{"id":279492,"date":"2018-10-27T17:06:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T17:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/27\/on-fanfic-emotional-continuity-2\/"},"modified":"2018-10-27T17:06:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T17:06:42","slug":"on-fanfic-emotional-continuity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/27\/on-fanfic-emotional-continuity-2\/","title":{"rendered":"on fanfic & emotional continuity"},"content":{"rendered":"

13monkton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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earlgreytea68<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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bigblueboxat221b<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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notjustamumj<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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earlgreytea68<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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glitterandrocketfuel<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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earlgreytea68<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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meanderings0ul<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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earlgreytea68<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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nianeyna<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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earlgreytea68<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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fozmeadows<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Writing and reading fanfic is a masterclass in characterisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consider: in order to successfully write two different\u00a0\u201cversions\u201d of the same character – let alone ten, or fifty, or a hundred – you have to make an informed judgement about their core personality traits, distinguishing between the results of nature and nurture, and decide how best to replicate those conditions in a new narrative context. The character you produce has to be recognisably congruent with the canonical version, yet distinct enough to fit within a different – perhaps wildly so – story. And you physically can\u2019t accomplish this if the character in question is poorly understood, or viewed as a stereotype, or one-dimensional. Yes, you can still produce the fic, but chances are, if your interest in or knowledge of the character(s) is that shallow, you\u2019re not going to bother in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because ficwriters care about nuance, and they especially<\/i> care about continuity – not just literal continuity, in the sense of corroborating established facts, but the far more important (and yet more frequently neglected) emotional continuity. Too often in film and TV canons in particular, emotional continuity is mistakenly viewed as a synonym for static characterisation, and therefore held anathema: if the character(s) don\u2019t change, then where\u2019s the story? But emotional continuity isn\u2019t anti-change; it\u2019s pro-context. It means showing how<\/i> the character gets from Point A to Point B as an actual journey, not just dumping them in a new location and yelling Because Reasons!<\/i> while moving on to the next development. Emotional continuity requires a close reading, not just of the letter of the canon, but its spirit – the beats between the dialogue; the implications never overtly stated, but which must logically occur off-screen. As such, emotional continuity is often the first casualty of canonical forward momentum: when each new TV season demands the creation of a new challenge for the protagonists, regardless of where and how we left them last, then dealing with the consequences of what\u2019s already happened is automatically put on the backburner.<\/p>\n

Fanfic does not do this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fanfic embraces the gaps in the narrative, the gracenotes in characterisation that the original story glosses, forgets or simply doesn\u2019t find time for. That\u2019s not all it does, of course, but in the context of learning how to write characters, it\u2019s vital, because it teaches ficwriters – and fic readers – the difference between rich and cardboard characters. A rich character is one whose original incarnation is detailed enough that, in order to put them in fanfic, the writer has to consider which elements of their personality are integral to their existence, which clash irreparably with the new setting, and which can be modified to fit, to say nothing of how this adapted version works with other similarly adapted characters. A cardboard character, by contrast, boasts so few original or distinct attributes that the ficwriter has to invent them almost out of whole cloth. Note, please, that attributes<\/i> are not necessarily synonymous with\u00a0details i<\/i>n this context: we might know a character\u2019s favourite song and their number of siblings, but if this information gives us no actual insight into them as a person<\/i>, then it\u2019s only window-dressing. By the same token, we might know very few concrete facts<\/i> about a character, but still have an incredibly well-developed sense of their personhood on the basis of their actions<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact that ficwriters en masse – or even the same ficwriter in different AUs – can produce multiple contradictory yet still fundamentally believable incarnations of the same person is a testament to their understanding of characterisation, emotional continuity and narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So I was reading this rumination on fanfic and I was thinking about something @involuntaryorange<\/a> once talked to me about, about fanfic being its own genre, and something about this way of thinking really rocked my world? Because for a long time I have thought like a lawyer, and I have defined fanfiction as\u00a0\u201cfiction using characters that originated elsewhere,\u201d or something like that. And now I feel like\u2026fanfiction has nothing to do with using other people\u2019s characters, it\u2019s just a character-driven *genre* that is so character-driven that it can be more effective to use other people\u2019s characters because then we can really get the impact of the storyteller\u2019s message but I feel like it could also be not using other people\u2019s characters, just a more character-driven story. Like, I feel like my original stuff\u2013the novellas I have up on AO3, the draft I just finished\u2013are probably really fanfiction, even though they\u2019re original, because they\u2019re hitting fanfic beats. And my frustration with getting original stuff published has been, all along, that I\u2019m calling it a genre it really isn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this is why many people who discover fic stop reading other stuff. Once you find the genre you prefer, you tend to read a lot in that genre. Some people love mysteries, some people love high-fantasy. Saying you love\u00a0\u201cfic\u201d really means you love this character-driven genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So when I hear people be dismissive of fic I used to think, Are they just not reading the good fic? Maybe I need to put the good fic in front of them? But I think it turns out that fanfiction is a genre that is so entirely character-focused that it actually feels weird and different, because most of our fiction is not that character-focused.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It turns out, when I think about it, I am simply a character-based consumer of pop culture. I will read and watch almost anything but the stuff that\u2019s going to stick with me is because I fall for a particular character. This is why once a show falters and disagrees with my view of the character, I can\u2019t just, like, push past it, because the show *was* the character for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Right now my big thing is the Juno Steel stories, and I know that they\u2019re doing all this genre stuff and they have mysteries and there\u2019s sci-fi and meanwhile I\u2019m just like, \u201cOkay, whatever, I don\u2019t care about that, JUNO STEEL IS THE BEST AND I WANT TO JUST ROLL AROUND IN HIS SARCASTIC, HILARIOUS, EMOTIONALLY PINING HEAD.\u201d That is the fanfiction-genre fan in me coming out. Someone looking for sci-fi might not care about that, but I\u2019m the type of consumer (and I think most fic-people are) who will spend a week focusing on what one throwaway line might reveal about a character\u2019s state of mind. That\u2019s why so many fics *focus* on those one throwaway lines. That\u2019s what we\u2019re thinking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this is what makes coffee shop AUs so amazing. Like, you take some characters and you stick them in a coffee shop. That\u2019s it. And yet I love every single one of them. Because the focus is entirely on the characters. There is no plot. The plot is they get coffee every day and fall in love. That\u2019s the entire plot. And that\u2019s the perfect fanfic plot. Fanfic plots are almost always like that. Almost always references to other things that clue you in to where the story is going. Think of \u201cfriends to lovers\u201d or \u201cenemies to lovers\u201d or \u201cfake relationship,\u201d and you\u2019re like, \u201cYes. I love those. Give me those,\u201d and you know it\u2019s going to be the same plot, but that\u2019s okay, you\u2019re not reading for the plot. It\u2019s like that Tumblr post that goes around that\u2019s like, \u201cMe starting a fake relationship fic: Ooooh, do you think they\u2019ll fall in love for real????\u201d But you\u2019re not reading for the suspense. Fic frees you up from having to spend effort thinking about the plot. Fic gives your brain space to focus entirely on the characters. And, especially in an age of plot-twist-heavy pop culture, that almost feels like a luxury.\u00a0\u201cCome in. Spend a little time in this character\u2019s head. SPEND HOURS OF YOUR LIFE READING SO MANY STORIES ABOUT THIS CHARACTER\u2019S HEAD. Until you know them like a friend. Until you know them so well that you miss them when you\u2019re not hanging out with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When that is your story, when the characters become like your friends, it makes sense that you\u2019re freed from plot. It\u2019s like how many people don\u2019t really have a \u201cplot\u201d to hanging out with their friends. There\u2019s this huge obsession with plot, but lives don\u2019t have plots. Lives just happen. We try to shape them into plots later, but that\u2019s just this organizational fiction we\u2019re imposing. Plot doesn\u2019t have to be the raison d\u2019etre of all story-telling, and fic reminds us of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Idk, this was a lot of random rambling but I\u2019ve been thinking about it a lot lately.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cfanfiction has nothing to do with using other people\u2019s characters, it\u2019s just a character-driven *genre* that is so character-driven that it can be more effective to use other people\u2019s characters\u201d<\/p>\n

yes!!!! I feel like I knew this on some level but I\u2019ve never explicitly thought about it that way. this feels right, yep. Mainstream fiction often seems very dry to me and I think this is why – it tends to skip right over stuff that would be a huge plot arc in a fanfic, if not an entire fanfic in itself. And I\u2019m like, \u201chey, wait, go back to that. Why are you skipping that? Where\u2019s the story?\u201d But now I think maybe people who don\u2019t like fanfiction are going like, \u201cwhy is there an entire fanfic about something that could have happened offscreen? Is anything interesting ever going to happen here? Where\u2019s the story?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yes! Exactly! This!!!<\/p>\n

This crystallized for me when I taught my first class of fanfiction to non-fic-readers and they just kept being like,\u00a0\u201cBut nothing happens. What\u2019s the plot?\u201d and I was so confused, like,\u00a0\u201cWhat are you talking about? They fall in love. That\u2019s the plot.\u201d But we were, I think, talking past each other. They kept waiting for some big moment to happen, but for me the point was that the little moments were the big moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is such an awesome conversation, but I think there\u2019s
\neven another layer here that makes \u2018fic\u2019 its own genre. And it is the plot.<\/p>\n

Everyone who\u2019s experienced in reading fic has their little \u2018trope
\nplots\u2019 we are willing to read or even prefer in order to spend time with our
\nfavorite characters. We know how it\u2019s gonna end and we genuinely don\u2019t care,
\nbecause the character is the whole point of why we\u2019re reading. And that is
\nunique. That\u2019s just not how mainstream media publication does things. <\/p>\n

But there are also hundreds of thousands of fics people
\nmight call \u2018plot driven\u2019 and they have wonderful, intricate plots that thrill
\ntheir readers. <\/p>\n

But they\u2019re not at all \u2018plot driven\u2019 in the same way as
\nother mainstream genres.<\/p>\n

The thing about \u2018plot\u2019 in fic is that it tends to ebb and
\nflow naturally. There\u2019s not the same high speed, race to the finish you\u2019d get
\nfrom a good action movie. There\u2019s no stop and start of side plots you get in TV
\ngenre shows. The best fic plot slides from big event to restful evening to
\nfrantic activity to shared meals and squabbles and back, and it gives equal time and attention and detail to each of these
\nthings<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Like @earlgreytea68<\/a> said, \u201cThere\u2019s this huge obsession with
\nplot, but lives don\u2019t have plots. Lives just happen. We try to shape them into
\nplots later, but that\u2019s just this organizational fiction we\u2019re imposing. Plot
\ndoesn\u2019t have to be the raison d\u2019etre of all story-telling, and fic reminds us
\nof that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fic plot moves at a pace similar to the life of whatever
\ncharacter it\u2019s about. Not the other way around. There\u2019s a fundamental difference in prioritization in fic.<\/p>\n

I think this only adds to the case of \u2018fic\u2019 as its own,
\ndistinctive genre. Stylistic choices of writing that would never work in
\ntraditional, mainstream fiction novels work for novel-length fic. Fic
\nadventures spend as much time fleshing out the little moments between romances
\nand friendships as they do on that plot twist. The sleepy campground
\nconversations are as important to the plot as the kidnapped princess, because that\u2019s
\nhow the characters are going to grow together by the end of the story. It\u2019s not
\na grace note, it\u2019s not a side episode or an addition or a mention – it\u2019s
\nintegral and equal. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s just accepted as fact by fic writers and readers. It\u2019s
\nexpected without any particular mention. And it gives a very unique flavor and
\npace to fic that makes a lot of mainstream stories feel like stale, off-brand
\nwonderbread. They are missing something regular fic readers take for granted
\n(and it isn\u2019t just the representational differences, because we all know that\u2019s
\na whole different conversation). There\u2019s a fundamental difference in how \u2018fic\u2019
\nis written, detailed, and paced that is built on its foundations as a \u2018character
\ndriven\u2019 genre. \u00a0<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t only action\/adventure\/mystery plots that have
\nthis difference in fic. Those \u2018everybody\u2019s human in today\u2019s world\u2019 AUs, those \u2018friends
\nto lovers\u2019 slow burn stories have it too. They have a plot, but it\u2019s the life<\/i> –
\nthe grocery shopping, the dumb fights and sudden inescapable emotional blows, those
\nmoments of joy with that person you click with, managing work and family and
\nseasons – that\u2019s the whole plot on its own. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn\u2019t
\nreally experienced fic as a genre, who\u2019s used to traditional person A and person
\nB work together\/overcome differences\/bond to accomplish X. In fic accomplishing
\nX might be the beginning or the middle, not the end result of the story, and A
\n& B continue to exist separate from X entirely. X is only relevant because
\nof how it relates to A & B, not the other way around. <\/p>\n

Fic is absolutely its own genre and it has a lot to do with plot. I\u2019ve been calling this \u2018organic
\nplot\u2019 in my head for months, because I knew something felt different about
\nwriting this way, how long fic plot ebbs and grows seemingly on its own
\nsometimes. \u2018Dual plot\u2019 could be another option, maybe, though the character plot and
\nlife experience plots aren\u2019t really separate. Inverted plot? Hm. I\u2019m sure a good term will develop
\nover time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE THIS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was always fond of saying, about my own fics, that my plots show up about two-thirds of the way through, because it takes me that long to figure out where I\u2019m going, and then I would lol about it, because, ha, wouldn\u2019t it be great if I organized it better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now I read this and I\u2019m like, WAIT. YES. THAT\u2019S WHAT\u2019S HAPPENING. IT\u2019S BEEN HAPPENING ALL ALONG. I NEVER REALIZED IT. The idea that the primary importance is the throughline of the characters, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re following, and the plot is what\u2019s dangling off the side of their story, that is SO IMPORTANT. You\u2019re right, that usually we\u2019re told as writers to construct stories from the plot outward.\u00a0\u201cHere are the beats your plot needs to hit, here\u2019s the rising action to the climax to the falling action, now make sure your Character A makes this realization by Point X in order to get your plot into shape for Point Y to click in.\u201d It\u2019s *such* a plot-centric way to write and I am *terrible* at it. And I\u2019ve always said, whenever I sit down to\u00a0\u201coutline\u201d a story, like, How do you this? How do you know where the characters are going until they tell you where they\u2019re going???<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that I\u2019m\u00a0\u201cbad\u201d at this, which is what I\u2019ve always thought, it\u2019s just that I\u2019m coming at it from the opposite angle. I can\u2019t plan the plot before the characters because I\u2019m sticking close to the characters, and the traditional \u201cplot\u201d is secondary to whatever\u2019s going to happen to them. And that\u2019s not a wrong way of writing, it\u2019s just a different way of writing. And it\u2019s wrong of me to be thinking that my stories don\u2019t get a\u00a0\u201cpoint\u201d until they\u2019re almost over. THEY\u2019VE HAD THE POINT ALL ALONG. What happens when they\u2019re almost over is that the characters come to where they\u2019ve been going, and then the traditional\u00a0\u201cplot\u201d is what helps shape the ending. The traditional\u00a0\u201cplot\u201d becomes, to me, like that epilogue scene after the biggest explosion in an action movie, where you\u2019re told the characters are going to be okay. I spend the entire movie telling you the characters are going to be okay, and then my epilogue scene is tacked on\u00a0\u201coh, p.s., also they saved the day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is so much here that I want to say I don\u2019t even know where to begin. @earlgreytea68<\/a> you\u2019re not alone. Hit me up. I\u2019ve studied plot and structure forever. Fics are pure, uncut, internal-motivation-drives-everything storytelling and they are so very different from the monomyth that drives most commercial fiction these days that they almost have to exist in a liminal space like fan fiction. I could go on\u2026 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

LET\u2019S BE FRIENDS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hahaha, this is my week to just want to be Tumblr friends with everyone, all the FOB people, all the fluff people, all the fandom anthropology people, LET\u2019S ALL BE FRIENDS.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<3 <3 <3<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

@earlgreytea68<\/a> and @glitterandrocketfuel<\/a> and OP and everyone else who contributed – this is beautiful, and I\u2019m saving it to read and consider again later. probably with a glass of wine or something. <3<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Smart idea. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This! Is what I have been unable to articulate to my family.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13monkton: earlgreytea68: bigblueboxat221b: notjustamumj: earlgreytea68: glitterandrocketfuel: earlgreytea68: meanderings0ul: earlgreytea68: nianeyna: earlgreytea68: fozmeadows: Writing and reading fanfic is a masterclass in characterisation.\u00a0 Consider: in order to successfully write two different\u00a0\u201cversions\u201d of the same character – let alone ten, or fifty, or a hundred – you have to make an informed judgement about their core personality traits, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “on fanfic & emotional continuity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4274,8024,43,26456,4,45,1490],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}