Personally, I think they basically mean the same thing. I definitely don't think it's an insult to call a published author a "writer." I suppose in some situations it could be misleading, like if in whatever context the person thought you were saying you were published...but that can be cleared up and it works the same for author or writer. "Author" does have a weightier sound--heh, I supopse "storyteller" is the next one down. Sometimes people make that distinction too: "Well so-and-so is a good storyteller but she's not really a writer," meaning one person tells an engaging story and the other person is more into style (which could be an insult either way).
Anyway, the idea that fanfic must be a stepping-stone to published work is ridiculous. It's a separate, enjoyable activity that has a different appeal than writing original work, though there's a lot of crossover appeal between them. They employ many of the same creative muscles, and some different ones (as stupid as I think it is to suggest writing fanfic isn't writing, I'm also impatient when people try to claim there's no difference--of course it's different, that doesn't make it bad). There are original writers who started out writing fanfic or profic in other universes, and ones that didn't. With all the spaces on publishers' lists being taken up by bad books, obviously there are many great writers out there who are unpublished. There can't be so few in the world.
Sometimes I think people just really want some sort of objective marker of quality to feel secure, and that doesn't exist outside the writing itself. What does it mean to say that the author who is published is better than the one who is not, or that the fanfic writer with professional aspirations is better than the one without them? It's supposed to suggest the writing is better, but the proof of that is in the pudding. As you said, there are plenty of writers now considered great who took years to get published. There are also plenty of non-published writers who insist they're not published because their work isn't commercial enough, suggesting being unpublished is somehow better than being published, when really they are bad writers. The upshot is, while being published perhaps does suggest a certain degree of competency or at least some creativity, it may not the mark of a better writer one way or the other. For that you have to look at the work itself and judge by the individual.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-10-14 07:16 pm (UTC)Personally, I think they basically mean the same thing. I definitely don't think it's an insult to call a published author a "writer." I suppose in some situations it could be misleading, like if in whatever context the person thought you were saying you were published...but that can be cleared up and it works the same for author or writer. "Author" does have a weightier sound--heh, I supopse "storyteller" is the next one down. Sometimes people make that distinction too: "Well so-and-so is a good storyteller but she's not really a writer," meaning one person tells an engaging story and the other person is more into style (which could be an insult either way).
Anyway, the idea that fanfic must be a stepping-stone to published work is ridiculous. It's a separate, enjoyable activity that has a different appeal than writing original work, though there's a lot of crossover appeal between them. They employ many of the same creative muscles, and some different ones (as stupid as I think it is to suggest writing fanfic isn't writing, I'm also impatient when people try to claim there's no difference--of course it's different, that doesn't make it bad). There are original writers who started out writing fanfic or profic in other universes, and ones that didn't. With all the spaces on publishers' lists being taken up by bad books, obviously there are many great writers out there who are unpublished. There can't be so few in the world.
Sometimes I think people just really want some sort of objective marker of quality to feel secure, and that doesn't exist outside the writing itself. What does it mean to say that the author who is published is better than the one who is not, or that the fanfic writer with professional aspirations is better than the one without them? It's supposed to suggest the writing is better, but the proof of that is in the pudding. As you said, there are plenty of writers now considered great who took years to get published. There are also plenty of non-published writers who insist they're not published because their work isn't commercial enough, suggesting being unpublished is somehow better than being published, when really they are bad writers. The upshot is, while being published perhaps does suggest a certain degree of competency or at least some creativity, it may not the mark of a better writer one way or the other. For that you have to look at the work itself and judge by the individual.