About Dreaming

One Fan Fic Writers Tale of learning….

I had been told all my young life that the English language was something I wasn’t good with, (Basically I’m Dyslexic as heck, went through all of school and half of collage failing English and just thinking I was an idiot with the written language. This was well before the days when they would screen for this kind of thing.) As such writing was something I never even imagined I could do so I instead focused on the visual arts and found success there.

It wasn’t until my twenties when I learned about Dyslexia and how it had been the reason for all my difficulties with my written language skills and more important how it was also the reason my brain worked so well visually.

I have always had stories in my head, so instead of writing them I would just close my eyes and imagine them playing out as if I was watching them. (this is probably why my style leans heavily to the visual.)

It wasn’t till later in my 30s when rudimentary spelling and grammar check became readily available that I just thought to myself why the hell don’t I at least journal these stories before I forget them? Even If I was going to be the only one to read them, I had to try. So began to write down some of my ideas and found that I had a blast ‘painting with words’. The vignettes I started writing just for myself were a mix of many things. My love of fantasy, space, magic, monsters, duty over self, and improper yet true love…

It wasn’t long into my writings when I realized, these themes were so much like that cartoon show I used to watch as a kid that I could never forget…. That show was of course Voltron! Ha, bet you saw that coming. That realization sent me on a nostalgic internet search to see if I could find those old Voltron episodes I so much loved as a kid. In that search for all things Voltron I stumbled into a whole new world I never knew existed, the world of amateur Fan Fiction and Fan Art!

I was instantly hooked and I devoured it all. Firstly just because it confirmed, not so much that I wasn’t a nostalgic fool for LOVING this show, but that there were others out there as crazy as me! *hugs KAEX*

I eventually got up the courage to try and write a little Fan Fic myself. (Staring some guy in a red jumpsuit and white boots, what was his name again?) The Suitors was born, and to my surprise and bewilderment it was well received in the fandom.

While my fics tend to be very visual they are mostly character driven, and often times I have little control over what those characters choose to do. I spend the majority of my time in character development, coming up with extremely detailed character backgrounds that may or may not appear in the fiction but are the guiding map to how that character will behave. I then put those characters into the situations that the overall plot is taking them and let them react all on their own, often times the words they say even surprising me and taking me in a direction that I hadn’t planned. (Lance is my absolute favorite character for this freeform roll play style of writing, he really does have a mind and voice all his own.)

To anyone on the fence about sitting down and writing your own fic all I can say is just jump in and try it and don’t let anyone, most of all yourself, tell you you can’t write!

Yes, in sharing your words with the world you will get critics and that’s okay, so long as you take those words as they were most likely intended, as motivation and advice on how to get better. If someone cares enough to give you an honest heartfelt critique it means they believe in you and think you can get better. You should believe that in yourself too. :)

For those who criticize just to be rude, and yes, you will get them from time to time, Fug-em. For someone to belittle another just for sharing their words as fan and an amateur writer just shows a misunderstanding of the core of what the whole FanFiction genre is about. Writing Fan Fiction is not about being good writer, it is really about sharing of our communal love of a fictitious world. Sure we all aspire to be good at what we are trying to do, but that shouldn’t be the core motivation.

I personally will always have to battle my own English language demons on a daily basis, and putting words to page will always be a difficult and very time consuming struggle. But I choose to slog on through it as a personal challenge and I aspire to slowly get better and better.

Oh and I want to send out a special F-YOU to all my English teachers in my life who told me, ‘you can’t write’. Pffffffffffffffttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt to you! :D