![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fan world problems
Sometimes I'm very confused about what I want from writing fanfic. Sometimes I want to write Careful Stories and other times I want to satisfy my id. I think a lot of people would say that fandom is about the latter, definitely, but it never really has been for me. My absolute favorite stories in fandom are the ones that a) make me think, or b) leave my id wanting more. I have loved (b) type stories as much as canon sometimes, because it produces that same feeling of wanting to fill in all the missing pieces. I love that feeling; it's part of why I've always been so fannish.
So when I go to write, I always feel like I'm making the choice between filling in those pieces (an id-pleaser), or creating more stories with carefully crafted missing bits (a Careful Story). My id is pleased by both, just in different ways. And I generally do write both, but when it comes to which one I'm going to do the work to finish, a decision has to be made. I'm only ever pleased by 60-90% of writing stories. I'm never pleased over the last 10-40%. If I just did whatever I wanted, I'd never have a single story finished. That would also ultimately be displeasing.
For the most part I choose Careful Stories, though I have to say with HP fandom it was id-pleasers. And I have to say that I feel the id-pleasers were better received. I felt like they got more love and attention than other things I've written in fandom, and love and attention is of course very pleasing. But in the long run, I feel less satisfied with those sorts of stories. When I look back on them they don't make me very happy; maybe it's because they give you so much there's nothing to chew on later.
So then there's this constant pressure of but-if-you-just-wrote-that-Tony/Bruce/Pepper-D/s-it-would-make-you-so-happy-and-you'd-get-so-many-kudos-and-then-maybe-more-people-would-read-your-other-stories, and I feel like I have to turn it off because it's not what's going to make me happy in the long run. But then I find myself almost being too careful and not writing anything I want, just because I think it's "better" for me. That happened with Let's Stop The Time Warp Again, which got very difficult and depressing for me to write. Which makes me sad, because I was having a lot of fun with both it and the series, and trying very hard to write only what pleased me, but now what pleases me is very fraught with being careful and good enough and whether people like it or not.
Wow, that was a whole lot of angst, but it felt very good to say. I do recognize that all of this matters very little in the scheme of things.
So when I go to write, I always feel like I'm making the choice between filling in those pieces (an id-pleaser), or creating more stories with carefully crafted missing bits (a Careful Story). My id is pleased by both, just in different ways. And I generally do write both, but when it comes to which one I'm going to do the work to finish, a decision has to be made. I'm only ever pleased by 60-90% of writing stories. I'm never pleased over the last 10-40%. If I just did whatever I wanted, I'd never have a single story finished. That would also ultimately be displeasing.
For the most part I choose Careful Stories, though I have to say with HP fandom it was id-pleasers. And I have to say that I feel the id-pleasers were better received. I felt like they got more love and attention than other things I've written in fandom, and love and attention is of course very pleasing. But in the long run, I feel less satisfied with those sorts of stories. When I look back on them they don't make me very happy; maybe it's because they give you so much there's nothing to chew on later.
So then there's this constant pressure of but-if-you-just-wrote-that-Tony/Bruce/Pepper-D/s-it-would-make-you-so-happy-and-you'd-get-so-many-kudos-and-then-maybe-more-people-would-read-your-other-stories, and I feel like I have to turn it off because it's not what's going to make me happy in the long run. But then I find myself almost being too careful and not writing anything I want, just because I think it's "better" for me. That happened with Let's Stop The Time Warp Again, which got very difficult and depressing for me to write. Which makes me sad, because I was having a lot of fun with both it and the series, and trying very hard to write only what pleased me, but now what pleases me is very fraught with being careful and good enough and whether people like it or not.
Wow, that was a whole lot of angst, but it felt very good to say. I do recognize that all of this matters very little in the scheme of things.
no subject
For me, there doesn't seem to be that much of a divide between how long they each take. Jewel in the Dust is a careful look at the character dynamics in season one of White Collar, and how they lead to the events of season three. It took me a day and a half (it's also under 2000 words, but still). Only Truly Dead, my Air Nomad genocide fic and Holding This Breath both took absolutely forever, and
Trail the Footsteps of Shadows, possibly the most emotionally difficult, take that, Fandom, thing I've ever written took about two weeks.