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Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

Day 7 – Have you ever had a fic change your opinion of a character?

Something that I've written? Not that I can think of. Stuff that other people have written, undoubtedly.

Fandom is brilliant for bringing out sides to characters that probably never existed in the first place, and making that fit with the continuing canon. The example that jumps to mind is the twins - Elladan and Elrohir - in LotR. They have a dozen mentions between them and I'd be hard put to say if they have more than four lines of dialogue, and yet fanon has them as very distinct characters where Elrohir is playful and light hearted but prone to misfortune and Elladan is more serious and enjoys playing pranks on the household.

The other example is probably Gai (Naruto) who was an annoying distraction in the books, only good for an occasional laugh and for rescuing everyone when things got really bad. In fandom his friendship with Kakashi has turned into this pseudo-legendary and entirely psychological attack on Kakashi's defences. Giving him a way to have a friend without the fear of loss that has haunted him since Team Minato fell apart.

And I'm sure that's not what the question was asking at all, and I've ended up blah-ing in two fandoms that aren't even linked to this pseudo. I fail. Sorry.

( To Be Continued )

I know a lot of you have heard me banging on about this before, but I have a few new friends around and so I thought I'd make another go at getting this off the ground. I really think if we can get enough people onto the community and - essentially - asking questions about what they're trying to write, we have the opportunity to make a really great resource of peoples' knowledge available.



The concept of the ILC Exchange is to get people together from all over the world, talking about the places they live and the languages they speak, and asking and answering questions about other peoples languages and cultures. This means that you can use it to improve the local context of your writing, whether you're writing about living in a place you don't live, visiting a place you've never visited or speaking a language you don't know!

When you first join up (visit the community and click the 'Join this community' button in the top banner), use the 'Post To This Community' button (in the top banner) to place a post on the board telling us where you're from - you can be as vague or as precise as you like, but don't give us your address! If you need some inspiration, you can see some other introduction posts. Tell us what you like to talk about and anywhere you have visited as a tourist you think you could give a tourist's eye view to. Then ask your questions of the other members of the community by posting and keep an eye out for questions you think you could answer!

If you have any questions, ideas, comments or suggestions, please post them HERE.

The only way this is going to work is by getting people together from all over the world, so please, please pass the journal on and get people involved! Challenge yourself to find out how many people you know from outside your country, then go and ask if they're willing to get involved. Know another writer? Get them over here! Have access to a university or school campus? Get a flier up on the walls!

Thank you in advance for joining up, sharing your knowledge and sharing your curiosity!

The Damp Stranger

( The sun was high and the trees stirred lightly in the breeze. )