Degrees of dissonance

[graculus]

In the six or seven years I've been in fandom, I've read widely in a number of fandoms. I'm wondering if my tolerance levels are the same as they were, or whether it changes as new fandoms gain my interest, or is dependent on the fandom itself.

I've been reading a lot of Harry Potter fic recently. Some of it is excellent and some of it can only be described as god-awful. In essence, no better and no worse than any other fandom, as far as I can see. But where it differs in one respect is the couple of fics I've given up on early on because they just don't work - there's some fundamental flaw to the story premise that is only evident to me because I have a knowledge of the law and mores of the culture the stories are based in (not the wizarding world, of course, but mid-90's England).

So, I was wondering about this - I know there are people reading this entry that read in an equally wide variety of fandoms, or focus intently on one to the exclusion of all others, people with a wide variety of life experiences and areas of expertise. Can you get past a glaring error in something you have knowledge of and move on to read the rest of the story? Are you someone who, once they've started reading something, have to finish it? Or is it dependent on the quality of the tale, that if it's good enough then you can ignore something you know to be incorrect?

Inquiring minds and all that...

Comments

[cycnus39]

Oh you know I'm a picky old cow. Anything can throw me out a story -- be it spelling, grammar, character fuck-ups or glaring errors. Even if I'm enjoying a story an error will send me off on a rant. Would I keep reading post rant? It depends. If the characterisation was really good and the error was unconnected with that solid characterisation, maybe. Then again, it depends on the error. If it was glaring as in obvious to me and kept resurfacing in the plot (for example the main characters moving around a completely fucked up fictive Edinburgh) it would probably wind me up so much I'd have to quit. Or maybe skip to the dialogue...or the sex. As with everything else, I take what I want and leave the rest. I don't feel compelled to read every word of every story and actually rarely do so. ;-)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Oh you know I'm a picky old cow.

Well, I wasn't going to say it... ;)

If it was glaring as in obvious to me and kept resurfacing in the plot (for example the main characters moving around a completely fucked up fictive Edinburgh) it would probably wind me up so much I'd have to quit.

I had a lovely one a few weeks back, where an HP character was working in a fictional Edinburgh (or was it Glasgow? I don't recall) petshop for some stupid amount of money a week and selling pedigree puppies from the shop. All kinds of wrongness there...