Motivations and fanfiction

[nancylebov]

I'm doing a button that says "I tell lies for money" which I think will mostly appeal to professional writers.

It would be nice to have something similar for fanfiction writers, but I'm not sure of the best phrasing.

I tell lies for fun.
I tell lies for egoboo. (good except that egoboo -- praise from a home community -- is a word that never made it out of fanzine fandom so far as I know)
I tell lies for love. (probably the most accurate, but the connotations don't work)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Comments

[brewsternorth]

"I bend lies I love"? Would give some idea of the transformative nature of the work.

[zenlizard]

"Ego boo" (or one word, if you prefer) is fairly common IME.

[redbird]

Lots of people tell lies for money, but I think you're right that saying so will appeal mostly to professional writers. Con artists and the less truthful sorts of salespeople don't want to advertise that they're lying to you.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Egoboo is also in use at least in convention-running fandom. Possibly because there is a large overlap with fanzinedom.

[carbonel]

The word "egoboo" is understood in the parts of fanfic fandom I hang out in -- which is, admittedly, mostly the older end of things.

You could also go with "I tell lies for kudos" because AO3 (Archive of Our Own) instituted a kudos function last year, where you can press a button and send kudos to a story writer without making an actual comment. I think it's kind of equivalent to Facebook's "like' button, but I'm not on Facebook, so can't tell for sure.

[olifhar.livejournal.com]

"I tell lies about the lies they tell for money"--though better describes the main activities of a book reviewer than a fanfic writer.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I tell lies for ★★★★☆s.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

(I used to tell people, "I tell lies to the government for money", which was approximately true; I could imagine that might sell to a certain subgroup...)

Lies for love sounds like a bad thing (telling lies to *get* love), but I'm having a harder time coming up with a better wording.

Fanfic...perhaps play on the piggy-back aspect? "I tell lies about other people's lies", or somesuch?

[alyxyn.livejournal.com]

I embroider on the lies of others?

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

How about

I tell other people's lies

?

[avram]

I tell lies for pageviews.
I tell lies for upvotes.
I tell lies in the winter, when it drizzles.
I tell lies in the summer, when it sizzles.

(Got a bit carried away, there.)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

There was the French writer who said, "Writing is like sex. You do it for love, and then you do it as a favor for a friend, and in the end you do it for money." On that spectrum, fanfic seems to be the second stage.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

"I tell lies for whuffie" seems closest, but is probably too obscure.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

But fan fiction writers don't tell lies at all. They unintentionally reveal the dark truths of their psyches, sometimes in glorious prose and often with grammatical errors. That, however, makes a dismal button. "Fan fic writers: Wizards of Id," applies a little too strictly to Harry Potter. I'll bet there are some people who buy buttons who will want one that says Slash Goggles with an appropriate graphic, though.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

All liars reveals things about their psyches by the lies they choose to tell. There's nothing special about fanfic writers in that. You could say the same about politicians. And yet we call a politician a liar when his statements don't also reveal things about external reality.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

"I tell lies for feedback."

Or maybe, "Avocational Liar".

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think if you had the others on the table, professional writers would be less inclined to buy the "for money" one. I can see the fanfic market is likely to be larger, but I thought this might be worth pointing out.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

At this point, I don't think I'll do a fanfic version. There doesn't seem to be a consensus on the phrasing.

It's certainly true that professional writers and fanfic writers share most of their motivations for writing. I don't have a feeling for how the existence of a fanfic button would affect sales of the professional button.

I think I'll wait until a fanfic catchphrase that's in use in the community surfaces.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I know whuffie but not egoboo. Kudos works anyway, of course, although I don't know the cited source.

I tell lies in my spare time.

I don't know what the truth is.
I wouldn't know the truth if it bit me.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Really? I've known egoboo for decades, but I've never seen whuffie before, and it's not obvious from the shape of the word what it means.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

I tell lies/for love.

[for slash fanfiction]

[arundelo.livejournal.com]

Not quite right, but: "I tell lies for free."

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

I think I'd go with "money" struck out with "fun" written in.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The problem is that professional writers write for all the same reasons fan fic writers do, with the addition of writing for money. A button which implies that professional writers don't also have fun isn't quite what I want to say.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

This is not really the same idea, but I'm imagining a button labeled "BLOCKHEAD" in big letters with the Samuel Johnson quote in fine print. ("No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." seems like the most common version on google).