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thefourthvine) wrote2013-11-12 10:40 am
thefourthvine) wrote2013-11-12 10:40 am
Entry tags:
[Rant] In Defense of Bad Writing
A long time ago, I had a lot to say in rants about how people were DOING IT WRONG and should NOT WRITE THIS WAY but rather THIS OTHER WAY. (And, if I'm gonna be honest, those rants are all still there, just waiting for me to type them. Let me tell you about the Should You Use the Pluperfect? flowchart I made the other day. Or not, because honestly, TFV, nobody wants to hear that.) I was all, "People! Write better!"
Sorry, past me -- you were wrong. What I should have been saying was, "People! Write more! (Even if it's really bad!)"
Because, yes, I still think the word sensitized needs to be left to lie fallow for a decade. Where it can maybe cavort with its friend, lave. I still sometimes want to ban thesauruses. I still feel like maybe those weeping cocks should see a doctor, or perhaps a therapist.
But these days, I also think we're lucky to have those stories. I probably won't be reading them, but I'm happy they exist, for three reasons.
Writing is good. People are writing! For fun! Good news! Seriously, if I had spent more time writing down the hideously painful Mary Sue fan fiction I dreamed up when I was a wee teen, I might have spent less time on, you know, drugs and sucking the cocks of random strangers without protection. I'm always happy to see someone making better choices than I made.
Maybe you're now saying, "Okay, fine, but do they have to post those Mary Sue stories where I can see them?" If so, you're being a dick. Cut it out. The Archive of Our Own is not the Archive of Just What You Want to Read. It's the Archive of Fanworks. Is it a fanwork? Then it belongs there! And if you're incapable of scrolling past something, it's not that the Mary Sue writers are in the wrong place, it's that you are. (Also, I'm sorry, but I don't know where would be the right place for you. Everywhere is going to have stuff you don't like, because tastes are individual and all that. Maybe the internet just isn't for you.)
Crap is important. Sturgeon's law is right, but it misses the point. Ninety percent of everything has to be shit. That's how you get the 10% that's good.
Your favorite writers, fan fiction, published fiction, published fan fiction, whatever -- they didn't start out writing that way. There was a time when they wrote unspeakably awful crap. Writing unspeakably awful crap is how you learn to write only moderately awful crap, and then eventually maybe decent stuff, and then, if you're lucky, actually good things. There are not two classes of people, those who are good writers and those who are bad writers, so that all you have to do to have only great stuff is scare away all the bad writers. There are people who used to write bad stuff, and there are people who are currently writing bad stuff, and there's a lot of crossover between the two. Some of the second category will one day be the first category. (Also, tomorrow some of the first category will move back to the second. No one hits it out of ballpark every time.) If you want to read new good stuff tomorrow, encourage the people writing bad stuff today. (And also maybe help them get betas. Betas are great.)
And, no, those people don't have to hide their work away until it gets better. They can share it with anyone who wants to read it. If they want to post it, they should. Wanting to is reason enough. (Although if you want another reason -- posting is how community happens. Which is how things like betas happen. People who share their work get better faster.)
Crap is a sign of life. New bad stories are a sign that this genre -- fan fiction, the genre I adore the most - is alive and well. Bad stories mean new people are trying to write in it, and people are trying to do new things with it, and maybe new people are joining the audience, too. When only the best and most popular are writing in a genre, it's on its deathbed. (See: Westerns and Louis L'Amour.) I want this genre to be here forever, because I want to read it forever. So I'm happy that teenagers are posting Mary Sue stories to the Archive of Our Own.
Does that mean you have to be happy? Nope. I can't make you do anything. (I can think you're wrong, but hey, being wrong on the internet is a time-honored tradition among our people.) But when you start making fun of a writer and bullying her in the comments of her story, simply because she's writing something you think is bad and embarrassing, well, that's when I say: shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Because she's not a problem. She's just doing what we're all doing -- having fun, playing with words, throwing something out there on the internet to see if other people like it.
But you. You're trying to stop someone from having fun. You're trying to shame people into not writing anymore. And that, folks -- that is the definition of shitty behavior. (Mary Sue fantasies, on the other hand, are just the definition of human behavior.) It's bad for people, it's bad for the future, and it's bad for the genre. So you're a problem.
Please go away, problems, and let all of us write out our ids out in peace.
(And, yes, this was triggered by one specific story and some of the responses it's getting on the AO3. But it applies to all of them, all the fan fiction we don't like out there. Okay, I'm done.)
Sorry, past me -- you were wrong. What I should have been saying was, "People! Write more! (Even if it's really bad!)"
Because, yes, I still think the word sensitized needs to be left to lie fallow for a decade. Where it can maybe cavort with its friend, lave. I still sometimes want to ban thesauruses. I still feel like maybe those weeping cocks should see a doctor, or perhaps a therapist.
But these days, I also think we're lucky to have those stories. I probably won't be reading them, but I'm happy they exist, for three reasons.
Writing is good. People are writing! For fun! Good news! Seriously, if I had spent more time writing down the hideously painful Mary Sue fan fiction I dreamed up when I was a wee teen, I might have spent less time on, you know, drugs and sucking the cocks of random strangers without protection. I'm always happy to see someone making better choices than I made.
Maybe you're now saying, "Okay, fine, but do they have to post those Mary Sue stories where I can see them?" If so, you're being a dick. Cut it out. The Archive of Our Own is not the Archive of Just What You Want to Read. It's the Archive of Fanworks. Is it a fanwork? Then it belongs there! And if you're incapable of scrolling past something, it's not that the Mary Sue writers are in the wrong place, it's that you are. (Also, I'm sorry, but I don't know where would be the right place for you. Everywhere is going to have stuff you don't like, because tastes are individual and all that. Maybe the internet just isn't for you.)
Crap is important. Sturgeon's law is right, but it misses the point. Ninety percent of everything has to be shit. That's how you get the 10% that's good.
Your favorite writers, fan fiction, published fiction, published fan fiction, whatever -- they didn't start out writing that way. There was a time when they wrote unspeakably awful crap. Writing unspeakably awful crap is how you learn to write only moderately awful crap, and then eventually maybe decent stuff, and then, if you're lucky, actually good things. There are not two classes of people, those who are good writers and those who are bad writers, so that all you have to do to have only great stuff is scare away all the bad writers. There are people who used to write bad stuff, and there are people who are currently writing bad stuff, and there's a lot of crossover between the two. Some of the second category will one day be the first category. (Also, tomorrow some of the first category will move back to the second. No one hits it out of ballpark every time.) If you want to read new good stuff tomorrow, encourage the people writing bad stuff today. (And also maybe help them get betas. Betas are great.)
And, no, those people don't have to hide their work away until it gets better. They can share it with anyone who wants to read it. If they want to post it, they should. Wanting to is reason enough. (Although if you want another reason -- posting is how community happens. Which is how things like betas happen. People who share their work get better faster.)
Crap is a sign of life. New bad stories are a sign that this genre -- fan fiction, the genre I adore the most - is alive and well. Bad stories mean new people are trying to write in it, and people are trying to do new things with it, and maybe new people are joining the audience, too. When only the best and most popular are writing in a genre, it's on its deathbed. (See: Westerns and Louis L'Amour.) I want this genre to be here forever, because I want to read it forever. So I'm happy that teenagers are posting Mary Sue stories to the Archive of Our Own.
Does that mean you have to be happy? Nope. I can't make you do anything. (I can think you're wrong, but hey, being wrong on the internet is a time-honored tradition among our people.) But when you start making fun of a writer and bullying her in the comments of her story, simply because she's writing something you think is bad and embarrassing, well, that's when I say: shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Because she's not a problem. She's just doing what we're all doing -- having fun, playing with words, throwing something out there on the internet to see if other people like it.
But you. You're trying to stop someone from having fun. You're trying to shame people into not writing anymore. And that, folks -- that is the definition of shitty behavior. (Mary Sue fantasies, on the other hand, are just the definition of human behavior.) It's bad for people, it's bad for the future, and it's bad for the genre. So you're a problem.
Please go away, problems, and let all of us write out our ids out in peace.
(And, yes, this was triggered by one specific story and some of the responses it's getting on the AO3. But it applies to all of them, all the fan fiction we don't like out there. Okay, I'm done.)
no subject
The whole point to P-L was that it wasn't about the authors; it was about the readers' reactions to the fanfic, and their desire to talk with each other about that as part of their overall fannish experience, just as we talked about canon with each other.
Sentinel fandom as it existed before P-L wasn't safe, welcoming, and awesome for everyone; it was silencing and repressive to a lot of people, flat-out telling them they were bad and wrong for enjoying fandom the way they did: wanting to be able to react to the things they read with other fans, to see what did and didn't work for other people and why.
P-L was explicitly created with the idea that readers are every bit as important a part of fandom as writers, and have every bit as much right to a voice to react to their shared fannish experience.
And it turns out there was a huge need for that; hundreds of people joined and posted thousands of messages just that first month, in this massive outpouring of relief and pent-up frustration at having been silenced for so long. Some of the very early posts did get a little sharp as a result of that frustration (although honestly, the only truly nasty posts were from people trolling the list trying to pick fights to prove how awful the list was). But it settled down really fast into just... discussion. Active, happy, cheerful discussion, including disagreement and different opinions, about fic, canon, fanon, cons, zines, vids, more canon, more fanon, more fic....
There were a lot of rumors circulating off P-L about how mean and nasty it was, but they weren't true. At best, they were based on distorted and exaggerated tales told about the first few days, when everyone was blowing off steam; at worst, they were made up out of whole cloth to paint the worst possible picture of the list and scare people about how awful and mean all those terrible P-L people were. There were a lot of people willing to believe the absolute worst of the list and every single person on it, and I never understood why.
Prospect-L definitely wasn't a list for everyone, any more than Senad was a list for everyone. But mostly it was just people having conversations about stuff they were passionate about, like everywhere else in fandom.
Fandom should have room for everyone, not just people who only like one form of discussion.
no subject
I've seen avid, interesting discussions sure, but I've also seen Suzie Q and her fans brought up and gleefully eviscerated. That's not people having conversations about stuff they're passionate about, that's mean girling.(Not explicitly from Prospect L since I was never a member. I was a member of Senad and I remember people being hurt and angry)Frankly, for me, that discussion belongs in a completely private forum with people you trust implicitly, not on an open one. it was silencing and repressive to a lot of people, flat-out telling them they were bad and wrong for enjoying fandom the way they did: which seems to be a case of passing on the misfortune because calling out Suzie Q author is doing the same thing IMO.
Obviously it's a YMMV thing. Some people really enjoy that type of atmosphere. It's why things like Fashion Police and Go Fug Yourself exist. Everyone is free to enjoy fandom the way they please, it'd just be nice if that didn't mean actively(as opposed to passively/accidentally)infringing on someone else's enjoyment of it.
no subject
Frankly, for me, that discussion belongs in a completely private forum with people you trust implicitly, not on an open one.
...is literally the silencing I was talking about: telling people that their form of engagement in fandom is something that needs to be hidden away, so no one else has to be exposed to it because some people don't like it.
It cuts people off from interacting with each other, because you have to know up front exactly who enjoys things the way you enjoy them; newbies, especially, have no way to find the people who could have been their friends otherwise. It automatically creates cliques, exclusivity, separation, isolation -- all because some people are uncomfortable at the thought that other people think/react/enjoy differently than they do.
Fandom has reached a place where people wouldn't dream of kink-shaming, even if they're triggered by that kink, because everyone has a right to enjoy what they enjoy without feeling shame. But we're still in a place where wanting to say "Actually, that story didn't work for me" or "I feel like this trope is starting to be overused" or "Okay, I've read at least six dozen examples of this trope done poorly - does anyone have an example of it being done *well*?" is so horrible that it should be kept hidden away?
My co-mod and I originally thought that maybe, *maybe* 15 people would join Prospect-L; instead, hundreds appeared almost overnight, many of them re-joining the fandom they'd been driven from by people telling them that they shouldn't speak openly about what they enjoyed, many others saying they'd thought they were alone in wanting those sorts of in-depth discussions. The fandom attitude of "you should only talk about those things behind closed doors with people you know and trust" had isolated and alienated those hundreds of fans, just to make things a little more comfortable for other fans.
After that big surge of "hey, fandom *is* big enough for both camps to co-exist!", it's really disheartening to see that people are still championing the idea of isolating fans who approach fandom from a different direction.
It's not even that I don't understand the impulse. There's lots of things in fandom that I find offputting, even reprehensible. My fannish experience would be much better if those things didn't exist, bluntly. But that's on me to deal with; I can say I don't like them, but I can't say no one else should do them, as publicly as they want to, just because I don't like them. My only real option is to avoid them, which I do to the best of my ability.
I get that for some people, hearing that someone didn't like your story, or that they thought it was weak in x or y way, can be really upsetting. And maybe even just knowing that a space existed where people were talking about stories/tropes/trends they did and didn't like was enough to give people the shudders, like me and those other fannish things out there. But they could easily avoid being on P-L, and there was no reason for them to hear what people were saying there about their own work, if anything; if a friend forwarded posts that made them unhappy, well, that "friend" was a jackass. Seriously.
Everyone is free to enjoy fandom the way they please, it'd just be nice if that didn't mean actively(as opposed to passively/accidentally)infringing on someone else's enjoyment of it.
I agree, but I think we have very different takes on this. To me, saying "people who enjoy X should stay in a closet with a few trusted confidantes, where the rest of fandom doesn't have to know they exist" is actively infringing on someone else's enjoyment. On the other hand, hanging out with like-minded people in a space clearly marked as being for all kinds of discussion is at worst passively/accidentally infringing on someone else, as they can certainly choose not to look at that space if they want.
The fact that some people look at a type of discussion and say "nope, nope, nope" doesn't mean that that discussion shouldn't be available to people who would make grabby hands if they knew it was there.
no subject
Not at all. I happen to love meta and discussions like this as a matter of fact and I'm happy to see them and coms that support them. I can lose hours to them. I'm not talking about critiquing or even criticizing someone's writing in an analytical way, I'm talking about personal attacks. What I'm specifically talking about keeping to yourself and people that you know aren't running to tell tales are the kind of comments that come up on anon memes and obviously in other places calling out specific authors and either pointing and laughing or ripping and shredding. The first happens to 'badfic' writers more often and the 2nd I've seen usually with popular or so-called BNF writers. Unfortunately fandom is too small that something that occurs on a public forum is something that won't get passed along, either accidentally, out of genuine care or maliciously.
Again,for me writing a fic someone doesn't like is passive unless that fic is aimed specifically at the person who doesn't like it. Posting publicly and saying the writer should throw their laptop into a lake and jump in after it is active.
As you said, we have very different takes on it but, I said, I wasn't on Prospect-L so if I've called them out of turn, I apologize.
Don't Slam the Teller, Slam the Tale
I agree that the atmosphere of fandom is such that some, perhaps a lot of people will read "Chapter 15 is too hurried" AS "you are a stupid no-talent slob" but that's a different problem.
Re: Don't Slam the Teller, Slam the Tale
and not gonna lie, if I'm having a really bad day, "Chapter 15 is too hurried" AS "you are a stupid no-talent slob" might be my knee jerk reaction till I take a deep breath but it would still be an issue I had with me, not with the person that made the comment.
Re: Don't Slam the Teller, Slam the Tale
Re: Don't Slam the Teller, Slam the Tale