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hazelkSome 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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Date: 2009-01-03 06:07 pm (UTC)I think much of that has to do with genre and convention. Fandom loves 'ships and loves announcing their shippy intentions right up in the headers, whereas Joss has well-documented issues with happy endings for happy couples. Fans usually aren't all that interested in shocking each other, even in the good, reader contract-maintaining way.
I'm finding an interesting distinction in my own head between fandoms, though. Some canons feel less...canonical than others. I don't know if this is going to make much sense, or be true for anybody but me, but -- Joss's canon feels real. It's good, it's considered, it's hella smart. I care about the story he wants to tell. My other fandom right now is Stargate. Stargate is, honestly, a crap show. The writers haven't the slightest clue when it comes to concepts such as "character arc" or "motivation" or "consequences". They can barely keep their action plots on the rails.
So I find myself thinking of that canon as raw clay. I don't much care how they botch it, because I'm only going to reshape it anyway. Where the real stories are being told, where the real work is being done, is fandom. The realest City of Atlantis is a Platonic one, and, for all practical purposes, I think of the canon and fandom stories as equally valid reflections. Therefore, the SGA and SG-1 stories I read don't feel any safer. In several novel series and shared universes I'm reading, I care more about my textual characters, and would feel more betrayed if the reader contract got broken. It helps that those authors have serious chops, and know more about plot and suspense than the entire MGM writing stable combined.
I guess safety, in my mind, is a matter of investment. Really good fan writers have made me fall deep into their worlds and then grabbed me by the throat in ways the show runners only wish they could.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 08:08 pm (UTC)I think you're totally right about differences between canonical levels of reality, it's not just the fandom but the source that looms over and protects you. I think I remember SGA fandom being described as post-source somewhere (also as Bert 'n' Ernie). Maybe it's a scientist thing but I find it hard to imagine getting involved in a fandom that you all construct yourselves. I need that illusion of an objective reality out there to function? Something other?
I also wanted to say something about Wide Saragossa Seaas fitting all the definitions of fanfic but still as naked a piece of writing as any I've ever read but I'm not sure where it would fit.