The motives of the fic-writer versus the motives of the reader.

[icarus]

Darn it. Skating fic isn't cooperating. I had this funny scene, but I didn't buy it at all. Why would John do that? So I've scrapped it and I'm writing something different.

In the meantime, something came up in a conversation with Harvey.

Do you as a writer ever write something you'd never in a million years read?

There's such a difference when you experience a story as a reader where you have to live through the events of the story, and the god-like perspective of a writer who can stand outside, know exactly where the events are headed, and explore misery from a safe distance. My motives as a writer are completely different from my motives as a reader.

As a reader I read fanfic for fun. I like porn (the boyfriend gets mauled if it's particularly good) with plenty of interesting characterization, and I have fondness for entertaining plots with either magic or cool technology. While I will occasionally read something a little darker, humor is an essential leavening element. Stories I've written that I would actually read are:

Primer to the Dark Arts. (I'd be frustrated at the lack of a sequel)
No surprise here, I wrote it as fic-wishfulfillment. It has magic, explicit sex, and Snape characterized they way I like him.

Cursed Artefacts For Sale.
The toaster and again, lots of magic.

Sex, Drugs and Death Eater Rock.
I have a thing for cross-dressing. I'd be pretty doubtful about Ron in a dress, but I'd got for it.

Far Too Personal and Two Men On Top. (I'd still want to see what happened to get them from point A to point B)
Embarrassing situation? Ron and someone inappropriate? Followed up with explicit sex (you see my priorities).

First Signs Of Magic: Hermione Granger.*
Humor, beginning to end, and more magic than you can shake a stick at.

Guy Talk.*
Teenage boys bragging about their dubious conquests? Sign me up.

Skinny Dipping.*
Very explicit sex, and I happen to like the water at night.

Drunken Domesticity.
Funny situation, and I'd dig Harry and Ron's friendship.

Shy Guy. (too short though)
Very visual sex. A lot of sex is written internally, emotionally, but this one you see.

For The Petulant Gods.
Bad sex amuses me.

The Walls Of Jericho. (it has weaknesses, but I'd dig it)
I'd be iffy about one of the action scenes and want to strangle the aliens, but I'd like the banter between Jack and Daniel and of course, the tent-sex.

Sonic Boom.*
This has no sex, but the visual description would carry me away. I probably wouldn't think to mention it to my friends (there's no sex, and it's barely even UST) but it would linger.


A lot of these are not my best stuff. But for me as a reader the quality of the story takes a back seat to "does this story give me what I want?"

Stories of mine that, if I hadn't written them, I would never read:

Beg Me For It.*
I loathe non-con. No matter who told me to read it, I just wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.

Here Again.*
The incest creeped me out even while writing it. As a reader the pairing is enough to send me in the opposite direction. Then the content if I read it? Frankly disturbing, precisely because it isn't negative.

A '57 Vincent And A Red-Headed Boy.
That ending hurts. I'd probably read it hoping for something interesting between Ron and Sirius, and then get a little disgruntled at the writer when I got the end.

Reunion.
I'd love it, former-lover sex is so rarely done, right up until I hit the MPreg. Then I couldn't hit the Back-button fast enough.

Hey You.*
Ouch, ouch, ouch, their situation sucks. I might read the next parts just to wash this story out of my mind.

The Other Man.
I'd feel for Sara but I'm not into bitterness.

Shared Secrets.
Depressing!

Not My Affair.*
I'd be leery of the pairing, but reading it I'd feel so sorry for the two of them. I'd have to finish to see if it worked out but I would not enjoy their suffering.

Little Boy Blue.
Creepy Chan! Back-button.

Fools Can Dream.*
The gay marriage concept is enough to keep me far, far away. It might as well be name "Cloying Story -- Look Out."

An Elegant Man.*
Okay, maybe I love this one as a writer, but as a reader I want something with a faster pace... meander, meander. Back-button.


Looking at it as a writer, what are my favorites? I have a completely different set of criteria. I want something that's different from my norm, where I stretched, where I think I've captured something interesting or, sometimes, the story was just difficult to pull off. Of the stories above, I've starred my writer-favorites.

Interesting pattern, isn't it? There's no relationship between my favorite stories as a writer and my favorite stories as a reader.

So what are the stories that I hear about most often from other readers, even years after they were written? I'll bold those.

It's curious, isn't it? There's no relationship between what other people like and what I like.

The evidence leads us to a very obvious point: our tastes in stories vary wildly. If you're a decent writer and post enough so that you're not completely lost in the mass of fanfiction, chances are that no matter what you write, you will find someone who enjoys it.

This says to me that what appears to be popularity and can be mistaken for excellence as a writer is, in reality, a simple intersection of interests. Once the interests intersect, skillful writing will keep readers and draw in more with the same interest. But mutual interest is the primary driving force of fanfiction.

It's humbling.

Comments

[alyndra]

Interesting. I like a lot of the same things as a reader, and I think I've read everything on the first list at least twice if not more (possible exception of Skinny Dipping) but a couple of the ones on the second list I've never read, mostly because something squicked me. (Chan, incest, wierd pairings . . .) Although the gay marriage and mpreg didn't bother me so much, mostly because I trust you as a writer not to give me insipid saccharine sugar-shock (which would have me screaming for the back-button).

On the other hand, I don't think Shared Secrets was all that depressing. Yeah, kinda, but at the same time Daniel was -- not quite upbeat about it, but at peace with it. If that makes sense. It's a glimpse of him that I like seeing.

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

I would agree that what I write is different than what I read. As a reader, I just want to read something funny, possibly smutty, and I adore anything fluffy. I have a few set pairings that I seek out, and then I'll read a few others that are rec'ced to me, as long as they fall in these guidelines (I'd seek out Ron/Draco for instance, but if someone told me of a Seamus/Dean that fit the other requirements, yeah, I'd read it).

But as a writer? No way. I don't like to write things that I enjoy. Any monkey with a keyboard can sit down and type out a fluff piece on their "OTP" and have done with it. That's not hard. What's hard is writing the things you don't enjoy. I write pairings that I loathe or that I don't believe in. I write situations that I have to work to make them believable. I take challenges that people issue me just to see if I can. I once wrote 18,000+ words of Dudley/Draco because I thought there was no way in hell it could work, and by the end, I had convinced myself that it was possible. That's what I like as a writer. To write things that seem so out there that I have to physically work for. The things that I have to put my blood, sweat, and tears into. If all I did was sit around writing my OTP all the time in the same old situation, I'd never grow as a writer, so I try to challenge myself every time I open up MS Word.

I'm not sure if that's exactly what you were going for, but that's what I would say about the subject. Heh. I've rambled. I'll shut up now. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No, that's exactly right. It's the challenge you're going for, to stretch and grow. All my weird pairings came out of that motive. I think it's the same reason actors love playing bad guys.

Icarus

[miladyhawke.livejournal.com]

This says to me that what appears to be popularity and can be mistaken for excellence as a writer is, in reality, a simple intersection of interests.

To take this a step further, what this says to me is that if anyone at all writes a shitload of fanfic, no matter what the quality, they will have a large following.

Fortunatley, however, you actually are a very good writer. But anybody can be popular if they write enough.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think that's the case, actually. To a certain degree.

I did an analysis of reader return rates on Fiction Alley WIPs a few years ago. When the writer wasn't very good, the reader return rate dropped from an average 10% to only 5%.

Meanwhile, a writer who had the typical 10% return rate had their reader return rate leap up to 20% and 30% once they had a trilogy. Quantity counts.

If they actively cultivated their readership with Yahoo groups, mailing lists, etc., that reader return rate would jump from 30% to 40%.

Now the bad fic writers with trilogies had their reader return rate increase from 5% to as much as 12% (I'm calling "bad" some stories that issues with pacing, characterization, minimal description of setting and dialogue that was stilted). So quality does count as well.

The three factors, quality, quantity, and marketing, all interact.

But the first hook is mutual interest.

Icarus

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The few times I've tried to write the sort of angsty romance that I enjoy reading, it has sucked. Royally. So I've given up until my talent catches up with my ambitions, and stick to gen in the meantime.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's hard to write what we love sometimes? Because we have so much personally invested in it so we can't turn the story loose.

A possibility.

Icarus

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Tobias Wolff wrote beautifully about that problem in his short novel OLD SCHOOL - if you get a chance to read it, do, it's so good!

[coreopsis.livejournal.com]

hmmm...I don't write what I like to read--mostly because I love long plotty/porny stories and my mind just doesn't do plotty. Although I will also read stories similar to what I write so it's not a total disconnect. I can only think of a handful that I've written that I probably wouldn't have read if someone else wrote them.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting question...I don't think I've written anything that I wouldn't read, because so many of my stories start out with me thinking, "I'd really like to read X", going looking for it, failing to find it, and getting the sinking feeling this means I have to do it!

I have written things that I might backspace on pretty quickly if the style wasn't one I liked, but guilty admission I do rather like my own style most of the time, so...Just like there are writers I'll read almost anything they do, and others I wouldn't trust with a basic fluffy OTP short. I mean, murasaki99 sold me on a Nazgul MPreg story once! How often does something like that come along?

I have, on occasion, squicked myself royally, though. I just grit my teeth and write through the pain.

[luthien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are definitely stories that I'm glad I wrote, simply because they would have affected me a lot more if I'd come to them as a reader. The most common sort of comment I got for the Rain Keeps Falling (http://luthien.livejournal.com/236666.html) was "your story made me cry." It didn't make *me* cry. When I was writing it it just felt completely inevitable. The story was simply what it had to be.

The stories that I've written that *I* like best are almost always the ones that I get least feedback for. But the reasons why I like them are often to do with things that the reader can't know about, so their reasons for liking or not liking a story are going to be different from mine. I like those stories because of what I ended up achieving with them in the context of the idea of the story I had in my head when I was writing. The reader can only respond to what actually makes it onto the page. It's a whole different thing.

And yeah, the mutual interest thing is very important. I've known *really* good writers who've produced a brilliant story about a terribly obscure pairing in a setting so far from the centre of the canon that it might almost be an original universe, and then wonder why they don't get a lot of feedback from a forum that's focused mainly on one particular mainstream pairing. It doesn't matter how good your writing is, if you're not giving the readers those one or two things that they *really* want in a piece of fanfic, then you're not delivering the goods. Of course, if you deliver those one or two things without good writing, a fairly large proportion of your potential audience isn't going to be satisfied, either. Deliver both, and you've hit the jackpot.

[singtoangels.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I've ever written anything that I would never read in a million years . . . but I've come damn close in trying to freak myself out. Um, Exequor was an example of that. I was trying to see how far I could go without making myself shrink back in unholy squickness.

But you know, it didn't wind up bothering me as much as I thought it would. Exequor was something I probably would have read out of curiosity if I came across it, but not thought much more of than that.

But you know what really bothers me? Unwarranted fluff. Drives me batshit crazy. Fortunately, I don't think I've written any of that since my evil days in the Buffy fandom. Hmmn. ::thinks:: Even then, though, it was more angst with happy endings. That makes me feel better. :p

Sing

[slippery-fish.livejournal.com]

As a writer I really love to do slice of life pieces or things that concentrate on the character and don't have much plot. As a reader I don't read those that much, I like longer, plotty stuff.

But there's nothing I wrote that would make me run. I think I wouldn't be able to write something I couldn't bear to read.

Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everything I've written is something I'd like to read, and that which isn't is the stuff I'm most disappointed with.

Most of the stories I write, I write because I'd like to see them, but no one else is writing them. And when people do write them, I'm disappointed, so I've pretty much got to the point where when I read a book or watch a film and go omg, I'd love to see this explored, it's no longer as a reader at all, because chances are if I found something, it'd just be bad quality. Better to write it myself.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

*nod*

I'm more likely to write something I normally wouldn't read - the kinds of things I ... don't really trust other people to handle in ways I would find palatable. Or also sometimes just darker stuff that I have no interest in reading about, but sometimes an idea just won't let go. My writing parameters are somewhat wider than my reading parameters, definitely.

In brief

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

"Do you as a writer ever write something you'd never in a million years read?"

Yes. I've written stories (well, snippets) that contain character death or pairings I would *never* want to read myself. Usually the cause of the story, the motivation, is simply an idea that takes hold and won't let go. I'm quite picky about pairings, and I avoid deathfic like the plague...but sometimes, the ideas just come right out of me.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

If I write something I normally wouldn't read, there's a reason for it. For example, I wrote An Eye For An Eye (http://isis.arithmancy.net/eyeforeye.htm) for amanuensis1 as a merry_smutmas gift - no other way would I write Harry/Lucius noncon weddingfic with a hint of mpreg! But I enjoyed writing the story because it was a fun challenge I set for myself to imitate Amy's style; I think it turned out well, and I get a lot of feedback on it.

On the other hand, I can't just write a story for the sake of trying to give people in general what they seem to want to read. I have to have a reason for writing it - the story needs to grab me and say, "write me!"

But in general, I write the stories I want to read, except that nobody's written them yet, so I have to do it. Darn. :-)

[fearlessfirefly.livejournal.com]

Do you as a writer ever write something you'd never in a million years read?

Right now, I'm writing a 'Monarch of the Glen' fic where my favorite character is killed off in the first chapter, and it all stems from that one event. I don't like to write it, but it has become an interesting project, and it is begging for a conclusion. Sometimes, we gotta do what we gotta do, us tortured writers. :D

[naatz.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Writing introduces me to new subjects. Definitely reading, too, but I usually get interested in things because I think 'hey, I might like writing that'. So in order not to come out a hypocrite, I read them, too. They both bleed into each other, but only because they're somewhat seperated from each other.

|Meduza|

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, all the time. Though usually for challenges. I'm into the challenge of writing something I don't naturally see and trying to make it convincing, but I'm usually writing it for someone who asked for it and does see it. Unless it's by a *very* trusted writer and I'm in an adventurous mood, it's not something I would ever seek out.

[emeraldpen.livejournal.com]

If it's not for a challenge, then no. I write what appeals to me or that I wish somebody woudl write.

My latest work did surprise me as it's not the sort of thing I would have thought would occur to me, but I rather liked it when I'd finished it.

[ceares.livejournal.com]

Up until maybe the last year, I very rarely ever wrote anything I wouldn't want to read. Now though I find myself going lots of places with my stories that I'd have no interest in as a reader, and I'm pretty damn happy about it. I don't know if I'm necessarily a better writer because of it, but at least I think I'm a less 'stuck in a rut' one.

OTOH-there are types of stories that I love to read that I wish I had the talent for writing. Long well plotted ones, really funny stuff-esp. parodies, and crackfic, action based 'could be an episode' stuff with really great characterization. Darkish, emotionally engrossing stories...

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

:) *is happy about being mentioned*

btw, i was reading some haikus today and i found one that totally reminded me of you. i memorized it until i found a pen to write it on my arm.

trying to study sutras
the kitten on my page
demanding affection

:) even though it may not follow the exact syllable scheme, jack kerouac still calls it a haiku. i love him.

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

that is unless you were referencing another harvey... i dunno if you know others...but i remember making that point...
hmm..