Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-24 09:20 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-24 09:20 pm
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There is a certain quality cutoff for writing where I just shut up and enjoy the damn story. With anything below this cutoff, how bitchy and critical I am is actually directly proportional to how good the writing is. Why is this? Do I feel cheated when everything is fine except for a few horrid annoyances? Do I consider the author more of a lazy jackass when it's plainly evident they could have done better? Do my standards get unreasonably higher once I perceive some quality in what I'm reading? In fanfiction, do I feel like good writing as a vehicle for shitty characterization makes said shitty characterization more acceptable to the fandom in general, and therefore a bigger problem than just one flawed fic?
I don't know. It's probably a combination. But when I see a badfic author post a horrid first attempt, get con crit, and do better the second time around, it gives me hope for the future. When legions of marginally competent fic writers churn out maudlin, plotless vignettes, I'll kill an afternoon reading them with no opinion whatsoever. When a good writer produces an elegant trainwreck of consistent but horridly OOC characterization, I'll have fun reading it but feel rather bitter when I'm done. When I buy a highly recommended vanity-press book that's quite good but has glaring flaws that would never escape a competent editor, I feel cheated. When a published author makes millions of dollars and gains a huge fanbase with a bunch of really shitty novels, all I can do is laugh. That and hurl the book across the room with great force.
...why yes, I am reading Pont-au-Change. And rereading a few popular, well-executed LM fics that make me want to put the characters in a deathmatch with their Brick counterparts solely because I know they wouldn't come out alive.
I don't know. It's probably a combination. But when I see a badfic author post a horrid first attempt, get con crit, and do better the second time around, it gives me hope for the future. When legions of marginally competent fic writers churn out maudlin, plotless vignettes, I'll kill an afternoon reading them with no opinion whatsoever. When a good writer produces an elegant trainwreck of consistent but horridly OOC characterization, I'll have fun reading it but feel rather bitter when I'm done. When I buy a highly recommended vanity-press book that's quite good but has glaring flaws that would never escape a competent editor, I feel cheated. When a published author makes millions of dollars and gains a huge fanbase with a bunch of really shitty novels, all I can do is laugh. That and hurl the book across the room with great force.
...why yes, I am reading Pont-au-Change. And rereading a few popular, well-executed LM fics that make me want to put the characters in a deathmatch with their Brick counterparts solely because I know they wouldn't come out alive.