But whatever. Getting down to business should come first.
Since this is the first post, well of course the functions of the blog should be introduced. And perhaps that should be done on the sidebars, but well... who cares?
This is not a bitching blog, for the first thing. It's a channel where we let the, er, suckier parts of our extremely sucky lives be known. And yes, it's a lot, so deal with it.
And that's basically it. If you don't want to hear the truth, the best thing to do is to click that little red X on the top right-hand corner of the screen.
And here we come to the best part of the post (to me, at least). The ranting! Of course! That was what you were here for, wasn't it? Well, here goes.
This should be a rant against all bad fic. We'll probably have, what, a million more posts about bad fic in general, but this shall be the first. Ha!
Of course, everyone knows that writers belong to three categories.
1. The Good, who have good storylines, can write coherently without much grammatical error, whose characters are not mary-sues.
2. The Horrible, who have bad storylines, cannot write coherently and spell Africa as "Afica". And whose characters are mary-sues/gary-stues who, sometimes, mate with lions. Bleah.
3. The okay, who lie between the two categories. Bad storyline/grammar, but good storyline/grammar (delete as appropriate).
If you happen to lie in number 3, which I do, I guess you're average. After all, no one is perfect. And number 1s are few and far between. As in, probably only 0.5% of the writers in the world are this good, and no, this 0.5% unfortunately does not include Stephanie Meyer. And she dangles dangerously close to 2, in fact, but let's not get carried away and let Meyer rants continue in another post (and this is not considering the fact that her vamps sparkle.).
And of course, you may disagree with me, and think that Meyer is holy. Well, I'm not anti-Meyer or anything, but I certainly don't think much of her books, except for the overflowing romance and mary-sue/gary-stu-ness. Which kind of puts her in 2, if not for her good grammar. Which, if you think about it, may have been contributed to by her editor.
And so we digress. Sorry, couldn't help it.
So, about bad fic authors. Of course, many people like to fantasise about themselves being perfect, e.g. have wings, are rich, are beautiful, et cetera. If you've read Twilight or any of the said Meyer books, you'll know. The antagonist is a mary-sue, but ah, we'll touch on that next time (do I already sound like a Twilight hater? I'm not one. It's just that her books are famous enough to reference to.).
And yes, back to the illusions. Then what these people do is grab their favourite book, like Harry Potter, and shamelessly insert their, well, self-inserts. Of course, sometimes you get self-inserts like Airy Otter falling in love with Dumbledore, but let's not get to that first.
And when they do so, sometimes they like to start "raping canon", as we call it. Of course, I've got nothing against that. Okay, so I do. But no, what if Dumbledore gets revived? Or McGonagall marries Dumbledore (eew)? Or, as aforementioned, Airy Otter falls in ove with Dumbledore, and who later get married? No, these are not just canon-rapes, it's bloody murder, and insult. Yes, insult. There's nothing wrong with McGonagall marrying Dumbledore, of course, but... that's just over the top. And by the way, Dumbledore is, if you haven't noticed, gay. Which somehow doesn't make that pairing right. Yes, it's just... wrong. Oh, you haven't seen the worst. Not yet! Of course, hardly anything can get worse than a gary-stu falling in love with a lioness, but nothing's impossible, and yes, we really do not want to see another similar piece of crap dumped in that already crappy place.
And then there's the grammar. And the vocab, of course. When you haven't mastered the fundamentals of language, why write? Why not go back to your books and start learning how to write a coherent sentence or two? It certainly wouldn't hurt, and would do a world of good for the illiterate population who, of course, do not need to come in contact or come up with crap grammar/vocab fics.
Then, sometimes people simply like to be grandiloquent and overuse vocab. Vocab was there to make your writing better, not worse, and why try writing something which you have to use the thesaurus half the time to come up with? Oh God, no. We don't need you to be totally pro, and wow, someone who seems to have the vocab equivalent of Shakespeare. No, what we need is something coherent and correct; that'd do, even if you use the vocab span of a nine-year-old. No, it's better than overusing things and end up sounding pretentious and fake.
What else is there? Oh, loads. In fact, there's a lot to rant about for bad fic authors and bad fic itself, but let's give bad fic a break and zoom in on the authors.
Some authors are twisted. They like gore, blood and sex. Then Harry Potter turns into a sex maniac and sleeps with Hermione and, what, McGonagall? Eew. We do NOT need that, I know. Sorry, it's crude, but true. And yes, I know, I'll try my best not to ruin your mind with Celebrian, but let Russia do that. I don't have anything against gore, blood and sex, but when you're underage and have not experienced _____________ (insert as appropriate) before, obviously you should go back and write something your own age. And try to keep off the porn.
Then the self-inserts. Yes, already mentioned, but self-inserts, or OCs as they sometimes call it, reflect much about the fic and the author themself. Of course, having a mary-sue character does not necessarily mean that the plot will suck, but chances are, since the mary-sue has her eye on some guy, she will probably get the guy. And end up being courted by, what, twenty others. And I'm not just saying this.
Oh, and ah. You might wonder what happens when writers get carried away with their imaginations and create a fic which totally exceeds the boundaries of the real world. Of course, we do sometimes get cases of humans having sex with elephants/dogs/_____(insert as appropriate), but that's not to say that yu can go too far with your fic. I mean, although it's known as fiction, that doesn't mean you can totally exceed the boundaries of the real world and go totally non-realistic about this. Unless you're telling me that the universe you created is filled with paedophiles/people who sleep with lions/____________(insert as appropriate), then please, let my eyes and my brain off. Please.
And, oh, before I get carried away and forget, we should touch upon a bit of the aspects of a good fic. I may not be a good writer, but I daresay I'm an okay reader, and I definitely reserve my right as a reader to rant about lousy fics. And books, as you will later find out.
The good fics have, of course, lots of conditions to fulfill. And, as you have already realised, good fics are few and far between. That may be because I'm a perfectionist bitch and want everything to be perfect, but yes, I do feel that these conditions have to be met to make a good fic. And no, ff.net does not always have such good fics. Not always. But sometimes, albeit very seldom, they do. And it's heartwarming and relieving to read one, because you find that good writers are not extinct, and that there is someone or something out there who can churn out good books for the future generation.
1. Good grammar and use of vocabulary. Duh! Who wants to read something incoherent?
2. Good storyline which makes sense and is realistic. The pairing may not be something we want, but you can't satisfy everyone, so just go with what you like.
3. No shameless mary-sue self-inserts. Unless it's a nice, realistic self-insert, which would then make my day, since they're so few. So very, very few.
Generally, these are the conditions. Not a lot to ask for, is it? I mean, of course, that's not actually considering the character development, or the themes, or whatever it is Harper Lee does so well and makes the rest of us feel inferior. But besides that. Those three conditions make a good fic. It's simple, yet so hard to attain.
Yes, I may be a bloody bitch. But that's not to say that my conditions are unreasonable. And of course, to all fic writers out there (including me), continue looking for good ideas, good characters and good pairings. I look forward to reading more good fics.
~Estonia~
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