BlackGemRoach

yeah thats kinda how i feel - i even had a go at doing one myself. I never actually put it on the site but i was weirdly proud of it once i'd done it. It didn't really feel like stealing characters or anything because i had changed the story so much and yes it was easier than establishing my own characters because fans of the characters i had wrote about would have already known the background to said characters - so the hard work had already been done for me. It did get me stuck in a lazy rutt though and i struggled to come up with my own stuff for a bit afterwards. My characters didnt seem to compare to the 'best-selling' ones...

Thought i would start a thread on what i imagine is quite a 'controversial' topic. Ever been on FanFiction or any other site like it, where anybody can use established characters from any book and write new storylines for them. Even changing the basic make-up of said characters. I have enjoyed reading some 'FanFics' (especially if the writer has changed the events in the story to go the way i would have liked!) and also loathed some of the drivell i have come across. oppinions please people - and reccomendations if you have any

Okay i love anything... i think weird would be a good word to use. Things that are a bit fantastical, other-worldly, supernatural but that could still be based in reality - still moderately believable. Bit of a guilty pleasure would be The host by Stephanie Meyer ofcourse. R.A Salvatore. Darren shan (very childish and very guilty pleasure). Malorie Blackmans noughts and crosses collection. In complete contrast to that i like biographies/life stories but of rock stars etc so again not completely set in reality... i think the point is i like to escape. I like to have my thoughts provoked. I like to be grasped by a good, well a good story, hence i find poetry difficult to like i guess... all the best my lovely:blush:

Well, Emily Dickinson was the most recent one and i admire her almost feminist approach but still even with the lesbian rumours etc etc i just wasn't interested. The poet herself was much more intriguing than her 'art'. I'm not a sceptic, I'm just a critic and i have every faith you might be able to find me something

What about the little collection called 'first love, last rites' by ian mcewan - there was a bit of quite violent incest in there... disturbing by my standards. x

I studied a lot of poetry through school and college and university (and i mean a lot!!) so i think i have managed to grasp an appreciation for it - sort of... The thing is i think any old illiterate could mash together a verse of their favourite words about their favourite subject yet it takes, in general, some fairly decent skill to peice together a good novel. I mean a lot of poetry doesn't rhyme, make sense or even remotely convey any real meaning - i have often sat down to disect a poem for some assignment or other and thought that my dog had a better grasp of the english language than the poet in question. It's not that i don't understand poems i just feel poems are for writers that couldn't quite put down what they really wanted to say and therefore mashed together a few lines vaguely based around their subject of concern and then called it art... Maybe i'm being a little harsh but i have never come across a poem that has moved me in the way a good book does. I am willing to be converted - if someone is up for the challenge.

Absolutely loved the host - The Twilight saga being one of my guilty pleasures i wasn't sure if The Host was going to tickle my pickle in quite the same way. But it did - infact i think it was better. The idea of reading a book based around the idea of 'aliens' coming to earth and taking over was a bit off-putting as, lets be honest, it's all been done before and then adapted into some of the worst movies known to man but this book really did it for me. It was just complex enough to raise it above the 'teenage smush' level that the twilight saga sometimes sank to and i believe credit should be given where credit is due - Meyer manages to make her readers except some really fantastical ideas by setting them in a reality not too far from the one we all live in. Definately put it on your tbr list! x