General

isiscolo: [Notcapade] The chemical basis of fannishness? The February issue of National Geographic's cover story was on love; specifically, on the brain chemistry that goes on when people fall in love and when they stay in love....The article explains the different chemicals which seem to be related to new passion and to long-term love; I wonder whether these are at work in fannish affections as well.

mmapmaker: Notcapade - more than just reading or writing fanfic I didn't just read fanfiction. I didn't just write fanfiction. For a while, a show affected my life and I went out and did things because of it.

lydiabell: Notcapade: And some have fandom thrust upon them These days, with the multifannish environment of LJ and the availability of torrents or DVDs for many shows, I assume there must be more pimping into fandoms than was the case in the past. Does this represent as much of a shift in fannish behavior for other people as it does for me? Is there a difference in your fannish experience between viewing a source and then seeking out discussion/fic versus seeking out a source due to reading discussion/fic or being pimped in?

thelastgoodname: On Big Name Fans (and also BNFs) I think it's fairly funny that most of the people who claim, "there's no such thing as a BNF, and besides, it used to mean someone who was appreciated for their role in fandom, and that's not so bad," are often fairly Big Names themselves.

lord_dingsi: "That's not 'dark', that's my *default* view." Okay, so this really nice guy is giving me some feedback on the ff-mailinglist, and somewhat in the middle of the page he says "... but I could be wrong, for I'm not familiar with darkfic." And this made me wonder, because neither had I ever thought that Pending was "dark", nor did it occur to me that others might understand it that way. And since then, I've been thinking a lot about my own preferences, fictional (original) characters, and general attitude towards "dark" themes.

Fandom-specific ( Cut for possible spoilers in: Firefly, Highlander, B7, Homicide, X-Men, Star Wars, DCU, SGA, HP )

Creating and criticism

goseaward: On Writing Fanfic When I started writing fanfic, it was all about the stories....It took till about that first summer for my fandom honeymoon to end--for me to think critically about what I was reading, rather than simply consuming. And as my reading habits changed, my writing habits did too....I don't seem to write for the stories any more, though I do enjoy them; now, it's more about a point of view. [HP]

southernbangel: Question about RPS/RPF My question about RPS/RPF is this (and no, this is not a discussion about whether it is wrong or not): how do you know you're writing the people "in character" or how they are? I've seen comments in feedback about the story being true to the actors/actresses, how it is so "them" and so forth. Unlike the fictional 'verses where you have definitive characterization, in the 'real world' is that characterization there?

ranalore: Notcapade: Let's Talk About Ratings Do you use ratings when writing? Do you search for fic by ratings in archives? How useful do you find ratings? How do you define and differentiate a G-rated story from a PG-rated story from a PG-rated story? What takes a story from R to NC-17, in your purview?

alixtii: Meta: On Structure and Stories A fic without structure, which isn't sure if it is a scene or a vignette or a character piece or a PWP or a story is going to be bad, and indeed next to bad prose, I'd say that flawed structure is the biggest problem I see in bad fanfiction.

thelastgoodname: On writing on writing Often, when writing on writing, an author will note, "I do X myself," as an illustration of their prescriptive abstract analytic point X....This usually makes me very uncomfortable, and I think it has to do with the whole author's intent brouhaha.