An outsider's view
ka...@ipass.net
(Kaki may have snipped too much if you haven't been
reading this thread, but this was all I wanted to
respond to at this point.)
>
> Than why read and attack a drabble on the issue?
>
One thing that strikes me as funny/strange here is that
if this drabble had been posted separately from (before
or months off) or without the header material that made
it clear that it was written in response to the 2
stories, that the drabble probably would have gotten a
few laugh and set off a discussion of the issue of
incest and maybe of the purpose of parody/satire in fan
fic. Most of the responses to it have been based on its
use as a response to the stories, not to its content per
se.
I do understand that the drabble was meant as a
response, but I suspect that we as a groupd might have
had a good discussion out of it if it had been posted
differently.
If I had read it without having read the inital K/S.K.
story, I would have laughed at the wit of it (instead of
cringing as I imagined out original authors' reactions).
There are a number of issues that have been minimalized
over the years in fanfic (and in many other places). I
don't think the original authors did that; if the
stories had been longer prieces and no further
justification had been made, I might have thought so.
But, for me, in fandom, especially in zine fandom, I've
been badly squicked by the number of A/U stories where
Kirk is raped/enslaved by Ancient!Vulcan!Warrior!Spock
and then falls in love with him. I consider those
stories worthy of comment and discussion. I'm also very
pleased to have read Jess's Beside The Wells that is a
response to those stories. However, I never took those
stories to mean that the author would personally want to
be raped and would fall in love. Or for that matter to
mean that the author and people who enjoyed the stories
would recommend rape and pillage as a good start to a
relationship.
I think I am rambling now. I do enjoy fandom and the
opportunity to discuss a broad range of concepts and
viewpoints.
Kaki
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Miss Sunbeam
> I can't speak for the author. Personally, I
> was weeping for the
> world when I read all of the positive feedback
> about stories that
> glorified the typical seduction scene in an
> incest relationship
> between an older family member and a younger
> one. Body betrayal is
> very common in such incidents and to see it
> praised as loving and
> beautiful ... well my reaction to the stories
> is irrelevant.
Treksmut is an interpretation, and any reaction
-- positive or negative -- to a sexual act is an
interpretation. The owner of the drabble said,
in essence, that these two innocuous stories were
immoral, and your implication is that *we* are
immoral for enjoying the stories. Someone who
anonymously sends a post saying what we do here
is immoral is mighty like a troll.
grrrroooovius . . .
Sunbeam
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Mary Ellen Curtin
> I do have to wonder what's
> going on in the minds of people who think a story where one of their
> favorites rapes the other and this causes them to begin a loving
> relationship presents a *good* thing.
I spend a fair bit of time e-talking with people who are fans of
amateur Japanese m/m manga, known as yaoi. As one of them
has said, "In yaoi, rape is a great ice-breaker."
What I believe they would say to your question is, "Can't you tell
the difference between fantasy and reality? This is a fantasy, this is
not about what might be 'good' in real life." As I understand it, for
them one of the attractions -- one of the turn-ons -- of this scenario
is that it is *not* realistic, it's free of that messy business where you
have to take account of the consequences of your actions. It has the
true flavor of "let's pretend".
It's like, oh, for instance, the fight sequences in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon."
I like my fight sequences as realistic as possible, with a real
sense of the stress they put on a human body and mind, so I didn't
care much for the CTHD fights. But if you prefer a vivid sense of magic
and dreamlike power, of transcending the grip of gravity and other
mundane constraints, they're superb.
The higher-fantasy-quotient people I know get really annoyed when
higher-realism-quotient people tell them, "you shouldn't fantasize
about X or Y (rape, incest, snuffing, etc) that is evil in reality." The
fantasists say, "you've got no business telling me what I'm allowed to
imagine -- at least *I* can tell the difference between fantasy and reality."
Now, following that great philosopher Granny Weatherwax, I agree that
"There are only three things you have to know: what's real, what's not,
and what's the difference." But on the other hand, I also follow her in
acknowledging the importance of headology. That is, ideas in human
minds may be fantasies, but they have a way of crossing over into reality
and dragging it along with them kicking and screaming.
That's it for my brains today.
Mary Ellen
Doctor Science, MA
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/au/
Alternate Universes: Fanfiction Studies
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/foresmut/
The Foresmutters Project
Duny...@aol.com
mountains of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, so please forgive the belated
comment. I'm also experiencing some difficulty and ambivalence in writing
this.
Concerning Ascem Noone and the satirical drabble xe posted, I agree
wholeheartedly with Jane/jat_sapphire when she suggested that the Ascem Noone
by-line is an inescapable part of the poster's message. As Jane wrote,
> language communicates
> beyond its denotative meaning. The genre, the style, the time and
> place of communication, the implied audience, the position and
> identity claimed by the author, all these send their own messages.
To me, the characteristics of Ascem Noone's communication that Jane listed
above sent a powerful substantive message. I think StarryEyed summed it up
pretty well in these words:
the "name" of the poster is
> part of the message. One that is saying think about what I wrote w/o
> letting personalities, cliques, or history on ASCEM factor into it.
I wonder if some of the outrage expressed in reaction to Ascem Noone's post
wasn't, in fact, a sort of resistance to this message. I also wonder whether
the intense curiosity and speculation about Ascem Noone's identity was driven
at least in part by a desire to pigeonhole hir within the known political
factions and alliances of this NG. T'Lin wrote that
> had 'Noone' used an actual pseudonym, this 'discussion'
> would have turned into a 'let's flame the newbie' situation ...
I agree, and I also think something similar would have happened had "Noone"
used an identity that is familiar to us on ASCEM. At times in this
discussion I had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps some participants in
the discussion felt almost unfairly deprived of a target for group flaming. I
hope I misread those posts.
While I don't agree with everything Ascem Noone wrote about the summer incest
stories, I think that to the extent hir post freed discussion of the stories
from "personalities, cliques and history," xe did us a service. If I had
tried to write constructive criticism of the stories when they first
appeared, I might have written something very like Mary Ellen's feedback. I
nodded my head a lot when I read her comments. I don't object at all to
stories that present incest in a positive context ("The Left Hand of
Darkness" is one of my all-time favorite novels in any genre), nor do I think
that every story posted to the newsgroup needs to be deep, complex and
meaningful. But I didn't feel that either story really engaged the theme or
the characters. Just my personal reaction, of course.
I can't speak for Mary Ellen, but I know that I, for one, would never have
posted such feedback before Ascem Noone's post. Why not? Last winter, during
another discussion, I vowed that I would stop posting feedback of the "neat
story, hot sex!" variety in favor of more substantive comments and
constructive criticism. Unfortunately, I soon fell back into the old ways.
Life is too short and fandom too precious to risk becoming the object of
group attack. As Seeker1701 wrote,
> And despite this group's loud trumpeting that all
> opinions are welcome, I've seen that criticism frequently results in the
> critic being trounced by the rest of the group.
Amen to that, and by the way, Seeker1701, you chose a beautiful screen name
to use to share your story.
I think it is very difficult in fan fiction communities to separate
aesthetics from personal relationships. It's terribly easy and tempting to
use relationships and group pressure to advance a particular aesthetic
preference. Because I'm not as fond, personally, of the romantic,
happy-ending-and-hot-sex variety of fan fic as I am of other types of
stories, I've tended to notice when (in my opinion) personal influence,
backslapping and group dynamics of varying degrees of coerciveness have been
used to promote that particular type of story. Also in my opinion, that has
happened primarily in print fandom. However, that's a long discussion and far
beyond the scope of this post. My only point here is that the summer incest
stories strike me as good examples of the way the "romantic story with happy
ending" format can be used to conventionalize and domesticate (and perhaps,
to use Ascem Noone's term, to trivialize) the most radical theme. And I think
it should be possible to have a critical discussion of that phenomenon
without being flamed.
Yours in hope of more honest critical discussion in the newsgroup,
Judith
Mary Ellen Curtin
> I think it is very difficult in fan fiction communities to separate
> aesthetics from personal relationships. It's terribly easy and tempting to
> use relationships and group pressure to advance a particular aesthetic
> preference. Because I'm not as fond, personally, of the romantic,
> happy-ending-and-hot-sex variety of fan fic as I am of other types of
> stories, I've tended to notice when (in my opinion) personal influence,
> backslapping and group dynamics of varying degrees of coerciveness have been
> used to promote that particular type of story. Also in my opinion, that has
> happened primarily in print fandom.
This issue has been recently under discussion on Fanthropology, a
list on www.topica.com. People there have been developing a very
useful distinction between Social Writing and Craft Writing (and
between Social Critics and Craft Critics), though we all agree that
it's really a continuum and that everyone writes for mixed motives.
Basically, Social Writers write (and feedback) as a way of giving
& receiving love and other social benefits, such as prestige. Craft
Writers write because they are trying to write well. HHJJ (happy-
happy-joy-joy) stories and FTHE (first time, happy ending) stories
are particularly well-suited to Social Writing, because they make
readers feel good (and loved), and that makes writers feel good (and
loved). Anything that interferes with this process will be seen as
a threat to people who are strongly at the Social Writer end of the
continuum, because it disturbs their sense of loving and being loved,
and that's a *big* threat, no fooling.
I think, Judith, that your perception of printzinedom as being more
Social Writerly is biased by your not getting out of Trek fandom
much online. ASCEM is extremely unusual in being toward the
Craft Writer end of the spectrum. In many (most?) other online
fandoms, zines are seen as more Craft Writerly because they, like,
oppress people with *spelling* and *grammar*. On a pseudo-Kinsey
scale where pure Social Writing is 10 and pure Craft Writing 0, ASCEM
is maybe a 4 and the default for online fandoms is about 7.5 (I'm
making these numbers up out of thin air -- does anyone disagree?).
Zines would be around 6, and one of the non-Trek mailing lists I'm
on is at about 9.5, which is quite an experience.
Though I think everyone here knows I'm strongly toward the Craft
Writer end of things myself, I'm not saying Social Writing is a Bad
Thing. How could I say that about something so tied up in a sense
of loving and being loved? But unless you know something about
what you're trying to do and why, you won't be able to understand
and accept people who are trying to do something different or for
different reasons. Goddess knows I've done at least my fair share
of ignorance-driven toe-mangling, and thinking through the Social/
Craft dichotomy has helped me understand why, at least a little.
Mary Ellen
Doctor Science, MA
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/au/
Alternate Universes: Fanfiction Studies
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/foresmut/
The Foresmutters Project
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Duny...@aol.com
appeal, but are perhaps a bit too simple:
> Basically, Social Writers write (and feedback) as a way of giving
> & receiving love and other social benefits, such as prestige. Craft
> Writers write because they are trying to write well. HHJJ (happy-
> happy-joy-joy) stories and FTHE (first time, happy ending) stories
> are particularly well-suited to Social Writing, because they make
> readers feel good (and loved), and that makes writers feel good (and
> loved).
Well, there is no particularly logical reason why HHJJ and FTHE stories
should make readers and authors feel loved, unless the readers and authors
happen to share that particular aesthetic. On ASCEM, a good BDSM or
deathbed-fisting story is just as likely to make readers and authors feel
loved. A long, complex 73-part novel crammed with Vulcan sociology and
original characters, many of them lawyers, or a hypertext novel with 19
unhappy endings, will make you REALLY loved.
The variable of aesthetic preference is one reason I think this dichotomy is
too simple. Another reason is that love is not the only social dynamic that
occurs in communities, including those communities that form around fan fic.
But that is a long discussion.
Anything that interferes with this process will be seen as
> a threat to people who are strongly at the Social Writer end of the
> continuum, because it disturbs their sense of loving and being loved,
> and that's a *big* threat, no fooling.
I agree this does explain much of the resistance to critical feedback, but it
doesn't explain all of it. High praise from some members of the group for a
type of story that other members of the group dislike will sometimes trigger
strong reactions. It can even have a divisive impact in a fan fic community:
"You like *that?* What sort of depraved being are you?" To understand that
you have to factor in the role of aesthetic preference in maintaining
community. At times, fan fic communities remind me of the kids in my son's
school who hung out together at recess on different quadrangles, depending on
what type of music they liked. (Of course, social background was heavily
involved in this, but that too is another topic.)
Personally, I feel that the dichotomy between Craft and Social Writer doesn't
really work for me because however much I am attracted by the idea of being a
Craft Writer, I have to admit that I am way, way, way at the Social Writer
end of the scale. It never would have occurred to me to write fan fic if I
hadn't discovered fandom. What little I manage to write, is inspired almost
entirely by the pleasure of being part of this community.
I could say this is because I put my Craft energy into my day job, but that's
only partly true. I find that I am much more focused on craft in my other
current hobby, choral music. Why, I do not know, but there it is. I'm one of
the Social beings. I just prefer to socialize around non-HHJJ stories.
Judith
Karmen Ghia
> HHJJ and FTHE stories
> should make readers and authors feel loved, unless
> the readers and authors
> happen to share that particular aesthetic. On ASCEM,
> a good BDSM or
> deathbed-fisting story is just as likely to make
> readers and authors feel
> loved. A long, complex 73-part novel crammed with
> Vulcan sociology and
> original characters, many of them lawyers, or a
And half of those lawyers are licensed to practice
before the Vulcan Bar.
Ooooh I feeel love I feeel love I feeel love </Donna
Summer>
> hypertext novel with 19
> unhappy endings, will make you REALLY loved.
Uh oh.
Ooooh I feeel love I feeel love I feeel love </Donna
Summer>
This is an interesting topic because I love being part
of this community, but I have also really tried to
become a better writer with each story. (And I'm
really ornery.) As you will see, if you read this
giagantio trilogy I'm posting, _After the Rescue_ was
my first story and _Talljet Quartet_ was my last. You
can see in ATR that I even got better by the middle of
the end, just because I was writing and writing and
working with a really great beta, Jane Skazki. Then
two years went by, I'm still working with Jane Skazki,
and I'm trying hard to consciously, gracefully and
efficiently create, really create so you taste, smell
and feel 'em, original characters, places and things
in TQ.
I wouldn't say I was a crowd pleaser, because I'm
ornery, but it is nice when someone enjoys a story
enough or has enough of a reaction to post feedback.
There is a wonderful sense of accomplishment, almost a
renewal, when you write something well. And then
later, you write something better. Or revise a
paragraph so it's clearer, smoother or more gripping.
Or take a risk that pays off because someone reads it
and sees a character or situation in a different,
maybe deeper, way.
That's what writers do, I think, they create worlds.
In our case, we're adding another dimension to an
existing concept, but hey, there's no law against
original characters or undiscovered planets and new
fashion.
Ooooh I feeel love I feeel love I feeel love </Donna
Summer>
I wish I could go to a Donna Summer rave. That would
be perfect.
Oh, and thank you to all of you who are reading ATR.
I hope you are enjoying it, I certainly enjoyed
writing it even when it was hard work.
Yours in slash,
Karmen Ghia
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l-l...@mediaone.net
>Also (a separate issue): putting Social and Craft writing at
>opposite ends of a continuum seems sort of wrong to me, because it
>implies that when one falls, the other rises. A writer could be
>almost wholly motivated to write by the prospect of feedback (and
>love), and craft a story for that purpose very carefully. In fact,
>good Craft inspires feedback, because it's more fun to read. Look at
>Killashandra. Her popularity is tremendous, all because of her
>style, which is so thick you might call it *stylization*. It's
>overpowering. She's certainly a Craft writer, but the results of her
>story were the kind of thing a Social one would want.
>
>cimorene
Speaking of Killashandra...I haven't seen her name in several years.
Then again I've just come back to serious reading...
I loved her stuff when I first ran across it in mid '97. If anyone
knows where she's posting her things these days, I'd certainly love to
hear about it!
Kima
---
Sarchasm- The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit
and the recipient who doesn't get it.
akite...@aol.com
karmen...@yahoo.com writes:
> Oh, and thank you to all of you who are reading ATR.
> I hope you are enjoying it, I certainly enjoyed
> writing it even when it was hard work.
Karmen, I hadn't read ATR before, mainly because I saw it was
70 something parts long and seemed a bit daunting. I do like
that you are reposting a part a day. I'm reading it now and have
certainly enjoyed the first two parts. <g>
Now to the topic at hand, Social and Craft Writing, I, like so many
others write toward the social end of the spectrum. Though, I do
know that my abilities to get the ideas that I want to portray across
to any readers have definitely improved over the four years I've been
writing fanfic. I'm astounded frequently by people asking me to look
at their stories and give my opinion. Lord knows, I'm not the best
at spelling or grammar, but I do extoll to anyone that will listen the
importance of presentation. If your story is full of bad spelling, poor
grammar and punctuation, you're going to lose a bunch of your
audience from the get-go. Okay, I'm preaching to the choir here
on ASCEM, but there are those out there that just don't get it.
Anita, aka A. Kite
Mary Ellen Curtin
> I dunno, Mary Ellen, I think these categories have a certain archetectonic
> appeal, but are perhaps a bit too simple:
Well, duh! You know there are two types of people, don't you?
The type who divide the world into two types of people, and
the type who say, "it's not that simple!"<wink>
But while I agree that the Social-Craft distinction is oversimple, I
think it is also *useful*.
Judith wrote:
> Well, there is no particularly logical reason why HHJJ and FTHE stories
> should make readers and authors feel loved, unless the readers and authors
> happen to share that particular aesthetic.
I disagree. I think that with fanfic readers identify with the characters
so strongly that stories that make the characters feel loved & happy
are more likely to make the readers feel loved & happy, and they are
more likely then to feed those feelings back to the writers.
Now clearly, Judith, the author of "Terminus" is not motived by
such considerations.<g> But I don't think that the problems some
readers have had with "Terminus" are really differences of aesthetic,
but a difference in emotional needs or tolerances (or something).
I believe that Vanasati (correct me if I'm wrong), for instance, has
previously said that said that she can't re-read "Terminus," it just hurts
too much. I don't think of this as a different aesthetic, she's said she
thinks the story is really good (an aesthetic judgement), but emotionally
it doesn't meet her needs. Damn, I'm not saying this well.
Let me back up. cimorene wrote:
> Even though I agree with it to some extent, I think linking the
> tone/plot resolution (happy endings, etc) of a story to these
> categories is too simplistic, and it makes me vaguely uncomfortable.
> It's certainly true that happy stories tend to be better received,
> and it's also true that non-HHJJ stories can be just as good as the
> HHJJs, or better. It's also true, unfortunately, that lots of
> stories float around that have hardly any craft at all, and that the
> vast majority of those tend to have happy endings. This is even more
> true of my other fandom than of trek. However, I don't think the
> suggestion is valid that the writers of happy stories are even
> *usually* motivated by the prospect of feedback, prestige, etc. The
> reason more people like to read happy stories is obvious, and for
> that same reason, more people like to write them. I think all the
> best-crafted stories of Trek I've read have had happy endings, with a
> few notable exceptions.
I'm not saying that HHJJ stories are *only* at the Social end. But
for Social writers, HHJJ stories are more likely to be what works
for them.
cimorene also wrote:
> Also (a separate issue): putting Social and Craft writing at
> opposite ends of a continuum seems sort of wrong to me, because it
> implies that when one falls, the other rises.
I'm bothered by this, too. Let me think about it out loud, as it were.
I started my story "The Boys of Summer"
http://www.trekiverse.org/startrek/startrek/adult/tos/BoysOfSummer
for almost pure Social Writing reasons: I wanted to give a present
of "Kirk wearing shorts" to someone. As I worked on the story, it
was mostly a Craft Writing experience, in that I mostly thought
about how to make it a better story, but it was partly Social Writing,
too, because I was working with betas, showing them drafts, kicking
ideas around, etc., and it was a friendly sort of thing. Then when
I posted the story, I got to feel both Social Writer goodies (readers
saying I made them feel good) and Craft Writer goodies (readers
saying they thought the story was well-written).
Now, three years later, the person I was thinking of when I started
the story has me kill-filed, some of the people I talked to about the
story are closer to me, some are less so. But the story is still there,
and my feelings about it have become more "Craft-y" with time.
It reminds me of a scene in the Richard Adams novel, "The Girl
in the Swing." The protagonist is thinking about his wife and how
they make love, and says something like (don't have a copy of the
book here), sometimes it seemed as though they *made* love,
as though they could step back and look at it from the outside as
though it were a thing, a work of art, that they had made.
That's how I feel about "The Boys of Summer." It's something I made
with and for love, but it's got a value outside of the social relationships
I was in when I made it. That the person I originally made it for doesn't
like me anymore gives it a slightly bittersweet quality for me, but only
slightly -- and then, it's a slightly bittersweet story.
It's taken me days to babble this much, so I'd better post. Maybe I'll
babble more later.
Mary Ellen
Doctor Science, MA
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/au/
Alternate Universes: Fanfiction Studies
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/foresmut/
The Foresmutters Project
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vana...@aol.com
> I believe that Vanasati (correct me if I'm wrong), for instance, has
> previously said that said that she can't re-read "Terminus," it just hurts
> too much. I don't think of this as a different aesthetic, she's said she
> thinks the story is really good (an aesthetic judgement), but emotionally
> it doesn't meet her needs. Damn, I'm not saying this well.
Hmm. If I remember "Terminus" right, then, yes, it hurt to read a lot, but
I think it left me with a feeling like "DesperateNeedToHaveASequel".
It didn't seem to really end where it did, there was still the possibility it
could work out.
I said the above sentence about "Bitter Glass" (though this one *does*
have a happy ending, but it takes so painfully long to get there, and then
it's over so soon) and definitly about "Uneasy Dancers" and "Golden Boy".
Then there is "Ghost in the machine", which I love very much, I think it's
an awsome story and in spite of it *hurts* every time again when I read
it, I still wrote a sequel (with permission of Killa of course). Maybe I did
that to take *some* of the pain away. I don't know.
The funny thing is, I can admire a story, even if it doesn't meet my
emotional needs. If it crabs me and holds me in place until its over,
I love it. :-) And I certainly can never forget such a story, and - just
to repeat myself again - even if I can't read "Golden Boy" ever again,
it was a story that had a powerful impact on me, I still admire it, and
adore JK for her writing style.
Vanasati
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Maybe this fad will soon run its course..."
-- zine LOC regarding K/S, 1978
--------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Forest of Tales:
http://members.aol.com/Vanasati/
--------------------------------------------------------------
Duny...@aol.com
> > Well, there is no particularly logical reason why HHJJ
(Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy) and FTHE (First-Time-Happy-Ending) stories
> > should make readers and authors feel loved, unless the readers and
authors
>
> > happen to share that particular aesthetic.
and Mary Ellen replied,
> I disagree. I think that with fanfic readers identify with the characters
> so strongly that stories that make the characters feel loved & happy
> are more likely to make the readers feel loved & happy, and they are
> more likely then to feed those feelings back to the writers.
To me, this is reductionist -- I do agree that readers of fan fic tend to
seek out particular emotional experiences, but I think that feeling "loved
and happy" is only one variant. For example, there's an old saying among
hurt-comfort fans: "You always hurt the one you love." In TOS h/c fandom,
it's the Kirk fans who torture Kirk, the Spock fans who torture Spock, and
I'd be surprised if the same pattern doesn't obtain among h/c fans in other
fandoms. The protagonists in a h/c story may wind up feeling loved and happy
in the end, but there is a big emotional difference between a story in which
the characters endure unimaginable pain and suffering as the route to
happiness and a story in which the only negative experience is worrying what
will happen when one half a slash couple reveals his feelings toward the
other half. H/c is an example of a specific aesthetic preference among
readers of fan fiction, and so is the kind of story Mary Ellen characterized
as "Happy Happy Joy Joy."
It's only a hypothesis, but I suspect that maybe there is a kind of homology
or "fit" between the preference for romantic, mushy, "happy" fan fic and the
preference for mushy, happy feedback. (I'm sorry if the term "mushy" sounds
prejorative. As should be clear, this is not my own personal aesthetic
preference.) I suspect there's a fit between wanting only sweetness and light
for your favorite slash couple and wanting only sweetness and light in
fandom. Perhaps, to borrow Alara's term, the meme for "happy" stories
propagates among the same hosts as the meme for "happy" feedback.
she can't re-read "Terminus," it just hurts
> too much. I don't think of this as a different aesthetic, she's said she
> thinks the story is really good (an aesthetic judgement), but emotionally
> it doesn't meet her needs.
Ah, we are using the term "aesthetic" quite differently. I'm using it to
describe "the kind of story I really love" rather than "a story I think is
good." It's perhaps easiest to see the differences between the two in
feedback that acknowledges the author's command of hir craft but trashes the
story for being the type of story it is. A striking example, for me, was the
response among fans of "happy" fan fic to the story "A Deltan Decameron," by
Frances Rowes (published in the print zine T'hy'la), which ended happily but
was full of symbolism and literary allusions and catered to somewhat
sophisticated tastes in other ways.
Judith
Mary Ellen Curtin
I do agree that readers of fan fic tend to
> seek out particular emotional experiences, but I think that feeling "loved
> and happy" is only one variant. For example, there's an old saying among
> hurt-comfort fans: "You always hurt the one you love."
I think maybe this connects with your later observation,
> Ah, we are using the term "aesthetic" quite differently. I'm using it to
> describe "the kind of story I really love" rather than "a story I think is
> good."
I am not satisfied with my comments about Social Writers and
the prevalence of HHJJ among them, because of the points Cimorene
has made and also because I notice a lot of h/c among Social Writer
circles, sometimes to the point of quite extreme torturefic. Perhaps
it's more accurate to think of Social Writing as (partly) an exchange
of emotions: the writer provides a particular emotional experience,
and in exchange the readers give the writer a sense of being loved.
It may not actually matter what the emotional experience *is*, happy
or sad or angsty or whatever, as long as the readers get the one
they're looking for.
There's definitely more to it than this, of course. We were discussing
"spellchecking as a terroristic threat" here, and my husband pointed
out that a lot of the aversion to spelling, grammar, or criticism may
arise from bad associations with school. Certainly I'm always a bit
taken aback by people who say "you sound like my fifth-grade teacher"
as though it's an insult. I always think of my daughter's fifth-grade
English teacher, the kind who gets books dedicated to her: "for Mrs.
Hartman, who taught me I could write."
Mary Ellen
Doctor Science, MA
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/au/
Alternate Universes: Fanfiction Studies
http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin/foresmut/
The Foresmutters Project
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Duny...@aol.com
found myself nodding my head a lot. At the risk of sounding rigid and
behaviorist, I think it is possible to distinguish:
(1) the author's motives for writing, whether it be to give back to the
fannish community, to perfect hir craft, or a mix;
(2) the aesthetic, or emotional, experience sought by the community;
(3) the methods used by members of the community to shape and reinforce (see,
I said this was going to sound behaviorist) the production of stories that
supply the experience community members seek.
I owe many of my thoughts on this topic to a fan-friend who analyzed the
Letters of Comment (LoCs) in the letterzines of the day in a print fandom,
and concluded that LoCs were, among other things, a vehicle by which
community aesthetic standards were communicated to authors. I would add,
borrowing Mary Ellen's insight,
Perhaps
> it's more accurate to think of Social Writing as (partly) an exchange
> of emotions: the writer provides a particular emotional experience,
> and in exchange the readers give the writer a sense of being loved.
> It may not actually matter what the emotional experience *is*, happy
> or sad or angsty or whatever, as long as the readers get the one
> they're looking for.
that the LoCs told the authors, "This is the kind of emotional experience we
are looking for." But my friend was more interested in the common aesthetic
that was being shaped via the LoCs, which xe defined as "romantic, highly
attached to descriptive passages, and uninterested in plot and story
structure." LoCs would praise stories with those characteristics and ignore
or criticize stories without them. LoC-writers also tended to be critical of
stories with unhappy endings, without explicit sex scenes or in which the
couple was not together at the end. For example, when "Beside the Wells" was
published in a print zine, several LoCs acknowledged that the story was
well-written but complained that it was "not K/S" because a story isn't K/S
if the couple are not together. If you looked closely at who was writing the
LoCs and the stories they commented upon, it seemed that the authors who
wrote romantic, happy ending etc. stories were writing a lot of LoCs praising
one another's work.
> There's definitely more to it than this, of course. We were discussing
> "spellchecking as a terroristic threat" here, and my husband pointed
> out that a lot of the aversion to spelling, grammar, or criticism may
> arise from bad associations with school.
When I was last involved in print fandom, it seemed to that some fan authors
seemed to experience a sense of relief at the freedom from "correct" writing
within the fan fiction community. It also seemed that some of the fannish
hostility to talk to correct grammar and "literary" criticism arose from a
strong sense of the irrelevance of such issues to the basic fannish project,
which they said was about giving and receiving emotion. I heard the fear
expressed that if fans focused too much on "literary" concerns, that might
drive out fan authors' focus on emotions and feelings in their writing.
Sometimes a LoC-writer stated explicitly that "we want to read 'good K/S',
and we don't care whether it's good literature or not."
Judith
Duny...@aol.com
> > (3) the methods used by members of the community to shape and
> reinforce (see,
> > I said this was going to sound behaviorist) the production of
> stories that
> > supply the experience community members seek.
Cimorene replied,
> I'm not certain that the intent of the writers of hhjj feedback is to
> do this, or at least, not always. I have been guilty of it myself,
> usually because I was too lazy to formulate the real stuff or felt
> disinclined to share the negative parts of my impressions.
I am certain that this is true for almost all of us. BUT -- if you compare
the feedback that different kinds of stories received in the K/S print
letterzines, as my fan-friend did, you would find that certain types of
stories tended to get more gushing feedback, while others received comments
such as "This story is well-written, but not what I read K/S for." So even
assuming that a laziness factor exists, or a not-wanting-to-be unpleasant
factor, the differential is still apparent.
Cimorene also wrote,
> Perhaps the group of people who are likely to seek out slash
> communities and the group of people who really really really like
> happy endings overlap significantly, in motivation, or something. In
> other words, maybe one of the most common reasons for seeking out
> slash is that you want the happy endings.
I must say I really doubt this, based on the stories I have read on ASCEML.
See below.
> On the other hand, maybe it's just that the majority of people,
> period, like happiness and it just tends to be true of any given
> group.
Maybe, but my experience in fanfic communities, which admittedly is limited
to Star Trek and, in recent years, to ASC* and K/S print fandom, is that the
need for happy endings seems to vary widely from one fanfic community to
another. In print fandom, there are entire zines whose editors will not
publish a story with an unhappy ending. One editor is known to rewrite
stories before publication to give them a happy ending. There's much more
"dark" fanfic on ASCEML, and it seems more well-received than in print
fandom. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine published a print zine
collecting K/S fic that had been posted on ASCEML; she prefaced the zine with
comment that the fic contained therein was "darker, edgier" than is typical
for print fic. The zine contained much-loved classics such as Killa's Cover
of Night and JK's "Golden Boy." It was interesting to me that while Golden
Boy ran off with a slew of Golden O's the year it was posted, it did not even
place in the analogous awards for K/S print fic. To me, all of this suggests
the prevalence of different aesthetic values in the two communities.
Oddly, there also seems to be more humor on ASCEML than in K/S print zines
(and IMHO, the humor that does exist in K/S zines these days is usually not
very funny, except for the stories by T'Rhys, who also posts on ASCEML). All
this is just my opinion, of course. YMMV.
> >I heard the fear
> > expressed that if fans focused too much on "literary" concerns,
> that might
> > drive out fan authors' focus on emotions and feelings in their
> writing.
> > Sometimes a LoC-writer stated explicitly that "we want to
> read 'good K/S',
> > and we don't care whether it's good literature or not."
>
> This seems to imply that there's widespread incorrect grammar and
> punctuation in print fandom too-- is that true? Is it comparable?
> And if so... how disappointing. You would think that since to be
> published in print, a piece *has* to go through the hands of an
> editor, the problem would be reduced.
I didn't mean to suggest that incorrect grammar and punctuation is
*widespread* in print zines -- only that I have heard the concern expressed
that too much criticism of such errors will discourage or distract fan
authors from the desired focus on emotion and feeling. I think most print
fan authors, like most net fan authors, are capable of writing grammatical
sentences on a reasonably consistent basis. There are exceptions, of course.
The finished product varies with both author and editor. And beta-reading is
much less common and less rigorous than it is among ASCEM denizens. I think
that standards are lower overall in print, but that's just my opinion, and
again, it applies only to K/S in printzines.
T'Rhys
>
>Oddly, there also seems to be more humor on ASCEML than in K/S print zines
>(and IMHO, the humor that does exist in K/S zines these days is usually not
>very funny, except for the stories by T'Rhys, who also posts on ASCEML).
Hey, thanks! I've pretty much given up writing for zines though. That
community just doesn't seem to like humor.
LL&P }:)
"T'Rhys" <tkn...@ix.netcom.com>