[ SECRET POST #4655 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4655 ⌋

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

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08. [SPOILERS for Chicago Med]

[Conner/Ava]







Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #666.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/EAtlVS9.png

[philstar22]

I think you're wrong on so many levels. Just like original fiction, there are different qualities of fanfic. There is some amazing fanfic out there that does every single one of the things you say that fanfic can't do. There are plenty of bad published books and amazing published books, but the exact same goes for fics. Also, people are allowed to like what they want. And you don't have some sort of objective standard that is superior to everyone else's. You come across as really arrogant and judgy.

[(Anonymous)]

They don't sound that way to me. Part of it is that the internet is A Thing now. Anybody and everybody can self publish. Quality control is basically rock bottom.

Were there always badly written stories and trashy pulp floating around? Yes. But if you're arguing that the average level of quality overall of published fiction is the same as before, you're just... wrong.

I'm not OP, and I don't even necessarily think the barriers being lower is a bad thing. The freedom to publish means a lot of good and well-written voices get heard that would have previously been blocked out by, for example, social prejudice. But like, one of the side effects of freedom to publish anything is, a lot of the "anything" is crap. Just like with internet fanfic.

[philstar22]

I don't disagree with that. What I disagree with them on is their belief that fanfiction can't be as good as good published fiction and can't be good practice for good published fic. What I have a problem with is their seeming grudge against fanfic as an art form. I have no problem with their feelings on crappy self-published fiction. That stuff is low quality, the same as low quality fanfic. But there is good fanfic out there, and the OP doesn't seem willing to acknowledge that.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with everything you said, and also that they come across as arrogant and judgmental...I didn't know if that was just me imagining things.

[(Anonymous)]

Disagree. The secret doesn't lump all fanfiction into the bad category, nor does it make any claims that all published books are well written. That's something you pulled out of thin air. And let's not pretend that while there's some exceptional fanfic out there, there's a lot of stuff that fits what OP described - very trope heavy, not strong in the world building, characterization and solid plot.

You come across as really knee jerk defensive.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, and i don't even like any of the published fanfic I've seen
OP is mega judgy

[(Anonymous)]

I have been writing original fiction for thirty years on and off, and writing fanfiction for exchanges for just over a year, and I can tell you from personal experience that writing fanfiction has taught me a *lot* about characterization, world building, and how to make a story have a satisfactory ending.

I can also say without a doubt that the writers in the discord fanfic community are on average better writers and more knowledgeable than the amateur writers in the original writing discord communities I'm in, and quite a lot of them write brilliant stories with excellent character work. A good portion do good world building too.

I'm not sure how you have trouble finding good fanfiction but I suggest checking out fanfiction for original novels, especially the more literary ones or critically acclaimed rather than bestsellers. Those tend to have a decent proportion of good writing.

But there is also excellent writing in megafandom and in video game fanfic and so on. Just sometimes buried under more not so good stories by beginners (who are also learning from what they are writing, just have further to go).

[type_wild]

I've read a bit of m/m romance the last couple of years, and a lot of the time, it's really obvious that the writers started out as slash shippers. I can't put my finger on what exactly it is, however, but its like three pages in, "oh yeah, you started out writing fic".

If it's any comfort, I feel your bitterness. There's a ton of trashy literature being published already, and making "original fanfic" a legit genre is the next logical step, under capitalism. But from a quality standpoint... yikes. 99% of all fic is tropey drivel regurgitating the same stories and the same conflicts as everyone else, and that's why we love it. But as far as the benefits of reading fiction go, fanfic has the nutritional value of a marshmallow.

[(Anonymous)]

Same.

[(Anonymous)]

I've had that experience too and with a book I read not that long ago! It had these really long sex scenes in it that totally read like slash fic sex scenes. I'm sure they weren't intended to make me laugh (especially because one sex scene came in the aftermath of a heated argument), but they did because I immediately recognized the language. I don't know if the person used to write slash fic or not though.

[nightscale]

I've got a few free e-books on my kindle that read exactly like your average m/m fanfic, and honestly I do find them amusing as shit because I play an internal game of slash-fic bingo in my head while reading them. But holy crap they're not good and I'd never pay for them.

[(Anonymous)]

I rarely pick up fiction anymore that's not recommended by professional critics I trust. Crowdsourced reviews don't count.

[(Anonymous)]

This has always been the case, it's only because things have become more accessible and easiter to share that it seems more obvious. It doesn't necessarily have to do with fanfiction.

[(Anonymous)]

I look for fanfic almost every day, and I can't make it through the first half of most of the fics I try because the writing is just SO bad. If this is the future of published YA, that's devastating.

[nightscale]

I still manage to find books that I enjoy reading on a whim, go to a bookstore, read a bit of the inside and pick it up or not depending on if I like the prose, but I get you on there being more dreck out there because self-publishing is a lot more common.

Which tbh I'm not against, it means that there's more of a chance of unknown, good voices reaching an audience that they might not under traditional publishing, but it comes with the drawbacks of finding a lot more fanficcy style novels that I find difficult to get through. Though that isn't to say that some authors can't pull that switch off because I bet there are those that can.

When it comes down to it fanfic and published lit are just different beasts, and serve different purposes for the reader, which is fine. But honestly, if I'm looking for published lit, I want it to feel like that, not like fanfic because that's not what I'm after and for me at least the tropes/writing styles/choices I like in fanfic, I don't necessarily want in published lit.

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno, I've read YA for a really long time and I remember lots of lousy, badly-edited books way back when people weren't as open about fanfic as they are now. However, I do think that a good segment of those super popular books that bookstagramers promote are kinda crummy. I'd see people raving about them and immediately go to the library to check them out, but the vast majority have disappointed me. Goodreads is a little iffy too since people like to give low ratings to books they didn't read. They simply saw it had problematic content or the author was problematic and decided to make it a mission to warn everybody away from the book.

[(Anonymous)]

Sarah J. Mass wrote fanfic? I thought she got her start writing Throne of Glass on Wattpad.

[(Anonymous)]

well, Wattpad.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like your wording is doing you a bit of disservice. I'm also going to say that the average fanficcer doesn't care enough about writing to write an original novel and go professional whether or not they self-pub or go through the query process and traditionally pub.

Traditionally published works are what publishers think are a "sure thing" that are going to make back their advances. They choose things that fit their genre rules and page counts to make as much money as possible. And that's their right. The quality still runs the spectrum of amazing to 'who thought this was a good idea. If this can get published, so can I.' And b/c publishing houses are trying to save money, no one is getting more than one edit now a days.

Self-publishing is a lot of work and the idea that you can throw out something that is unedited and unpolished and have it be okay is no longer acceptable. (Though there will always be those chasing algorithms b/c amazon allows this bullshit.) The advantages to self-publishing are that there are indies out there with mixed genres you won't see in bookstores, from diverse voices you won't see in bookstores, about topics traditional publishers don't want to touch.

Kind of like webcomics.

As a self-pubbed author that has written both fanfic and original fic. If you want to improve your fanfic, you have to treat it like original fic. And you have to want to do so. Most don't because it's a hobby. You have to spend the time to care about writing descriptions, fleshing out canon and original characters, and yes, making a plot with a believable conflict. Fanfic has things that original fic can learn from, such as starting in the middle of things, ignoring description unless it is necessary and characters, characters, characters.

Also, the idea that original fiction is superior is maybe 120 or so years old? Before that people truly believed original ideas didn't sell. You had to rewrite myths and fables and make tales of the lives of the King to get ahead.

From your other comments, you're talking about PWP fics and I'm not sure what fandoms you're running in b/c that's not even even the majority of fanfics word count wise in the fandoms I've been in.

May I recommend Indie Connects Books? It's a curated list of indie published books with decent writing that has been edited. Though, I don't know if any will be to your taste. Good Luck?

https://www.indieconnectbooks.com/

[silverr]

Excellent points, especially

"If you want to improve your fanfic, you have to treat it like original fic. And you have to want to do so. Most don't because it's a hobby. You have to spend the time to care about writing descriptions, fleshing out canon and original characters, and yes, making a plot with a believable conflict. Fanfic has things that original fic can learn from, such as starting in the middle of things, ignoring description unless it is necessary and characters, characters, characters."

[(Anonymous)]

Just read non-fiction, then.

[tabaqui]

Hrmmmmmmmmm.... I'd say 'no, that's not right'. I do think a lot of pro fic is garbage, but I think writing fanfic *does* help writers.

So do other people - i read this from a link in the AO3 news: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/10/how-fanfiction-improves-writing/599197/

[silverr]

... not to mention that there are a number of published writers not only started out writing fanfic but still write it.

There also Seanan McGuire's essay about fanfiction: https://www.tor.com/2018/04/09/the-bodies-of-the-girls-who-made-me-fanfic-and-the-modern-world/

Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

I will agree that most fanfic doesn't involve creating original characters or world building (though, I have read a few where the world building is better than the canon source - like, they actually have logical explanations for things that are handwaved in canon). However, I'm not sure I agree about not fleshing out personalities or no coherent plot with a proper beginning, middle, and end (I'm not entirely sure what you mean by proper, here, though, because a lot of fiction, no matter the source, starts in media res, which is a legitimate device, and don't always go back and explain how everything began and also for a lot of fiction, no matter the source, endings with no real resolution are a staple).