Friends Only!

[snarry_fan7]

Due to the recent events on LJ, I have decided to make my journal friends only. As long as you don't seem to be a troll or a stalker I have no problem friending anyone. Just leave a comment here and I'll get to it as soon as possible. It's not necessary to leave your age or birth date, if you want to I won't stop you though.

I had a Friends Only pic up, but I'm sick of seeing the PhotoBucket crap plastered over it, so I took it down. I wish DW would let us directly upload a photo on a post.

Comments

[paulamcg]

That WIP of yours sounds fascinating and challenging. It must be a lot more interesting both for you and for readers to make it canon-divergent in this way, instead of just retelling the book from another perspective. I wonder if it’s first-four-books-compliant. And if the reader should know the video game and the other book series – and I’m guessing no, as you say it’s not a crossover. Draco/Ron sounds intriguing, too. What amuses me is that there’s something your work and mine share in the opening: in my chapter one Remus comes to rescue Harry from the Dursleys’! (I had actually imagined something like those first scenes when looking forward to OotP being published.)

But no, Paula is not my real name. I chose the username when joining my first fandom home, The Snitch Forums (a month before someone asked me to read and review a fic and I decided to start writing mine). Paula refers to Paul Simon and to another Paul, another “favourite poet” of mine, an American guy I’d met briefly and stayed romantically in love with for a few years in my twenties. McG is from McGonagall, because like her I was “not exactly young”. (Funny, though, I’ve never written about Minerva although I like reading about her.) I suppose the age difference between me and some of my fellow writers and other readers must have been even greater than I thought! I did enjoy mutual reviewing also because it was wonderful to encourage young people to write, offering my concrit gently – while I could always learn a lot from them, too. English is not my mother tongue, and although I never lied about that, I didn’t (and still don’t) offer that fact publicly as I was afraid people wouldn’t give my fic a chance or would claim it was just good enough for a non-native speaker.

I wish PaulaMcG were known by now as a good writer. But I can’t expect that, as I went on hiatus for so many years. And I never had a big readership – because of the contents and the style of my stories, I guess. Most of the friends I made before 2010 have probably left fandom, or at least HP fandom. Some moved from LJ to IJ and here – and it looks like some who went to Tumblr want to become more active here now. I’d love more LJ type interaction on DW and sharing and dicussing our fanworks here (even though it’s great to have AO3 as the archive). Since the beginning of the year I’ve enjoyed discussion both on my DW and on other people’s journals, but on my journal people seem to be interested only in other than fic posts.

[snarry_fan7]

I hope readers will like it should I ever get around to actually posting it. That requires working on it though, and that happens very sporadically for me, even isolating as I am. It will be compliant with the first four books. Readers won't need to know the video game as I explain how the weapons work through the story (through the training) and I also plan to have some author's notes providing some more details, but I want to make things clear in the fic so I don't have to do some long exposition separate from the story itself (not the mark of a good author if they have to further explain something rather than telling it in the story itself). The difficulty comes in making some aspects work in the HP world, but so far it's not going too badly since what I'm creating is something that wouldn't be out in the open in the HP world anyway. It's no different than earlier stories creating their own aspects of magic in that universe.

Ah, I see. I for one can't tell that English isn't your native language. It's fairly common on AO3 now for authors to indicate if English is or isn't their native language when they post a fic in English. Sometimes it's easy to tell and sometimes it's just as fluent (or even more so) than a native speaker's English.

I'm not well known either considering that very little of what I've written is up on AO3 and that's not likely to change any time soon. I was reasonably well known in the Snarry community because of how prolific a reader I was. One year I read and commented on every single fic and art posted in one of the Snarry Games fests and I got an icon to indicate that, lol. That set a precedent for the next fest, but I didn't comment on every fic that time and I didn't even read them all since some fics had premises and plots that didn't appeal to me (I'd give it a go and then stop). As it is with fandoms now, I'm not at all well known. Fandoms have, in my opinion, gotten larger thanks to the internet and because of how fanfic has become almost mainstream. It's not uncommon for actors and such to get asked questions about it and/or shown fanart, and most are good sports about it. In the early 2000s even with the Internet making things easier, fanfic and fandom in general were not something openly talked about.

[paulamcg]

not the mark of a good author if they have to further explain something rather than telling it in the story itself Exactly! And I believe you’ll manage to show how those elements from other “canons” work, just in the way we can show how our own extrapolations of HP magic (like my Magic of Images or the wandless magic my Remus refers to in the fics you’ve read) work.

I’m glad the language in the fics by me you’ve read didn’t seem to you to be “not my language”. I wonder why writers want to make such statements. I reveal my native language in comment threads like this or in private messages only rarely and only to people who’ve already read some fic by me. I guess not even the beta I’ve had since last year knows. I don’t know about fluency, but I’ve sometimes noticed that people with other mother tongues follow rules of grammar even more correctly than native speakers.

Oh, such prolific, active readers are a treasure and deserve praise! I was nominated for the Kindest Reader (while Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures was nominated for the Best Multi-Chapter story) at the Deathly Hallows Awards in 2010, but I never read very much (no high-rated fics), and it was rather that I posted detailed comments.

That’s an interesting point about fandoms having become mainstream. At the same time, for instance on a current friending meme on DW, HP looks almost like a niche. The HP fandom as a whole must be huge and evolving on different platforms, but I’d like to belong to a group of HP writers in a cosy corner, such as some LJ communities used to be.

[snarry_fan7]

Yeah, learning a language means that the person focuses more on getting things correct grammatically than a native speaker. My MA is in Linguistics, albeit it's been many years since I last studied it or put it to good use. It's definitely different learning a language as an adult or older child in a classroom or other formal setting (including learning on one's own through books and/or an app like Duolingo) as compared to acquiring it as a child as one grows up and learns to speak. Acquisition vs learning. Writing, for example, is technically its own language. It's something that's learned and in linguistics it's separate from the spoken, actual language; letters being pronounced differently than one would expect, or not pronounced at all in some cases (look at French for that, lol). English is an appalling language to have to learn as a second (or third, or fourth) language, but that's thanks to the Norman invasion in 1066. English has characteristics of German and French because of that. There are also arbitrary rules that are applied. I'm not sure if you learned about how you don't split an infinitive (to quickly run is a split infinitive vs to run quickly, which is not split) and you were probably taught not to end sentences with a preposition. Those were all arbitrarily decided because in the 1600s and 1700s (and 1800s to be honest) academics wanted English to be more like Latin. Except that English is not at all like Latin. In Latin the infinitive is one word so it cannot be split and prepositional phrases involve cases like many other languages and have to be in a certain order with the preposition at the start of the phrase. None of this actually applies to English at all. A sentence, phrase, or word is considered grammatical if it is understood by native speakers and is acceptable, even if perhaps uncommon or unconventional; that brings in the whole deal with dialects and that's another complicated area on its own, lol. Sorry to go on about linguistics and languages, but it's an area I still find interesting even if I don't apply it anymore.

I think the deal with the HP fandom is that it's a decreasing fandom. Deathly Hallows was published in 2007 and the movies finished not terribly long after that. New entertainment (books, movies, etc) is coming out all the time, so people find new interests; not everyone, but a good many do. Unless you count the Fantastic Beasts movies (which I don't) and that terrible Cursed Child thing (which I obviously ignore too), there's been no new material since 07. JKR keeps trying to keep relevant and popular and I just can't deal with her anymore. She makes up all this random stuff she could have worked into the books even subtly, but she didn't, so she just interjects online about various characters. I ignore all that. She's had some other views that I don't agree with and made some other comments (she's transphobic and she's not too subtle about how much she favors Gryffindors and doesn't seem to like her Slytherin characters). That's plenty of time for a fandom to shrink down. I accept that it's had its heyday already. Evolving technology and the Internet has something to do with it as well.

[paulamcg]

What you say about forced rules is interesting and this view of the issue is partly new to me. I was fortunate to start learning English when I was nine, and to never find its grammar or spelling appallingly difficult. I didn’t learn like children now from videos, but from teachers who were not very good at pronunciation, I learnt to read and write English years before I had opportunities to use it in real conversations. I was taught rules like those you describe but also introduced to different texts, also some that were closer to spoken language.

At the beginning of my fanfic writing I got some feedback about the formality in my style, and it was a challenge to make my dialogue more natural. Someone said that native speakers use such “shortcuts” that I didn’t. Having been a lawyer, I’m somehow fond a rules. But I also love twisting or transcending them and just following the spirit of them. And I like how you word it: considered grammatical if it is understood by native speakers and is acceptable, even if perhaps uncommon or unconventional. I guess I’ve gradually developed my fiction voice, and I’m glad if there’s something unconventional about my word order and sentence fragments, but I also avoid poetic tricks and hope that my language sounds natural, my characters real.

I always forget DH was published as early as three years before I completed my post-OotP novel! I’ve read CC (in English and in Finnish, because as a HP – albeit only my HP fanfic – enthusiast I felt I needed to complete my collection and bought the books) and FB (funnily only in Finnish, because I happened to attend an event where the translator signed the books with dedications – and I asked it to be to PaulaMcG), but obviously I don’t count them. As I don’t count anything after OotP – or anything outside the novels! I’ve always ignored everything Rowling’s said outside the story, and just found it sad that not everyone does. What do we need these statements for? “Remus’s middle name was John – boring but true.” On the basis of the letter J on his briefcase I’d written about how his parents tried their best to negotiate about the beast name that was required by the Werewolf Registry. Yes, in my universe there are no Mr and Mrs Lupin. In a way I’m happy that Rowling’s come out more openly about her unacceptable views, so that more HP fanfic fans are now in the Death of the Author camp.

I must understand that people who are not hopelessly obsessed with HP and want entertainment find new canons to enjoy, TV shows which they can consume weekly or daily. I’ve really been startled to see in fandom phrases like “the media I’ve consumed this week”. I just don’t do that. Maybe I sound like a snob, but in the depths of this thread I can say that my attitude has always been different. Even when I only read literature, I never thought that I was a consumer. (I also got most of the books I read from the library). I’ve thought that I’m a recipient of art – and since 2003 an active recipient who writes and shares, making a small contribution to literature in its open, free-of-charge form. Now we talk about how the evolving technology and the internet have made it possible for everyone to “create content” (and that’s part of the media education I should offer to my special needs kids, too, at work), but I should understand that not everyone can or wants to be an artist.

I still want to be optimistic about the HP fandom. When it’s shrunk enough, perhaps the rest of us can share our art in a supportive, creative community.

[snarry_fan7]

I sound much more formal in my writing than I do when speaking, but I also don't carry that much of an accent compared to others where I live. I live in the Southeastern US, but I don't sound particularly Southern. It's more the neutral mid-Western accent you hear often in the news. I have some dialectal quirks, but the accent isn't really there. Now, that said, I can consciously do what we call code-switching, which is when a speaker adjusts their language (dialect, accent, etc) to match those around them. It depends on my environment and who is around me for me to do that. You learning English young like that, even though not really speaking it, is a bonus. When learning a language, the grammar is the easiest part for me to understand and learn. I love grammar; well, syntax as it's called in linguistics. I have trouble with vocabulary and it's my major weakness when studying a language.

I'm definitely in the Death of the Author camp, but I think it also depends on the author. I do take the approach that the author put their work out there, so it's open to interpretation however the readers want. If the author doesn't want something interpreted at will, then they need to be specific with the details in order to have something or someone viewed in a certain way.

I know a few people who stay in one fandom and even just one pairing in that fandom. They might read other things and watch other things, but the only fandom they participate in or read in is that one particular fandom. I'm more of a fandom butterfly. I can get burned out easily even with a fandom, if I do too much too fast or get obsessed. I find I have to take a step back and find something else to do for a bit. I got really, really into Torchwood (BBC show connected with Doctor Who), but I went really hard into it and now I'm basically burned out and I rarely read in that fandom anymore. Same with Teen Wolf (US TV show), but with that one I have favorites I revisit regularly rather than staying away from it like Torchwood. Then there are books and shows and such that I really love, but they have little-to-no fics or anything like that or there isn't content that's to my tastes, so I just have to make do with what I have. I'm used to being in dead/dying fandoms, so if HP goes that way I won't be too bothered by it.

[paulamcg]

My mother’s been a code-switcher, like you, as long as I can remember! She got to western Finland as a child when (pre-war) Finnish Karelia was evacuated, and we moved close to the (new) south-eastern border when I was four. Always soon after she answered the phone I heard in her dialect whether the call was from a neighbour or my father’s family in the west. And I learned to speak more formally, because I felt insecure about the dialects. Also because I had a big sister who spoke on my behalf, I started speaking (to people outside the family) late – more comfortably only in my twenties, and I could almost say that I learnt to read and write before learning to speak.

Now that you’ve made me ponder this I realise, for the first time, that perhaps this background of how I learnt to use my mother tongue has affected the way I learn foreign languages. Like for you, grammar has always been the easiest part for me. But my major weakness is in pronunciation. I became fully aware of some sounds in English only when learning and also staring to teach Modern Greek (when I was twenty-seven). Polish pronunciation is a huge challenge for me. Learning vocabulary has not been that hard for me, because I’ve had an excellent memory of texts I’ve read. Just when studying Polish around ten years ago, I felt that remembering separate words had got harder when I’d aged – whereas the other members of my theatre troupe are surprised how quickly I learn and never forget my lines.

Yes, I’m definitely in that camp – all for the readers’ right for interpretation and extrapolation.

I do watch some things (recently Money Heist, The Witcher, Mindhunter) but only with one of my sons, who needs that sharing. And of course I read other things, all the time. But I never feel like making fanworks on the basis of anything else than HP. I trust the HP fandom won’t die – and I believe it will outlive me.

[snarry_fan7]

That's interesting about your mother and her code-switching.

Pronunciation is pretty easy for me. I'm very good at learning pronunciations. Part of that is I'm good at repeating what I've heard even if I don't know how it's written. I can sing along in a number of languages with no problem once I've listened to the song enough times. It's more difficult if I'm looking at lyrics in the original language while singing. Polish and French are notorious for that problem. Polish is overly fond of consonants and French can't seem to leave vowels alone and then you don't pronounce most of them and some consonants too.

One funny thing I always think of when I see or say "suitable" is my comparatively literature professor I had while studying abroad in Sicily. She taught us in English, but naturally she was Italian. She would pronounce "suitable" like it was "suite + able", so "sweetable". I think about that every single time I encounter "suitable". Another issue of English right there; too many words being spelled the same or almost the same and then pronounced differently.

With my fics, HP ones are always long WIPs that I'm not likely to finish. The shorter ones I've posted are in different fandoms, because it's easier to keep them pretty short.

[paulamcg]

It must be wonderful to learn pronunciation in the way you do! I remember how I seemed to simply refuse to remember even what “thank you” is in Arabic before I had learnt how to write and read it in Arabic letters.

Now I realise that when thinking about a word, I somehow see it in my mind in the way it’s spelled. On the other hand, I read very slowly, and my inability to learn a quick, glancing technique in reading can be explained by the fact that I’ve had very weak sight in my right eye, which is now completely blind. I always read as if I were reading aloud in my mind. I’ve thought that this is perhaps a weakness which I’ve turned into a strength. I’ve read carefully and learnt (by heart) what’s been required at schools, and I choose my words and edit my texts carefully, listening to the sound of the words (with faulty pronunciation at times, for sure :)) in my mind.

I could definitely not make podfics of my own stories or I’d ruin them. It’s sad, because I love reading them, also truly aloud to myself when there’s no one else to hear.

It’s comforting that not all comparative literature professors have impeccable pronunciation! I (and people in general, too) used to think we should learn to sound like native speakers of English. With the globalisation it’s become more acceptable that not only formula drivers (some of the internationally most famous Finns) but also professionals in international business speak English with their own accents (and my highly successful friend in a high position in Human Resources in an international company makes – in my view – awful grammar mistakes, but it’s all right as his English is easy to understand), and the Finnish accent is perhaps not the most incomprehensible, at least not if we remember to sometimes stress other syllables than the first one. But I’d like my fiction to be read in beautiful British English.

I wonder what there is about HP that makes you write long fics when you can write short ones in other fandoms. After all, I keep writing a single terribly long story, even though I’ve succeeded in turning the rest of it into manageable short stories.

[snarry_fan7]

I wouldn't say wonderful. It's just how I can do it.

Ah, how you've explained how you read also explains how you learn languages. I am a very fast reader. I don't see individual words. I see the sentence or even paragraph as a whole. When it comes to anything relaying a story or event, whether fiction or non-fiction, I have a sort of visual movie in my head giving me an actual image of what's going on or what has happened (if an historical event).

I don't like hearing myself talk, so I would never make podfics of any of my own stories and probably wouldn't make podfics or audiobooks in general because of that.

I don't know what it is about the HP world that makes me write that like. I've managed a few very short ones, basically drabbles and double drabbles, or something no longer than about 1,000 words, but it's very rare and those aren't things I'd put on AO3 or anywhere. With the HP world, I guess I feel the need to provide more explanations of my interpretations of that world, whether it's the characters, environment/surroundings, or magic. Other fandoms make it a little easier. If I were to write Lord of the Rings fic I think I would face a similar problem owing to the complexity and detail of Middle Earth.

[paulamcg]

Since I’ve shared fic on AO3 and fic-related posts on my DW, it’s taken me a while to get back here. Thank you for still replying!

Now I can’t resist quoting… Ah, how you've explained how you read also explains how what you had to say after reading a couple of my short stories was just that my Remus is okay! I wish there were readers who read – even listened – to every word I’ve carefully chosen, but I guess I’m an anomaly with my writing.

Yes, I agree that the complexity of the worlds must be a reason why people end up writing long fic in HP and LotR. When I started (right after OotP came out), I thought that fanfic was about writing a chaptered story like Rowling’s, because others on the forum posted about the beginning of Harry’s sixth year. I just chose an adult’s perspective and ended up not covering a school year but expanding the world and going deeper, so that the story turned into a novel.

Only after six months or so did I write my first short story, and it was redoing a scene of my novel from another perspective. After that it’s been easier to feel motivated to and succeed in writing sharable drabbles and short stories of any length (from 500 to 20 000 words). I enjoy the challenge of making each of them work separately – some of them even separately from the canon, like the two drabbles I reposted the other day on my DW, too – while adding something meaningful to the whole big story and including references to various parts of it.

[snarry_fan7]

That method of doing shorter stories as small scenes from a different perspective can work well. I haven't tried that, but it's something I might do at a later date. Stay at home orders aren't actually conducive to me doing much writing at all since I'm currently staying with my parents and there are too many distractions around me; no real privacy since my original bedroom is being redone/fixed up and there aren't any good places for privacy as a result.