Which is why I think the drabble is such an excellent tool. I don't write them myself; I'm way too verbose, but I HAVE taken up the idea of setting a word limit for certain things in fic, and I think it's helped me a lot.
I've learned this tool for OF too. A gazillion years ago when I took a creative writing course, one of our assignments was to write a 500 word short story. And then the next assignment was to take that same story and edit it down to 200 words. Gah! That was hard. In fandom, we can cheat a little because there's this whole shared backdrop of canon. One sentence can reverberate, cause the reader to nod her head in understanding. In OF, even if the writer makes literary allusions, she has to assume that the reader might not get it. The story has to stand on it's own wobbly feet.
Sometimes I wonder if fic can do that. In some cases, yes. I've read outside of fandoms that I know, don't have that canon knowledge or canon assumption, and some fics do stand on their own. Some don't though.
no subject
I've learned this tool for OF too. A gazillion years ago when I took a creative writing course, one of our assignments was to write a 500 word short story. And then the next assignment was to take that same story and edit it down to 200 words. Gah! That was hard. In fandom, we can cheat a little because there's this whole shared backdrop of canon. One sentence can reverberate, cause the reader to nod her head in understanding. In OF, even if the writer makes literary allusions, she has to assume that the reader might not get it. The story has to stand on it's own wobbly feet.
Sometimes I wonder if fic can do that. In some cases, yes. I've read outside of fandoms that I know, don't have that canon knowledge or canon assumption, and some fics do stand on their own. Some don't though.
Eek! Tangent! Run away! *g*