I've been mulling over making a post about friendship, and how our society in general and modern-day internet-based fandom in particular devalue friendship in favor of romance/sex.

But thanks to links from links, I don't have to write said post, because minisinoo basically already has. It's an old post, but I just now came across it, and it's absolutely still relevant.

Fandom is obsessed with size.

No, not that way (or not just that way). There is a pervasive attitude among fanfic readers that a long story is automatically "better" than a short story, and that, therefore, any given story would be better if it were longer.

As a writer of short-shorts, this makes me crazed.

I don't want to seem ungrateful, because I do appreciate every piece of feedback I get. I really, really do. But every single serious SGA short I've done, I've gotten at least one comment to the effect of, "This is great! Why don't you make it longer?"

I know this is meant well, in the sense of it's good enough that the reader wants more of the same. But folks, for a short-short, this is not a compliment. A short-short, by definition, is a "punchline" story. The punchline may be funny, it may be depressing, it may be subtly horrifying, but whatever it is, it's the end of the story. The punch is the point; anything after that is mere droning on, that not only doesn't enhance the effect, but actively saps it. And too much lead-up to the punch is no better; like Hitchcock, a short-short takes its power from letting the reader's imagination fill in the shapes in the shadows. Shining a spotlight in there by drawing it out ten times as long does not make it better.

When you ask for a novella about something that was described in three paragraphs, you're asking for the shapes in the shadows to step out, introduce themselves, and detail every day of their lives since kindergarten. When you ask for a sequel about what happens after a character's life is utterly destroyed, you're ignoring the fact that for all practical purposes, he doesn't have a life after that.

Way to miss the point, people.

Oddly enough, humorous stories seem relatively immune from this response. Maybe it's because people are more familiar with the concept of a joke as a structure with a short build-up, a punchline, and done. When a rabbi, a minister, and a priest walk into a bar, nobody wants to know what they order after the bartender asks, "Is this a joke?" But if the rabbi, the minister, and the priest walk into a bar and some creepy, subtly horrific occurrence makes them all doubt the tenets of their faith, suddenly some readers want to hear all about how they cried themselves to sleep that night, what they told their bosses the next day, and how it affected them for the rest of their lives. Which would be boring, and worse, would take the gut-punch of the ending (if the author did it right) and turn it into more of a tap on the shoulder.

One of the best fan stories I ever read appeared in Clipper Trade Ship, an old print zine back in the days when that was how you got your fanfic. It was a Prisoner story from the POV of Rover. It was a page, maybe a page and a half long -- and this was in a digest-size zine. If it had been twenty pages, and described Rover's typical day in detail, and where it came from, and its hopes and aspirations for the future, I doubt I would have even finished the thing. I certainly wouldn't recall it to this day as one of the most chilling things I've ever read in fandom.

To head off the inevitable argument: I'm not talking here about those "stories" which are in fact mere summaries of the action, because the novice author doesn't know any better. A story should be as long as it needs to be to tell itself, and if there are enough plot twists, character development, and so on to justify a 200,000 word novel, then that's what should be written. Cutting that down to 500 or 1000 words wouldn't make it a short-short, it would make it a blurb to pitch to a publisher. But equally, taking a story that is complete unto itself at 500 words and stretching it out to twenty-seven lengthy chapters would not make it a novel; it would make it a waste of time, energy, and eyeballs.

I am royally tired of seeing short-shorts treated as the grudgingly-tolerated step-siblings of "good", i.e., long, stories, overlooked and disdained because they don't take hours to read. The quality of a story is not a function of its length! And I am really fed up with being told that my tight, efficient little tales would be better if I rambled on endlessly or piled on a herd of epilogues after the main climax was done. I'm thrilled you read my story, and I'm delighted you liked it. But when I've handed Atlantis over to escapees from a horror movie, or irrevocably taken away everything Rodney ever cared about, or slid the physics lab sideways into the Twilight Zone, please don't ask for sequels or expansions. If I've failed to convey the point or the mood, fine, I want to know that, so I can be clearer next time. But I don't want to hear how great it would be if it were longer; that may be intended as a compliment, but it's a compliment to some other story, not to the story I actually wrote.

I first read about the Open Source Boob Project via a RL friend's journal, and shrugged with a "eh, typical Detroit-con tackiness". (Read on to learn why that's an indicator that the OSBP is no big deal, and not a condemnation of Michigan sf fandom.) And then I came over here, and discovered that it had made metafandom, with all the kerfluffle that implies.

I'll say that again, because my brain didn't believe me the first time: PenguiCon got metafandomed.

I'm glad I read in the order I did, because the other way around would've made my head explode. As it is, my eyes are crossing. Granted, I probably compartmentalize a bit more than most people, but the intersection of Michigan sf fandom and LJ-based media fandom is... well, there just isn't one. Except suddenly now there is, and a kerfluffle of epic proportions has brewed up out of what is, at base, a huge cultural misunderstanding.

For the record, and for those who aren't experienced with cons, be aware that Michigan sf fandom is not particularly representative of sf fandom in general, and is not at all representative of media fandom in Michigan. The membership overlap between PenguiCon and, say, MediaWest*Con, is almost non-existent. They are very, very different subcultures, with some very different base assumptions.

( In which I attempt to bridge two subcultural groups, with much flailing. )

There's a brilliant post here about why people would write fanfiction when they can't get paid for it, in terms that will make sense to non-fannish relatives and the like. otterwort, this definitely made me think of your mom.

I've been musing lately on what makes a show compelling to me as a fan -- and as a writer, because the two are not necessarily the same.

I've always said that fans write because they want more of the canon -- the show's cancelled, or between seasons, or there are gaps to be filled in, of plot or characterization or whatever. But in looking at my own writing, that doesn't always hold up. Take Stargate: Atlantis. I find the show quite satisfying as aired, and it's still in production. (The season-break wait isn't an issue for me, because I write so very, very slowly.) Of the five stories I've finished, two are creepy/depressing what-if character vignettes with adventure-y overtones. I'd like to believe there's a decent amount of character development and exploration in there, but that's not the reason I wrote them. Two (or five, depending on how you count sections) are short humour pieces with team/adventure overtones, and the one I'm most proud of, the brain in a jar story, is straight up episode-style adventure. None of these are filling in anything missing from the series; they're just the ideas that popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote them.

To be a fan of a show, I have to fall in love with the universe. And I learned some time ago that I'd better like, or at least not mind, all the major characters. But to write fanfiction for a show, there needs to be something more. Something that compels my brain not just to watch, analyze, and discuss, but to make up something new as well.

Having looked at the shows I write for, and the shows I love but don't write, one datum rather leaps out. To write fanfic for a show, it seems there needs to be at least one character I identify with. Not just someone I like, or even understand, but someone whose head I can step into as easy as breathing. Or, not even step into, because I can get into other characters' heads with varying degrees of effort; someone whose head feels as much like home as my own. It doesn't have to be a perfect match in all aspects (thank goodness, in some cases), but there does need to be a congruence of perspective, a similarity of base assumptions about the world and how it works and how to approach it.

In classic Trek, it was Spock. In Blakes 7, Avon. Sandbaggers, Neil Burnside. (Yes, this probably does mean I need therapy, but later for that.) In Atlantis, it's Sheppard; though McKay runs a close second, there's a reason I tend to write from Sheppard's POV if he's available.

This is a weird revelation for me, because I've never had much patience with people whose interest in a show hinges on a single character. Fannishness to me is all about the show as a whole. Sure, I've got favourites, who doesn't? But I've never been one to be a fan of a character, rather than a show. It's exceedingly strange to recognize that I apparently need a strong identification with a particular character as a gateway into writing about a show, even if that character's not always in every story.

Farscape is a perfect example: IMO it's one of the best shows ever on TV, the universe is incredibly rich and full of opportunities for a fan writer, but I apparently have no stories to tell in that universe. Despite trying repeatedly, I've only ever managed one musing paragraph on Moya, and it's clearly going nowhere. I want to write Farscape, but whatever deep well in my brain spits up story ideas is dry where it's concerned.

And despite the plethora of choices, there is not one single character whose brain is that close a match to mine. I like and empathize with Crichton, I think Pilot's seriously cool, and I kind of want to be Aeryn Sun when I grow up, but I don't have that resonating click with any of them. I get them, but I'm not them.

Burn Notice is another one, and the one which prompted all this introspection. I adore the show, I'm terribly fond of Michael and Fiona, I think I understand them both pretty well... but there's just that little bit of effort, that slight intellectual choosing to think like one of them. And apparently that's just not a good enough channel to wherever story ideas come from, because as much as I'd like to write Burn Notice fanfic, it just ain't happening.

I don't think what I write and what I don't is entirely explained by character identification. I think the complexity and "fit" of the universe matters, too; I suppose I have to grok it the same way I grok at least one character. And I strongly suspect there are other factors I haven't identified yet. But this latching on to a specific character is definitely a large component, and it's surprising enough to me that I have to play with it for a while and see if I can poke any major holes in the theory.

So, what makes you cross the line from fan to writing fan?

So many issues, so little time/energy/focus.... I've been meaning to post about everything from the relevance of canon to my opinions about the recent LJ kerfluffle for some time now. Unfortunately, what usually happens when I try to write meta is that I spew half a dozen pages, veer more or less wildly off topic, and then run out of steam before I get to the end. This is discouraging, and to the outside world is indistinguishable from not bothering.

So instead, I'm using that sidebar blurb for something other than filling space. Most of my positions can be boiled down to a sentence or two anyway; if anyone wants more detail, they can ask. Of course, the sidebar's only visible if somebody comes to the main page, which means nobody will ever read it, but it's there. I've said my piece. And it didn't take much in the way of, you know, actual effort or anything.

How nice.