Fanfic and books
I recently had a discussion with a friend about how our book-reading habits have changed since we started getting into fanfiction, and now I'm curious if other people had the same experience. Did fanfiction change the way you experience published books, and if so, how?
Do you read fewer published books now? Different ones (style, genre, plot...)? Did your standards get higher or lower? Did it change the kind of story you like to read?
Personally, I find that I have far less patience for books I don't enjoy than I used to have. As a kid, I'd go to the library once a week, check out eight to ten books, and then read all of them - the most appealing ones first, but when I was through with those, all the rest of them, too. There are a lot of books where I read past the first chapter only because I'd run out of anything better, and it was too cold and rainy to go back to the library just then.
I found some hidden treasures that way. Hambly's Windrose series, for example - the first chapter bored me to tears, but it gets better fast, and Antryg is still one of my favorite characters ever; or David Gemmel, who has this annoying habit of prefacing most of his (highly enjoyable) books with a weird and usually boring prologue containing information about long-ago events you'll only care about after you've read the book.
But most of what I slogged my way through out of desperation never did get any better than the first chapter threatened, so really, it's no great loss about most of the stuff I'll never read because now when it's cold and rainy and I've ran out of fun printed fiction, all I have to do is turn on the PC and get my fix of good fic online.
I've also gotten far better at judging the quality of the writing, and how much I'm going to like it, from the first few paragraphs. There are far fewer times now where I pick up a book because the back cover blurb sounded good, only to discover that the writing is crap. Pretty much an essential survival skill on the internets, where 90% of everything is crap...
Slash has definitely stopped me from seeking out stories about gay characters - I find that almost all of my interests in that area, from gay porn over coming-out angst to romance, slash covers better than published literature.
Shamefully, I have to admit that I read far less books now than I used to. Mostly because I've read through pretty much everything our public library has to offer, new books are expensive, and I dislike spending money when I can get stuff for free. But I do miss the time when I was able to talk about all the hot new books out there, and I know that most slash fiction isn't teaching me half as much as books used to.
So, what about you?
Do you read fewer published books now? Different ones (style, genre, plot...)? Did your standards get higher or lower? Did it change the kind of story you like to read?
Personally, I find that I have far less patience for books I don't enjoy than I used to have. As a kid, I'd go to the library once a week, check out eight to ten books, and then read all of them - the most appealing ones first, but when I was through with those, all the rest of them, too. There are a lot of books where I read past the first chapter only because I'd run out of anything better, and it was too cold and rainy to go back to the library just then.
I found some hidden treasures that way. Hambly's Windrose series, for example - the first chapter bored me to tears, but it gets better fast, and Antryg is still one of my favorite characters ever; or David Gemmel, who has this annoying habit of prefacing most of his (highly enjoyable) books with a weird and usually boring prologue containing information about long-ago events you'll only care about after you've read the book.
But most of what I slogged my way through out of desperation never did get any better than the first chapter threatened, so really, it's no great loss about most of the stuff I'll never read because now when it's cold and rainy and I've ran out of fun printed fiction, all I have to do is turn on the PC and get my fix of good fic online.
I've also gotten far better at judging the quality of the writing, and how much I'm going to like it, from the first few paragraphs. There are far fewer times now where I pick up a book because the back cover blurb sounded good, only to discover that the writing is crap. Pretty much an essential survival skill on the internets, where 90% of everything is crap...
Slash has definitely stopped me from seeking out stories about gay characters - I find that almost all of my interests in that area, from gay porn over coming-out angst to romance, slash covers better than published literature.
Shamefully, I have to admit that I read far less books now than I used to. Mostly because I've read through pretty much everything our public library has to offer, new books are expensive, and I dislike spending money when I can get stuff for free. But I do miss the time when I was able to talk about all the hot new books out there, and I know that most slash fiction isn't teaching me half as much as books used to.
So, what about you?