WIP challenge day 1 check-in

[anehan]

It's the first day of June and time for another WIP challenge. Today, we begin with a poll!

Poll #7152 WIP challenge day 1 check-in

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

View Respondents

What fic-ly things did you do today?

View Answers

Write
6 (50.0%)

Edit
3 (25.0%)

Research
2 (16.7%)

Send to beta
0 (0.0%)

Procrastinate
4 (33.3%)

Something else
4 (33.3%)

And how does that make you FEEL?

View Answers

Amazing!
1 (8.3%)

Okay.
6 (50.0%)

Meh.
3 (25.0%)

Don't ask.
2 (16.7%)

What is your fic all about? Describe in five words or less.

View Answers

Today's discussion topic is language. The fanfic flamingo has something to say on the subject:



[Background — a six piece pie style colour split in three shades of pink. Foreground — the long neck and face of a pink flamingo.

Top text: love fanfiction in English

Bottom text: laugh uncontrollably over how ridiculous it sounds when reading some in your own language]


So, do you usually write fic in your native language or in another language? Why? What about reading fic? Is the flamingo right and fic in your own language sounds ridiculous?

Comments

[anyssia]

Still haven't written anything since the last two weeks ^^;;; But I have a four days week-end starting tomorrow, so I'm hoping that I'll manage to motivate myself.


Not, haven't written a fic in my native language in years! (which is French, by the way). I began writing in English because the French FFVII fandom was about dead five years ago and because I had been reading in English for more than a decade already.
It felt weird to write in French and I couldn't find my words: my ideas all came to me in English ;p

[glitteryv]

Here's hoping that you get that itch to write soon!

my ideas all came to me in English

LOL, same here. My native language is Spanish, btw.

[anyssia]

I'm crossing my fingers too ^^

Wow, I wonder how many people got sucked in the English fandom and can't come out now ;p

[anehan]

Heh, I haven't written anything in the last several weeks either. Let's hope the long weekend will motivate us both.

*nodnod* It would be so weird to write anything in my native language. I have read fic only in English for such a long time that I associate English with fanfic, whether it's reading or writing.

[anyssia]

Same here, except that it's the whole Internet that I associate with English xD

It kinds of annoys my mother, because every time I send her an e-mail, I forget myself and add a words in English or begin a sentence in French and finish it in English. ^^;;

Crossing my fingers. I took care of most of the flist/circle stuff today, so I hope I'll manage to get myself to write tomorrow.

[in_lighter_ink]

I've been writing words today! They're mostly much-needed brainstorm-y plotting and characterization words and not actual narrative yet... but there's more hope of a story today than there was yesterday.

I write in my native (US) English -- the couple of other languages I feel like I might be fluent enough to write in don't all lend themselves to fic very well! (Though I haven't really looked, to be honest... anybody got any Biblical Hebrew fic recs? :D) I will occasionally read things in French, just to test/keep up my reading comprehension skills.

[glitteryv]

Yay for words! Planning words can kickstart the awesomest fic you've yet to write. So, thumbs up!

[anehan]

That's nice to hear! I'm glad you've been able to brainstorm your fic. Yay for productivity!

[lacygrey]

I did my tax forms :( - so least Ive finally got all that worked out and approved, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to me

Ive been going through my paper notebooks of my Hikaru no Go WIP I want to work on this month and realise I'd planned a lot more than I remember. Its going to be one helluva fic if I convert all the plans into story. I think this month will be about seeing what scenes I can get to work, the ones that don't will be how I cut it down a bit.

My native language is English but I sometimes read in French. Manga translation into French can be much faster than into English.

French Hikaru no Go fandom seems rather like a parallel universe to the English one: different tropes, different fav pairings, a lot more passion!

[glitteryv]

Boo to tax forms! They are quite headache-inducing. Um, at least to me. *g*

How detailed is your planning? Do you develop each scene or is it more of a looser outline (with one or two sentences explaining what you're trying to have the characters do)?

[lacygrey]

How detailed is your planning?

That depends...
When the idea is clear to me then the answer is very, nearing a scipt of a scene, with actions and dialogue. But sometimes it will just be ideas, stand alone sentences that might or might not become something.

Its a bit frustrating that sometimes I virtually have to finish the fic completely before I can decide whether it works or not. They work in princple and in my plans, but I dont trust that - there tend to be missed gaps or odd stuff, or simply a chronic lack of action, and these things don't stand out until its all down.

[mystiri_1]

French Hikaru no Go fandom seems rather like a parallel universe to the English one: different tropes, different fav pairings, a lot more passion!

This is one of the things I do find fascinating about manga and anime fandoms - translation seems to change much more than just the words. And the source material is almost always asian in origin, so some things are easily understandable/transferable to one culture, but not to others.

[anehan]

Hey, it's good that you've been productive, even if it wasn't fic writing. I need to sort out my papers for state aid myself tomorrow, and I'm so not looking forward to it.

[lacygrey]

Good luck with that. I hope they are straightforward.

[curuchamion]

Well, I didn't actually write anything down, but I thought out about a scene and half of new material and suddenly discovered that one character's relationships to everyone else are not what I thought they were. (This keeps happening. I know who's here, and what ages they are, but... discovering who's related to whom how is an ongoing thing. O_O)

I only speak one language (English) well enough to read or write fic in it, so... no answer for the flamingo from me. XD

[glitteryv]

There's always that one character that keeps you guessing as far as how they are in your head vs. how they are behaving in the story. It's a cool thing that you figured it now. Hopefully, this realization will make your fic even groovier. :)

[curuchamion]

'There's always that one character that keeps you guessing as far as how they are in your head vs. how they are behaving in the story.'

Oh yeah... THAT would be Mort. Haven't figured him out yet. ;-) The one I did figure out was in reference to actual, literal, familial "relationships" - there's this little girl that I thought was a little sister to one set of characters and it turns out she's actually James-and-Mort's adopted daughter. (And at the same time I switched another set of characters - one of whom had formerly been tentatively in the position of said adopted daughter - to being Mort's niece and nephew instead of James's.) O_O

There's still one character that I have no idea how she got involved with being part of this very unusual family, but... yeah. This is a REALLY WEIRD THING in some ways. *g*

[anehan]

Writing fic is such an interesting process. It's like opening an unfamiliar box of chocolate and tasting each piece to find out what they taste like. And when you're through the first layer you find out that, oops, there's another layer there.

[littlebutfierce]

I just got back from vacation today, somehow w/o travel delays (given volcanoes, tornadoes, & thunderstorms I had no idea what would happen). So I haven't written any fic for at least a week. I hope by Friday I can get back into it (maybe tomorrow but I'll probably still be too jetlagged).

I don't speak any languages aside from English well enough to read fic, to my shame, much less write it. :/

[glitteryv]

Yah, it's funny how being in a totally different surrounding can push or pull our writing flow. I hope you're well-rested and ready to tackle your goal fic for this month! *g*

[anehan]

It's good to hear that there were no travel delays. I hope you had a good holiday.

[lexicalcrow]

Did too much research and not enough writing. But sometimes research is necessary. So I don't feel too bad about it. Got a better idea of where this thing is going, since I hit an 'zomg everything changes!' moment in which I've had to rewrite 70% of my fic. YAY. -_-

I don't know a second language well enough to read or write fic in it. I used to know Italian pretty well years ago, but I've lost my fluency.

[glitteryv]

Oh, I *totally* hear you about too much research. There was a point about a week and half ago where I spent some hours tinkering with Google Earth and Maps so that I could write somewhat effectively about places I've never been. Ended up 'tweaking' RL locations by changing their names (etc.)

Anyhoo, research is very necessary.

since I hit an 'zomg everything changes!' moment in which I've had to rewrite 70% of my fic. YAY. -_-

*sends you a cup of calming tea* I'll cheer you on to tackle the rewrite. *\o?

[lexicalcrow]

Ahaha, the number of saved places in my Google Earth that are solely fic-related is rather large. *ahem* It's a fic planning resource, mostly. I mean, what else would you use it for? XD It's that, and thousands of wikipedia pages and other assorted links. I save everything. Even if half of it never ends up in that fic, I still do it. Because I am a research nut. :D

Ooh, tea. Thanks. :D At least I'm confident it actually fits the prompt better (it's for queer_fest on LJ), but still. Couldn't you guys have told me this before I got 30k+ into this thing? XD

[anehan]

Ouch. That rewrite sounds painful. But it's good that you are now more confident about where the fic is going.

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, it's going to be a better fic because of it, and it definitely fits the prompt much better. If I wasn't writing to a prompt, I may not have bothered, but there you go. It'll be good once it's done and I can work on other things that are due by the end of the month. XD

[mystiri_1]

I have finished one of last month's fics, and feel kind of embarrassed that it only took 119 words. I should have finished it last month, but hey, they go on this month's counter instead. It's a start, anyway.

I don't know any languages well enough to compare. I have picked up enough via fansubs to recognises when a translation is off, somehow (usually official translations hitting colloquial speech) but that is the extent of it. I have a couple of my fics that have been translated, which always makes me feel incredibly flattered and embarrassed - and I wonder just how they do read to someone who comes at them from another language. The fact that so many of my fandoms are Japanese in origin makes me aware of just how some concepts and ideas don't really translate between cultures.

[glitteryv]

Better to have that fic D-O-N-E than still hanging over your head. And hey, even better? That it took 119 rather than 1199!

[mystiri_1]

LOL It's literally out of the way - I have a tendency to leave docs open as a reminder that I'm working on them until forced to close them. Now I only have 3 open, but one of them is my wordcount file for this month.

[anehan]

Congratulations on finishing a fic! I hope you're properly proud of yourself. :D

The fact that so many of my fandoms are Japanese in origin makes me aware of just how some concepts and ideas don't really translate between cultures.

*nodnod* Having a fandom from a culture as radically different from the Western one as Japanese culture is really drives that point home. We often forget that fact when our fandoms are from another Western country. Yet even then there may be fundamental cultural differences. It's just that they are harder to spot because we're blinded by the superficial similarities.

[glitteryv]

I didn't finish last month's goal fic (grrr!) which is what I'll be focusing on for the next two weeks (the deadline is June 15th). All in all, I'm feeling confident that I'll make it. Wrote 890 words today. Still have about 10k more to go if I want to make the bare minimum (20k). In reality, I think the fic will be around 25 - 30k. Totes doable. *g*

So, do you usually write fic in your native language or in another language? Why? What about reading fic? Is the flamingo right and fic in your own language sounds ridiculous?

My native language is Spanish but, though I'm totally fluent, I can't really read fanfic in that language. It looks kinda weird? I wouldn't go as far as saying that I'll be guffawing whenever I've tried to read some, but it looks off. I'm thinking it has to do with the fact that there is so little (if any at all) fanfic in Spanish for any of the fandoms I read that I'm just not accustomed to it.

OTOH, there's no one 'right' or 'proper' language for fanfic which is actually awesome.

[anehan]

30k? Pfft, a piece of cake. :D Well, I hope it will be a piece of cake for you. I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines here.

I've tried to read fanfic in my native language, Finnish, a couple of times, but I can't get lost in it the same way I can with English. I'm all the time painfully aware of the language. I guess it's because I've managed to equate fanfic with English, what with having read fic exclusively in it for eight years.

[glitteryv]

Hee, it's going to be a sometimes!evil cake, I'm sure. *g*

Thank you for the cheering though.

[kunenk]

Wrote some introduction stuff, most of which will get scrapped since it's not actually relevant to the story whoops.

I don't really have the fluency skills to be confident reading in languages other than English. It's something I'd like to do, at some point.

[mystiri_1]

Even stuff that gets scrapped is still writing. And sometimes you have to get something down - even if it's not right - in order to figure out what it should be.

I would love to reach that degree of fluency in a second language myself.

[kunenk]

Mm, yeah. It's stuff that I think is really kind of interesting, just not relevant to the story I want to tell. ^^;;

It would be awesome!

[anehan]

Sometimes you have to write non-relevant stuff. It can be good in terms of exploring the characters and setting, even if you don't end up including it in the fic.

[jagnikjen]

Well, I did a bit of writing very early this morning, but that's it. And not on this month's challenge fic. I'm not overly worried about it though. I'll take a look at it this weekend and get started.

I am American, so it's English for me. It is a challenge though, when writing HP fic to make sure to be true to the characters who have different terminology than me. Luckily, I have several online friends who seem happy enough to offer assistance as needed.

[anehan]

It's good that you managed to get at least something written, even if it's not on the challenge fic.

The Americans and the British: separated by a common language. :D

[linaewen]

I had such hopes for the day, but Real Life wore me out, and I haven't been able to do any writing. I've been involved with fic in one form or another today, but not as a writer!

I write in my native language, English. I have been known to attempt reading fic in French or Spanish when there is no other way, but not often.

[anehan]

Damn Real Life for getting in the way of fandom. It has an annoying habit of doing that far too often. :D

[gb]

Had the first 'EVERYTHING I MAKE IS GARBAGE *wail, rend clothing*' moment I've had for weeks. Bad timing!

I've got other things I need to do today, anyway. I've been collating all the notes I have scattered across my computer, my room and the Internet so I can do a proper outline; I'll continue with that this evening if my mood improves.

English is my native and only language but I've been trying to read fic in Japanese lately. I'm an absolute beginner so they don't make much sense to me, but it's good fun! And satisfying when you get a nuance that Google Translate would have mangled. :D If I start teaching myself Japanese for real, reading fic would be an interesting supplement to my studies to say the least. (I know three people who can attribute part of their amazing command of English to reading fanfic, so hey...)

[anehan]

Ouch, those moments are painful. Let's hope yours goes away soon.

Heh, all I know about English I learned from fanfic. (Well, not really, but I wasn't really very good at English before I got involved with fandom.)

[gb]

So that's four people I know of then :D

The augh-self-loathing has gone away so today will be better, I hope

[snowynight]

1K! Only 12K to go in 15 days.

I haven't written fic in my native language. My fandoms are all English-centric and their voice and plots come to me in English. So.

[anehan]

12K in 15 days. Totes doable. :D

[bay_alexison]

Ack, I keep forgetting to sign up for this month WIP! Been quite busy the last several days. I want to finish my second help_japan fic by this or next month, so I guess I'll just have it as my WIP challenge for this month in my mind. XD

Anyways, was busy with chores and discussing with someone over a fic auction bid I won from her yesterday, but I managed to write around a little over 300 words. It's not the second help_japan fic though and I REALLY need to get back on track for that one. Dang it plot bunnies, stop giving me ideas for the other story. x_x

I read and write fics in English since it's my first/native language. I know a bit Italian and Spanish, so maybe one day I might try to read fics in those languages, haha.

[anehan]

The month has just barely started. It's not too late to sign up.

Damn the plot bunnies. They keep multiplying at the most inconvenient of times, don't they?