Meta: Why I DON'T Britpick
Yeah, I said it. Jealous? *loffs Amy Poehler* This is for Stacy. I hope it doesn't come across as too self-important. When in doubt, check in with Chuck Norris.
During my time in the Harry Potter fandom, I've lurked through many a rant on the subject of britpicking. For some time, I agreed with the ranters -- the source material takes place in British society, and thus, it is not true to the source material to write a story without properly britpicking it. There is a logic to that argument.
Then, I took the plunge. I wrote my first story in the fandom. It was -- *gasp* -- Draco/Hermione, a pairing not exactly known for being characterized well in fanfiction (and my OTP). That is partly because it is a difficult ship to write. If you don't tackle the whole "die mudblood die" stuff, you're probably going to write something that doesn't quite ring true, because what you've done is ignored their history. (Never minding the factions that intentionally ignore it, because man, racism is such a downer. Or even worse, the people who don't ignore it and instead completely miss the point -- Draco: "Oh, yeah, baby. Take it all in, you filthy little mudblood." Hermione: "Aww, I love when you call me that!" eucalyptus: *sporks eyes*) And some would argue that since Draco's a little racist shithole, there IS no way to write them right. People just don't learn to NOT be racist. Thus the pairing cannot work (at least, when portrayed as stable and healthy). Can you think of any real life or literary parallels? Chances are, you can't. It just doesn't happen in normal relationships.
I didn't see that then. With the idea that I had to britpick my way to the top, I gruelled over that first story. It was quite long, and though I didn't use a britpicker (I was so new that I didn't know there were betas that specialized in it), I did a fair bit of research. I even used the phrase "taking the mickey out of me", which honestly never, ever sounded right.
I think it was received decently, but despite how much time I'd put into britpicking it myself, one of the criticisms levelled at me was that it really could have used MORE britpicking. Well, fine. I begrudgingly acknowledged this. I had changed as much as I could with the references I had, but it is easier to find "x is said like this" sources then it is to find "we don't say that, ever" sources, and that was part of the problem. I had trousers, I had mates, I had mum, I had take-away, but no one ever told me what Brits don't say. Shoot, I thought. They caught me. My secret was out. Now they knew -- I WASN'T BRITISH. *le sigh*
I wrote a second story for the same fic exchange that was received a bit better. That story was a pinch hit. I didn't agonize over it as much as the other one. I just wrote the thing. And because I didn't worry about britpicking like I had before, I wrote more freely. It was nice. Made me feel smart, maybe even adept, it did. Don't we all wish it could be that simple?
As I started to think about myself as sort of, maybe, an actual writer person, I started to see the things in other stories that made them work. That's one thing I think being a writer enables you to do. I find I am now better able to examine a piece of writing and pinpoint not just what works and what doesn't on a grammatical and POV level, but on a more holistic level, why it works or does not work. When I read a story now, I can sometimes see the strategy between the lines. It's interesting to read published fiction as well, because it has made me realize that the best, BESTEST writers are the ones whose strategy remains completely hidden to the most critical minds.
In fanfiction, it made me much more aware of whose writing in the pairing was worth paying attention to. And there are two Draco/Hermione writers in particular, perhaps three, with the ability, skill and pure, raw talent, to stand up amongst the best writers in the HP fandom. Not that they get much recognition for it. Fandom tends to be set in its ways.
The crazy thing is, these particular writers couldn't care less about britpicking. They don't britpick. They just do their thing. And feel free to point it out to them, but they don't care. As is often said, if you don't like it, find something else to read, right?
And it made me think that there is something WRONG with this idea that we have to britpick to the nth degree for something we write to be, supposedly, Good Enough.
So where is the written playbook? Where is the RULE that we must britpick? Where does it say my writing isn't valid unless I have my protag call my antag a 'right foul git' instead of a 'piece of shit'? (I don't know, maybe brits actually say that. I pulled it out of my ass.)
Oh, that's right, there isn't one.
I should probably restate what I've said above. I see the logic in the argument that there is source material to consider. I think britpicking is definitely necessary -- to a point. Certainly research is required if writing a story that will go into depth about the political, legal and educational systems there. But what really rankles me is the people who get so angry about britpicking that they resort to ranting about it, because most of the complaints I read are about language. And I am also bothered by the idea that "your story needs to be britpicked" is valid criticism. To me, the person who says that is a reader attempting to exert their authority over the fanfiction they read. I think it crosses a line. And, it is simply not true.
To further my reasoning, let's look at this a little further.
I say pants, not trousers. I say sidewalk, not pavement. I say friends, not mates. I don't think in a way that remotely resembles how a Brit thinks. I don't live in that society. It is thus unfair, if I come up with something exceptional, truthful and organic to place the expectation on me that I can make my story "better" if I use a britpicker and potentially alter what I've written until it barely resembles the original piece. It is forced and unnatural. It strips the more cultural things that are a part of me from the story. And if I worried about it to the extent some people would have me worry about it, all for the sake of emulating the source material, I'd have a hard time writing anything at all.
This brings me to the idea of emulation as it relates to the ability to create something unique. We want people to write creatively, to write with passion, to be innovative, to find an original angle to spin, but for some reason, it also has to mimic the source material as much as possible. I completely disagree with this. I don't believe you can have both. Remember those writers I spoke about a few paragraphs above? They'll be published one day, you watch, if they choose to try to make it. Their writing breaks from the norm. They are creative, passionate, innovative writers. Their characters are fully realized, their plots, intricate, well-thought out, compelling. They do not crazily switch point of view or confuse their tenses. But they do not britpick. Because WHY should they mess with their writing process when it works? It does not make their writing bad! It does not make their writing less valid as fanfiction. They have made a deliberate decision, so if some reviewers would just step back and consider the writer they are reviewing, maybe they'd find that particular criticism as woefully ignorant and condescending as I do. It treats the writer like they have no knowledge of the source material, no awareness of the differences between what they are writing and what the books are.
Frankly this is where I believe the fandom collectively confuses things. We think because we are a more uninhibited fandom that we are somehow groundbreaking. I think that's sort of a flawed idea. Where is the evidence for that? We're so large that we're endlessly repeating ourselves. We're so fixed on fanon recreations of our favourite characters that a lot of us, myself included, have lost sight of what canon says in the first place. Some of us recognize that and return to the source material now and again. A lot of us don't. Some people write who have never read the books.
What would truly be groundbreaking is if we stopped placing these crazy superficial restrictions on ourselves and stopped perpetuating the idea that if we don't write a certain way, it's wrong. It's not.
I don't write a lot, but when I do, I attempt to put a lot of myself into it. That gives me the right to write as I please. It makes that story mine. Oh, obviously I don't mean that in the 'ownership of the copyright material' sense, but in the way that I've put what I know and feel into the story and in the effort I've extended along the way. Who I am is a direct extension of my culture and my family. So to those who would criticize my writing for my utter ignorance of British culture, I say, SHOCKER, but I'm not British. I'm not comfortable going to that extent. I don't like my finished product. And partly, the anti-establishment part of me just doesn't care. It's not wrong of me to feel that way, and it doesn't necessarily make your writing better than mine.
So I have to assert, in the end, britpicking is a superficial criticism. It doesn't matter if you britpick, it's whether you tell a compelling story. It is not an insult to canon, to JKR, to Brits, or to readers to do so. It is your choice to make. If you are serious about being a writer one day and see fanfiction as practice, get out of the mindset that things have to be done a certain way. Don't limit your own creativity. Being the best britpicker in the whole damn world won't make you a good writer. What makes you a good writer is your choices. Do you choose to ignore the blood issue in a Draco/Hermione story? How about the "he killed the dark lord I supported" in a post-war Harry/Pansy story? And what about the homophobia issue and the werewolf stigmatization when you write Remus/Lucius after Narcissa's death? Because if you can handle those things, those BIG things, with some respect and responsibility, you'll find meaning for your silly little romance. That's what matters. You'll get people interested in what you write. You'll make people believe it can happen. And you may even find people emulating your style. ;)
My point is -- if you don't want to britpick, fine. If you want to, fine. Do what feels like the right thing to do. Don't listen to the people whose "meta" gets linked on the newsletters, wherein they complain about how writers don't britpick. There's no rule, and it's just fanfiction.
Just like the whole 'OMG you dun do britpickin!~!11!!' argument, which is so often espouteded as FACT, this is also a matter of personal opinion. If discussing herein, I trust you'll play nicely, because pee in the sandbox is bad for the ants and kind of gross.
*dhr for the win!*
(This is actually quite hilarious of me if you think about my teeny tiny fic list. But I stand by it.)
During my time in the Harry Potter fandom, I've lurked through many a rant on the subject of britpicking. For some time, I agreed with the ranters -- the source material takes place in British society, and thus, it is not true to the source material to write a story without properly britpicking it. There is a logic to that argument.
Then, I took the plunge. I wrote my first story in the fandom. It was -- *gasp* -- Draco/Hermione, a pairing not exactly known for being characterized well in fanfiction (and my OTP). That is partly because it is a difficult ship to write. If you don't tackle the whole "die mudblood die" stuff, you're probably going to write something that doesn't quite ring true, because what you've done is ignored their history. (Never minding the factions that intentionally ignore it, because man, racism is such a downer. Or even worse, the people who don't ignore it and instead completely miss the point -- Draco: "Oh, yeah, baby. Take it all in, you filthy little mudblood." Hermione: "Aww, I love when you call me that!" eucalyptus: *sporks eyes*) And some would argue that since Draco's a little racist shithole, there IS no way to write them right. People just don't learn to NOT be racist. Thus the pairing cannot work (at least, when portrayed as stable and healthy). Can you think of any real life or literary parallels? Chances are, you can't. It just doesn't happen in normal relationships.
I didn't see that then. With the idea that I had to britpick my way to the top, I gruelled over that first story. It was quite long, and though I didn't use a britpicker (I was so new that I didn't know there were betas that specialized in it), I did a fair bit of research. I even used the phrase "taking the mickey out of me", which honestly never, ever sounded right.
I think it was received decently, but despite how much time I'd put into britpicking it myself, one of the criticisms levelled at me was that it really could have used MORE britpicking. Well, fine. I begrudgingly acknowledged this. I had changed as much as I could with the references I had, but it is easier to find "x is said like this" sources then it is to find "we don't say that, ever" sources, and that was part of the problem. I had trousers, I had mates, I had mum, I had take-away, but no one ever told me what Brits don't say. Shoot, I thought. They caught me. My secret was out. Now they knew -- I WASN'T BRITISH. *le sigh*
I wrote a second story for the same fic exchange that was received a bit better. That story was a pinch hit. I didn't agonize over it as much as the other one. I just wrote the thing. And because I didn't worry about britpicking like I had before, I wrote more freely. It was nice. Made me feel smart, maybe even adept, it did. Don't we all wish it could be that simple?
As I started to think about myself as sort of, maybe, an actual writer person, I started to see the things in other stories that made them work. That's one thing I think being a writer enables you to do. I find I am now better able to examine a piece of writing and pinpoint not just what works and what doesn't on a grammatical and POV level, but on a more holistic level, why it works or does not work. When I read a story now, I can sometimes see the strategy between the lines. It's interesting to read published fiction as well, because it has made me realize that the best, BESTEST writers are the ones whose strategy remains completely hidden to the most critical minds.
In fanfiction, it made me much more aware of whose writing in the pairing was worth paying attention to. And there are two Draco/Hermione writers in particular, perhaps three, with the ability, skill and pure, raw talent, to stand up amongst the best writers in the HP fandom. Not that they get much recognition for it. Fandom tends to be set in its ways.
The crazy thing is, these particular writers couldn't care less about britpicking. They don't britpick. They just do their thing. And feel free to point it out to them, but they don't care. As is often said, if you don't like it, find something else to read, right?
And it made me think that there is something WRONG with this idea that we have to britpick to the nth degree for something we write to be, supposedly, Good Enough.
So where is the written playbook? Where is the RULE that we must britpick? Where does it say my writing isn't valid unless I have my protag call my antag a 'right foul git' instead of a 'piece of shit'? (I don't know, maybe brits actually say that. I pulled it out of my ass.)
Oh, that's right, there isn't one.
I should probably restate what I've said above. I see the logic in the argument that there is source material to consider. I think britpicking is definitely necessary -- to a point. Certainly research is required if writing a story that will go into depth about the political, legal and educational systems there. But what really rankles me is the people who get so angry about britpicking that they resort to ranting about it, because most of the complaints I read are about language. And I am also bothered by the idea that "your story needs to be britpicked" is valid criticism. To me, the person who says that is a reader attempting to exert their authority over the fanfiction they read. I think it crosses a line. And, it is simply not true.
To further my reasoning, let's look at this a little further.
I say pants, not trousers. I say sidewalk, not pavement. I say friends, not mates. I don't think in a way that remotely resembles how a Brit thinks. I don't live in that society. It is thus unfair, if I come up with something exceptional, truthful and organic to place the expectation on me that I can make my story "better" if I use a britpicker and potentially alter what I've written until it barely resembles the original piece. It is forced and unnatural. It strips the more cultural things that are a part of me from the story. And if I worried about it to the extent some people would have me worry about it, all for the sake of emulating the source material, I'd have a hard time writing anything at all.
This brings me to the idea of emulation as it relates to the ability to create something unique. We want people to write creatively, to write with passion, to be innovative, to find an original angle to spin, but for some reason, it also has to mimic the source material as much as possible. I completely disagree with this. I don't believe you can have both. Remember those writers I spoke about a few paragraphs above? They'll be published one day, you watch, if they choose to try to make it. Their writing breaks from the norm. They are creative, passionate, innovative writers. Their characters are fully realized, their plots, intricate, well-thought out, compelling. They do not crazily switch point of view or confuse their tenses. But they do not britpick. Because WHY should they mess with their writing process when it works? It does not make their writing bad! It does not make their writing less valid as fanfiction. They have made a deliberate decision, so if some reviewers would just step back and consider the writer they are reviewing, maybe they'd find that particular criticism as woefully ignorant and condescending as I do. It treats the writer like they have no knowledge of the source material, no awareness of the differences between what they are writing and what the books are.
Frankly this is where I believe the fandom collectively confuses things. We think because we are a more uninhibited fandom that we are somehow groundbreaking. I think that's sort of a flawed idea. Where is the evidence for that? We're so large that we're endlessly repeating ourselves. We're so fixed on fanon recreations of our favourite characters that a lot of us, myself included, have lost sight of what canon says in the first place. Some of us recognize that and return to the source material now and again. A lot of us don't. Some people write who have never read the books.
What would truly be groundbreaking is if we stopped placing these crazy superficial restrictions on ourselves and stopped perpetuating the idea that if we don't write a certain way, it's wrong. It's not.
I don't write a lot, but when I do, I attempt to put a lot of myself into it. That gives me the right to write as I please. It makes that story mine. Oh, obviously I don't mean that in the 'ownership of the copyright material' sense, but in the way that I've put what I know and feel into the story and in the effort I've extended along the way. Who I am is a direct extension of my culture and my family. So to those who would criticize my writing for my utter ignorance of British culture, I say, SHOCKER, but I'm not British. I'm not comfortable going to that extent. I don't like my finished product. And partly, the anti-establishment part of me just doesn't care. It's not wrong of me to feel that way, and it doesn't necessarily make your writing better than mine.
So I have to assert, in the end, britpicking is a superficial criticism. It doesn't matter if you britpick, it's whether you tell a compelling story. It is not an insult to canon, to JKR, to Brits, or to readers to do so. It is your choice to make. If you are serious about being a writer one day and see fanfiction as practice, get out of the mindset that things have to be done a certain way. Don't limit your own creativity. Being the best britpicker in the whole damn world won't make you a good writer. What makes you a good writer is your choices. Do you choose to ignore the blood issue in a Draco/Hermione story? How about the "he killed the dark lord I supported" in a post-war Harry/Pansy story? And what about the homophobia issue and the werewolf stigmatization when you write Remus/Lucius after Narcissa's death? Because if you can handle those things, those BIG things, with some respect and responsibility, you'll find meaning for your silly little romance. That's what matters. You'll get people interested in what you write. You'll make people believe it can happen. And you may even find people emulating your style. ;)
My point is -- if you don't want to britpick, fine. If you want to, fine. Do what feels like the right thing to do. Don't listen to the people whose "meta" gets linked on the newsletters, wherein they complain about how writers don't britpick. There's no rule, and it's just fanfiction.
Just like the whole 'OMG you dun do britpickin!~!11!!' argument, which is so often espouteded as FACT, this is also a matter of personal opinion. If discussing herein, I trust you'll play nicely, because pee in the sandbox is bad for the ants and kind of gross.
*dhr for the win!*
(This is actually quite hilarious of me if you think about my teeny tiny fic list. But I stand by it.)