The joys of fandom #298

[graculus]

Yes, it's the latest installment.

Let's talk about this obsession for self-promotion, shall we? Like the people who use mailing lists as the forum for their little mutual appreciation societies to pat one another on the back for their mediocre and unimaginative fic, because surely that's what they're for? Where the author posts interminable WIPs apparently solely for the purpose of their friends raving over every installment and their own vapid and cliqueish responses to that ego-stroking.

And then people wonder why there's no good fic in that fandom any more...

Comments

[cedara]

Gee, how do you do that? Was talking with a pal about the very same topic when I read your entry.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad that I'm mostly out of the (areas of) fandoms where that happens. I've seen it second-hand, but the only mailing lists I'm on are in a fandom where it doesn't happen much (there's one woman who writes gushing reviews of stuff the rest of us don't like, but I mostly ignore her).

I sometimes wonder if I should be more selective in the section of my F'List that I show my snippets of Original Fic to, because they can't all be interested. But different passages are going to appeal to different people, and it's going to be tricky working out who want to comment on what. If a passage rings true for one person (and not always the same one), then I know I'm still on the right track, and can leave the rest to my betas.

Yes, ego-stroking is nice, and I could easily get more if I went back to writing in my various fandoms. But I'd much rather write what I want to write, and hope that it's the best I can come up with.

Gina

[graculus.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

And the thing is, I know we're not talking about the same list or fandom. Scary, eh?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Ego-stroking is wonderful and I can see exactly why it's got such a pull on some people, but unfortunately I apparently don't want to write the kind of fic that would get me that kind of reaction.

I've said it before, anyone who's been in a fandom for a little while could compose a story to fit the formula that would maximise your feedback and minimise your overall effort, but would it really be *your* fic or some creation of (often) the worst things about fandom cobbled together?

Usually I can ignore it but sometimes the signal to noise ratio just goes out of skew and the noise becomes deafening...

[cedara]

Immensely. *g*

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Same goes for profic, at a guess. I've said before that I could write a much more marketable thriller/horror/fantasy story if I made my hero straight (or possibly even out and out gay) rather than bi. But that's not the book in my head, and I want to write the book that I never got the chance to read yet.

Gina

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Can I make this into a metadiscussion about fic? (laughs wickedly). I know the type of fic you're refering to - chock full of cliches and tropes, color-by-numbers plot points...but I like to think that some of that drivel is the drivel of a beginning writer, or a writer with little confidence in their own imagination. Hopefully, some of those writers will break out of the paint-by-numbers approach and become dissatisfied with the yes-man audience.

But the situation you speak of sounds more like performance art, written for externals than internal reasons. (not that all performance art is like that - more like a class clown desperate for attention, that sort of performance art)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Meta? Nooooooo! ;)

Where's the encouragement to take risks, to write something a little less by-the-numbers, if what you're currently producing garners such adulation? Why take the risk and possibly lose the ego-strokes?