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Aaah, yes. Nothing like a little kerfuffle to clear the air. For those out of the loop, I had a little run in with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bonesffrants, which was bound to happen because the place, I gotta admit, rubs me entirely the wrong way.
I love the creative chaos that is fandom. I dislike being told by other fans what I can and cannot do. It gets in the way of the whole anarchy thing we got going. Hence my general problem with places like that rant comm, where some folks have very clear ideas what a good fic must look like.
Which brings me to a thing that's been bugging me for months, not just limited to that comm: I keep hearing people say that teenagers shouldn't write Bones fic because their fic sucks... really, I read that so often, without anybody disagreeing, that one could almost get the impression that's the prevailing opinion.
Quoting - because I'm lazy like that - from a mail I wrote to one of the mods at ffrants (who btw was very reasonable and friendly and I'd like to emphasize that my beef is not with her personally):
"Just one thing: I saw someone post in the header to their fic on ffn something along the lines of, "I wasn't sure if I should post this because I'm kinda scared of bonesffrants." Someone else agreed. And this sort of thing honestly bothers me, because the deal with Sturgeon's law is that it's a package deal. We need all the crap to get the five to ten percent that's good. I think that thing you guys do can smother creativity, like when someone happens to stumble over it who hasn't got a thick skin. And many writers are awefully thin-skinned, not just the teenies. This is why I care about this so strongly.
Well, apart from that there's the whole issue of how fanfic can help teenagers become more literate and hone their writing skills which is why they shouldn't be discouraged no matter how much their dreadful high-school teen fik makes you want to spork your brain out. Ten years from now their stories might kick our collective butts." [eta: btw, not meaning to imply that teenagers' fic in general isn't good - in Bones fandom alone I've seen some very young writers who write kick-ass fic that makes me deeply jealous. :)]
Henry Jenkins, author of 'Convergence Culture' and 'Textual Poachers' wrote an interesting article on the subject: In Defense of Crud
In the end, no one's holding a gun to anyone's head to make them read stories they dislike or find offensive. I don't know about you but I can usually tell within the first paragraph if a fic is my cup of tea. With badfic, I don't even need the first paragraph, the summary will do.
And while it makes me boggle on occasion (ok, often) how some poorly-spelled, OOC fic at the pit gets 250 reviews while the beautifully crafted story right next to it gets only 10 which seems quite unfair... it's not like these two stories are in direct competition with each other. They got different target groups and fulfil different functions. I certainly know which one I'll read, but there's no reason to wish for the other story to go away. Others must've liked it well enough to comment. The interwebz is huge, there’s enough room for all.
No more meta for at least a week; I haven't even read fanfic in days.
*** Oh, oh, also... I don't remember if I linked to this already. I found it in the comments of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lim's fantastic meta vid Us: Also a meta vid, but a totally different approach. *g* Check it out: I put you there. It's BtVS but since it's very, very meta it's probably fun even if you're not in the fandom. (By the way, can someone tell me how I get an imeem vid to display in full screen?)
bonesffrants, which was bound to happen because the place, I gotta admit, rubs me entirely the wrong way.I love the creative chaos that is fandom. I dislike being told by other fans what I can and cannot do. It gets in the way of the whole anarchy thing we got going. Hence my general problem with places like that rant comm, where some folks have very clear ideas what a good fic must look like.
Which brings me to a thing that's been bugging me for months, not just limited to that comm: I keep hearing people say that teenagers shouldn't write Bones fic because their fic sucks... really, I read that so often, without anybody disagreeing, that one could almost get the impression that's the prevailing opinion.
Quoting - because I'm lazy like that - from a mail I wrote to one of the mods at ffrants (who btw was very reasonable and friendly and I'd like to emphasize that my beef is not with her personally):
"Just one thing: I saw someone post in the header to their fic on ffn something along the lines of, "I wasn't sure if I should post this because I'm kinda scared of bonesffrants." Someone else agreed. And this sort of thing honestly bothers me, because the deal with Sturgeon's law is that it's a package deal. We need all the crap to get the five to ten percent that's good. I think that thing you guys do can smother creativity, like when someone happens to stumble over it who hasn't got a thick skin. And many writers are awefully thin-skinned, not just the teenies. This is why I care about this so strongly.
Well, apart from that there's the whole issue of how fanfic can help teenagers become more literate and hone their writing skills which is why they shouldn't be discouraged no matter how much their dreadful high-school teen fik makes you want to spork your brain out. Ten years from now their stories might kick our collective butts." [eta: btw, not meaning to imply that teenagers' fic in general isn't good - in Bones fandom alone I've seen some very young writers who write kick-ass fic that makes me deeply jealous. :)]
Henry Jenkins, author of 'Convergence Culture' and 'Textual Poachers' wrote an interesting article on the subject: In Defense of Crud
In the end, no one's holding a gun to anyone's head to make them read stories they dislike or find offensive. I don't know about you but I can usually tell within the first paragraph if a fic is my cup of tea. With badfic, I don't even need the first paragraph, the summary will do.
And while it makes me boggle on occasion (ok, often) how some poorly-spelled, OOC fic at the pit gets 250 reviews while the beautifully crafted story right next to it gets only 10 which seems quite unfair... it's not like these two stories are in direct competition with each other. They got different target groups and fulfil different functions. I certainly know which one I'll read, but there's no reason to wish for the other story to go away. Others must've liked it well enough to comment. The interwebz is huge, there’s enough room for all.
No more meta for at least a week; I haven't even read fanfic in days.
lim's fantastic meta vid Us: Also a meta vid, but a totally different approach. *g* Check it out: I put you there. It's BtVS but since it's very, very meta it's probably fun even if you're not in the fandom. (By the way, can someone tell me how I get an imeem vid to display in full screen?)
no subject
I have, on rare occasions, criticized a fic by name -- but I've done it in my own lj, because doing it in a more public venue feels to me kind of like coming over to someone's house for the express purpose of telling them that their baby is ugly.
*g* apt comparison. Yeah, I think that's a problem here. Public venue. It's a locked comm but Bones fandom is way too small for them to fly under the radar and the chances of an author finding out are pretty high (unlike fanficrants, which it's modelled after, I think I read... and fanficrants is still a major sponsor of fandom_wank.)
It's not like I never indulged in some pointing-and-laughing at badfic... I'm pretty sure I have. Badfic can be frikking funny. I found babymimi (http://www.fanfiction.net/~babymimi)'s intentional badfic so hilarious that I could barely read through the tears ;). But it is better kept to the privacy of one's journal where the writer really has to go out of their way to find it.
The other thing is, it's almost always good fic that I find myself criticizing, because bad fic doesn't bother me in the same way.
Yes, exactly. I mean, we've done our fair share of criticizing fic at BBF and as I wrote this I've been pondering whether this makes me a hypocrite. But like you say, it's a completely different animal if you discuss the merits and flaws of a good fic / rec with caveats, or if you pick one just for the purpose of bashing it in a public place.
There's no real sport in it.
*nodnod*