My Face on Video...

...Is unnerving. I'm not entirely sure that I like it. I also believe that I've gone over the time limit, but it seemed necessary. I'll let the video do the rest of the explaining.

Do the Wave

I feel so accomplished! I read through the requirements for what these next few days are going to entail, and for once I'm already half-way finished with a post topic! When I say this, I mean the possible means of transforming my research paper into a new medium. Rather than rehash everything that I already said on this matter, I'll just link you to that post: Reworking the Bard: And The Results Are In!

Ask to what else Dr. Burton has to say about this process, I believe I only have two points to cover. First, I want to say... I've got it easy! My research paper on Fanfiction already presents itself as the perfect new media route as to where I can take the paper. My work is on its way!

Secondly is the concept of audience (and thus my title for this post). When I first read about what Dr. Burton wanted us to talk about, I was stumped! I thought, 'Who in the world would be geeky enough to want to read my research paper about something as far-fetched as Fanfiction as legitimate, superior adaptation?' But then I actually tried to take the idea seriously, and I was presently surprised. I can list possibly three separate audiences that might think my paper useful--or, if nothing else, interesting.

• Fanfiction Lovers: these readers (and writers and editors, as I'm grouping them all into one by giving them the term 'lover'), while not generally concerned with the scholarly, would at least have some interest in the idea. I mean, I know that I would respond positively to someone saying that my hobby as a Fanfiction writer was more than just a childish, nerdy habit. To compliment me further by saying that I'm intelligent for viewing a character or plot line in an entirely new way would be just dang amazing!

• Students and/or Beginning Scholars: I had planned on separating these into two groups, but they are essentially doing the exact same thing, just on different levels of complexity.  These ones are the ones that would probably BENEFIT from my paper. By reading it, they begin to see a new method possible for analyzing Shakespeare. Taylor is an excellent example of this, because she's trying this new revenue to determine whether a character analysis via fiction is worthwhile. 

Perhaps there are other audiences, but these seem the most likely to have any serious consideration for what I had to say in my research paper, rather than thinking it all just one big joke. 

Alright, alright. I'll show you the guilty proof. Taylor is interested in possibly looking into doing a Hamlet fanfiction because of what I've had to say and the character analysis, and wants to take a look at some of my own fanfics. It's easier to just put it out there for you all to see. Just don't just me; I started writing this when I was a geeky little eighth grader, and some of the works I've done certainly come across that way. Also, I've never done a Shakespeare work myself, so you won't be looking at anything like that. In fact, I think the only stuff that I have online right now is Danny Phantom stuff. I'll be putting up a Teen Titans one in a few days, so you can keep your eye out if you so chose. Here's the link to my author bio and links to my works: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/936227/Angels_Innocence. I write under a pseudonym on the site, so don't be suprised to NOT see my name.

And The Results Are In!

My meeting with Dr. Burton about my research paper was certainly enlightening. Not that he didn't say anything I wasn't expecting content-and-grammar wise, but there were a few fun twists to the plot! Where to begin becomes the question...

I suppose I shall begin by giving a brief overview of what Dr. Burton had to say about the content of my paper. Now, known of this surprised me--I've had the same criticism on other papers in the past--but it becomes relevant when you look at how I formatted a rather abstract paper.

• First and foremost, there was a bit of question concerning my thesis. It was a well-fleshed out thesis--that's another thing I've had trouble with before, so I was extra careful--but I didn't quite... place it correctly? I suppose that's a good way to put it. Rather than having the thesis present throughout the entire paper, I didn't really come to hit on what I was trying to prove until the last section or two of my paper. Section, not paragraph. You'll see how I set it up if you look at the paper via the link at the end of the post. Now, I knew this was coming. I could tell while I was writing it that I was a little bit weak on the beginning. Dr. Burton's suggestion is to go through and place little teaser sentences about the thesis while I'm going about setting it up with all of the secondary sources I discuss.
• The other comment he had to make was about primary sources; again, I saw this coming. Because I'm going in such an abstract angle about Shakespeare, I had a hard time finding a way to correlate an original primary source by Shakespeare with the rest of the paper. I was somewhat hoping to use the excuse that the examples of Fanfiction I found and discussed could somehow float that boat as primary sources, but alas. His suggestion was to focus on one play. Probably Hamlet, because the Fanfiction piece I selected would probably be easier to identify with the primary source. 

Now than, how in the world can I continue on this revenue as a combined project the rest of the class can have imput on? Fanfiction is a virtual playground for commenting--I love going over there far more than I do on the blog, just because so many people are actually actively responding--but what else can be done? I've had some silly ideas--creating my own piece of Shakespeare Fanfiction, with imput and directorial advice from the class, compiling an archive of Shakespeare Fanfiction that would stand as proof of my claim that it is a superior source of adaptation. Dr. Burton even briefly mentioned turning my paper into a work of Fanfiction! Little does he know, but the second he said it I already had a few basic ideas on how that could be done. Maybe that seems a little unrealistic, but that's what Fanfiction authors have trained themselves to do: take even the littlest comment from a TV show or book, and use that as a basis for a full-blown piece of work. Now, my ideas for the piece are somewhat walking the line between Fanfiction and an original work--which I also do, and I have a sister site to www.fanfiction.net called www.fictionpress.com that hosts original work if you'd be interested in checking that out--but because it's based off of Shakespeare I could probably swing it.

How about it? How geeky are we wanting me to get?

Oh, and the paper link: Analyzing Amateur Adaptations