does anybody else find their old fics absolutely cringeworthy?
..and realize that the 'expiration date' of when a fic goes from "hey, this was pretty good" to "oh god why did I ever write this piece of shit" is rather rapid?
I read a bunch of my old fics from not too long ago, circa 2007 or so and while I didn't object to everything in them, nearly every one had a line of dialogue or something that was just so completely awkward or plain cliché or ridiculously badly written that I just cringed and wanted to stop reading.
Most stuff I wrote last year was okay. Like I'm very fond of - warning for shameless self-plugging - the Tiger&Dragon fic I wrote, and these random ficlets and my recent crack-ish The Mentalist fic and some of the kpop fic I scribbled last year but overall? Meh. I'm not saying this to fish for compliments, FYI. I know people still appreciate my fic and I can be kind of overcritical of my own writing but it did get me thinking.
Like, first of all, what's my most comfortable style to write in? Do I excel in it? Can I move beyond it? (Rhetorical questions!) Like I noticed a lot of the fics I liked flowed naturally and were in a style I don't normally consider my style, but then I also put it down to being extremely inspired. Sometimes I encounter these situations where I really really want to write in some specific style, like a fic with tons of funny dialogue and not too much of introspection or character thoughts/actions. But then I just can't do it for whatever reason, it doesn't flow, or I can't figure out when to write what the characters are doing instead of just what they're saying etc etc. I have makings of Leverage fics where I really struggle with this - the original show's dialogue is so sharp and awesome, how can I live up to it, make that world my own? It's so difficult and I hate it, because I would loooove to fic the hell out of it but I'm just so uninspired.
I guess it all comes down to that in the end, inspiration. Some fics you just get an idea and you write it and it rocks and the end. Others take a while to develop but come around in the end. Some fics were a good idea once but the execution, not so much.
Which kind of brings me to my second pondering. Beta'ing. I don't do it anymore. I probably stopped around 2006 or so, partly because I started to think the struggle to find a really good beta was not worth the outcome. Also, this realization that while there's good fic and there's bad fic, the lines are extremely blurry. I remember the days when I would go on FFnet and just read everything I could find of some of my favourite pairing and like pretty much all of it unless it was horrendously spelled or whatever. One man's badfic is another man's favourite. Assuming that men even read fanfic, har har har.
But yeah. To me it started to boil down to four factors..
1) I write for myself. I don't need a beta to make sure the fic I write for myself is good, I can be the judge of that.
2) People seem to like what I write regardless of whether it goes through one beta, two beta's or none.
3) I believe only a select few are blessed in having beta readers who are sufficiently cheerleader-y and critical at the same time. This is not a criticism towards any of the people who've beta'ed my fics - they've all been good. But when fanfic writing for me is just for fun, it starts to feel pointless, because..
4) .. I'm not in it to win it. Whatever "it" is, BNF-ery or internet status or whatever. I don't want to be a professional author, either. I am looking to improve but on my own terms - which is, whenever I sit down to write, I want the result to be a good story. If it turns out to be a magnum opus of epic awesomosity, so be it. If it turns out to be something I'll cringe at 2 years later, whatever, happens. But I'm not interested in taking fic writing lessons from anybody. Or actively trying to better myself. I tip my hat off to those who do try, who have aspirations in anything creative writing related. But that's not my game.
But I have been thinking, when I feel like I can't do a story justice, or it's not working out, or it's coming out bad or awkward or cringeworthy already, whether I should try to better myself. And then I think - how the heck? You don't learn anything about writing by doing anything but writing. And reading, I suppose, which admittedly I could do a lot more of (I'm such a visual media person, I swear to god). But there's no crash course in getting better at certain shit. You just have to churn out badfic until it becomes goodfic. Assuming it ever does. But even if it doesn't, who cares, plenty of people love badfic. That much I've learned in all my years in fandom.
So there you go, thinky thoughts which ultimately end with the conclusion of "fuck it, can't be bothered". :D
I read a bunch of my old fics from not too long ago, circa 2007 or so and while I didn't object to everything in them, nearly every one had a line of dialogue or something that was just so completely awkward or plain cliché or ridiculously badly written that I just cringed and wanted to stop reading.
Most stuff I wrote last year was okay. Like I'm very fond of - warning for shameless self-plugging - the Tiger&Dragon fic I wrote, and these random ficlets and my recent crack-ish The Mentalist fic and some of the kpop fic I scribbled last year but overall? Meh. I'm not saying this to fish for compliments, FYI. I know people still appreciate my fic and I can be kind of overcritical of my own writing but it did get me thinking.
Like, first of all, what's my most comfortable style to write in? Do I excel in it? Can I move beyond it? (Rhetorical questions!) Like I noticed a lot of the fics I liked flowed naturally and were in a style I don't normally consider my style, but then I also put it down to being extremely inspired. Sometimes I encounter these situations where I really really want to write in some specific style, like a fic with tons of funny dialogue and not too much of introspection or character thoughts/actions. But then I just can't do it for whatever reason, it doesn't flow, or I can't figure out when to write what the characters are doing instead of just what they're saying etc etc. I have makings of Leverage fics where I really struggle with this - the original show's dialogue is so sharp and awesome, how can I live up to it, make that world my own? It's so difficult and I hate it, because I would loooove to fic the hell out of it but I'm just so uninspired.
I guess it all comes down to that in the end, inspiration. Some fics you just get an idea and you write it and it rocks and the end. Others take a while to develop but come around in the end. Some fics were a good idea once but the execution, not so much.
Which kind of brings me to my second pondering. Beta'ing. I don't do it anymore. I probably stopped around 2006 or so, partly because I started to think the struggle to find a really good beta was not worth the outcome. Also, this realization that while there's good fic and there's bad fic, the lines are extremely blurry. I remember the days when I would go on FFnet and just read everything I could find of some of my favourite pairing and like pretty much all of it unless it was horrendously spelled or whatever. One man's badfic is another man's favourite. Assuming that men even read fanfic, har har har.
But yeah. To me it started to boil down to four factors..
1) I write for myself. I don't need a beta to make sure the fic I write for myself is good, I can be the judge of that.
2) People seem to like what I write regardless of whether it goes through one beta, two beta's or none.
3) I believe only a select few are blessed in having beta readers who are sufficiently cheerleader-y and critical at the same time. This is not a criticism towards any of the people who've beta'ed my fics - they've all been good. But when fanfic writing for me is just for fun, it starts to feel pointless, because..
4) .. I'm not in it to win it. Whatever "it" is, BNF-ery or internet status or whatever. I don't want to be a professional author, either. I am looking to improve but on my own terms - which is, whenever I sit down to write, I want the result to be a good story. If it turns out to be a magnum opus of epic awesomosity, so be it. If it turns out to be something I'll cringe at 2 years later, whatever, happens. But I'm not interested in taking fic writing lessons from anybody. Or actively trying to better myself. I tip my hat off to those who do try, who have aspirations in anything creative writing related. But that's not my game.
But I have been thinking, when I feel like I can't do a story justice, or it's not working out, or it's coming out bad or awkward or cringeworthy already, whether I should try to better myself. And then I think - how the heck? You don't learn anything about writing by doing anything but writing. And reading, I suppose, which admittedly I could do a lot more of (I'm such a visual media person, I swear to god). But there's no crash course in getting better at certain shit. You just have to churn out badfic until it becomes goodfic. Assuming it ever does. But even if it doesn't, who cares, plenty of people love badfic. That much I've learned in all my years in fandom.
So there you go, thinky thoughts which ultimately end with the conclusion of "fuck it, can't be bothered". :D