And you see -- this is precisely where I get annoyed. -- less need to "prove" myself. A willingness on the part of readers not to label (and dismiss) me out of hand.
Back up the truck . . . didn't the movie-verse people start this entire discussion with "comic-verse people ghettoize us and make us feel like the stepchild?" If you want labels dropped, then by all means, let's drop all of them. =) I agree, that would help things tremendously. But then you have to decide what is a label and what is a descriptive word. "What sort of fic do you write?" does not require a ten page description. It's looking for a short answer, and 'movie-verse' would certainly fill that role.
But we feel movie-verse has a negative connotation in the minds of others, Mitai.
In short answer - change that. Write a whole crapload of really stunning fic. It's the only way to change the negative connotation of the word 'fanfiction,' too.
Thus, applying this critique to movieverse as a reason for not reading it doesn't make much sense, unless you apply this critique to fanfiction in general, and don't read that. I which case ... why are we having this conversation and what are you doing here? (g)
Because a bunch of authors in that crappy fanfiction genre leapt out of the woodwork slapped me across the face with such stunning fic I couldn't help but like them. And they said "Look! Here is an archive full of stunning fic!" and I went "Yay!" and completely, totally ignored every last thing posted to ff.net. Is that fair to ff.net? Probably not. I'm sure there are very good authors there that post there and nowhere else. And I'm missing their stories. If you want to think of it that way, I'm punishing myself for not trying all the brands of chocolate, so why get offended if you already know I'm missing out? =)
Movieverse doesn't have a corner on the market when it comes to poor writing quality, unfortunately.
I know, and I have a theory why you feel people seem to think it does. The movie created ficwriters. First off, there's no reading in the movie. You're jumping from a fully visual media to a fully written one. (Yes, I realize you 'see' words. You know what I'm talking about. =) That's a hell of a leap. At least with comics you've got a medium that's half-art and half-words. A little easier to transfer from one to the other without losing quite so much in between.
Secondly, the movie created the ficwriters. =) So writes of all ages who may have had no writing experience whatsoever flooded the genre, which is also Very New.(tm) The newness of the genre, the newness of the majority of the writers, and the general lack of a great deal of source material are all contributing factors to the general quality of movie-verse fic. Add to that the 'definitive archives' are new, and it's a lot harder to weed through the 80% of crap to find the 20% gems.
It's all quite logical. None of it means that movie-verse out to be tossed out with the trash. And like movieverse, comicverse also has new writers that have never written a word in their life. But the genre is not new, and there's abundant source material to reference. I state my thesis x, and use this evidence to support it. There's simply more evidence in comicverse to support a thesis, which while limiting the span of your thesis choice makes it a lot easier to convice a reader of your thesis.
Not to mention comicverse has been around long enough to lay fields full of gems, keeping the weeds out, so the gems are a lot easier for a stumbling beginner to find. A beginner that isn't rewarded is soon going to tire of stumbling looking for those gems, and the easier you make it the more people are going to consider looking.
In short - movieverse should eventually grow out of a lot of the problems it has now. Which will eliminate a lot of the issues you've brought to light. But until then, all I can suggest is patience and lots of good fic.
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Re: Second half of reply
Date: 2002-10-28 03:39 pm (UTC)Back up the truck . . . didn't the movie-verse people start this entire discussion with "comic-verse people ghettoize us and make us feel like the stepchild?" If you want labels dropped, then by all means, let's drop all of them. =) I agree, that would help things tremendously. But then you have to decide what is a label and what is a descriptive word. "What sort of fic do you write?" does not require a ten page description. It's looking for a short answer, and 'movie-verse' would certainly fill that role.
But we feel movie-verse has a negative connotation in the minds of others, Mitai.
In short answer - change that. Write a whole crapload of really stunning fic. It's the only way to change the negative connotation of the word 'fanfiction,' too.
Thus, applying this critique to movieverse as a reason for not reading it doesn't make much sense, unless you apply this critique to fanfiction in general, and don't read that. I which case ... why are we having this conversation and what are you doing here? (g)
Because a bunch of authors in that crappy fanfiction genre leapt out of the woodwork slapped me across the face with such stunning fic I couldn't help but like them. And they said "Look! Here is an archive full of stunning fic!" and I went "Yay!" and completely, totally ignored every last thing posted to ff.net. Is that fair to ff.net? Probably not. I'm sure there are very good authors there that post there and nowhere else. And I'm missing their stories. If you want to think of it that way, I'm punishing myself for not trying all the brands of chocolate, so why get offended if you already know I'm missing out? =)
Movieverse doesn't have a corner on the market when it comes to poor writing quality, unfortunately.
I know, and I have a theory why you feel people seem to think it does. The movie created ficwriters. First off, there's no reading in the movie. You're jumping from a fully visual media to a fully written one. (Yes, I realize you 'see' words. You know what I'm talking about. =) That's a hell of a leap. At least with comics you've got a medium that's half-art and half-words. A little easier to transfer from one to the other without losing quite so much in between.
Secondly, the movie created the ficwriters. =) So writes of all ages who may have had no writing experience whatsoever flooded the genre, which is also Very New.(tm) The newness of the genre, the newness of the majority of the writers, and the general lack of a great deal of source material are all contributing factors to the general quality of movie-verse fic. Add to that the 'definitive archives' are new, and it's a lot harder to weed through the 80% of crap to find the 20% gems.
It's all quite logical. None of it means that movie-verse out to be tossed out with the trash. And like movieverse, comicverse also has new writers that have never written a word in their life. But the genre is not new, and there's abundant source material to reference. I state my thesis x, and use this evidence to support it. There's simply more evidence in comicverse to support a thesis, which while limiting the span of your thesis choice makes it a lot easier to convice a reader of your thesis.
Not to mention comicverse has been around long enough to lay fields full of gems, keeping the weeds out, so the gems are a lot easier for a stumbling beginner to find. A beginner that isn't rewarded is soon going to tire of stumbling looking for those gems, and the easier you make it the more people are going to consider looking.
In short - movieverse should eventually grow out of a lot of the problems it has now. Which will eliminate a lot of the issues you've brought to light. But until then, all I can suggest is patience and lots of good fic.