Fandom is SRS, guys

[lettered]

When I write, I do it because something in my gut needs to say something. Often with fanfic, it's saying, "I need to get these characters together!" or "I need to see what happens next!" But whatever the need is, I always get to a point in the writing where I start thinking about it. Lots of time the thinky thoughts--analysis of the need, thoughts about why this should exist, ideas about purpose--stymie my process. I suddenly have to rehaul everything I've written, because it's become more. It's not just my need to fulfill intensely personal desires any more, it is a need to say something about universal desire, about our world and myself.

To put it in fanfic terms, I start out writing crack. Then I get caught up in meta. Sometimes I start over so I can just write more crack. Sometimes I start over and just write meta. In rare instances I keep what I have and manage to turn the crack into something meta.

I've often been frustrated by this meta impulse when it comes to fanfic. It is for some people, but for me, fanfic is not that much SRS BIZNESS. It's a chance to satisfy crack impulses, which often involve porn, while my higher brain can be engaged in say, writing original fic. But that's never actually true. Fanfic always turns into SRS BIZNESS for me, whether I like it or not. As I said in my rec of One Thousand Kisses Deep by seraphcelene, the thinkyness is fun. Fandom isn't always just about getting off; it's about analysis and our need to express our own thoughts on the thoughts of others that we consume.

I've been talking a lot to my_daroga about this. We both feel we have Things To Say, which are thoughtful and important and could produce impressive works of well, art. But at the same time we're in this to get our rocks off--I don't even mean we're in it for the porn, but for those intensely personal needs I was talking about. It seems to me like we're both having difficulty reconciling that latter impulse with broader ideals. Which is interesting, because in the end both of these drives are still to satisfy ourselves.

So, has this ever happened to you? Start out writing "for funsies" and have it turn wicked serious? What did you do with that? Did you stop yourself from getting too serious because it's supposed to be "fun"? Or did you start something else that was more serious, or did you allow it to organically become serious? And what was your reaction to the fic changing on you like that? Is this something that only happens with fanfic? What are some links to fic you've written that turned serious somewhere in the process, and is the "transition" visible? Does it happen the other way around--you want to write something poetic and thinky, and it turns out a lark? AM I CRAZY?

Comments

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Well, what I'm calling "crack" for me usually involves characters behaving in character, and not having plot holes, and such. I can't really write things that are silly and ooc, except every once in a while in like random comment fics, and even then that's rare. I'm not talking about the difference between writing good!fic vs bad!fic, but fic that's just to satisfy your id vs fic that has some . . . philosophical value, I guess.

The things I've read by you tend to have a seamless marriage of both. Like you have Things To Say about what being soulless might mean, but there's also the, "I like these characters and I wanna see them do this!" in there. That's probably how fiction should be, but for me these impulses clash.

[rahirah]

I think that until I got involved in online fandom, I had no idea that the two kinds of writing were different things. Discovering the concept of idfic gave me a couple of "Oh, so that's what's going on there!" moments about things I'd read.

I don't think I'd want to separate them, though, because without the "I like this!" component, stories tend to be sort of... juiceless? I may admire them, but I don't love them. Without the thinky component - I think that depends who you're writing for. The more id-iosyncratic a story is, the narrower the audience gets.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think they *should* be separate things. Yet for me, they are naturally, and always have been.

[rahirah]

Actually, are you sure that the stuff you do just for fun may not have a serious component to it that you're just not seeing, being too close to the work?

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely! I mean, there's all kinds of serious issues rattling around in the stuff I'm doing just because my gut is telling me. The problem begins when those serious issues start taking over.

I *like* thinking about the philosophical issues in my stories, but sometimes that contemplation shifts the focus of the fic. Suddenly it's not about finding out what happens or getting my characters together, it's about issues of identity and morality or something. Which--it doesn't seem like it can't be about both, does it? And yet, the way it was fun before is fun no longer. It's fun in a new way but somehow I'm not satisfying the same impulse any more, and sometimes it makes me scrap everything just so I can follow my gut again. Or so I can work out the 'philosophical' stuff, either way.

It sounds like those impulses don't war in you, which I think is definitely the way to go!