Humor about writing with a PMSy rant attached.

[neadods]

An alternate rant and humor link.

First, the funny. elainemc found this: the hilarious (and blasphemous) The Book of Fanfic (Chapters 1 & 2 in comments). "21: And, lo, too late did He start to regret that He had not used a beta during the Creation."

Put down any drinkables and swallow before reading Chapter 2, verse 17. You have been warned.

Second, the rant. This all came about when someone got their knickers in a knot that people picked on fanfic. Which is the way of the world, as far as I'm concerned - most of my favorite humor is sarcastic and/or editorial and all humor like that is picking on something.

However, the original ranter abundantlyqueer hit many of my hot buttons in the original rant. Snipped from the original (which is linked in the wank rebuttal):

creativity, sexuality, sensuality, and the urge to tell stories are some the best, most precious, most awe-inspiring features of the human spirit. every human spirit. even if that human spirit doesn't know how to construct a friggin' sentence to your satisfaction. don't you dare step on that. this is almost entirely a community of women, and y'know what? we have enough of the friggin' world shitting on us and stepping on us and telling us we're not good enough. we don't need to hear it from each other.

laughing at someone else's fic does nothing to convince me of your intelligence, education, or ability as a writer. [snip]

I love this fandom, and I love the people who contribute, every single one of them, and so help me god if I ever see you shitting on that, don't bother asking if you can come stay in my house and eat my food. and you better believe, I'll minimize the shit out of the level of interaction I have with you.

I literally have PMS right now, so it's putting an edge on an already not-always-sweet temper.

Abundantly? Hon?

Get the fuck over it.

You're right on one part. Creativity and the urge to tell stories ARE some of the most precious features of the human spirit. Truely. I love creativity, I adore a good story. Finding one, however, is like panning for gold in the Pacific with a thimble.

I do not love any random set of words vomited out by someone's keyboard. Between my years in fandom and my months reviewing, I have read some shit that would make you want to bleach your brain, and it was NOT creative, it was NOT sexual, sensitive, precious, or awe-inspiring. In a few cases, it wasn't even recognizably a story. To quote an old humor routine, "That's not writing, that's just typing."

And I am not going to keep silent for the sisterhood, sweetie. Because we demean ourselves and our talents when we equate any awfulness with Austen, blather with Bronte, crap with Chaucer, dreck with Dickens, execrable with Elliot or shit with Shakespeare. To do so suggests that we are too stupid to know the difference. To accept it from ourselves is to suggest that we are not capable of doing better. There are a whole bunch of female authors who would beg to differ, my dear. If saying "anything you type is wonderful and anyone who disagrees should STFU" is your notion of feminism, then turn in your vote, slap on your lipstick, and climb back up on that pedestal so the rest of us can get ON with our lives.

I don't care what this makes you think of my intelligence, education, or writing ability. Tangle with the first two, it's going to be graduate degrees at 20 paces. Tangle with the last and... well, which one of us is familiar enough with the keyboard that we understand the concept of the "shift key" anyway?

As for the final threat, after I stop not shaking in my shoes at the idea of being ignored by the ignoble, I'm going to turn your anger right around. It's MY fandom too. You and your wanky little l33t-speakers flooding it with your masterbation-as-writing-exercise stories are serving the exact same purpose as the pokeweed in my garden - crowding out the good and the beautiful by out-multiplying and strangling it.

Don't expect me to play nice. And don't worry, I don't need to eat your food. I have my own food and my own house. I pay for them by writing.

Comments

[jeff-morris.livejournal.com]

Preach it, sister. Preach it. :)

JSM

[lagilman]

*applause*

[kradical.livejournal.com]

*more applause*

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

Amen, amen!

From one "write to eat" writer to another, well done.

And I love your alliteration in the comparisons.

[elasg.livejournal.com]

*Stands and claps*

While I'll agree anyone has the right to write whatever he or she wants, I also have the right to read what I want. These 'masturbation-as-writing-exercise stories' interfere with my right to read good stories for exactly the reasons Nea so eloquently points out.

badfic

[zinelady.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the voices in the wilderness Chapter 2 vs 9. Personally, I get no enjoyment either reading or commenting on badfic. If I start something that is bad, I hit that little back key or if it's really bad, I go clean out my brain with a toothbrush. I would do the same thing if I came upon someone mocking someone else's fic. There are a lot more enjoyable things to be reading as far as I'm concerned.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Nice comeback!

Though I have to say that personally, I think mocking bad fanfic is a waste of time and effort. Why dignify the really bad stuff with comment at all? An echoing silence will probably do more to discourage the awful writers than any amount of mockery, which can always be translated (by the recipient) into, "I'm an ARTIST and they just don't UNDERSTAND me!"[1] The ones who are capable of learning from politely-phrased constructive criticism will, and the others are lost causes anyhow.

[1] To which my response tends to be this... which, I might note, is on one of the faculty office doors at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston.

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

have I told you lately how MUCH I adore you :-)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I finally decided I should have the brass ovaries to talk to her rather than snark on my own safe territory. This is what I posted in her LJ:

Answered also in my own LJ. Feel free to respond.

this is almost entirely a community of women, and y'know what? we have enough of the friggin' world shitting on us and stepping on us and telling us we're not good enough. we don't need to hear it from each other

It does women's rights and women's talents and women's dreams no good to say "whatever you do is wonderful and we shall be uncritical about it." I've been reading and writing fanfiction for close to 30 years, I write for a living and I review for a hobby. I guarantee that not everything women write is good or even readable. And to tell us that we have to be nice out of sisterhood is to denigrate women writers. It is to say "Women can't tell the difference between good and bad writing. Women can't strive to become better. Women can't take rejection and rise above it."

Some ladies named Austen, Bronte, Burnett, Stowe, Alcott, Christie, Wharton, Radcliffe, and Barton - just to name a very few who lived in a time when women were to Shut Up, wear pretty clothes, and never touch pen to paper - would beg to differ.

[kefiraahava.livejournal.com]

*applause* And unfortunately, the kind of uncritical response this poster wants is what certain types of male critics use as ammunition to deride women's writing. "See, they can't TAKE criticism. They can't even WRITE SENTENCES. So why should we let those silly girls play in the Male Halls of Literature?"

I don't read fanfic (just never got into it, thus no judgment of it implied on my part), so I don't know the rules of the fanfic world. Is there a clearly delineated division between people in the fanfic world who just really want to write about X characters in Y fandom and may not care about improving their writing per se, and people who want to/do write professionally who are having fun with X characters in Y fandom as well as trying to improve their writing by working with familiar characters as a jumping-off point? Serious question.

[booraven22.livejournal.com]

Got here by way of kradical

After watching this wank explode all over LJ, especially in the LOTRips community, I just wanted to let you know yours is the best rant/response I've seen.

Word, sister!

Am friending you, if that's okay. Always can use more eloquent and literate people on my FList!

[shawan-7.livejournal.com]

For some reason I'm taken back to the days of early Swars fandom when the newsletters printed anonymous reviews of zines. And, because they could be held responsible, the reviewers were free to use their power as payback for any small slight; and the blood and tears flowed. After a year or so, the newsletter mistress put an end to the anonymous reviews, and made them come out in public. A couple went pro rather than face the people they'd been knifing -- their friends. By going pro, they left their former fan friends behind.

On the Internet everyone has the illusion of anonymity, and therefore, feel free to be as cruel as they please (in the guise of helpfulness.) Hey, you never see the face of the person you just hurt, do you? "Words can't hurt." And when asked: "That wasn't me -- it was cousin It who got to my computer." (Riggghhhht!)

If it seems that the writer doesn't give a damn for honest feedback in the first place -- I'm sure not going to write to them any!

Can you tell I don't read much Netfic? Like Nea says: there's too much pokeweed for me to want to waste time going through to find gold.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Well said.