I’d like to know in how far fan fiction writers consider themselves talented. That’s why I’d like to know from you: If someone offered you $1000 to write a fan fiction story about a specific “Street Fighter”-related plot (like Ryu and Ken’s training years or whatever) that’s at least 30000 words long, would you do it?
For this question please ignore the idea that the guy who offers you the money might not be sincere or anything like that. Imagine it’s some bored millionaire who’s a huge fan of the game, but has zero talent to do any writing by himself, except for giving you some rules that your story has to keep. And that this guy is perfectly willing to pay you $1000 if you could write him a decent novel with 30000 words or more. Also, since it’s just for his own personal enjoyment and not for commercially publishing it, forget all the copyright stuff.
Would you consider yourself capable to do this? Would you think you could write such a text that sounds like a real book and not just a mere elementary school project? And if yes, would you be willing to actually really do it?
I’m sure there are people who would try themselves out, but that doesn’t guarantee that the result would be quality enough to satisfy the “employer”. Anyway, is that realistic or you are just asking?
What do you think? Is it realistic that I’m actually a bored millionaire who could throw out $1000 just like that? Or is it more likely that I ask purely out of curiosity?
Well of course that there would be people willing to try that in that case. I didn’t think of that in a literal way however, I was wondering if you are asking if people would do something like that for money, because I know some people who do that.
Yeah, I guess trying would be a bit too little if they were offered $1000.
Yes, that was part of my intention: To find out if people find themselves capable to pick up a project that they are paid for and where they not just get 50 bucks, but a bigger sum.
I was also asking because I wanted to find out if a “real” writer might probably demand even more: Hiring some random little fan fiction hobbyist writer would be a bit too risky, unless the millionaire was willing to spend $10000 and just try the next guy whenever the previous one delivers a crappy work. But imagine he would hire an actual writer. Maybe not like the really big writers who write books for a living, but someone who is at least semi-professional and who doesn’t just write as a spare time hobby: For such a person and given the requirements of the story, would $1000 even be enough?
I’m not sure about the actual prices, as I don’t know any case where a guy has been offered by another person to create something like that, but I’m sure that they would usually hire some magazine writer from that domain and not a random hobbyist guy.
My guess is that a private purchaser would offer more money than the writer would usually earn by working for a magazine. Anyway I will ask around and see what comes up.
To be quite honest, 30,000 words for me for a novel is pretty much unacceptable. I made a huge compromise this year when I wrote a Dynasty Warriors/Three Kingdoms story clocking in at a little over 50,000 words, and my own Street Fighter story was over 90,000 words. If someone is giving me some mint for something I could probably knock out in a week if I had that entire wek off work for a holiday or something like that, or a month if I just worked weekends, then I could definitely do that.
The question is, will I be able to do the given topic justice.
I once considered doing fic commissions but I quickly veto’d that idea when the first first request I got was something involving furries. I racked my brain and decided that in the end, the only thing I could give justice writing about was something I was invested in, and it certainly wasn’t that.
Now obviously, Street Fighter is something I can sink my teeth into so it’s quite unlikely I would find myself in that situation. As long as it’s tasteful, I’d just need to find the time and motivation.
That was just a minimum word count. I wanted to avoid the possibility that everybody says “No, I wouldn’t do such a project” just because a text of the length of a commercial novel would sound too much for them or the “price” of $1000 would be too low.
Well, in the situation I had in mind, this wouldn’t be a story to satisfy a specific fetish for the employer. I was thinking more of a story that’s true to the series. Something that could actually be an episode in the “Street Fighter” universe, not a what-if story about a certain premise (so, it wouldn’t be like a Ryu & Chun Li romance story or all the characters spending a day at the beach or something like that).
With a competent enough writer you could incorporate both those things and still have something that would not be out of place in the SF universe. That was the entire point of End of a Journey in the former’s case, being it was meant to be both a Ryu Final and Chun-Li Final based on what we worked on both in the former Plot Guide and what was revealed in the SFIV iterations. But anyhoo, it would depend what you would have in mind. There are a LOT of things that are within the SF canon that look really out of place or would be perceived as out of place depending on what you see Street Fighter as.
FOR EXAMPLE, there’s the SF2 animated movie, a rather serious film, and then there’s the endless amounts of goofiness involving people like the Saikyo goons, Karin Kazuki, Sodom, Dee Jay, Mika, Rufus, Sean…
Right now I wouldn’t because it’s not a subject that interests me.
Fan fics for me are more entertaining when there’s a crossover element or it’s something that the people who control these characters won’t give you. Like what happens after a TV show gets abruptly canceled. Or how about if character ____ was written well for once.
For me, Marvel still refuses to put out a crossover comic with Capcom characters and the games themselves continue with that whole ‘worlds merging’ nonsense which is why I soldier on.
That’s where I think fan fics work best. When you can give fans something they can’t get elsewhere, and in a free way at that.
Ryu and Ken’s training days have been depicted in several comics, manga, anime, fan comics and there is even going to be a live action production about it. The games themselves at least touch upon it during the Zero / Alpha series.
There really wouldn’t be any interest for me to write that story.
With that said, I’ve had a fun idea about a very young Dante of Devil May Cry fame studying with a very young Dan briefly, to explain how Dante knows how to perform a Shoryuken. It would be something set in the Namco x Capcom / Project x Zone universe where those franchises co-exist. Something like that I would love to work on!
Of course if I REALLY needed the money and someone was going to break my legs if I didn’t deliver there’s A LOT of things I would do. See the movie Half Baked and pay attention when Bob Sagat shows up. I NEEDZ ME LEGS! Lol!
That was actually just a random example. I could as well have talked about creating a novel that tells the story that’s displayed in “Street Fighter Alpha 2”.
What’s that? Freudian Slip - Street Fighter Edition?
Lol! Well I won’t edit my post for the comedic factor ha ha!
I understood from the start it was a random example, but I kind of zoned in on it to illustrate my overall opinion. The further a fan fic is from the norm the more fun it is to work on for me personally. So I probably wouldn’t tackle a story within the SF games. Maybe something before, after or in between the games but it would really have to be a good idea.
Arguably if you found a really interesting story to tell within SF it might be fun. Like maybe Sodom taking a Japanese class and failing lol! And ANYTHING with Ingrid! But since I write in English and almost every English reading person hates her except me maybe not. ^_^;
