Hmm, it's becoming hard to play the devil's advocate because I find myself agreeing more and more. Let's see now... So the writer presents an idea, and the reader expands it. Ok, I'd agree considering the wealth of fan made material we have in this fandom, and other fandoms. Let's press a bit further then, would it be considered a bad thing when the writers original idea becomes more than they intended? The idea loses touch with what the writer intended or even thought of, and they can not further the idea the way they intended because of the reader's expansion (we've seen this a bit with a few of the background characters in mlp).
That's just me wording things wrong. It was about 5:30 in the morning and I was tired as hell; posted that response pretty immediately after I woke up, and I'm still tired. I probably meant to say 'A large part of fiction' rather than the basis. I feel stupid now. @Keldeo: Good response, just kinda too tired to fully reply. I will say that the whole order/chaos thing is subjective, though; what you said about it does make sense to me.
lol, no worries. Devil's advocate or not I enjoy the discussion. ^_^ This is a tougher one for me to answer because I've never actually had to deal with it myself. But I think the way the writer responds to that kind of situation depends on the work itself. In most cases, the same way readers shouldn't limit themselves to what they think the writer intends, the writer also shouldn't limit themselves to what the readers have come to expect. A writer shouldn't be afraid to tell their fans "that isn't what I had in mind". In my opinion this isn't the same as discouraging fan reinterpretation, it's just more of a statement that the writer's future work isn't likely to be consistent with what the fans have built. Most fans are tolerant of this and are happy to either rework their own fanon ideas, or just keep going with their fanwork and call it an alternate reality. We see this happen occasionally in the professional world too, especially with superhero mythos, where the stories are built by many writers over the course of several decades and they occasionally contradict each other. Fans and writers alike will pick out which timelines they like best and expand on them. In rarer cases, writers can decide that if they can't continue their story the way they originally intended, they start adopting fanon ideas into their work. This should be done very sparingly and carefully of course, because in addition to it being seen as "pandering", it just reverses the problem rather than solving it. It's like the drunken traveler who falls off his horse, then gets back on and falls off the other side to make up for it. Rather than the writer controlling the fans' ideas, the fans start controlling the writer's ideas. No good. - - Auto Merge - - You mean you can't write philosophical discussions while sleep-deprived? For shame. :[
and this is how we get FMA and FMAB. It's fine, I was just very confused for a little while there. Also, I'm out of ideas to throw out into the field. Anyone else got something to add?
Ridley is spot on. As a writer myself, I find that I often want to express a controversial idea, but know, that if I come right out and say it that people will not listen and consider it. They will shut their minds to my point of view. Science fiction helps me to express myself and my concerns through a means that makes the reader feel more comfortable. They get to see the situation through an outside look, it's not happening to them, they are safe, and they are just observing. And by observing, the idea sinks into their minds and allows for them to consider new ideas that generally would cause them fear if discussed face to face.
