luckily the world doesn't have to rely on my brain.

[maygra]

You all owe ellen_fremedon a round of applause and possibly cookies because she's managed to summarize and illustrate some of the issues I've been trying to get to gel in my fractured brain for the last couple of days only it's already taken me 30,000 words and I still haven't managed to make it make sense even to myself.

...and in doing so, she reminded me of something I'd written as a forward to a piece of original fiction a decade or so ago, that could apply to my fan fiction as well as any other fiction I write -- in which I tried to summarize that I do, indeed write with a sense of honesty and responsibility but both of those things are more a matter of me being honest with myself and responsibile to my own moral and ethical principles.

Therefore, enjoy, suspend disbelief and know that while all of this is true, none of it is the Truth.

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

*g*

during all of these debates, I always flash back to my diss topic which, though in a very different realm, dealt with a lot of the same issues (or rather, its inverse maybe?).

I'm just c&ping the epigraphs to an article I wrote, which all really resonate with what you're saying omn a differnt level:

“Today at this very moment as I sit writing at a table, I am not convinced that these things really happened” (Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz)
“I am no longer sure that what I have written is true, but I am sure it's truthful” ["Aujourd’hui, je ne suis pas sûre que ce que j’ai écrit soit vrai. Je suis sûre que c’est véridique.](Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and After)
“Some events do take place but are not true; others are—although they never occurred” (Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time) (here)

I.e., whereas you're emphasizing the truthful aspect in fiction, these autobiographical writers emphasize the fictional aspects to truth.

Eh...sorry...not quite what you're talking about, but the true/Truth thing definitely resonates with me on so many levels...

[decarnin.livejournal.com]

But I really hope we get to see what YOU wrote about it too! Mmm, 30,000 Maygra words! *licks chops*

[alicettlg.livejournal.com]

Kudos to ellen_fremedon, excellent post and clarifies much of what I have been trying to get straight in my head.

I still have some thoughts rattling around in my head about heatherly's points about fanfic about incest, child abuse, etc., not being mainstream, not that it is mainstream but more about what that appears to mean to her and it coincides some with reading the recent posts in LJ news about letting the LJ community determine what's acceptable and what's not, because "LJ community" =/= fandom/fanfic community and I don't think that letting the LJ community decide what's good and what's bad is better than letting Six Apart decide.

[lyr]

That reminds me of a quote I love by Fannie Flagg: "Just because it didn't really happen doesn't mean it's not true."