Musings on something I mentioned on tumblr
In an effort to avoid editing the next chapter of Consigned to Oblivion, I'm going to ramble about something I'd really like to do but probably won't due to the huge potential for drama. Still, I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while and I still like it. (I don't like what other people will inevitably do with it, but what can I do?)
Anyway. I posted about the idea of doing a fanfic book club on my tumblr and got a decent response. I'm never going to get an overwhelmingly positive response to anything on that site due to having pissed off a few key people (and therefore being relegated to obscurity because I Am Bad And All My Ideas Are Bad And Must Not Be Shared), but a few people I trust to be decent were on board, so who knows. Maybe we can start small and see if people like it or if it's an awful plan.
The general idea was to create a combination recommended reading list, discussion group, and support group for fanfic writers.
I'd make a submission form where people could suggest completed fics between 1,000 and 10,000 words, and we'd do a monthly rotation. It'd look like this:
1. InuKag fic of any kind
2. MirSan fic of any kind
3. Theme/genre specific fic (any/no ship)
4. SessKag or RarePair fic of any kind
5. NoPair fic of any kind
6. Theme/genre specific fic (any/no ship)
The idea behind the rotation is not to get stuck only highlighting one type of fic. I've noticed that fandom groups tend to become kind of insular and exclusionary based on pairings only and it bugs me in a big way. (Might have something to do with me being a librarian.) The RarePair category would technically just be a category for anything that isn't Inu/Kag or Mir/San, including crackships and yaoi/yuri. When it came to actually selecting the fics, I'd just go down the list of nominations and pick the first one that fits the month's theme. Sort of first come, first served.
Reading each month would be optional, but participants would have the first 20 days of each month to read that month's selected fic, after which I'd open a comment/discussion period wherever the group is hosted. I'm honestly considering LJ for this because it's so much easier to have conversations than on tumblr, and I think a community with anon commenting allowed would work well.
There would be a few other rules for submissions, like parts of series not being allowed and things of that nature, but I'd want to leave it as open as possible. I think it'd be a great way to recommend fic to people that they might not otherwise read or see. I know when I go looking for fic in my limited free time, it tends to just be for the ships I like (or from the authors I already know I like), so I'm probably missing a lot of good stuff.
My concern is twofold.
First, the selection process is still probably going to make people feel excluded and hurt. Even if they have the option to submit their own fics, some people are going to be butthurt if nobody else submitted their fic for them.
Second, the discussion period. One of the responses to my tumblr post mentioned looking forward to a "good debate/discussion" and that sort of confirmed my fears that the discussion could go really wrong, really fast. My intention in thinking of this wasn't to inspire some sort of quality contest or assessment or "debate" (whatever that would mean for fanfiction), but to talk about the things that we liked or that made us think, questions that a story raised, recommend other stories like the one being featured, things like that. I want this, if I do it, to be the sort of thing that an author stumbles upon and then can't stop smiling for days because people were talking about and enjoying their fic. Or where they can drop by to talk about their writing with other people.
So there might have to be some pretty strong rules about what constitutes an acceptable contribution to the discussion. Along the lines of "Constructive criticism only", "No personal comments about an author", and "Don't be an asshole to other posters", perhaps. I have a lot of thinking to do about how to set this up to minimize any potential negativity. I don't want to silence people who didn't like a fic... but at the same time I know comments like that can be really hurtful and become inappropriate really easily. But since I don't want to start this until June or July, I have time yet.
At any rate, I value the input of everyone that still follows me here. I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.
Anyway. I posted about the idea of doing a fanfic book club on my tumblr and got a decent response. I'm never going to get an overwhelmingly positive response to anything on that site due to having pissed off a few key people (and therefore being relegated to obscurity because I Am Bad And All My Ideas Are Bad And Must Not Be Shared), but a few people I trust to be decent were on board, so who knows. Maybe we can start small and see if people like it or if it's an awful plan.
The general idea was to create a combination recommended reading list, discussion group, and support group for fanfic writers.
I'd make a submission form where people could suggest completed fics between 1,000 and 10,000 words, and we'd do a monthly rotation. It'd look like this:
1. InuKag fic of any kind
2. MirSan fic of any kind
3. Theme/genre specific fic (any/no ship)
4. SessKag or RarePair fic of any kind
5. NoPair fic of any kind
6. Theme/genre specific fic (any/no ship)
The idea behind the rotation is not to get stuck only highlighting one type of fic. I've noticed that fandom groups tend to become kind of insular and exclusionary based on pairings only and it bugs me in a big way. (Might have something to do with me being a librarian.) The RarePair category would technically just be a category for anything that isn't Inu/Kag or Mir/San, including crackships and yaoi/yuri. When it came to actually selecting the fics, I'd just go down the list of nominations and pick the first one that fits the month's theme. Sort of first come, first served.
Reading each month would be optional, but participants would have the first 20 days of each month to read that month's selected fic, after which I'd open a comment/discussion period wherever the group is hosted. I'm honestly considering LJ for this because it's so much easier to have conversations than on tumblr, and I think a community with anon commenting allowed would work well.
There would be a few other rules for submissions, like parts of series not being allowed and things of that nature, but I'd want to leave it as open as possible. I think it'd be a great way to recommend fic to people that they might not otherwise read or see. I know when I go looking for fic in my limited free time, it tends to just be for the ships I like (or from the authors I already know I like), so I'm probably missing a lot of good stuff.
My concern is twofold.
First, the selection process is still probably going to make people feel excluded and hurt. Even if they have the option to submit their own fics, some people are going to be butthurt if nobody else submitted their fic for them.
Second, the discussion period. One of the responses to my tumblr post mentioned looking forward to a "good debate/discussion" and that sort of confirmed my fears that the discussion could go really wrong, really fast. My intention in thinking of this wasn't to inspire some sort of quality contest or assessment or "debate" (whatever that would mean for fanfiction), but to talk about the things that we liked or that made us think, questions that a story raised, recommend other stories like the one being featured, things like that. I want this, if I do it, to be the sort of thing that an author stumbles upon and then can't stop smiling for days because people were talking about and enjoying their fic. Or where they can drop by to talk about their writing with other people.
So there might have to be some pretty strong rules about what constitutes an acceptable contribution to the discussion. Along the lines of "Constructive criticism only", "No personal comments about an author", and "Don't be an asshole to other posters", perhaps. I have a lot of thinking to do about how to set this up to minimize any potential negativity. I don't want to silence people who didn't like a fic... but at the same time I know comments like that can be really hurtful and become inappropriate really easily. But since I don't want to start this until June or July, I have time yet.
At any rate, I value the input of everyone that still follows me here. I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.