futile question

[rm]

Are there any fandoms containing more than ten people that aren't just filled with scads and scads of horrible fic?

Dear Star Wars Fandom,

The fact the George Lucas can't write is not justification for you to turn out shit as well. Thanks!

Owie.

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Fandoms of only about a dozen people can still turn out really wretched fic, I've discovered.

Ad you've made me realize that if I pursue a pro genre writing career, I too may someday have fanficcers. And odds are that some of them will suck. Sigh.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

There is something to that though, isin't there? I'm in the process of trying to churn out a project of my own creation - ( at this moment in time , a graphic novel - but as confidence grows in my writing ability a regular novel is not out of the question ) and I took a moment to play with the concept of what my fans ( if any/ever ) would be like.

The thoughts started up simple enough : people screaming at me at cons about how I misintereperted a character I invented, to the quiet almost sullen people who crave my autograph for various and sundry reasons. Then it switched to action figgures. Would I object to selling action figgures prior to the release of something? If it ever gets made into a movie, would I dress down and stand in line with all of the people dressed as my characters and just silently observe them? Would I laugh? Would I be disgusted? Amused?

There were no clear answers to these questions - but the pondering made me smile a bit.

The most fanfic I ever wrote was a very short short story for a Dune web based fan club. It involved Fremen throwing empty Heniken bottles at charging enemy soldiers ( whose names I can not spell at 2:30 am ) and the thumping from the bottles hitting the sand called a worm. This is nothing I am expressly proud of - but at the same time I did not parade it around as proof of my prowess in both the English language and knowledge of the Dune universe.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

You could probably delete words five through nine of your question, and get the same answer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I know, I know! I'm aware of like one or two really small fandoms that actually don't contain any suckitude that I'm aware of, but they're really really really small.

Owie.

[dacuteturtle.livejournal.com]

For the most part, I've avoided the whole fan-fic thing, but mostly because I didn't know about it back then. When I did discover it, it was too awful to read for words. I was past the age where it really mattered. These day, I am well and quite able to invent my own bad fiction, thank you very much.

My one foray into fanfic was a Northern Exposure/Buffy crossover. Yeah. That was fun and took me a stiff month.

I don't blame fandom. I blame writing teachers who tell their students to "express themselves." If you write to express yourself, then you write a bad story. Storytelling is storytelling, and expression is expression. They are two different beasts. When you confuse the two, you get things like fanfic.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

All I want to do is read about Obi-wan, and not the horrific messes out there. Le sigh.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. My head hurts.
splix posted a link in a discussion in her post about the movie for a rec community, which seems to weed out at the very least the truly awful.