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Let's talk about authorial intent.
I've got questions about authorial intent...
I write two types of fanfic, and each fulfills a need of mine. They are:
1. The fic that focuses on story, and that I write
-for fun.
-for escape.
-because it poured out of me.
-because something could've been better in canon and I wanted to fix it.
-because something was missing in canon and I wanted to fill it in.
-because canon was perfect, and I just wanted more.
-because I wanted to see what happened after the end.
-and come up with Best Souvenir, a shippy, plotty, epic, with a style that does not call attention to itself.
2. The fic that focuses on form, and that I write
-for intellectual stimulation.
-to become a better writer.
-to experiment with style and techniques through a medium in which I feel less disappointed about messing up (as opposed to original fiction).
-to express how I feel about canon.
-to express insights on theme, motivation, fractals, and interrelationships between characters in canon
-and come up with Five Ways NFA Probably Didn't End, a non-linear, technically experimental, containing dense language, and generally shorter fic.
For me, the difference between these two types of fics is very clear-cut. I do want those of type #1 to be the best they can be--I get them beta'ed by a wonderful gal who beats me over the head when I need it, and work hard to make the players interesting and in character. And I do want those of type #2 to be fun, to give me more of canon, to show things that could've happened.
But the difference is the intent. I set out writing Best Souvenir (type #1) because I wanted to see what would've happened if post "Chosen" Buffy met Angel. I set out writing Blood Types (type #2) because I wanted to see how a theme could illuminate Angel and his interrelationship with others through metaphor. I set out writing type #1 because I want a good story. I set out writing type #2 because I want good writing and thinky thoughts. The two aren't mutually exclusive, but how I approach them is different.
I've read some wonderful fics that my guess is are type #1, and the same for #2. I enjoy both equally, though they push really, really different buttons. But most of the great fic I see seems to be a combination of both: good stories, with interesting scenes that give me more of what could've happened in canon, expanding on characters I love and making me feel good having more of them, but also--finding new ways to use words, new ways to express things, tweaking the "rules" a bit and experimenting.
Then there are fics that are neither, and we call those crack!fics. Some crack!fic, I honestly don't understand why people write. But some crack!fic has shades of type #1--it's fun, entertaing, escapist, but the material extended and filled in and played with is fandom, not canon. The intent there, of course, is not to tell a good story, but to tell a good joke. And some fics we call crack have shades of type #2--Angel may be a crack!h0r and Spike may be a wealthy orphan monk--but it's technically brilliant: a unique use of second person, lyric language that needs to be published, omg, and thoughtful and insightful, wow. And while the premise is ridiculous, the intent is not a joke, but a good story.
(Which is why, I think, there's so much confusion/contention surrounding the term "crack!fic". There's a little blurring, between the latter kind of crack!fic and the former, and do you as an author think about which you're setting out to do when you start? And sometimes there's a blur between the latter and what we'd call "serious" fic--do you know when you're writing Buffy!prisongaurd/Faith!convict that it's crack, or is it not crack for you because you bring in real character traits of both Buffy and Faith to the table, and at which point did it become serious for you as opposed to crack? And how did your approach to it change?)
I'm also interested in the intent behind some of the one-shots written in only a couple hours, for requests, or on a whim, just to get the idea off their heads. A bunch of not-so-great fic authors write this as their standard fare, but I've seen splendid fic authors do it, and I'm wondering what their intent is. Or rather, I know what the intent is: to have fun, to er, shoot off, in a way, just to get the idea off their heads (or that thing off their faces. You know, that thing? Has no one else ever noticed the thing?) But what I'm wondering about is the approach; do the--as I mentioned, some of them really fantastic--authors who do this know when they sit down to write that such and such piece is just going to be a fly-by, a by-blow, a blow-off, an off-shoot (how long can I keep that up, huh?) Do they know it's not going to be a masterpiece? And if they do, do they still expect it to be good? Do they want people to enjoy it and leave them fb? Do they think about that when they're writing? And when they sit down to write something really serious and really important to them, do they actually sit down to write with a different attitude?
What I want to know, I guess, is: what's your intent when you sit down to write a fic? Do you have very different intents for different types of fics? Do you want to write a masterpiece every time you start out to write a piece? Or do you just plan on trying your very best every time? Or do you start out knowing it's just going to be a little doodle in your sketch pad you might show off a bit? At what point do you know that doodle might become a masterpiece, and then how does your attitude toward writing it change?
Also: what about your expectations of fb in respect to your intent? If you plan to try really hard, write as close as you personally can get to a masterpiece, do you expect/want more fb? If you only spend a couple hours or days on a fic that you started on a whim, and don't get a beta for it, are you disappointed when there isn't fb? Are you disappointed when the whim-doodle (that should be a word) fics get more fb than the ones you tried to make perfect as possible?
And how do you delineate the difference to your readers? Do you warn them in your A/N that hey, you didn't get this beta'ed? Or hey, I worked my ass off on this and I think it's the best thing I've ever done? And do you expect people to respond accordingly?
Anybody got an opinion on this type of thing?
*puts on tea* *gets you a cozie*
I write two types of fanfic, and each fulfills a need of mine. They are:
1. The fic that focuses on story, and that I write
-for fun.
-for escape.
-because it poured out of me.
-because something could've been better in canon and I wanted to fix it.
-because something was missing in canon and I wanted to fill it in.
-because canon was perfect, and I just wanted more.
-because I wanted to see what happened after the end.
-and come up with Best Souvenir, a shippy, plotty, epic, with a style that does not call attention to itself.
2. The fic that focuses on form, and that I write
-for intellectual stimulation.
-to become a better writer.
-to experiment with style and techniques through a medium in which I feel less disappointed about messing up (as opposed to original fiction).
-to express how I feel about canon.
-to express insights on theme, motivation, fractals, and interrelationships between characters in canon
-and come up with Five Ways NFA Probably Didn't End, a non-linear, technically experimental, containing dense language, and generally shorter fic.
For me, the difference between these two types of fics is very clear-cut. I do want those of type #1 to be the best they can be--I get them beta'ed by a wonderful gal who beats me over the head when I need it, and work hard to make the players interesting and in character. And I do want those of type #2 to be fun, to give me more of canon, to show things that could've happened.
But the difference is the intent. I set out writing Best Souvenir (type #1) because I wanted to see what would've happened if post "Chosen" Buffy met Angel. I set out writing Blood Types (type #2) because I wanted to see how a theme could illuminate Angel and his interrelationship with others through metaphor. I set out writing type #1 because I want a good story. I set out writing type #2 because I want good writing and thinky thoughts. The two aren't mutually exclusive, but how I approach them is different.
I've read some wonderful fics that my guess is are type #1, and the same for #2. I enjoy both equally, though they push really, really different buttons. But most of the great fic I see seems to be a combination of both: good stories, with interesting scenes that give me more of what could've happened in canon, expanding on characters I love and making me feel good having more of them, but also--finding new ways to use words, new ways to express things, tweaking the "rules" a bit and experimenting.
Then there are fics that are neither, and we call those crack!fics. Some crack!fic, I honestly don't understand why people write. But some crack!fic has shades of type #1--it's fun, entertaing, escapist, but the material extended and filled in and played with is fandom, not canon. The intent there, of course, is not to tell a good story, but to tell a good joke. And some fics we call crack have shades of type #2--Angel may be a crack!h0r and Spike may be a wealthy orphan monk--but it's technically brilliant: a unique use of second person, lyric language that needs to be published, omg, and thoughtful and insightful, wow. And while the premise is ridiculous, the intent is not a joke, but a good story.
(Which is why, I think, there's so much confusion/contention surrounding the term "crack!fic". There's a little blurring, between the latter kind of crack!fic and the former, and do you as an author think about which you're setting out to do when you start? And sometimes there's a blur between the latter and what we'd call "serious" fic--do you know when you're writing Buffy!prisongaurd/Faith!convict that it's crack, or is it not crack for you because you bring in real character traits of both Buffy and Faith to the table, and at which point did it become serious for you as opposed to crack? And how did your approach to it change?)
I'm also interested in the intent behind some of the one-shots written in only a couple hours, for requests, or on a whim, just to get the idea off their heads. A bunch of not-so-great fic authors write this as their standard fare, but I've seen splendid fic authors do it, and I'm wondering what their intent is. Or rather, I know what the intent is: to have fun, to er, shoot off, in a way, just to get the idea off their heads (or that thing off their faces. You know, that thing? Has no one else ever noticed the thing?) But what I'm wondering about is the approach; do the--as I mentioned, some of them really fantastic--authors who do this know when they sit down to write that such and such piece is just going to be a fly-by, a by-blow, a blow-off, an off-shoot (how long can I keep that up, huh?) Do they know it's not going to be a masterpiece? And if they do, do they still expect it to be good? Do they want people to enjoy it and leave them fb? Do they think about that when they're writing? And when they sit down to write something really serious and really important to them, do they actually sit down to write with a different attitude?
What I want to know, I guess, is: what's your intent when you sit down to write a fic? Do you have very different intents for different types of fics? Do you want to write a masterpiece every time you start out to write a piece? Or do you just plan on trying your very best every time? Or do you start out knowing it's just going to be a little doodle in your sketch pad you might show off a bit? At what point do you know that doodle might become a masterpiece, and then how does your attitude toward writing it change?
Also: what about your expectations of fb in respect to your intent? If you plan to try really hard, write as close as you personally can get to a masterpiece, do you expect/want more fb? If you only spend a couple hours or days on a fic that you started on a whim, and don't get a beta for it, are you disappointed when there isn't fb? Are you disappointed when the whim-doodle (that should be a word) fics get more fb than the ones you tried to make perfect as possible?
And how do you delineate the difference to your readers? Do you warn them in your A/N that hey, you didn't get this beta'ed? Or hey, I worked my ass off on this and I think it's the best thing I've ever done? And do you expect people to respond accordingly?
Anybody got an opinion on this type of thing?
*puts on tea* *gets you a cozie*
no subject
I like it too! See, these kinds of fics really interest me, because when a random idea pops into my head and I feel the need to drop everything and race over to the computer, what comes out is the first 10,000 words of a 200,000 word epic. Ideas for short fics don't burst upon me like that; they're carefully constructed in my head...so I'm really interested in writers who have a different process, especially because I'd like to be able to write short fics more easily. (And may I say, btw, that you do it so well. I'm always amazed by the quantity of fics you produce and how they are so consistently of quality, too. As someone who barely churns out a fic a month, it's continually boggling. :o)
Part of it is that when I arrived on LJ - and this is just from my perspective, others may see it differently - LJ wasn't the only place you posted. In fact, LJ was where you posted drafts, got comments that allowed you to polish them up and THEN you posted to lists/archives/BoB, TWoP...
I've wondered about that--lj as rough draft and archives, etc as "final copy," so to speak. For one thing, I see less extremely short fic on archives, and I've always wondered whether that was because people somehow think less of extremely short fiction. Understandable in the case of a sneeze fic, though some writers' sneeze fics are delectable, but I've read some drabbles and ficlets that are just amazing, knock me dead writing, that I just don't see in archives anywhere. So is there some kind of perception that extremely short fiction is ... more raw, somehow, because it took less time? It doesn't make sense to me, because, as I say, some drabbles and ficlets are phenomenal.
LJ was for the impulses, the snippets, the fragments. It was a private space, a behind the scenes place.
I prefer it as such. I had a recent conversation with someone who pointed out that once a fic's posted, it should be done. I can see the logic of that on something like an archive, but as someone who rarely finishes anything, I like the idea of fics being on my lj so I can eternally tinker with them.
no subject
I'm always fascinated by how differently we all approach writing. I post drabbles to archives the same as I do fics; I don't perceive them as being less in anything but word count. I know some people see drabbles as trivial but I'm very protective of them as a literary form.
I agree with you; they can be phenomenal. To distill an idea down to a hundred words exactly takes some doing. To encapsulate somethign memorable in under a thousand takes skill. There are some short fics by people I've read dozens of times and enjoy them more with every reading.
I've done my share of epics; Secretary, which I co-wrote, clocked in at 800,000, and I loved it... but it wasn't better because it was longer.
no subject
Btw, I just started Secretary the other night, and love it.
no subject
Drabbles, for me, are often for the fleeting scraps of thought that would be stretched goassamer-thin in a regular fic.
Btw, I just started Secretary the other night, and love it.
That's great to hear; thank you. I know people are still reading it, because I have it archived and see the stats, but I'm always surprised as it's been so long since it was written.
Glad you're enjoying it!
no subject