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thebratqueenThis started as a reply to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mpoetess's post about stories as art, and why some people don't like angsty or deathfic stories but it got long so I'm hauling it over here.
MP said:
Your story left me devastated and angry and heartbroken" and the author says "Hooray! That's what I was going for!" I find myself very glad that I'm not in range of throwing things at them. Because I don't *want* to be devastated and angry and heartbroken.
To which I'm replying:
Okay, I get that, but at the same time speaking as someone who writes stories like this I feel a need to point out the probably very obvious and you were taking this as a given anyway reminder that stuff like that isn't necessarily being written to mind-fuck the reader so much as it is to be true to the text. If I wrote a story in which Wesley dies and Angel deals with it, I'm going to be seriously disturbed if somebody FBs me with "Thanks! I haven't laughed this hard since watching Caddyshack!" It's a deathfic. It's meant to deal with sad and disturbing things. So readers telling the author that the story about less than happy things got a less than happy emotional reaction means that the author did their job as a writer. That's why they're glad to hear it.
I don't sit here doing happy dances when I make my readers cry because I'm a sadist who writes stories just to make people squirt a few. If I got my rocks off by making people cry I'd insult you where it hurts and steal your lunch money in the process. Instead I write stories. When I write funny stories I like knowing I made people laugh. When I write sexy stories I like knowing I made people get wet/hard as appropriate. When I write angsty stories - I'll leave the final thought as an exercise for the reader to fill in.
Now then, this is not to say that there isn't a place for fluffy fic, or that we now need to kick-start the "My fandom can't cope with having people who like angst and people who like fluff in the same room" kerfuffle. We like chocolate, we like vanilla, some of us don't even like ice cream at all. It's all good.
But if we're talking about stories as art then we need to recognize that there's a place at the table for everything. Art is the medium by which we symbolise and exemplify the range of human emotions, thoughts and beliefs. And the thing about art is that it's everything. It's a statue by Rodin, it's a scroll to Osiris, it's a suit of Italian armor, it's a Chinese garden, it's a bunch of colorful dribbles by Pollack - it's everything. (Just got back from an entire day at the Met, ask me how I know.) It is a thing that we craft to create some representation of what going on in our lives and in our heads.
So I've got to disagree first and foremost with the concept that angstfic = Art Fic and fluffyfic = entertainment. 'cause it ain't that kind of party. It's both. Degas created paintings of pretty little ballerinas doing their pretty little ballerina thing. Unless you were attacked by a tutu as a child, these are not traumatic pictures. But they're still art. And sure, some art is going to be better crafted than others and move us more than others but it all falls under one big umbrella term. Fluffy is still a representation of what we're thinking and feeling. It's no less "art" because it makes us smile.
That being said, we've got to recognize that people need different things from art. That the role of art is to cover the spectrum, and for every pretty little ballerina there's a painting of Christ looking like shit on the cross, or of somebody getting his pocket picked while his fortune's being told, or of someone who's got a bull horn where his lower intestine used to be. Because again - spectrum.
I understand the fact that a dark story can be a too-painful thing for someone who overidentifies with the characters, because the point of art is to inspire emotions. Some people need their emotions inspired towards hope and happiness, and that's why we've got the amazing temples, or the uplifting music, or quite frankly the pictures of half-naked nymphs frolicking around with a come-hither look in their eyes. Because some people need to look at art and know that somewhere out there there's something better.
By the same token some people need to look at art and know that somewhere out there someone gets it. That they're not the only ones who go through pain, and hardship. So they want the pictures of fruit rotting, or Job sitting on a dunghill, or two women comforting each other after hearing bad news.
And a point I want to stress here is that darkness isn't just Done For The Sake of Art [tm]. Life has dark in it. Schindler's List = Art but it also = life.
The thing I keep coming back to in my head is a paiting I saw today which was commissioned by a woman whose husband had died. She wanted the painter to represent his death as a way to help her grieve. So we now have this painting called, if memory serves me right, The Island of the Dead which, yeah, dark and death and not the kind of thing that makes you whistle Dixie so much as feel a little twist in your heart but as much as we're sticking it on a wall and talking about it in books as Great Art it was this woman's life. Somewhere in the past was a chick who lost the guy she loved and she needed to see that in a painting and I seriously doubt she's going to be in the same boat with people who are only looking at the painting for its artistic symbolism and use of light and shadow.
And for me this is where the point is. (Let's pause a moment and reiterate for me as opposed to TBQ's decree of what you all should feel) Basically I'm an everything girl. I believe in a world where all emotions have their place and good and bad, even when happening to me, are part of a cycle. Ergo I want stories with good, I want stories with bad.
Now granted, there are genres. I write Cat and Mouse and I label it darkfic, because I want people going into it to know that this isn't going to be the world where Wesley suddenly changes his mind and develops a love for Beanie Babies and reading to the blind. Likewise I label the Connor Has Two Daddies fic as completely and utterly schmooptacular to the point that no one can read it who is not currently PMSing because, well, it is a schmooptacular world which, while occasionally dipping into vague bits of angst, is going to have a baseline of schmoop with some high points in totally saccarine and no it's not going to be the world where Connor develops leukimia and Angel loses him at age 5 (not to spoil the series for those of you who might have had your fingers crossed there).
But again - genre. These are series where I have placed the characters into a specific kind of emotional place where in one world there may be ups and downs but in the end all roads lead to badness and in the other it's the same thing but in the end all roads lead to snuggly gay sex and PTA meetings.
If, however, I'm doing what I would term as a non-genre story emotionally - then Hell yeah you're getting both. Because that's what life is. And if I'm writing about characters that are going to be in any way recognizable as actual people then I'm going to put the full emotional spectrum in there. I don't do it to screw over the readers. I do it because I'm trying to tell a tale. And if I'm reading a story or watching a TV show or movie where it's a non-emotional genre then you sure as Hell better give me the same thing back.
I regard Buffy and Angel, for the most part, as non-emotional genres. Buffy's a smidge lighter than Angel is, but otherwise they cross the spectrum (both with emotions and with actual classification - it's horror! it's comedy! it's an epic! it's a soap opera! it's a dishwasher and it's a floorwax! It's all these things and more!) and that's what drew me to the shows in the first place. I like the fact that the worlds of these characters are uncertain. I don't want Giles to die but OTOH I didn't want my uncle to die either and look where that wish got me. It is because I identify with these characters that I want them to have as uncertain a future as I do. The shows, when they are well-written, recognize the fact that we can't determine the outcome of things just because we want happy endings. Ergo if I'm writing fic that, I hope, matches the tone of the show somehow I'm going to be doing the exact same thing.
And I've got nothing against people who need to "fix" it. Hi and welcome to the world of fanfic. I just think we can cut down on a lot of confusion if we recognize that this is a genre. If you're the kind of person who needs the characters to be happy and/or hopeful by the end of the tale - A) that's fine and B) fair enough, your genre is happy fic. There is nothing wrong with this. No more than there's anything wrong with someone who prefers their endings sad, they're just in a different genre.
Secondly, we need to recognize that if you are in a genre, that is shaping your story. So yes, you are not necessarily being true to the characters. You can be, I'm not saying these are mutually exclusive states, but you are allowng the genre to influence your character's thoughts/feelings/reactions as much as the character's personality does. In real life we don't know if we're in a comedy or tragedy, we just do what we do. In a non-genre story your character wouldn't know this either, so if Angel and Wes have a fight there's as much of a chance for a pissy breakup as there is hot makeup sex. Put them in a genre and you have removed that chance.
This can be done well, it can be done in-character. It is not a bad thing, but it is a thing to think about and, I think, factor in to the writing. If you want to do it well show why the characters are always picking the dark options, or why they're always picking the fluffy options. If you don't do that then, well, your writing is going to suck because we'll tell that it's not the characters anymore and it's now not so much fanfic as you talking a lot about your own emotional issues, good or bad, and this is possibly why some people automatically equate certain emotional genres with a certain type of quality (however unfairly).
So in the end what I think we have here is that there are separate catagories with a Hell of a lot of overlap. Art = any creative representation of ourselves. What we want from art is many different things. Wanting one thing more than another doesn't make you better than the person that wanted the other thing, nor does it make you worse. If, from thousands of years ago until now, we couldn't find a single school of artistic representation which satisfied the whole of humanity, I don't see how we're going to be able to do that now. And, if anything, fanfic should be the medium by which all genres are accepted, since by definition it's the place were people go to get what they couldn't find in the text.
mpoetess's post about stories as art, and why some people don't like angsty or deathfic stories but it got long so I'm hauling it over here. MP said:
Your story left me devastated and angry and heartbroken" and the author says "Hooray! That's what I was going for!" I find myself very glad that I'm not in range of throwing things at them. Because I don't *want* to be devastated and angry and heartbroken.
To which I'm replying:
Okay, I get that, but at the same time speaking as someone who writes stories like this I feel a need to point out the probably very obvious and you were taking this as a given anyway reminder that stuff like that isn't necessarily being written to mind-fuck the reader so much as it is to be true to the text. If I wrote a story in which Wesley dies and Angel deals with it, I'm going to be seriously disturbed if somebody FBs me with "Thanks! I haven't laughed this hard since watching Caddyshack!" It's a deathfic. It's meant to deal with sad and disturbing things. So readers telling the author that the story about less than happy things got a less than happy emotional reaction means that the author did their job as a writer. That's why they're glad to hear it.
I don't sit here doing happy dances when I make my readers cry because I'm a sadist who writes stories just to make people squirt a few. If I got my rocks off by making people cry I'd insult you where it hurts and steal your lunch money in the process. Instead I write stories. When I write funny stories I like knowing I made people laugh. When I write sexy stories I like knowing I made people get wet/hard as appropriate. When I write angsty stories - I'll leave the final thought as an exercise for the reader to fill in.
Now then, this is not to say that there isn't a place for fluffy fic, or that we now need to kick-start the "My fandom can't cope with having people who like angst and people who like fluff in the same room" kerfuffle. We like chocolate, we like vanilla, some of us don't even like ice cream at all. It's all good.
But if we're talking about stories as art then we need to recognize that there's a place at the table for everything. Art is the medium by which we symbolise and exemplify the range of human emotions, thoughts and beliefs. And the thing about art is that it's everything. It's a statue by Rodin, it's a scroll to Osiris, it's a suit of Italian armor, it's a Chinese garden, it's a bunch of colorful dribbles by Pollack - it's everything. (Just got back from an entire day at the Met, ask me how I know.) It is a thing that we craft to create some representation of what going on in our lives and in our heads.
So I've got to disagree first and foremost with the concept that angstfic = Art Fic and fluffyfic = entertainment. 'cause it ain't that kind of party. It's both. Degas created paintings of pretty little ballerinas doing their pretty little ballerina thing. Unless you were attacked by a tutu as a child, these are not traumatic pictures. But they're still art. And sure, some art is going to be better crafted than others and move us more than others but it all falls under one big umbrella term. Fluffy is still a representation of what we're thinking and feeling. It's no less "art" because it makes us smile.
That being said, we've got to recognize that people need different things from art. That the role of art is to cover the spectrum, and for every pretty little ballerina there's a painting of Christ looking like shit on the cross, or of somebody getting his pocket picked while his fortune's being told, or of someone who's got a bull horn where his lower intestine used to be. Because again - spectrum.
I understand the fact that a dark story can be a too-painful thing for someone who overidentifies with the characters, because the point of art is to inspire emotions. Some people need their emotions inspired towards hope and happiness, and that's why we've got the amazing temples, or the uplifting music, or quite frankly the pictures of half-naked nymphs frolicking around with a come-hither look in their eyes. Because some people need to look at art and know that somewhere out there there's something better.
By the same token some people need to look at art and know that somewhere out there someone gets it. That they're not the only ones who go through pain, and hardship. So they want the pictures of fruit rotting, or Job sitting on a dunghill, or two women comforting each other after hearing bad news.
And a point I want to stress here is that darkness isn't just Done For The Sake of Art [tm]. Life has dark in it. Schindler's List = Art but it also = life.
The thing I keep coming back to in my head is a paiting I saw today which was commissioned by a woman whose husband had died. She wanted the painter to represent his death as a way to help her grieve. So we now have this painting called, if memory serves me right, The Island of the Dead which, yeah, dark and death and not the kind of thing that makes you whistle Dixie so much as feel a little twist in your heart but as much as we're sticking it on a wall and talking about it in books as Great Art it was this woman's life. Somewhere in the past was a chick who lost the guy she loved and she needed to see that in a painting and I seriously doubt she's going to be in the same boat with people who are only looking at the painting for its artistic symbolism and use of light and shadow.
And for me this is where the point is. (Let's pause a moment and reiterate for me as opposed to TBQ's decree of what you all should feel) Basically I'm an everything girl. I believe in a world where all emotions have their place and good and bad, even when happening to me, are part of a cycle. Ergo I want stories with good, I want stories with bad.
Now granted, there are genres. I write Cat and Mouse and I label it darkfic, because I want people going into it to know that this isn't going to be the world where Wesley suddenly changes his mind and develops a love for Beanie Babies and reading to the blind. Likewise I label the Connor Has Two Daddies fic as completely and utterly schmooptacular to the point that no one can read it who is not currently PMSing because, well, it is a schmooptacular world which, while occasionally dipping into vague bits of angst, is going to have a baseline of schmoop with some high points in totally saccarine and no it's not going to be the world where Connor develops leukimia and Angel loses him at age 5 (not to spoil the series for those of you who might have had your fingers crossed there).
But again - genre. These are series where I have placed the characters into a specific kind of emotional place where in one world there may be ups and downs but in the end all roads lead to badness and in the other it's the same thing but in the end all roads lead to snuggly gay sex and PTA meetings.
If, however, I'm doing what I would term as a non-genre story emotionally - then Hell yeah you're getting both. Because that's what life is. And if I'm writing about characters that are going to be in any way recognizable as actual people then I'm going to put the full emotional spectrum in there. I don't do it to screw over the readers. I do it because I'm trying to tell a tale. And if I'm reading a story or watching a TV show or movie where it's a non-emotional genre then you sure as Hell better give me the same thing back.
I regard Buffy and Angel, for the most part, as non-emotional genres. Buffy's a smidge lighter than Angel is, but otherwise they cross the spectrum (both with emotions and with actual classification - it's horror! it's comedy! it's an epic! it's a soap opera! it's a dishwasher and it's a floorwax! It's all these things and more!) and that's what drew me to the shows in the first place. I like the fact that the worlds of these characters are uncertain. I don't want Giles to die but OTOH I didn't want my uncle to die either and look where that wish got me. It is because I identify with these characters that I want them to have as uncertain a future as I do. The shows, when they are well-written, recognize the fact that we can't determine the outcome of things just because we want happy endings. Ergo if I'm writing fic that, I hope, matches the tone of the show somehow I'm going to be doing the exact same thing.
And I've got nothing against people who need to "fix" it. Hi and welcome to the world of fanfic. I just think we can cut down on a lot of confusion if we recognize that this is a genre. If you're the kind of person who needs the characters to be happy and/or hopeful by the end of the tale - A) that's fine and B) fair enough, your genre is happy fic. There is nothing wrong with this. No more than there's anything wrong with someone who prefers their endings sad, they're just in a different genre.
Secondly, we need to recognize that if you are in a genre, that is shaping your story. So yes, you are not necessarily being true to the characters. You can be, I'm not saying these are mutually exclusive states, but you are allowng the genre to influence your character's thoughts/feelings/reactions as much as the character's personality does. In real life we don't know if we're in a comedy or tragedy, we just do what we do. In a non-genre story your character wouldn't know this either, so if Angel and Wes have a fight there's as much of a chance for a pissy breakup as there is hot makeup sex. Put them in a genre and you have removed that chance.
This can be done well, it can be done in-character. It is not a bad thing, but it is a thing to think about and, I think, factor in to the writing. If you want to do it well show why the characters are always picking the dark options, or why they're always picking the fluffy options. If you don't do that then, well, your writing is going to suck because we'll tell that it's not the characters anymore and it's now not so much fanfic as you talking a lot about your own emotional issues, good or bad, and this is possibly why some people automatically equate certain emotional genres with a certain type of quality (however unfairly).
So in the end what I think we have here is that there are separate catagories with a Hell of a lot of overlap. Art = any creative representation of ourselves. What we want from art is many different things. Wanting one thing more than another doesn't make you better than the person that wanted the other thing, nor does it make you worse. If, from thousands of years ago until now, we couldn't find a single school of artistic representation which satisfied the whole of humanity, I don't see how we're going to be able to do that now. And, if anything, fanfic should be the medium by which all genres are accepted, since by definition it's the place were people go to get what they couldn't find in the text.
