What's Up with Highlander Fanfic
I found Pat_t's recent discussion of highlander fanfic to be one of the most interesting discussions on Highlander fiction that I have read. Because I’m doing recs for the CrackVan, I’ve recently spent a great deal of time looking at the previous recs, re-reading stories that I remember fondly, and searching through new fiction. I also just
( Read more... )
But here, I can say that, yes, I'm a reasonably well educated reader and writer (and editor, since that's how I make my living; and I deal with friends and professional contacts on both sides of the commercial fiction publishing business, as editors and authors). I'm not saying the criteria you mentioned are bad -- just limited and not universally applicable to all the kinds of writing coming out within our genre. And just a little insulting to some really fine work, in my opinion, to which those criteria are not germane. There's a reason, maybe, why the older fiction in the fandom is more traditionally structured than the later work?
I'm completely bowled over by the artistry of the short form shown in the genre.
The premise may be form as well as content. The picture=1,000 words stories were like that. When I wrote Fishy, Fishy, Fishy [for a challenge that dealt with themes of three objects, for a story to be exactly 1000 words long] I was looking at triplets, repeating and interweaving situations involving three characters, three settings, three "fish" circling one another [my picture was of three sharks]. The personalities of the Duncan-Amanda-Mathos, my three main characters, were key to the story, but most of the delight of the story was in its playful construction, puns, humor, wordplay, and format. It didn't have wide appeal, but it did really please the people who liked that kind of work.
One of the delights of fan fiction as well as self-published fiction that operates outside of the marketplace is that a greater range of experimentation, structure, and expression is possible. Likewise, the writer has access to a greater range of readers with different kinds of expectations from their stories. *You don't have to play by the writer-manual guidelines!* And when you put your own take on things out there, you do have at least a chance of finding a reader who will enjoy things that you do. I don't have much interest in "pro" writing.
But also, on the mainstream fiction end, it also seems to me that there is a large pool of successfully reader-grabbing fiction on the market which is plot-driven with only sketchy or very trite character development. The vast majority of SF and action fiction relies more heavily on plot than character.
Reply
Leave a comment