Even if you’re not a fantasy or sci-fi geek, most
people will at least be familiar with the concept of massively multiplayer online
role-playing games (MMORPGs) and the curious attraction of playing in imaginary, often horribly
realistic, scenario-based video ‘worlds’ such as The Sims, Tomb Raider,
Half-life, Minecraft or the godfather of MMORPGs, The World of Warcraft.
No? Do you ever watch the Big Bang Theory? Joined the Trekkies, or a fan
community where you can ‘become’ a Klingon, a Jedi, or a hobbit. Took the part
of a ninja warrior, or a barbarian for a live-action roleplay game perhaps
(LARP)? Or, going further back into the mists of time, indulged in some
table-top war-gaming with the grand-daddy of them all, Dungeons and Dragons
(D&D)? Purists will argue that you can trace the history of roleplay games
even further back, but we’ll stop at D&D, way back in 1974, because that
was the point at which people really began to embrace pen and paper roleplay
games.
I came late to it in 2005, when I had fallen
seriously ill in all kinds of ways, that had culminated in a massive breakdown,
battling chronic depression, and started out on the road to early retirement. In
need of some intellectual and creative stimulation, I drifted onto an online
Tolkien fan community that had started up in 2000, when the Peter Jackson films
had burst onto the scene. There, you could chat to other aficionados of the
books and/or films, write fan fiction, make fan art, and play at living ‘in
character’ in various ‘kingdoms’.
For me the roleplay was something I shied right
away from at first, because that was totally scary – at that point I had very
little sense of self left and had trouble just being ‘me’, let alone something
exotic, like an ent or an orc. Instead I concentrated on drawing and doing
photo-manipulation graphics, but gradually I wanted to write some fan-fiction,
and that’s how I began to think more seriously about creating my own Middle
Earth character to explore a fantasy world I’d loved since I was ten years old.
The way it worked on the roleplay forums was that
you couldn’t play any of the famous characters from the books, otherwise it
would have been awash with Gandalfs, Frodos and Galadriels. Instead, people
made their own characters up to play in the kingdoms around the site that
matched some of the locations from The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.
After a lot of agonising and abortive attempts to ‘settle’ in Minas Tirith or
Rohan (so city guards or horse cavalry), I decided to become an elf, and headed
off to Rivendell, home of one of my favourite characters, Elrond Half-Elven.
I joined two ‘guilds’, the Elven Art Association
and The Bards Guild and ended up running both of them in a fairly short time.
My favourite of the two was definitely the Bard’s Guild and that’s where I
started to really hit my stride as a writer, and as a poet. So much so that my
character, Janowyn, began to subtly merge with my writerly self, as her voice
gained in resonance and affinity (see my bio below to understand just how much
my inner elf has influenced my work and choice of pen name over the last dozen
or so years!).
Excerpt from Fantasy
Freebooting: a contemporary assay
The
more venerable the world, such as Middle Earth, or the Star Trek milieu, the
more susceptible they appear to being translated into happy hunting grounds for
the fantasy freebooting community, simply because of the original world’s
popularity and exposure to impressionable youngsters. Fan fiction, in the
hearts of the perpetrators (and I freely admit I am one such) is seen more as
an act of homage than predation, and has become increasingly accepted as a
valid preoccupation and honourable appreciation of the oeuvre of literary
giants. In some fantasy bastions, fan fiction is now an established and
legitimate theatre of celebration, especially for those based on television and
film manifestations, where there’s not necessarily a single perceived
originator. I’m talking cult status series and movies here, such as Dr. Who,
and Star Wars naturally, which have an array of writing talents who were ‘only’
fans to start out with, churning out endless variations and retellings of their
original object of fascination’s story, on a sanctioned and even financially
permitted basis. Then you have the less obvious groupies like Stephanie Meyer
(Twilight series), Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire et al) and Charlaine Harris (True Blood) in the night-sucking
arena, who are seen as pioneers, rather than developers on a theme, by virtue
of almost rehabilitating the sub-genre into comparatively contemporary settings
and dubious levels of political correctness.
Some
living fantasy authors, like J.K. Rowling, are also open to embracing fan
fiction, provided their copyright isn’t endangered or flouted. My personal
hero, Terry Pratchett, until his untimely demise, was thoroughly enthusiastic
and appreciatively supportive of all fan activity (provided a proper licence
was obtained should this be for a financial consideration); particularly of
cosplay when it came to sartorial interpretations of his celebrated Seamstress’
Guild, the ladies of negotiable affection on the rambunctious Discworld. When
it came to actually reading Discworld
fan-fiction, he always and publicly declined to do so, as a safeguard against
‘pinching’ someone else’s idea of what was rightfully his own franchise, thus
neatly side-stepping any subsequent wrangling on the grounds that he couldn’t
possibly have known about it at all. Maybe this was because a more youthful
Pratchett had also forayed into fan-fiction territory himself—as hero worship
for his own idol, Arthur C. Clarke, and generously made a conscious decision not to discourage adulation on his own
account when success finally happened. A sage decision one must concede,
especially if you know the fans will do it anyway, whether you want them to or
not…
Siân Glírdan is
the fusion persona of the elven roleplay character, Janowyn (Jano), High Bard
of the River Kingdom and her ‘real world’ creator, author, Jan Hawke.
Glírdan is the elven word for ‘songsmith’, and Siân is a Welsh variant of Jan
(in case you were wondering!).
When it became obvious to Jan that Jano had a far better handle than she could ever have on writing in the fantasy genres, Siân was born, fully formed and raring to go. A Freebooter’s Fantasy Almanac, which is basically the manual on how Jano was brought into being and developed, is Siân and Jano’s first official collaboration. They’re currently working hard on an epic future fantasy series, Tomes of the Havenlands, loosely based on the ancient Celtic world. The first volume should reach the shelves at the end of 2016.
When it became obvious to Jan that Jano had a far better handle than she could ever have on writing in the fantasy genres, Siân was born, fully formed and raring to go. A Freebooter’s Fantasy Almanac, which is basically the manual on how Jano was brought into being and developed, is Siân and Jano’s first official collaboration. They’re currently working hard on an epic future fantasy series, Tomes of the Havenlands, loosely based on the ancient Celtic world. The first volume should reach the shelves at the end of 2016.
A Freebooter’s Fantasy Almanac back blurb
This is poetry, wrapped in fantasy, within a memoir... Or, to
put it another way, it's a true tale that might well apply to many fantasy fans
and gamers who can't be bothered with keeping their realities separated from
their more lurid imaginings.
In my case, this is a sort of 'real' cyberspace
profiling, during a phase of my life when roleplay truly did need to be
therapy, because what was happening around me for real was not what I wanted to
participate in. So, buckle up your swash and prepare to witness a titanic
battle played out on the field of sanity - where what happens in your head is
the only truth that matters.
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