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alias_sqbrSomething I've been poking at lately is the fact I genuinely don't seem to enjoy writing original prose fiction, even though I enjoy creating fanfic, original visual novels, visual novel adaptations, and original art (and fanart). I definitely don't think it's lacking as an artform! It just doesn't fit my brain so well to make it. And I guess to some extent I also am less drawn to it as a consumer of fiction? That's harder to untangle and not so much the point of this post but I'm going to ponder it later.
For a long time I thought it was just that I wasn't practised or talented enough at writing original prose fiction, since it's so often treated as the Pinnacle Of Writing compared to fanfic and games writing etc. And being a novel author was my dream as in my youth so I really liked to think I had it in me. So I forced myself to practice and created some adequate short fiction. And I eventually realised that while, yes, I am also lacking in skill, the main problem is that I don't like doing it. It doesn't inspire me as much, and I am consistently less happy after creating it even compared to games/fanfic/visual art etc I've made of similar quality, with the very occasional exception when a short story idea takes me over (which has happened like... twice in the past 30 years)
There is a difference between creative stuff I dislike doing just because I am bad at it, and creative stuff that genuinely doesn't suit me as a creator, and prose fiction is in the latter category. Short autobiographical comics are closer to the first category, I spend a lot of time imagining comics and then going "cool idea, too much effort to draw" but much less time imagining original prose stories and going "too hard to write", though that does happen from time to time. Since I got into writing games that's become the default medium for my original story ideas, most of which definitely fall in the "cool idea but too much effort" category.
Ha, thinking about whether I like writing short autobiographical prose I realise that's just... a dreamwidth entry. So sure, haha. I also enjoy some other forms of non-fiction writing, but have not felt drawn to make non-fiction games, though I do sometimes feel like there's a thread to pull there if I can figure out the right angle.
I have the same not-fitting-my-brain problem with non-visual interactive fiction like IF, and kinetic visual novels (visual novels with no choices). I don't generally enjoy playing them or making them, though there are exceptions.
I've always liked comics, but I didn't really fall in love with them until highschool when I encountered genuinely well written artsy alternative comics aimed at adults. I was super into them all the way through my adulthood but in recent years have been more into narrative games. I find making comics quite difficult, but I slowly brute forced my way to middling competency by my twenties and even wrote an original webcomic for a while. But once I figured out how make games my interest in making comics largely fell to the wayside, since I find games both easier and more creatively inspiring. Part of me feels sad I don't click with comics as much as I used to, but thinking of it as having found media types I enjoy more makes it sting a little less, and I still enjoy them a lot sometimes.
I also of course read (past and present tense) novels and short stories. I don't click with short stories as much as novels, generally, and used to think that was why I had so much trouble writing, that I would have to struggle through writing short stories (a type of writing I don't click with) to gain the general writing ability to create novels (a type of writing I do)
I loved the idea of narrative games ever since I first encountered it as a child in the 80s, but the actual examples I encountered were usually sorts that, in hindsight, aren't my thing. I tried creating it intermittently anyway, with limited success until I gained access to visual novel software in my 30s.
The epiphany that woke me up at 3am to start writing the first draft of this post:
When I was a kid I wanted to be an author of children's books, and then as I got older I realised I don't like children's fiction as an adult, to read or to write. I've always put that down to child!me overestimating the appeal of children's books to adults (or at least adult!me, who in my defence I had not met yet) But when I was a 10-12 year old with this ambition, I was reading novels, yet the kind of books I primarily imagined myself making were picture books aimed at younger children. And it just occurred to me: those have pictures. They're easier for me to make than comics, and compared to the kinds of comics I encountered as a child in the 1980s/early 1990s probably felt like a more creatively fertile medium.
My journey with fanfic has been almost the exact opposite of the one with visual novels: I didn't encounter the fanfic community until adulthood, but I've always known about the general concept, and there's never been any practical hurdles to overcome as a creator. I just thought fanfic was bad! Until adulthood I thought every example I encountered was self indulgent slop, and I had a very strong belief in the importance of Originality and the Real Canon, I didn't even like spinoffs and was highly dubious of sequels etc. My mind has gotten a lot more open about fiction as I've gotten older and realised that ultimately it wasn't really about the Art, I was just making up arbitrary rules to feel safe from stories disappointing me. Which is a fine thing to want to avoid but (a) 'enjoyable to me' and 'creatively valid' are two different things and (b) there's no hard and fast rules, I just gotta learn how to be selective about all fiction and accept that sometimes it will disappoint me. Once I was in a position to appreciate fanfic as a medium (due to encountering more that was to my taste, and opening my mind) I then felt able to consider writing it, because I have a lot of baggage about Making Bad Writing (which mostly isn't relevant to this post since it applies pretty homogeneously to all writing types) And then I wrote some and I really enjoyed it and just kept going!
My tastes/creative preferences with non-narrative visual art are outside the scope of this post since it's already pretty long, and I'm less neurotic and inclined to mental blocks about it so feel less need to poke the question. Same with the specific KINDs of stories I want to write (often romances about non-binary people)
It feels relevant that I tend to prefer watching animated tv/movies to live action, all things being equal, though I'm only really interested in making animation as short pieces that are more like moving art than a narrative (and it is firmly in the "I find it creatively inspiring but it is WAY too hard to actually do often" box) Actually I do sometimes think about making fan animatics but that is even MORE difficult so I never actually have.
You would THINK this would all add up to me being into fangames, but weirdly enough no? I made a couple of little silly ones early on when I was finding my feet with visual novels, and I'm not against playing them, but I don't remember playing any I super duper liked and don't feel especially drawn to make any more myself.
So. What do the types of fiction I'm drawn to have in common? Asking my gut, I feel like what fanfic has in common with illustrated fiction/comics/visual novels etc is that the world immediately feels richer because of the added canon/visual context. It's like, hmm, a harmony or bass line adding something to a melody, or turning a poem into a song. Original prose fiction feels too thin and empty, like something is missing. Ohhhhhh wait most of the time I am writing fanfic for visual canons!! The visuals are implied, in my and the reader's head!! Ohhh actually that might be more of what's happening. I can think of literally one fanfic I've written for a purely text based canon with no visual adaptations or canon illustrations etc, and it did in fact leave me feeling like it was missing something. Huh!! So I was writing illustrated stories all along, the illustrations are just original canon and extrapolations from it.
DAMN. Hooray for learning about myself by writing down my thoughts! Could I get more into writing original short stories if I drew pictures to go with them??? HMMM. If I think about it I end up at "why not just make a game then it would be both easier and better". Even though making games is objectively very slow and difficult!
Now, why do choices matter so much in original visual novels, and not in fanfic? I think that is because I am inspired by playing around within a story and seeing the different ways it can go. I feel like, the many practical issues around this ever happening aside, I would legit find it creatively off-putting for a post-canon fanfic I wrote to be considered Official Canon. The whole appeal is that it is just one way the story could go. Part of the inspiration for this post was going off on a poorly worded tangent atmoonvoice the other day (sorry about that >.>) about player characters in games, trying to articulate how designing and playing them to me has a very specific and unique creative appeal as a sort of... weaving of my own story within the game's story, within the game's limits. Which feels like a simpler version of what I do when writing fanfic or even my own original interactive fiction: When I write an interactive story, I am envisioning all the ways it could be played and writing lines and choices which fit into and expand the multiplicity of possible narratives existing within the story simultaneously. Hmm still not sure I got it across. But they all feel related in my mind! Actually speaking of moonvoice he writes a lot of AUs of his own stories which definitely feels like it's doing something in a similar creative ballpark, yet that approach doesn't appeal to me creatively the way writing interactive stories or fic of other people's works does, though I have vaguely pondered it for some of my games. Hmmmm!
Not sure the illustration thing and choices thing are connected except for both being things my mind likes. Un-illustrated interactive fiction has a lot of unique flexibility I sometimes wish I had access to in the illustrated sort. Even with art that adjusts to player choices, you can't practically capture every possibility, and regardless lose the ambiguity of the appearances of things never being shown at all. But I need pictures even more with interactive fiction, I usually find the unillustrated sort basically unreadable and have no real interest in writing any.
Hmm, I think that's basically it for now! I guess I could poke at some of the other intersections like fangames with no choices etc, or the fact I like acting but not script-writing, but this is already very long and I want to have lunch.
One consequence of writing this all out is rethinking my approach to the writing exercises in Steering the Craft, which I was COMPLETELY blocked on. Maybe I'll have better luck if I try writing them as fic or... game scripts? Or adding pictures??? I'll think about it.
For a long time I thought it was just that I wasn't practised or talented enough at writing original prose fiction, since it's so often treated as the Pinnacle Of Writing compared to fanfic and games writing etc. And being a novel author was my dream as in my youth so I really liked to think I had it in me. So I forced myself to practice and created some adequate short fiction. And I eventually realised that while, yes, I am also lacking in skill, the main problem is that I don't like doing it. It doesn't inspire me as much, and I am consistently less happy after creating it even compared to games/fanfic/visual art etc I've made of similar quality, with the very occasional exception when a short story idea takes me over (which has happened like... twice in the past 30 years)
There is a difference between creative stuff I dislike doing just because I am bad at it, and creative stuff that genuinely doesn't suit me as a creator, and prose fiction is in the latter category. Short autobiographical comics are closer to the first category, I spend a lot of time imagining comics and then going "cool idea, too much effort to draw" but much less time imagining original prose stories and going "too hard to write", though that does happen from time to time. Since I got into writing games that's become the default medium for my original story ideas, most of which definitely fall in the "cool idea but too much effort" category.
Ha, thinking about whether I like writing short autobiographical prose I realise that's just... a dreamwidth entry. So sure, haha. I also enjoy some other forms of non-fiction writing, but have not felt drawn to make non-fiction games, though I do sometimes feel like there's a thread to pull there if I can figure out the right angle.
I have the same not-fitting-my-brain problem with non-visual interactive fiction like IF, and kinetic visual novels (visual novels with no choices). I don't generally enjoy playing them or making them, though there are exceptions.
I've always liked comics, but I didn't really fall in love with them until highschool when I encountered genuinely well written artsy alternative comics aimed at adults. I was super into them all the way through my adulthood but in recent years have been more into narrative games. I find making comics quite difficult, but I slowly brute forced my way to middling competency by my twenties and even wrote an original webcomic for a while. But once I figured out how make games my interest in making comics largely fell to the wayside, since I find games both easier and more creatively inspiring. Part of me feels sad I don't click with comics as much as I used to, but thinking of it as having found media types I enjoy more makes it sting a little less, and I still enjoy them a lot sometimes.
I also of course read (past and present tense) novels and short stories. I don't click with short stories as much as novels, generally, and used to think that was why I had so much trouble writing, that I would have to struggle through writing short stories (a type of writing I don't click with) to gain the general writing ability to create novels (a type of writing I do)
I loved the idea of narrative games ever since I first encountered it as a child in the 80s, but the actual examples I encountered were usually sorts that, in hindsight, aren't my thing. I tried creating it intermittently anyway, with limited success until I gained access to visual novel software in my 30s.
The epiphany that woke me up at 3am to start writing the first draft of this post:
When I was a kid I wanted to be an author of children's books, and then as I got older I realised I don't like children's fiction as an adult, to read or to write. I've always put that down to child!me overestimating the appeal of children's books to adults (or at least adult!me, who in my defence I had not met yet) But when I was a 10-12 year old with this ambition, I was reading novels, yet the kind of books I primarily imagined myself making were picture books aimed at younger children. And it just occurred to me: those have pictures. They're easier for me to make than comics, and compared to the kinds of comics I encountered as a child in the 1980s/early 1990s probably felt like a more creatively fertile medium.
My journey with fanfic has been almost the exact opposite of the one with visual novels: I didn't encounter the fanfic community until adulthood, but I've always known about the general concept, and there's never been any practical hurdles to overcome as a creator. I just thought fanfic was bad! Until adulthood I thought every example I encountered was self indulgent slop, and I had a very strong belief in the importance of Originality and the Real Canon, I didn't even like spinoffs and was highly dubious of sequels etc. My mind has gotten a lot more open about fiction as I've gotten older and realised that ultimately it wasn't really about the Art, I was just making up arbitrary rules to feel safe from stories disappointing me. Which is a fine thing to want to avoid but (a) 'enjoyable to me' and 'creatively valid' are two different things and (b) there's no hard and fast rules, I just gotta learn how to be selective about all fiction and accept that sometimes it will disappoint me. Once I was in a position to appreciate fanfic as a medium (due to encountering more that was to my taste, and opening my mind) I then felt able to consider writing it, because I have a lot of baggage about Making Bad Writing (which mostly isn't relevant to this post since it applies pretty homogeneously to all writing types) And then I wrote some and I really enjoyed it and just kept going!
My tastes/creative preferences with non-narrative visual art are outside the scope of this post since it's already pretty long, and I'm less neurotic and inclined to mental blocks about it so feel less need to poke the question. Same with the specific KINDs of stories I want to write (often romances about non-binary people)
It feels relevant that I tend to prefer watching animated tv/movies to live action, all things being equal, though I'm only really interested in making animation as short pieces that are more like moving art than a narrative (and it is firmly in the "I find it creatively inspiring but it is WAY too hard to actually do often" box) Actually I do sometimes think about making fan animatics but that is even MORE difficult so I never actually have.
You would THINK this would all add up to me being into fangames, but weirdly enough no? I made a couple of little silly ones early on when I was finding my feet with visual novels, and I'm not against playing them, but I don't remember playing any I super duper liked and don't feel especially drawn to make any more myself.
So. What do the types of fiction I'm drawn to have in common? Asking my gut, I feel like what fanfic has in common with illustrated fiction/comics/visual novels etc is that the world immediately feels richer because of the added canon/visual context. It's like, hmm, a harmony or bass line adding something to a melody, or turning a poem into a song. Original prose fiction feels too thin and empty, like something is missing. Ohhhhhh wait most of the time I am writing fanfic for visual canons!! The visuals are implied, in my and the reader's head!! Ohhh actually that might be more of what's happening. I can think of literally one fanfic I've written for a purely text based canon with no visual adaptations or canon illustrations etc, and it did in fact leave me feeling like it was missing something. Huh!! So I was writing illustrated stories all along, the illustrations are just original canon and extrapolations from it.
DAMN. Hooray for learning about myself by writing down my thoughts! Could I get more into writing original short stories if I drew pictures to go with them??? HMMM. If I think about it I end up at "why not just make a game then it would be both easier and better". Even though making games is objectively very slow and difficult!
Now, why do choices matter so much in original visual novels, and not in fanfic? I think that is because I am inspired by playing around within a story and seeing the different ways it can go. I feel like, the many practical issues around this ever happening aside, I would legit find it creatively off-putting for a post-canon fanfic I wrote to be considered Official Canon. The whole appeal is that it is just one way the story could go. Part of the inspiration for this post was going off on a poorly worded tangent at
moonvoice the other day (sorry about that >.>) about player characters in games, trying to articulate how designing and playing them to me has a very specific and unique creative appeal as a sort of... weaving of my own story within the game's story, within the game's limits. Which feels like a simpler version of what I do when writing fanfic or even my own original interactive fiction: When I write an interactive story, I am envisioning all the ways it could be played and writing lines and choices which fit into and expand the multiplicity of possible narratives existing within the story simultaneously. Hmm still not sure I got it across. But they all feel related in my mind! Actually speaking of moonvoice he writes a lot of AUs of his own stories which definitely feels like it's doing something in a similar creative ballpark, yet that approach doesn't appeal to me creatively the way writing interactive stories or fic of other people's works does, though I have vaguely pondered it for some of my games. Hmmmm!Not sure the illustration thing and choices thing are connected except for both being things my mind likes. Un-illustrated interactive fiction has a lot of unique flexibility I sometimes wish I had access to in the illustrated sort. Even with art that adjusts to player choices, you can't practically capture every possibility, and regardless lose the ambiguity of the appearances of things never being shown at all. But I need pictures even more with interactive fiction, I usually find the unillustrated sort basically unreadable and have no real interest in writing any.
Hmm, I think that's basically it for now! I guess I could poke at some of the other intersections like fangames with no choices etc, or the fact I like acting but not script-writing, but this is already very long and I want to have lunch.
One consequence of writing this all out is rethinking my approach to the writing exercises in Steering the Craft, which I was COMPLETELY blocked on. Maybe I'll have better luck if I try writing them as fic or... game scripts? Or adding pictures??? I'll think about it.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-01 06:36 am (UTC)I like your thoughts about the difference between the enjoyment as a reader vs. the work itself being creatively valid! This strikes me as an idea that's useful for as someone making things too.
Asking my gut, I feel like what fanfic has in common with illustrated fiction/comics/visual novels etc is that the world immediately feels richer because of the added canon/visual context. It's like, hmm, a harmony or bass line adding something to a melody, or turning a poem into a song.
Ooh, yes, I like this way of phrasing it! I definitely feel that about fic, too, and for me it's also a out writing in the context of other fic?
Interestingly enough, I think for me even when I write for visual canons, the visual part of the canon doesn't really stick with me as much? And in fact I struggle a lot to write for TV shows and anything without a clear narrative voice, so hmm. Patterns! ;D I'm definitely happiest writing for canons where there's a written component... I guess that's where I find my harmony, or maybe something to anchor to?
Also, it's cool that you're thinking of how to adapt the Steering the Craft exercises! I've been blocked on them for a bit too, I might have to try something new with them...
no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 07:37 am (UTC)That's really interesting! My writing often starts as pure dialogue with a few sparse descriptions of action/location, and when I do add a narrative voice it's usually 3rd person limited in what is basically just the voice of whatever character I'm writing plus a little narrative irony. Thinking about it I even do this for Baldur's Gate 3, which has a canonical narrator, or Pride and Prejudice, which has a fairly distinct narrative voice. I do try and capture the vibe of canon but that's evident as much in the dialogue and plot as the narration, I'm basically imagining An Original Episode Of The Anime etc.
How far did you get into Steering the Craft?