fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2273 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2273 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Er, that's not how it works. People don't read fic for the purpose of reading stories that are cream of the crop Balzac or Twain or whoever the fuck else. They read it to read stories about established fictional characters, which are a very different kind of story than original fiction - any original fiction. Fanfic that is good, even if it's not as "good" as the best published fiction, is more desirable than the best published fiction in the universe if you're in the mood to read fanfic. It's an entirely different desired outcome.

Say I want to eat Doritos. Barging in and presenting me with the finest meal ever cooked might make me eat that instead if I was just hungry and was only eating Doritos because I wanted to eat any food available, but not if I very specifically want to eat Doritos.

Or say, if I have a craving to watch a sitcom, and turn on reruns of Friends to satisfy that craving, dropping in and telling me that Breaking Bad is a way better show than Friends is gonna earn you a blank look from me, because it's irrelevant. I don't want to watch Breaking Bad. I want to watch Friends. Breaking Bad is not "better" than Friends to me at this specific moment, because my goal at the moment is to watch a sitcom, and Breaking Bad fails at being a sitcom. The quality of the show is an utterly irrelevant factor when it defies my entire goal.

Things with specific attributes exist because someone, at some point in time, will want that thing, with those specific attributes, and not anything else, and telling them that something is "better" is pointless, because "better" according to what criteria? You're assuming that the only critera someone would rate how much they want to read something is writing quality, and that's not always true. If someone wants to read fanfiction, giving them Huckleberry Finn isn't going to score a higher rating because they are not judging something by the criteria of "writing quality". They are judging it by "is this or is this not fanfiction?" and only considering the criteria of "writing quality" if it satisfies the primary criteria of "being fanfiction" first.

/tl;dr

Actually, I read fic for literary merit. The form is capable of effects that you can't really get in other literary forms, and I like seeing what writers who take advantage of that can do with it.

I grant that this isn't the majority of writers, and there's a lot of fic I'm not interested in or doesn't work for me or both. But there's a lot of published fiction that I'm not interested in or doesn't work for me. And that isn't aiming for literary quality. I'm not sure that fic is really all that different, at least along those axes.

Actually, I read fic for literary merit. The form is capable of effects that you can't really get in other literary forms, and I like seeing what writers who take advantage of that can do with it.

YES. That is so true as well! I love the way there are whole unique ways of writing and storytelling techniques that are only possible to do with fic, because it depends on the writer assuming the reader has prior knowledge of canon, or various kinds of vignettes and character studies and POVs and reflections and pieces involving characters' feelings or situations or backstories...there's just so much opportunity there.

I didn't mention that because it's a) rather rare and b) that type of literary merit still falls into the "I want it because it's fic" reasoning. Like, along the same lines you wouldn't read a play if you wanted to read masterful descriptive prose, or read a dialogue-less story for the sparkling dialogue, even though those can both be really, really good.

The form is capable of effects that you can't really get in other literary forms, and I like seeing what writers who take advantage of that can do with it.

THIS THIS THIS +1000000

[ SECRET POST #2273 ]

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