[ SECRET POST #4435 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4435 ⌋

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

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05.
[The Umbrella Academy, Cha-Cha and Hazel]


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[Death Mark]


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07.
[Casey Affleck]












Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #635.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - 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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Controversial perhaps, but I don't think "reads like fanfic" is necessarily a compliment, either. Readers frequently put up with a great deal to read about favorite tropes, favorite pairings, porn, etc. that doesn't fly outside of fandom.

(And before any picks up their torch and pitchfork, I'm not saying that published fiction is superior to fanfiction or that there's no poor quality published fiction. I'm saying that fanfiction has a rather specific set of socially acceptable standards that has the potential to make it terrible in a way that differs from terrible published fiction.)

And if you can trust your critique partners' abilities, don't worry about it. Like I said, fanfic-specific quirks stand out, even if readers don't recognize the origin. They can beta for writing quality without understanding the ins and outs of fanfic.

[(Anonymous)]

For me, "reads like fanfic" is mostly neutral, depending on your priorities. Fanfic tends to have more emphasis on character and mood than plot and pacing, and to be...emotionally indulgent in a deliberate way, targeting some fairly specific kinds of tension and catharsis.

I don't just mean porn, but stuff like H/C and all those reams of "mutual pining" fic - the catharsis there is confession, not consummation. Mainstream stuff often tries to access similar emotional payoffs - see every interminable hetero Will They/Won't They ever - but fanfic has both a defter and a heavier hand with it, distilling it down into a pretty high-octane version of itself.

If a book was logistically meandering but nuanced and intimate, I might enjoy it and consider it objectively good and say it read like fanfic. If a book was myopic and glurgy, I might enjoy or hate it depending on my mood that day, and consider it objectively bad and still say it read like fanfic.

On the other hand, I know some people definitely use the phrase differently to indicate a kind of flashy off-the-wall take on things "season 8 reads like bad fanfic" - because they're using tropey and exaggerated plots - or just to mean that it has a sloppiness about threads and payoffs that comes with fewer expectations/requirements in terms of repeated editing.

In general, I don't think it's a terribly useful phrase out of context unless you verify how an individual person is using it.

[sabotabby]

IA.

When I've use it, there are several different connotations. It might be because it's character-driven, particularly where the characters have tropes I'm weak for. Or it might be because the characters are tropey in a way that I don't like (which, to be fair, is prevalent in genre fiction in general even if the author doesn't have a fannish background). Or there is a certain writing style that I will tolerate in fanfic but might bother me in professional writing, depending on my mood (the Captive Prince, while I enjoyed it, had this in spades).

So...pretty meaningless.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't just mean porn, but stuff like H/C and all those reams of "mutual pining" fic - the catharsis there is confession, not consummation. Mainstream stuff often tries to access similar emotional payoffs - see every interminable hetero Will They/Won't They ever - but fanfic has both a defter and a heavier hand with it, distilling it down into a pretty high-octane version of itself.

I agree with your entire comment, but I especially LOVE this bit. Especially the "both defter and heavier hand" part, because that perfectly articulates something I've been feeling about fanfic for many years - an almost paradoxical quality that fanfic has.

[(Anonymous)]

I rarely use "reads like fanfic" in my reviews, but when I do, I almost never use it in a positive context. For me "reads like fanfic" means that the author basically didn't bother to flesh the characters and world out before they threw lots of tropes at them. Kind of how fanfic authors don't need to do that because they (usually correctly) assume that everyone who reads their fic is familiar with canon.
Not sure if I'm describing this right, but sometimes books just read like the author's fanfic of their own canon. To them it's all deep and meaningful cause THEY know their characters/the world but have sort of forgotten, that readers don't.

[(Anonymous)]

And sometimes it 'reads like fanfic' because it actually is.

I one actually felt motivated to review somebody's book on Amazon just because it had annoyed me so much that it felt like somebody had taken fanfic and filed the serial numbers off. Like...if you'd done a find/replace on the the characters' names, you would've just accepted it as fanfic without any other changes, pretty much.

If I'd found it on AO3? Okay fine that's where it belongs. But paying money to read it because it was supposed to be a new setting written by an author I liked? Annoying. At least it was Kindle so I didn't pay much.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with all of this.

[dinogrrl]

Yeah, this. I've come across one book where I knew almost instantly that the authors were fanficcers. The story became frustrating to slog through, because I kept feeling like I was reading stuff from a fandom I was not familiar with, but I COULDN'T get familiar with it because it didn't exist. Hence why I said the story 'read like a fanfic' and I did not mean it as a compliment. A lot of other reviewers noticed the same things that I did, even though they weren't fanficcers themselves. (So OP, don't worry--your critique group will pick up on things being 'not right' even if they don't recognize the origin of the habits.)

It's like if someone who writes hardcore psychological horror were to decide to write a period slice-of-life story. Can they? Absolutely. But it's going to come across strangely to the period drama crowd if they write it like a horror story.

[silverr]

"They can beta for writing quality without understanding the ins and outs of fanfic."

I came here to say exactly the same thing.