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On fanfic
Some thoughts about fic in response to a now friendslocked discussion of the relative merits of Buffy S8 and Buffy fanfic.
I used to read a lot of fic. There’s the usual 90% of everything is crap factor (and sometimes crap is exactly what you’re looking for) but I’ve certainly read fic that was more literary than S8. More poetic, more stylish, more funny and more disturbing (in both good and bad senses of the word). Having said that I think if I had to pinpoint a difference between all of those fics and S8 it would be is that S8 doesn’t feel safe. This is of course entirely subjective but I think I can justify it in a number of ways some of which apply specifically to Buffy fanfic (and me as a reader) and some to fanfic in general.
The specific reasons have to do not with literary qualities but with medium and community. BtVS was TV series and TV is a visual medium. Not that the dialogue wasn’t distinctive and important but it wasn’t (for me) the main thing. For evidence I’d offer the success of episodes like Hush and The Body which do without the trademark dialogue but also the experience of watching large swathes of the series with the sound off for vidding purposes and having it still feel like Buffy in a way that reading the scripts doesn’t. What reading the scripts does feel like is reading Buffy fandom, which on the interwebs is very much a text based medium. Fanfic is not only text based but a direct product of fandom and fandom conversations. I think it’s that and being myself a participant in those conversations that can makes fic appealing but also gives it a safety factor. I know these writers, not personally perhaps but what their positions are on fannish issues and where they fit within the various subcultures in a much more detailed and insider way than I know Joss Whedon or any of the comic writers. Even with a new writer it rarely takes long to figure out their fannish influences, where they’re coming from, where they fit. Plots may twist but although the specifics of the twist are not predictable the point of it almost always feels familiar, the snark is never a boondog or so you convince yourself to maintain social order. Published writers and their original stories can be predictable too but I don’t know them, they don’t know me and that outsider quality changes the nature of the contract between us.
The general reason is that, for me as a reader, fic’s relationship to its source text almost automatically acts as a filter between it and world. The most terrible things can happen or be touched in fanfic but because there’s always the source text to refer them to they don’t feel as real. I don’t get that sense of distance between the same characters and similar events in the original stories. Where there’s no fictional precedent it feels more as if you’re being exposed directly to the author’s naked brain or less grossly their experience of the world. Not always a good thing or even an interesting thing but naked brains are never entirely safe.
I used to read a lot of fic. There’s the usual 90% of everything is crap factor (and sometimes crap is exactly what you’re looking for) but I’ve certainly read fic that was more literary than S8. More poetic, more stylish, more funny and more disturbing (in both good and bad senses of the word). Having said that I think if I had to pinpoint a difference between all of those fics and S8 it would be is that S8 doesn’t feel safe. This is of course entirely subjective but I think I can justify it in a number of ways some of which apply specifically to Buffy fanfic (and me as a reader) and some to fanfic in general.
The specific reasons have to do not with literary qualities but with medium and community. BtVS was TV series and TV is a visual medium. Not that the dialogue wasn’t distinctive and important but it wasn’t (for me) the main thing. For evidence I’d offer the success of episodes like Hush and The Body which do without the trademark dialogue but also the experience of watching large swathes of the series with the sound off for vidding purposes and having it still feel like Buffy in a way that reading the scripts doesn’t. What reading the scripts does feel like is reading Buffy fandom, which on the interwebs is very much a text based medium. Fanfic is not only text based but a direct product of fandom and fandom conversations. I think it’s that and being myself a participant in those conversations that can makes fic appealing but also gives it a safety factor. I know these writers, not personally perhaps but what their positions are on fannish issues and where they fit within the various subcultures in a much more detailed and insider way than I know Joss Whedon or any of the comic writers. Even with a new writer it rarely takes long to figure out their fannish influences, where they’re coming from, where they fit. Plots may twist but although the specifics of the twist are not predictable the point of it almost always feels familiar, the snark is never a boondog or so you convince yourself to maintain social order. Published writers and their original stories can be predictable too but I don’t know them, they don’t know me and that outsider quality changes the nature of the contract between us.
The general reason is that, for me as a reader, fic’s relationship to its source text almost automatically acts as a filter between it and world. The most terrible things can happen or be touched in fanfic but because there’s always the source text to refer them to they don’t feel as real. I don’t get that sense of distance between the same characters and similar events in the original stories. Where there’s no fictional precedent it feels more as if you’re being exposed directly to the author’s naked brain or less grossly their experience of the world. Not always a good thing or even an interesting thing but naked brains are never entirely safe.
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I can see it, if I really, really try. I think my problem is that s8 has just been such a monumental disappointment (sort of a bit like what Disney did to The Jungle Book), that I don't think the merits outweigh the compromises. I'm glad that some people feel different, and wish I could see what you see. Maybe I will once it's finished.
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