Posting meme: Impactful fic

[extrapenguin]

stultiloquentia asked about a piece of fic that impacted the way I think about fandom, or writing, or my own aspirations.

I ... don't find fic that impactful, tbh. I don't think there's been a propub book that's left a mark on my thoughts on writing or my aspirations, either.

*scrolls through bookmarks*

The closest thing would be In Fire 200k+ of Anakin Skywalker character study and redemption arc set in a Silent Hill fusion. It was nice and ambitious and very, very good at what it did. Also, the author had 3 different endings planned, based on the game's endings, and kept a running tally of "points" each ending got based on keywords in the comments, writing the next installment towards the ending with the highest point total at that moment. Not something I'd ever do, but very cool nonetheless!

Comments

[china_shop]

Also, the author had 3 different endings planned, based on the game's endings, and kept a running tally of "points" each ending got based on keywords in the comments, writing the next installment towards the ending with the highest point total at that moment.

That's such an interesting idea. Cool!

[extrapenguin]

I could absolutely never do it myself (I need to have the entire thing done before I can release it to the wilds of AO3), but it's a super cool concept and tbh I sort of hope it takes on, just for the amazing way it deals with the video game part of the fusion medium.

...okay, maybe I could write something Mass Effect 3 -style, where I prepare all three (or four) endings in advance and declare the official one whichever received the most "points", then release the others as alternative endings. But that's about it.

[china_shop]

I've written post-as-I-go WIPs in the past, but I could never do something like that because what fuels my writing a lot of the time is reveals and surprises (even if they're really subtle ones, or only surprising in my deluded view of things). So I expect readers telling me what they want would make me write something else (if I could) or make me lose momentum. (This is why I'm not very good at prompts, either; I usually want to subvert them in some way.)

...okay, maybe I could write something Mass Effect 3 -style, where I prepare all three (or four) endings in advance and declare the official one whichever received the most "points", then release the others as alternative endings.

That sounds like so much extra work! /o\ :-)

[extrapenguin]

ME3 is notorious for having the final ending not be based on choices you've previously made, but an actual, explicit choice of clicking one of 3 colored thingies, so it'd just be 3 versions of the final chapter (or 4, if you include the "refuse to click anything and time out" ending). Extra work, yes, but still manageable.

[stultiloquentia]

Huh! You are an alien creature! Reading doesn't affect your writing? How did you learn to write? Is your fic writing in dialogue with canon alone?

That SW/WH fusion sounds super cool.

[extrapenguin]

...I guess you meant a completely different question to the one I thought you asked, then?

I did learn to write in part based on things I've read, but the foundations were set when I was in my early teens, all of the works were professionally published fiction, and nothing was such a major basis as to come to mind as an influence over the others. Things I've read since have also added to the mix, but again, more as drops in a growing lake, not as a sea change. Reading a new book doesn't affect my writing noticeably, since I have by now found a style that requires minimum effort for longfic, and for shortfic it feels like the idea is what dictates the style. And I came into fic late enough that my idea of what a story "should" feel like/look like had already been seeded.

(The only book I can recall stylistically is Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta – absolutely beautifully written, but no huge effects on my writing save the one Memory of Water fusion where I did a half-hearted effort to pastiche.)

I wouldn't class myself as in dialogue with fandom, either – Guardian fandom was the last one that was small enough I could read a sizeable percentage of the fics, and I generally want to do something different with each fic, and also something different from fandom at large. (So nothing that is just a get-together.) I do trade and hone ideas with fandom friends, but yes, my fic is mostly inspired by looking at canon and going "what if..." (I suspect that, like all of us, I must reserve a slice for blatant projection, lol.)

I have made one thing I'd class as being in dialogue with fandom, but it's a vid: Common People. (Star Wars Prequels)

Oh wait! I do participate in exchanges. I guess writing a fic based on someone else's randomly assigned prompts in an effort to make them happy counts as being in dialogue with fandom, even if at some remove?

But yeah. If you put a gun to my head I could not name a work of fanfiction that has impacted the way I think about fandom, or writing, or (especially) my own aspirations. I honestly did not think this would be unique or special at all, even within ficwriting fandom.

[stultiloquentia]

I like this explanation of your development, especially, "Things I've read since have also added to the mix, but again, more as drops in a growing lake, not as a sea change."

I was so boggled because I feel like fandom teaches me something new every time I turn around, and I can rattle off examples for everything from, "What a cool structure, I've never seen a pro short story do that, that might just solve my writer's block!" to, "Oh damn, that's the kind of fight scene I want to be able to write, how did she do that? Must analyze," to, "Congrats, you just made me totally rethink this character."

But if you're coming in with a strong pre-established style and skillset, and your MO is weighted toward interacting with the canon, your approach makes sense.

[extrapenguin]

Either we hang out in very different fandoms, or our short fiction reading is drastically different! The only structure fandom has really introduced to me is 5+1, whereas the SF short stories generally have much more innovative and ambitious structures (listicle, CYOA with a sentence or two for each letter of the alphabet), narrative voices, or themes. The fic I've read generally plays it safe by being tight third, and a lot of fic is romance get-together. Do you have examples of cool structures you've seen in fic? I wonder whether we just have completely different standards, lol.

I'm sure I've read stuff that made me rethink a character in full or in part, but nothing comes to mind right now.

[stultiloquentia]

Ha, the example I was thinking of re. structure was a Buffy fic on an LJ blog in 2001. It was only my second online fandom, and I was a well-read college kid, but not an experienced writer. I was accustomed to thinking of short fiction as having a fairly stock structure: beginning, middle and end, neatly packaged and presented with due reverence. So it BLEW MY TINY MIND when this absolutely superlative writer just opened up her posting form and started with something like, "So I want to write about Spike and Angel today, but they're being all elusive and taciturn....Lemme just, sidle up behind them with my butterfly net and..." and I can't remember exactly how it went from there, but she segued seamlessly from chattily describing the story she wanted to write, to writing it. From, "and what if then Angel said," to Angel just saying things, while the chatty fangirl gradually excused herself from the scene, leaving a Narrator in her place. It seems like such a small, obvious lesson in hindsight, but she taught me how one could blur the lines between different forms of writing, unclench, and just play.

You're quite right that much fanfic is structurally same-y, while meanwhile we're living in a golden age of pro SFF.

Fic has 5+1, as you say. Oh, HUH, now that I'm thinking about it, nearly all the fic structure creativity I can think of is platform-driven. SFF tends to be published in printed or online zines, whereas fanfic happens all over the place. Fans like to play with their spaces, and so: social media AUs; that Scum Villain one where a guy in a coma can only communicate through AO3 comments, so the whole fic is comment section screencaps; choose-your-own-adventure-via-Twitter-poll; hell, I'd even argue that threadfic itself is a distinct structure that, when well-executed, follows different rules than traditionally posted fiction. How about that Six Degrees of Canada exchange where people sent each other postcards in the voices of various characters? Probably someone had already invented postcard fiction before then, but I still think it's neat.

[extrapenguin]

That Buffy fic sounds neat! IDK if I'd class social media AUs etc as a structure, since they're usually telling the exact same story as traditional fic, just with different formatting. I haven't spent any time on Twitter, so can't comment on the threadfic or polls.

I guess part of my issue with fic structure is that content-wise, so much of it is samey, that the structure would have to be truly spectacularly novel for it to not be buried under the familiarity of the content?

[extrapenguin]

Also, I do not appreciate being called an alien. I am autistic and experience it not as a fun joke, but an attack against my right to exist as a human. Please reconsider your word choice going forward.

[stultiloquentia]

Oh, that's a fair call, and a good reminder that my sense of humour isn't universal. I meant it in a friendly, "Gosh, people create and experience art in such different ways, isn't it interesting!" way, not at all as a sneer. I'm sorry, and I'll be more careful next time.