Writing a novel in a month. The majority of people signed up for Nanowrimoare planning to write a novel--primarily, a long work of prose consisting of original fiction. But every year, there is the debate from fringe and not so fringe groups about what constitutes a novel. Is it simply anything at least 50,000 words? Must it be original fiction? Must it be fiction at all?
The way I see it, it's the spirit of the thing that counts the most. If what you're writing doesn't fit into my definition of what a novel is, that's okay as long as what you're doing is mainly 50,000 words of creativity. You can do whatever you want, as long as you don't try to force your own definition of the novel on everyone else. Epic poems, fan fiction*, non-fiction, biographies, movie scripts, stage plays--you can do all of that but don't tell me that those are novels.
Perhaps the debate wouldn't happen at all if the event was called National Book Writing Month instead. But it isn't and I guess I'm one of those old-fashioned people who believe you should write a novel when it says write a novel and not something else. Would a Chaucer fan club crash a science fiction convention? Would a contestant eat pumpkin pies at a hot dog eating competition? No. While you can argue that Chaucer and sci-fi are both fiction and pies and hot dogs are both food, they're not really the same. Although I don't like categorization as the next person, sometimes, they can be helpful.
*Fan fiction is a murky topic all within itself. It's fiction. And it's original--in the sense that the plot is original, but the characters and/or setting aren't. Fan fiction could be novels--witness the numerous Star Trek and Star Wars books--but most of it are just scribblings of self-fulfillment. I wouldn't say this is in itself bad or good. If people choose to use their time writing fan fiction, I won't argue with them.
There are several interesting arguments for and against fan fiction. The main objection is that the fan fiction writer is playing in someone else's world, that they're taking the easy way out by not creating the characters and setting themselves. Another is the constraints a previously created world sets on the writer. But this is debatable--some writers disregard the canonical rules and others argue that by creating your own world, you still have a set of rules to follow anyway.
Avid fan fiction writers point out writing in someone else's world is like training wheels on a bicycle. They're afraid of falling flat on their face if they start out writing original fiction. To that, I can only shake my head in disbelief. Are they afraid that their own creations will be too stupid for public consumption? I don't really see how fan fiction can prepare you for something original--the only thing to do is to practice. Besides, tons of stupid books actually get published every year and maybe your stupid idea is someone else's genius of a creation.
Anyways, this reminds me of a comment I got a while back about my 2003 Nano novel where the reader compared it to a "good X-files fanfic." My first reaction was more along the lines of "WTF?!" because I don't read fanfic, let alone X-files fanfic (aside: I'm not particularly a fan of X-files) and fan fiction, to me, has a lot of not exactly positive connotations. And dang it, my novel was original! But after thinking about it, I figured it was supposed to be a compliment. At least I hope so.
