On fandom and writing

*This is actually two entries from my LJ that I've edited better and put here. Kind of an ease-in to my blog, I guess*


I'm sick of fics where, the morning after unprotected sex, the female protaganist is puking her guts up, and it's "Oh, it's morning sickness! I'm pregnant! And even though the sex was 6 hours ago, I'm already throwing up and my boobs are bigger!"

I'm sick of lousy characterization; of character assassination, of seeing dialogue for non-American characters using American idioms and phrasing. A character who speaks with a heavy accent and doesn't have a good grip on idioms and common American metaphors does not suddenly say, "That was freakin' sweet, homes." And God forbid we do a little research, people. If you're going to write fics for a show that doesn't take place in America, please do not have your setting be in Chicago. And if you do write it in the appropriate setting, maybe you should know a little something ABOUT the place. The British drive on the other side of the road, but they don't really refer to it as "the wrong side"; for example. "He got into the wrong side of the car and began driving."

I had the good fortune to read a story that was set in a town near where I grew up, and I was so happy~she included little tidbits with the local colloquialisms and really made it seem like she knew what she was talking about. Turns out she did, and I was thrilled :-) Yes, it's called a teeter-totter, and I'm thrilled you put that in there.Speaking of, much in the way a teeter-totter is to a western new yorkers as a seesaw is to other people, don't have a Brit call fries fries. Chips and Crisps may SOUND like food-related street gangs, but I promise, you catch on quick.

And if you're going to write about weapons, the firing of weapons, the loading of weapons, or the cleaning of weapons, maybe you should learn a little about said weapon. Perhaps even enough to know that a revolver that holds 6 bullets will not fire 8 rounds.

I know I'm not the only one who gets irritated by this~You read the info/summary for a fic, for whatever fandom you're into, and it sounds good. So you click the tag and start to read. It starts out good, but somewhere around the 4th or 5th paragraph, things go haywire. It's like a completely different person wrote it from then on. And what started as a story with promise ended up as something you felt you had wasted time on.

My MAIN point is this: the author has glorious feedback. Granted, most of the feedback praising the story is vaguely coherent and full of typos, but whatever; a bunch of people read it and thought it was solid gold dipped in platinum. Now you have to decide whether or not to leave feedback~and you don't want to lie, you can't respond, "I loved your story, it was awesome!" but at the same time, in light of all the other glowing reviews, you can't very well say, "Listen sweetie, your characterization is off, your grammar and spelling is hellacious, and your format is wonky so every apostrophe has been replaced with a little rectangle."

At that point, you start to wonder if you're a snob, and then you try to rationalize, "Well, maybe she's only 12 or 13." So you check the profile page, and find that the author is older than you are; certainly old enough to have learned the basics of structure and grammar and all that. And then you don't know what to think, except that you feel a little sad.Because if it's not your best effort; if you haven't been over it forwards and backwards and then had a beta or two go over it; if you haven't thought, "I know it's AU fic, but would ____ really react like that?"; then what on earth are you doing posting it for other people to read? Also annoying? The summary that says "I suck at sumerys and this fic probably isn't any good but PLZ PLZ reed and revue!! NO FLAMES!"

Quite frankly, bitch? I won't flame you, but I won't say you don't have it coming.

Now, I don't follow all the standards of conventional English. But the difference is, if I need to, I can. One of my English teachers in High School~it was either Beth or Mr. Ferguson~made this excellant point.

"In creative writing, you can take as many liberties as you want. Grammar, sentance structure, format, whatever. But before you can break the rules, you have to KNOW the rules."