fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3159 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3159 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Knights Errant]

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[HeadOn]

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06. [SPOILERS for Tales of the Abyss]

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07. [WARNING for rape]

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08. [WARNING for sexual assault/harassment]

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09. [WARNING for child sexual abuse]

Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Every time I fall in love with something televised, whether it's an anime or a cartoon or a live-action show, I make the mistake of looking for fic, only to be reminded of why I generally stick to book fandoms even though they're usually small and don't have as much activity.

I don't want to come off as an elitist snob, but I'm starting to wonder if all the stereotypes about too much TV making you dumb are true. Because holy shit.

No, it is because most TV shows have larger, more varied fandoms. So, you get more shit with the more awesome.

Maybe you watch bad TV shows that breed bad fan fiction? Maybe you're looking in the wrong places? Maybe you're an elitist snob? Could be any number of reasons. Without more information than "it's all terrible", it's hard to come up with a solid theory.

They're all visual mediums, so fans are more likely to make visual art, especially anime/cartoons.

Yup, it's common knowledge that most anime fanfic sucks and you should just go straight for the doujins instead,

I mean... how to say this in a non-snobby way. I don't think TV makes you dumb. You can be smart and like TV. However, you're not going to necessarily acquire the same type of people you will with book fandoms.

Having said that, I'm in a small fandom for a book series that's no beach read, and last time I checked anyway, 75% of the fanfic is terrible. (Not naming the series because it's very small and I just said most of the fic is awful.) So being able to read something intellectually stimulating - or watch something intellectually stimulating, for that matter - doesn't always mean you can write. (I know that's not what you're saying, just pointing that out.)

Nah, it's because TV watchers are less likely to be used to what good writing looks like than book readers are.

People who are in book fandoms are usually people who read lots of books. And people who read books are familiar with the books' writing and are exposed to examples of How To Write. The same can't be said of TV, because written fiction is a very different format from a TV show or movie.

Obviously, there are also a lot of people who are good at writing/big book readers who are also in the fandom for a TV show. But statistically, TV shows fandoms will have a larger proportion of People Who Can't Write than book fandoms. You probably just haven't found them yet.

(the reverse is also true - books that have large fandoms full of people who don't read anything except that one book franchise tend to have worse writers as well, see Harry Potter.)

What I don't get is when people in book fandoms write like they've never actually read a book. So many fics will be written like this:

"And he said" "I know right" "and then you"

What book is written like that? I realize it can be a language issue, since text is formatted differently in various languages, but I'm talking about native English speakers who don't appear to know how to structure a basic sentence. In English. And yet they've read all three books in a series and have mentioned reading other books.

Because TV shows tend to have very different writing than books, and it's hard to convey the feel of TV shows in a text-only fanfic? Especially when it comes to cartoons and anime, whose storytelling is very visual-heavy. It's really difficult and takes a lot of creativity to translate what makes a cartoon/anime good into a good text-only story.

Not sure if this is relevant, but I actually took a scriptwriting course and I had the opposite problem. I could not, for the life of me, produce a well-written script, and in hindsight I realized all of my short scripts were better suited for short stories, or even the beginnings of novels. In my case I've actually seen movies, but I haven't read many scripts. (Really, our professor should've actually shown us real scripts. There was some teaching fail there.)

TV fandoms tend to be more id-y, I think. Which isn't inherently a bad thing - but it is what it is.

I read fic for all sorts of fandoms too and I've not found there to be an abundance of bad writing in any particular fandom. I've read just as many good fics in the Harry Potter fandom as I have in the Merlin BBC fandom, for example. (Which is a lot. Both those fandoms produce quality fic.) I think it depends on who is watching the shows you're reading fic for. Some shows are going to have a lot of self-insert OCs or unpolished writing, for example, because they cater to younger viewers who are more likely to want to write self-inserts and who are also unskilled. You get that in book fandoms as well, especially if the books are aimed at kids/teens.

Based on your comment, the fact that you are in small book fandom means your fandom isn't likely inundated with a lot of unskilled writers through which you'll have to wade through to find the good stuff. I'll backbutton out of a lot of Supernatural fics, but I barely backbutton out of Babylon 5 fics. There can be two reasons for this: one, I'm limited by choice and thus have lower standards for B5 fic since the fandom is so small; and two, because the fandoms attract different people typically, and different writers, so B5 fic tends to seem better overall because I'm comparing the good fics to a smaller number of fics I don't like, versus a larger number of fics I don't like in the Supernatural fandom.

I've always felt weird about sharing this sentiment, even anon, but I agree. I look for fanfic of shows I love and so rarely find something that, by my standards, doesn't suck. I feel like I'm probably just really picky, though, because most of the gen I find is just boring but the ship fic almost never does romance in a way I find appealing (or believable). So much of it is cookie cutter romcom Disneyfied crap, and I'm just over it.

But unfortunately most of the books I've wanted fic for are ones by really obscure authors so they don't have fandoms.

I want to enjoy fanfic because it makes up such a large portion of fandom in general, but the majority of it is just not good IMO.

[ SECRET POST #3159 ]

Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?

Re: Why is so much fanfiction of TV shows terrible?