Fandom Meta

flambeau - Pairings, wave theory, interpretive communities We don't just read a story about A and B or X and Y, we read through the lens of everything we think, and have previously read and written and discussed, about A and B and X and Y. And by we I mean that everyone has their own lens and their own way of looking at things, whether they're part of an interpretive community or not. You say potayto, I say potahto, I say PWP, you say WTF.

maygra - Fandom Meta: Managing Expectations (or, sometimes a rant is just a rant) People don't take their clothes off in public with the expectation that people won't look. // I get venting. I get frustration. I get just wanting to state your opinion. // But if you don't want people to react at all? // Inviting people in to hear what you have to say and then getting a little tweaked when they have something to say back or about -- is unreasonable.

p_zeitgeist - Notes Toward a Unified Field Theory of Mary Sue: Installment the First I think it makes more sense for me to try to lay out my unified theory of the Mary Sue in a couple of posts here, where I’m not going to run into problems with character limitations, and where I can respond to points raised in the discussion in a less scattershot fashion than comment threads allow. I'm not going to get to all the points people raised in the course of that discussion in tonight's post, but I can at least lay the groundwork for it. Which is to say, this is merely the first of what will be at least two installments, and possibly more. Behind the cut, then: rather a lot of attempt at explication of My Theory of Mary Sue, at least some of which I fear will be repetitive, yet necessary as foundation.

makesmewannadie - Abbreviated meta: INIWJLEO I'm reading a lot of meta about WNGWJLEO (We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other) and how it functions as narrative device and what it says about queer identity and sexual identification. I don't have a great deal of insight to add to this except to note that there is a parallel narrative device in several fandoms, currently, that replicates the narrative function of WNGWJLEO without addressing queerness or sexual identification much at all. I'm calling it INIWJLEO (It's Not Incest, We Just Love Each Other) - which, you know, works even less well in a logical sense, but bear with me, here.

princessofg - Writing Bodies in Space by Francesca Coppa Part 1 , Part 2 Part 3 She says we don't tend to look at fandom as dramatic because of its roots in SF, which is a very literary place. Indeed, when SF TV and movies came along, the book and magazine based professional SF community did nothing but diss these inferior forms of the craft.// Which is true, and thinking of the repetitive and reworking nature of my interest in romantic slash got way more comprehensible through this idea of drama.// Then this bombshell: "But whereas fans of literary science fiction often take to writing "original" science fiction themselves, fans of mass media write fan fiction -- which, I submit, is more a kind of theatre than a kind of prose."

all_you_wanted - Confessions of a Continuity Whore (or how showing history in storytelling turns me on) History is what ties us all together. It’s how we connect all back into one. Depending on your religious views it could coming from one man and woman in a garden somewhere, or from the first fish to walk out of the ocean. ... you see in fandom, continuity is history.

cathexys - a response to abyssinia4077 I've been going on about interpretive communities ad nauseam for a couple of years now (the term btw, is Stanley Fish's, but I adore it b/c unlike Fish's envisioned and figurative communities, we can actually point to ours as actual ones, be they an LJ community, a shipper ML or whatnot).

cofax7 - recs, and meta My theory, frankly, is that in fandom there are Romances and then there are Other Kinds of Stories (and combinations of the two). And I totally get why people want romances to be labeled--so many of us read for our OTP. But an action-adventure story that happens to include some element of Jack/Sam, or John/Rodney, where that element doesn't really play a big role in the plot? Shouldn't be labeled as a romance, not if that's not one of the plot drivers. And if the writer does put the pairing information on the story, I don't think that that means the story automatically should no longer be gen. Particularly where the relationship in question is canonical, like Daniel/Sha're or Kara/Sam.

rydra_wong - That gen thing Is it possible that one of the sources of the controversy/confusion is historical? // Based on my knowledge of fannish history (correct me if I'm wrong, people), I have the impression that "het" as a category term is a fairly recent coinage (I still see people boggling at the idea of warning for het), and that the categories originally corralled off from "fanfic in general" were "adult" (sexually-explicit fic, assumed to be heterosexual) and "slash" (anything containing same-gender romantic pairings, explicit or not). "Gen" became the tag for whatever was left over.

untrue_accounts - Labels & warnings used to be opposed to warnings and pairing labels. Now -- eh. I am pickier about pairings myself; I figure I might as well include them, if I remember. Warnings, well, I just posted my first story to include a warning. I'm still not clear on how to do them, exactly; so many times the "ANGST!!!!!!" and "DARK!!!!!!!!!" just make me roll my eyes, or don't seem warranted, although maybe that's just because the writers raised my fears (or expectations) too high.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: SGA )

On Reading and Writing and Vidding

cofax7 - thoughts of a Tuesday Because for someone in fandom, seeing a video like that isn't that astonishing. It's creative and skillful, but it's hardly gobsmacking. I'm used to seeing digital media remixed and played with....That's media fandom for you--pushing the envelope since 1976...

bitterfig - just a girl who refused to give up playing with dolls All children play creatively. At a certain age they’re expected to stop but I don’t think the impulse goes away. I started writing when I was 14. Pressured into giving up my dolls I made fiction my new mode of creative play and I was frankly quite bad. That’s where craft comes in. I kept writing and I learned and I got better. Twenty-one years later I’ve worked as a professional journalist in a modest capacity, earned a BA in Literature and am looking at Graduate Programs in Creative Writing but I really don’t considered myself talented so much as a just a girl who refused to give up playing with dolls. I think everyone has something to say and with the right tools and tenacity can write. Art is about showing the world through your eyes, from your unique viewpoint and so each person has within them the capacity to create art.

excellent_words - Stephen King Said It Best Part 1 I am approaching the heart of this book with two theses, both simple. The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.

excellent_words - Stephen King Said It Best Part 2 Writing isn't anything that's going to make you money. It's not essential for survival. Therefore, you should be writing becase you want to be. Because you want to be published, or because you want to tell your stories, or because you want to get better at it, or because you want to become a Big Name Fan, or because... Because. If you are not happy when you write, if you are not fulfilled or pleased or somehow gratified by it, stop. And no, I don't mean you have to be happy and pleased all the time. God, if you're happy all the time when you write, share your secret because I don't know anyone who's always happy with what they write, when they write, as they're writing. But it should be your choice, something that you want to do.

Links, Polls, etc

kangeiko - Whatever happened to... I've had little to do but think for the past few days (well, other than sleep, or contemplating the bathroom tiles, of course), and it suddenly occured to me that entire genres of fic had come and gone and - well - they aren't around anymore!

writerlibrarian - A very public case of plagiarism... A French Canadian editor (not a very good one btw) more a money matters more than books got caught in his own hype and greed. He published the book of a young 12 years old girl about an immortal woman. ... Between the 13th and yesterday (21th), news of the "inspired" book made its way to the French Highlander fandom and you might have predicted the result . The girl lifted the fanfic of an French fan. The story in La Presse is here. In short she copied and pasted the story of Frédéric Jeorge titled Des cendres et du vent written in 2001.