me and fics
me and fics
 |
Name: Luce Red (also Issen) Age: 32 Backup motto: It's not that difficult. Favourite manga: Tokyo Crazy Paradise Currently reading: Darwin's Watch Currently re-reading:Diplomatic Relations Second-most overused word: Okay Mood these days: work-stressed yet strangely calm Basic motto: You can't get there from here. Hobbies: Fanfiction, reading of, writing of. Knitting. |
|
|
Updated 5 October 2007 |
The picture is taken from Tokyo Crazy Paradise. (My apologies to Hakusensha (the publisher) and Yoshiki Nakamura (the artist).)Ditto for picture below.
So, not being a particularly hardworking reader (I moaned and groaned through the required reading in university--and I was an English major), I admit that I'm usually the first to give up when the going gets tough, or worse, boring. It takes me ages to work up a critical outlook, which is why I get stumped easily, and seldom offer good advice. I occasionally over-intellectualize things. I have fits of iconoclastic fervour. So when it comes to fic-reading, my interests veer from one end to the other, and I'm forever on the search for a good story.
I resent: vampires (unless it's canon), especially crossed with science fiction (illogical; ditto for werewolf fics); characters who develop telepathic abilities (it's lazy: Schuldig is the sole exception); overuse of exclamation points (! is enough); Mary Sues; heterosexual relationships (that's what Heyer is for--or certain Mulder-Scully, and Kenshin-Kaoru stories); moralizing or politicizing about gay issues; sissy male characters; anything Sidhe or fairylike; wing or angel fics (except Good Omens); and overly fanciful premises.
RL-me will read anything, even cereal boxes (that's the 'open-mind' part), but then nutritional information seldom contains spelling or grammatical errors (that's the 'lots of rules' part). I'm easily put off by bad format, bad characterization, bad form, bad syntax, purplish prose, and a strong suspicion that the writer is talking down to me.
Guess that means I'm pretty fussy. Pages of description, meaningless introspection, etc., blah, blah, blah, and I'm off. I'm seldom offended by crap: I just avoid it. I love stories that make me think, or make me feel happy, or sad, or depressed. I love fics with a good plot (which are rare), dynamic narratives (and narrators), stories with drama, humour, and emotional punch... and just plain stories. After years of reading, especially years of reading slash stories, I find that I'm easily distracted but also easily bored. I have a very low boredom threshold. I ask a lot from my online reading material. I love fics that are well-written, and I personally believe that good writing is a panacea for the most hackneyed or improbable situations.
(Updated 5 October 2007). Also, I am now physically incapable of reading fics where characters play 'spin the bottle', 'truth or dare', Twister or any other asinine party games specifically designed to oh-so-accidentally reveal someone's hidden crush. Especially such games are not in the milieu of the canon.
I find that my writing moods come in waves. Sometimes they're so strong that I would stay up to write, while at other times I get a good idea but can't transform them into words. And other times I just flop. I like to think that I'm a sorta-good writer; at a pinch (a very large one), maybe a solid writer, but otherwise I don't really think I'm an excellent writer or anything like that. I have to fight the urge to be wordy, and yet because over the years I've developed the reflex of 'use the easiest and simplest word', which is great for directness, I now also find that I have to remind myself to consider my word choices to see if they are really right--and not just because they're easy.
I'm actually quite blunt in my writing and have little feel for subtlety--I appreciate it when other people do it, but otherwise I just lurch and lumber along in my own writing. Description is quite lacking... I've never seen the point of writing about the sky and the sea, the colour of someone's eyes, the clothes people are wearing, the state of society, or emotional epiphanies or philosophies about life. I just write about 'what happens next,' and if relevant, what my characters think about it, and what they do about it as a result. Other than that, I let my characters live their own lives.
I think like many hobbyist writers, I struggle to make sure that what I want to say are said in my story. Sometimes my intentions don't pan out, as recently happened with a chapter I put up on lj, and I think that I got misunderstood, and I feel frustrated by that. But in a masochistic way I'm pleased when this happens--I seize on these misunderstandings and criticisms like a rabid capitalist after profit--because I sense that this is the opportunity for me to learn, (if only I get off my lazy butt, sure) how to get to that breakthrough in my writing, how to make it even better. I hate to admit it, but I do like winning, and I'm discontented with remaining in my comfort zone (even though I hate rejection with the force of a thousand suns), and I want to be better so it's something I can really be confident about.
But that's in the future.
Overall, the ficblog is really a personal project, and sometimes I don't even record everything I read on it. Sometimes I change my mind after a second reading, but make no retraction after giving it a 'blah' rating from the start. Sometimes I fall in love with a fic just because, and later change my mind but say nothing about that. I seldom talk about bad fics; those usually gets deleted or backspaced after about two paragraphs, or sooner. Sometimes my attitude is "the best fic is the next one" and sometimes it is "it's so good I'm going to make multiple backups". I live and learn, as always.
Luce
