a short story, working on a manuscript or even just writing out a letter to a friend, I make every effort to put the pen to paper every day.

And yup, you read that correctly. I write letters to friends. Like actual on paper letters. Stamp. Mailbox. The whole bit. LOL. And I think it counts. It’s writing! It’s stretching and exercising those creative muscles.

So today I thought I’d tell you about my favorite creative exercise that I go to on those days when I don’t have a deadline. Or maybe I only have 20 minutes, and I need to find something I can dive into quickly and easily that will get the creative goo in my mind bubbling. (I see it as a sort of neon blue slime in a cauldron)

Re-write Someone Else’s Work!!

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and find yourself devastatingly disappointed? They had such a great idea, a really unique and intriguing concept, but they just didn’t come through like you thought they would. And you had SUCH high hopes.

Here’s your chance to fix it!

There’s no need for an explanation or backstory. All that work has already been done for you. All you need to do is jump in on the “good parts”. Re-write the horrible romantic scene from your favorite chick-flick. Give that psychological thriller a twist that you DIDN’T see coming. Write an ending for a Steven King novel that you thought fell flat.

It opens up a lot of doors and can be a really fun exercise. Plus, when I’m watching something and the end really disappoints me, I can tuck it away to fix later that week.

Anyone else watch the sitcom How I Met Your Mother? The series ended a few months ago. Loved the show. Hated the ending. So I decided to fix it.

For those who know the show: in my ending, Robin and Barney ended up secretly together. Not “dating” so much. But let’s just say more than friends. This gave me a chance to play with elaborate-scheme concepts and their dynamic personalities without what I saw as the show’s weak effort at sudden “deep realizations”.

Lilly and Marshall: Happy ever after. You just don’t mess with some things.

And Ted? Ted and their mother got divorced and he became a very successful architect. Single. And happy. His big character change became realizing that not everyone has to be in love to be happy!!!

And in all honesty, to me… that’s how it happened. So instead of it ending with me rolling my eyes and shaking my head, I was able to get the bad taste out of my mouth and settle into an ending that mades me both laugh and smile.

My favorite thing about this exercise is that my brain starts to automatically do it when I watch TV. I’ll be sitting on the couch, and I’ll say to myself… ech… that scene could have been better! And instead of just criticizing it, I immediately start daydreaming about how I could make it better.

It makes me less lazy!

Instead of being disappointed, I get creative! Here’s some other movies or TV shows that I’ve created alternative scenes or endings to:

LOST

The Cell

Vanilla Sky

The Little Mermaid – (my favorite character was Ursula. So she wins in my version)

Got any endings you think you could do better, or scenes that really left you wanting more? Scribble down some notes when you’re watching. And then give the exercise a try sometime when you’re stuck or looking for something different to do.

Did reading this make you think of an ending that’s always disappointed you? Let us know what it is! It’s always fun to hear what other people are thinking, and helps us spark our own ideas.

The creativity and written word this can inspire can indirectly breathe life into your manuscripts. And you know how strongly I believe that they are worth it!

____________________________________________________________________

Erika Wassall is a writer, a farmer and a liver of life. She is a member of SCBWI and a proud Mad Scientist, bringing science experiments right into children’s classrooms, and hearts. She has a small farm in New Jersey with sheep, chickens, pigs and vegetables. Check out her new website at www.TheJerseyFarmScribe.com where as a first generation farmer, she often takes the long way, learning the tricks of the trade on The Farm. On her website is also The Shop page with tips and a free Q/A from her husband’s mechanic shop, and The Writer page where she shares stories, experiences and characters from the heart. Follow her on Twitter at @NJFarmScribe. She’d love to hear from you!

Thank you Erika for another great post. Lauren Oliver says she did this for many books and it helped her improve her writing skills. It is referred to as Fan Fiction. I know there have been a lot of books I threw down in disgust after reading their unsatisfying ending.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Filed under: article, inspiration, revisions, writing Tagged: Erika Wassall, Fan fiction, Re-write, Re-writing a published book

Display Comments Add a Comment

Anna Todd, the first-time author whose online fan fiction series After became a Wattpad sensation, has had a big month.

Publishing one chapter at a time, Todd racked up 1 billion reads online and gained avid fans worldwide. Last week, Paramount Pictures announced it had acquired screen rights, and this week, After was pubbed newly revised and expanded in a paperback from Gallery Books, part of a six-figure, multi-book deal with further print releases set for this November 18, December 30, and February 10, 2015.

Talking with Alexandra Alter, Todd told the New York Times that she began as a Wattpad reader, hooked on serialized fictional stories about British boy band One Direction. In 2013, she started writing her own fiction about a female college freshman who gets involved with a tattooed, lip-ringed, cute, tousled-haired guy named Harry Styles.

“I didn’t think anyone would read it.” … She updated “After” with a new chapter every day to meet readers’ demands and tapped out much of the book on her cellphone. She wrote for five hours a day and spent three hours trading messages with readers on Wattpad, Twitter and Instagram and drew on those comments to help her shape the story.

“The only way I know how to write is socially and getting immediate feedback on my phone,” she said.

Todd also told Alter that she receives threats daily from angry One Direction fans on Twitter and Tumblr, which explains why, as Alter reports, in the print After the romantic lead is no longer Harry Styles but Hardin Scott. We’ll know soon enough if After is as big in print for $16 as it is online at Wattpad, where it remains free.

In other Wattpad news, the site is currently hosting two contests. “Share your Yes moment,” cohosted with HarperCollins, is the call for the Yes Please by Amy Poehler Writing Contest. They want to hear about a moment when your life changed because of saying yes. The Yes Please prize pack includes a tweet shout-out from Amy’s Smart Girls. And, to celebrate Margaret Atwood’s Stone Mattress, fans are asked to write a piece of fanfiction inspired by her Freeze-Dried Groom on Wattpad. Atwood will choose and recognize the winning story.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment

Goodreads reviewer Ari Bookzilla pointed out similarities between Shey Stahl’s For the Summer and a work of Twilight fan fiction.  The book has many scenes, lines and phrases that can be found in Dusty, a fan fiction written by authors YellowBella and TeamBella23.

For the Summer is no longer listed on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but GalleyCat obtained a copy of the book. We confirmed the similarities mentioned in the Goodreads review.

We contacted Stahl and she responded with this comment: “I’m sorry you feel there are similarities but I have not read the fan fiction in question.” The author defended her work on Facebook last night, but the post is no longer public.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment

Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings have landed a “substantial” book deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery imprint for Beautiful Bastard–a repurposed version of the fan fiction hit, The Office.

The book will be released in February, published under the pen name, Christina Lauren. Hobbs and Billings (pictured) share a blog called Swoontini. The pair are represented by Holly Root from the Waxman Leavell Literary Agency.

The Hollywood Reporter had the scoop: “The Office, which reimagined the Edward Cullen-Bella Swan relationship as a steamy love/hate romance between a boss and his assistant, was one of the pioneers of the Twilight fanfic genre, generating more than two million downloads, before being taken offline by the author in 2009.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment

The great fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore fielded questions in a popular “I am a” interview on Reddit, answering the question facing many popular novelists: “What is your position on fan fiction?” The novelist replied:

I am supposed to tell you that it’s evil and wretched and destroys anything and everything I’ve ever tried to accomplish. Truth is, this is supposed to be fun and entertaining, and when I hear about fan fiction using my characters, or when I see variations of my characters running around in an MMO, I think it’s the coolest thing ever. Truly flattering. Now, I can’t read the fan fiction, for obvious reasons, nor can I consider it “canon,” but I’m still flattered.

Salvatore is the author of The Crystal Shard, The Dark Elf Trilogy, The Hunter’s Blades Trilogy and many other sprawling fantasy novels. His work has spawned countless stories written by fans and an entire Lavender Eyes site dedicated to his fan fiction.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment

So I'm reading Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star.  It's not the most brilliant piece of literature in fact, I wouldn't even call it mediocre.  But there is something about this story that brings me back to my days of writing Jane Austen fan fiction (in 1997 through 2000).  We all fell in love with A&E/WGBH's Pride & Prejudice starring Colin Firth as Darcy (who I thought was horribly miscast prior to seeing it) and a very unknown American actress Jennifer Ehle (She was born in North Carolina and grew up in England).

Now I'm not going to say that my stories were very good, in fact, when I reread them now I cringe.  But I would never, ever try to get one published.  I wrote it for fun and it was posted on a webpage for Austen addicts.  There were plenty of writers who were so much better than I was (Cheryl K., Genette, Annie, Lise, Spring, Ann2,).  I had fun and it was fun getting comments to correspond with the chapter that was posted.  Oh, nothing was edited or beta'd and usually I would throw something in that was totally unbelievable.  Like when I beheaded Elizabeth and Darcy's daughter, Kimberley.  In.a.horrifying.car.crash!

But as I read Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star.  I wonder what prompted this author to publish this?  Did she ever show up on Pemberley.com or Austen.com.  Did she write it on there first?  The copy I'm reading is a horrible e-copy that is filled with errors, but like a bad train wreck, I cannot stop reading it.  It's cheesy, it's horribly edited and everyone is horny!  I remember at one point during the fan fiction days, people were writing about Darcy slamming down brandy after brandy.  Really?  Who can slam those down? Or people would paint Darcy as Shy.  Darcy. Is. Not. Shy!  He is haughty, perhaps a bit conceited, but shy is not his problem.

People want to see their favorite characters have sex.  Darcy and Elizabeth must have some crazy sex!  Jane and Charles must have some crazy sex! and Caroline must be all alone in her corner wearing some version of orange!  Really?   Do we really need to be jaded when it comes to Austen's writings?  Is Darcy a virgin? He's  28 years old when we meet him.  We know that Lydia gets some action (the slut!).  How much does Austen imply and how much do we ingest and runaway with our fantasies?  Andrew Davies (wrote the screenplay) made Darcy a sexual being whereas Austen didn't really.  We get his wit and wisdom when he verbally spars with Elizabeth at Netherfield during Jane's illness (HUGE plot device).  When Darcy first enters the story, he insults Elizabeth, not realizing that she has overheard and can laugh at it.  Elizabeth is never described as a great beauty,

Display Comments Add a Comment

The Amanda Project (goes live. The interactive mystery series invites creative teens to get involved online before the first book's release this fall.  Plus the ins and outs of fanfiction on SLJ. Also a Facebook group rallies for a library-themed... Read the rest of this post

Add a Comment

Matt Miller, who appears in my forthcoming novel, Mamba Point is a big fan (like I was when I was his age, and still am) of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Unlike me, Matt has even written fan fiction — namely, a short novel set in Burroughs’ world of Pellucidar, the primitive world on the inside of [...]

Add a Comment

Lauren, Publicity Assistant

We were thrilled when Brave New Words won the Hugo Award. And we were overwhelmed with excitement when Jeff Prucher, freelance lexicographer and editor for the Oxford English Dictionary’s science fiction project, revisited the blog with his picks of words that may seem to come from science, but really originate in science fiction. Now that Brave New Words is available in paperback, we’ve asked Jeff to write for us yet again. Below are his picks of mainstream words with fannish pedigrees, as coined by science fiction and fantasy fans.

Previously, I discussed words coined in works of science fiction that one might think came from the sciences instead. This time, I’m going to look at words coined by science fiction (and fantasy) fans which have entered the broader lexicon. Specifically, these are terms that are part of what is sometimes called fanspeak, the lingo of science fiction and fantasy fandom. This is probably not an exhaustive list, since definitions of what constitutes fanspeak, and what “entering the broader lexicon” actually means are open to different interpretations. I present these in no particular order:

1. Fanzine. This is one of the most successful terms coined by SF fans, and has gone from referring specifically to amateur periodicals relating (however vaguely) to science fiction and fantasy, to periodicals for fans of just about anything you care to name. The term has been around since at least 1940 in SF fandom, and since at least the 1960s in general use. (The earliest clear citation I’ve found for a non-SF usage is from 1968, which is almost certainly too late.)

2. Fanmag. This is another (of many) term that SF fans used to describe fanzines. It’s less common (I haven’t seen it in any mainstream dictionaries), but has also been used for non-SF zines.

3. Which leads me to zine, the other big success story. Zine was originally just a synonym of fanzine, but sometime in the late Twentieth Century, it was adopted to describe amateur publications of all sorts, not just those limited to one fandom or another, and an entire subculture has grown up around the publication of these zines. Zine can also be used as a suffix, to denote a particular type of zine (such as newszine, a zine that publishes primarily news, or mimeozine, a zine that is produced with a mimeograph machine). SF fans used the suffix profligately, and most coinages have stayed within fanspeak, but a few of the -zine words have seeped into wider zine culture as well, notably perzine (short for personalzine, a zine published by a single person, and often containing personal, journal-like content) and crudzine (a cruddy zine).

4. Completism. The desire to possess all of a set of something. Someone afflicted with completism is a completist. These originally referred primarily to the collection of books and magazines (which is pretty much what there was available to collect in the early days of SF fandom), and is now applied to comics, music, you name it.

5. -con. Another suffix. This shows up in the names of conventions and conferences. In use in SF fandom since at least 1942, this spread to related fandoms such as comics and role-playing games, and is now reasonably common in the names of other types of conventions, particularly computer and tech-related ones.

6. ish. An issue (of a magazine or fanzine). My own family has used this shortening for years, and we were completely oblivious to the existence of SF fandom when I was growing up, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this has an SFnal origin. What hasn’t made it into the broader lexicon is the use of ish as a combining form, in words like nextish, lastish, even thish (the next, last, and current issues of a magazine or fanzine, respectively).

7. fan fiction. Most people outside of the fanfic community probably think (if they think about it at all) that fan fiction is the exclusive domain of SF and fantasy fans. While this was once true, it’s certainly not true any more, and both the name and some of the associated terminology of fan fiction originated in SF fandom. Some of these associated terms are slash (fiction that depicts a sexual relationship between two characters) and Mary Sue (a character that acts out a blatant wish-fulfillment of the author or a story featuring such a character), both of which originated in Star Trek fandom. Curiously, fan fiction was originally used to refer to amateur fiction written about fans themselves, rather than amateur fiction written using the characters or settings of an existing work.

8. sci-fi. This is probably the most contentious word in the fannish vocabulary. It was coined as a simple shortening of science fiction by Forrest J Ackerman, by analogy to hi-fi, and originally had no particular connotations. The term eventually came to be viewed with opprobrium by many fans, however, probably in large part due to its perceived overuse by outsiders, especially the mainstream media. It can sometimes serve as a shibboleth, as well, and in some contexts will identify the user as an outsider. (Despite this, many fans have always happily used the term sci-fi; as I said, it’s contentious.) The term has also undergone reanalysis in the SF community, and can now be used to refer specifically to bad SF (especially movies and television shows); in this sense it is usually pronounced “skiffy.”

Add a Comment

What happens when you release a straight-to-video movie with the same premise as a giant blockbuster, releasing your "mockbuster" the same day as the film you imitate? Is it plagiarism? Or is it fan fiction?

I vote fan fiction. For years I've been following the work of amateur writers inspired by the characters in popular stories, from Silence of the Lambs to Dr. Who to Harry Potter. These fan-based writing groups have formed some of the best online communities for writers.

Today, Steve Bryant alerts us a new breed of knock-off film, the tie-in videos that ride a wave of popular attention for a specific kind of story. It's fan fiction meets B-movie meets do-it-yourself video storytelling. I love it:

"I find these knock-offs completely riveting, like alternate versions of reality wondrously full of cheese-laden actors. Check out the trailer at Slashfilm. Also check out this article in the NYTimes about the "mockbusters" genre of films, including Transmorphers and The Da Vinci Treasure."

For the last ten years, The Asylum has dominated this field of tie-in creations, letting struggling directors find a strange, dedicated audience. What do you think about this crazy sub-sub genre?

Add a Comment

When does fan fiction stop being fan fiction? When you put Harry Potter on a dinosaur and start making money.

The Young Family Site just printed excerpts from pirated, invented Harry Potter books published in Mandarin (the picture comes straight from one copy). A few industrious writers wanted to make a few bucks selling fake installments of the Harry Potter adventures in China.

The results mish-mash Harry Potter and hobbits, a confusing mix that probably merits a PhD thesis for some English major. The link comes via Edward Champion, who found it on The Dizzies, a fun site I always forget to mention.

I'm mentioning it today, as Ed Park just published a whole slew of poetry month resources. No matter what kind of writer you are, poetry will show you how to be a better writer--it's pure, undiluted writing.

Dig it: 

"Check out FSG's National Poetry Month site, and of course the stuff brewing over at the PoFo (where I blog when I get a chance—some of it overlaps with Dizzies stuff, but not much)..and Jordan Davis's Equanimity...and Joshua Clover...and Cathy Park Hong..."

 

Add a Comment

Are you ready for fan fiction screenwriters? 

Jazzed about Youtube, the Sci-Fi channel created the Battlestar Galactica videomaker. The website offers free downloads of crucial B-roll material from the hit television show: establishing shots of space stations, enemy bases, and robot armies.

They mix in few seconds of killer space-ship fights as well, giving your average fan a couple million dollars' worth of special effects. You can do the rest, mixing in your actors, your dialogue, and your story into the film. All it takes is a copy of iMovie or some other free editing software.

I love it. Steve Bryant is unimpressed. But seriously, think about the possibilities for fan writers if more television shows released simple video kits like this--a talented fan could have produced a script on par with the most recent Star Wars. They just need the tools... 

How would you tell your story? Check it out:

"Here are dozens of visual, sound and music clips — use them to add impact to the video you shoot. Come back often, because we'll be adding more. The only bit you are required to download and include in your video is our ending clip, which promotes Battlestar Galactica itself."

 

Add a Comment

People have been arguing about fan fiction all week. 

Every once in awhile, I publish interviews and news about fan fiction writers. I love these little handmade, obsessive communities that spring up around popular stories.

You can keep track of the genre in our fan fiction archive. The Publishing Spot was built for fledgling writers--from every Harry Potter fan writer to novelists aspiring to write more like Vikram Chandra. 

With that in mind, here are my two favorite voices in the fan fiction rumble this week. Cathy Young opened the debate with her essay in Reason magazine, where she concluded:

"The mainstreaming of fan fiction is likely to raise standards further, bringing more educated people into the arena and perhaps encouraging some voluntary gatekeeping, such as contests with input from professional writers or editors. This is already beginning to happen: FanLib, a “social media” company, has been co-sponsoring online writing contests with Showtime and HarperCollins."

Then Ed Champion wrote this funny mock history of the whole debate, you can read an excerpt after the jump. Continue reading...

 

Add a Comment

Fan fiction and regular fiction have the strangest relationship.

Sarah Weinman linked to a Telegraph article speculating that novelist Thomas Harris may have been influenced by his legions of fan fiction writers. For years, fan fiction authors have written about the serial killer character Hannibal Lector, writing stories about his childhood, his life outside of prison, and other fan fiction fascinations.

In a way, Harris' new book, Hannibal Rising, imitates fan fiction--filling in the mysterious blanks in the book, probing the gloomy areas that made his character so evocative and mysterious in the first place. 

According to the story, Harris avoids interviews and interaction with his fans, a move that fuels fan fiction writers to try and enter the mysterious mind of their favorite writer. Check out the Telegraph article. It's a lesson about writing, fan communities, and how they work together...

"Does Thomas Harris read 'his' fanfic? Who knows. It may be that Happy Bee just struck lucky and came up with an eerily similar overture. Strange, though...Notoriously, Harris avoids direct contact with his army of admirers and would rather eat his own brain, sautéed, than give promotional interviews. Like Lecter, he is always masked. But, like Lecter again, he plays cat and mouse with those who want feedback from him."

Add a Comment