Friday, August 6, 2010
The Good, The Bad, and Ugly of Fics
Yep, it’s me again, yammering about fics. I’ve really been struggling to keep up with my growing list of favorite fics over the summer due to vacationing and work. Luckily, I’ve at least had some time to think about reading my updates, and on occasion talk about and read them with the other bloggers. During one session I came up with the idea of compiling a list of my likes and pet peeves about fanfic in more detail than in Introductory post.
Franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and The X-Files have huge followings, and it’s inevitable that one outlet for the collective fan excitement is fic writing. However, not all tales and writers are born equal, and the distribution is very skewed towards the lower end. There are preciously few well-written, original, and imaginative stories and a shitton of really mediocre stuff. I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at sniffing out both the good and the bad based on a quick sampling of a new, potentially interesting story. It’s the good stuff that makes it worthwhile to sift through the hundreds and hundreds of fics you find on FF.net, Twilighted, or on forums like our own RLC.
The good stories tend to have good summaries and prologue chapters to draw you in, whether by design or skill. They’re engaging, grammatically sound, and intriguing enough to get you hooked without revealing too much. Here’s the summary for anais mark’s “Metaphysics”:
‘Edward & Bella are graduate students in London ‘coincidentally’ researching the same poets. More than 300 years after the fact, Carlisle & Edward must find out why Carlisle’s past won’t stay there – before Bella digs it up researching her thesis.’
Here we have the promise of a mystery, Edward and Bella action, and a setting different from the old and tired high school context. It’s just the kind of thing to make you want to take a crack at the prologue. Not to mention that the prologue itself is just teasing enough about things to come that you want to keep reading.
Once the story sinks its claws into me, what keeps me going? I’m a fickle beast to satisfy, but I like me a good story that is unpredictable, internally logical, and one that provides a fresh take on the characters and the setting, whether all human or vamptastic. This generally goes hand-in-hand with solid research on the author’s part. If you’re going to write about Bella-the-PhD-student in the University of London system, you kinda want to make sure you’re describing it correctly for those of us that have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
How many of you would cheer at the thought of trying out yet another ‘Edward and Bella in high school, whereby Bella is a social pariah and Edward the cool rebel without a cause, and the two fall inexplicably for one another, but are put down by their parents and friends’ kind of story? There needs to be something edgy or disturbing to get me into those stories these days. Kind of like ‘Just Wait’ by InstantKarmaGirl, dealing with various forms of abuse and recovery. I much more prefer stories set in different times or locales, such as the Second World War themed fic ‘Finding Home’ by jennde, or the positively hypnotic ‘Dead Confederates’ by goldenmeadow. Redneck Eddie, monster trucks, a shoplifting Alice, Bubba, and Carl the veterinarian in the Deep South, y’all.
Characterization is where a lot of promising stories go bad, or actually the lack thereof. It’s somewhat numbing when you can predict beforehand that James is going to be a complete douche, Edward is a ripped, beautiful CEO genius that will fuck your brains out night after night, Jake will be the insensitive ex-husband of Bella, and Rosalie is an uppity beauty queen with a complex. Some of the best stories I’ve read turn these roles on their heads. For example, in algonquinrt’s “Mr Horrible”, Bella is a smart and hip deviant, Edward the loaded, slightly uptight but adorable techie, James a transvestite and Bella her fag hag, Esme a drunk socialite, and Laurent her amused butler. Even if the story sucked (it doesn’t), it would be worth the read thanks to the riot that the characters themselves are.
Another land mine that authors can nosedive into is excessively pandering to their audience. I write reviews, and certainly give suggestions to authors, but I don’t expect them to modify their outline or story details on my account. Unfortunately, some authors become prisoners of their success and cave into fan demands – to provide a ‘happily ever after’ ending, for example, or an endless series of epilogues. I personally as a reader enjoy the feeling of closure when I see a ‘Fin’ at the end of the last chapter. It’s a little irritating to see a chapter update email drop in my inbox after that. It feels as if I’d been cheated of something while reading the story proper.
Sometimes stories refuse to die a natural death, not due to fan demand, but rather due to the author not wanting to let the story go by capping it at the stage it naturally would. You’ve seen it happen -
- an angsty turn follows another just when you thought the story had finally reached a conclusion. That’s one reason why as a reader I appreciate it when authors provide a ballpark figure of the overall number of chapters the story is going to take. It shows they’ve thought the story through in detail and have a grasp on how things are turning out chapter by chapter.
It takes nerves (or ovaries) of steel to stay the course, though, since I’ve seen quite a few authors vent on their Twitter or in author’s notes about getting crapped on by readers who don’t like the way the story progresses. In that sense traditional publishing is easier for the authors, since you only need to take the flak after the fact, whereas with fics it’s an ongoing process that can easily burn you out if you pay too much attention to the negative feedback. I think as readers who pay nothing for the privilege of reading these stories, we owe at least the courtesy of providing constructive feedback to the authors in reviews.
Finally, the ugly business. In addition to gratuitous and sometimes protracted, multi-chapter sex scenes in a purportedly serious story, and lack of proofing (e.g. it’s amazing how many Emmet’s you routinely run into), one of the biggest turn-offs for me is actually something that has very little to do with the stories.
I don’t terribly mind lengthy gaps between updates, or the occasional shorter chapter due to real life pressure; shit happens and writing is a hobby for most authors. However, I do tend to facepalm at novella length author’s notes with dramz explaining the death of an aunt’s cat or the state of the author’s relationship, pleading for reviews, promises of a HEA if you just stay with the story, or lengthy jokes for the benefit of some insiders. Maybe I’m wired strangely, but I do think that there should be a certain disconnect, or a comfortable, impersonal distance between the author and the audience that is only breached to communicate something of importance. Some fic hosting sites do enforce this type of approach, I believe, or at least take a dim view on excessively long author notes.
There’s probably a ton of other stuff I could mention that ticks me off or titillates me, but I’ll need to revisit this topic in the future. I’m taking my own medicine and keeping this story to a reasonable length. Hopefully the above musings provide some food for thought when hunting for a new story or reflecting on your reading experience.
lol great post Kerensky
good points.
I love it when you write about fics! I always say high school fics are my fav, but I do enjoy a change from that every now and again. And, as long as the pairings stay true to canon, I do like when writers play around with characterization. I could not get through Mr.Horrible though. I think it's also being rewritten, or finished, by the amazing ohl.
I love your Fic posts! I love when the author gets creative with the characters too. My current fave is Hippie Carlisle in MoBS. Too funny! I'm kinda on a fic hiatus right now, taking a break from starting anything new. But when I start up again, I think I'll try Dead Confederates.
OKAY, The fics are fun, but to be honest most of the "escritors" deviate from the personalities that we adore (and which were written by Stephanie M.) as I believe (and want to know THE OPINION OF YOU ). That makes it very unrealistic.
I did not read much but, Please! Bella never would stay with Jacob, Edward never, never leave Bella (although not even find someone with a stronger smell ("that's not possible")) but I agree with the variation that says Renesmee gets Nahuel. Yeah! I totally forget to add that I do not like Jacob.
But anyway, who likes the fics Robsten !!???
Do not know about you but I like the realacion Robsten in real life! and it is good to add …. Long live the Chargers Robsten !!!!!!!!!
I love fanfics but will be the first to admit that a good one is hard to find, especially if you are like me and into some of the other couples. I love Rosalie and Emmett but only when they are done right. People tend to focus on the cliche instead of going deep into the characters. Yes Emmett and Rosalie are a physical couple but SM made it clear that they do have an actual love and a depth in their backstories.
. What can I say, I am not a Jacob fan at all.
There arent tons of stories that pull me in and make me want to read them but I do have some that I truly love. I also love to write so I tend to write about what I would want to read like an actual Emmett and Rosalie story that has some depth to the characters and I also wrote a whole series of fics that start after BD ends. The first is called Renesmee's Choice and yes I am one of those people who were creeped out by the imprinting so I do have her actually be a grown up and have to make a choice….a certain handsome half vampire half human does catch her eye aka Nahuel
All in all I just like stories that dont try too hard and that stay true to the overall essence of what is going on. Yes it is fan fiction and the fans can write about whatever they want, but unfortunately the good ones are very hard to find.