Things Fanfic Must Stop Doing - A series of arrogant rants and grumpy mutterings. - Rant #3

[m_mcgregor]

Things Fanfic Must Stop Doing - A series of arrogant rants and grumpy mutterings. - Rant #3

I should have known that being all complainy would be the only thing that could get me to make daily entries here. Why have I been cursed with the ability to whine so incessantly?

Today we look at something a little less glaringly awful than The Burly

Comments

[m_mcgregor]

Well there's definitely a viewpoint that style is entirely subjective and that you couldn't say one way or an other whether one style is the "correct" one. What you can say however is that writing fiction in the English language carries with it a set of basic rules and guidelines, and that without understanding those rules, guidelines, and why they exist, then you never really transcend as a writer. If you don't know why you should be avoiding three-asterisks, then you never get to the point when you can use them with a certain degree of skill and confidence. If you don't know why you shouldn't be using "Tom Swifties" all the time, then you'll never know when you should use them.

Writing is an art form, and there are certainly schools and guidelines for most art forms. Almost none of those rules are written in stone, but one should try to understand them before they start breaking them. I'm all for defying convention. I think it's one of the greatest things about any kind of creative artform. The problem is many people use that as an excuse to put out piss-poor work.

As for the differences between the mediums of fiction and television, well obviously to a certain degree this is all just my personal opinion. There are no facts for the writing process. It's not a recipe where you can say exactly what to do and in exactly what way you should do it.

That being said, I'll disagree that it's just my personal bias against it. Writing fiction is still writing fiction, and bad fiction suffers from certain symptoms, including an overuse of three-asterisks and similar conventions. Not every fic that uses it is a bad one, but many bad fics use it.

It's not even so much the fact that they're using it that's the problem. The problem is more that they don't know why they're using it. They haven't though about trying to fit the next scene into the flow of the narrative. That ties into what you've said about skill level. My goal in posting all of these is to encourage fanfiction authors to try and improve their skills. I want fanfiction to be held to the same standard as any kind of fiction. When it's good, I feel fanfiction can stand up against some of the best fiction out there. It's just that the bad outweighs the good by a tremendous, TREMENDOUS margin.

Now that sense of wanting to see fanfiction be more than it is, that's definitely my personal bias. I consider myself a writer, and it does bother me that the medium which I am so drawn to is one that's treated like a passing hobby by many people. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but the fact that they don't care to make a story the best story they can make it: that's what bothers me.

Although, I don't know, maybe if authors like that just put a disclaimer: "Hey, I just do this for fun, I'm not really looking for constructive criticism, I'm just looking to write about a show/book/movie I like" then I wouldn't have a problem. Most authors ask for feedback, however, and that to me says they should be held to a certain standard.

I can and have read stuff that is woefully substandard, and often read it just because the germ of the idea was enough to pique my interest. But when I do read stuff like that I always find myself wondering why this couldn't have been so much better, and it boggles my mind to see people leaving such glowing, positive, and largely mindless feedback for stories that are often barely literate in the first place.

If something's fun for you to read, yes, that is what it's all about at the end of the day. But I think most of us get more enjoyment out of a great idea that's executed well, rather than a great idea that looks like it was written during recess in the 7th grade.