Fandom Bullshit
Nov. 24th, 2007 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedibuttercup*shaking head* You know, the reviews for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
backagainharry over at The Pit of Voles-- and the review thread at the Dark Lord Potter Forums (which has at least increased my readership, though I find it baffling that they reviewed it at all given their biases)-- have pretty much transcended annoyance now and reached the realm of an interesting sociological study.
It's fascinating to me how many people judge me as a writer based solely on this one story, less than thirty thousand words out of more than half a million in my complete body of work. And then they make assumptions that the story's going to be "just another canon-humper" based solely on the chapters available to view. Because they want instant gratification, and all this setting-the-scene shit is much too boring for them to tolerate, and makes Harry too "wimpy" for their tastes. Gee, should I apologize for trying to make it realistic?
I greatly appreciate the other sort of reviewer, many of whom read here on LJ, who have bothered to tell me what I'm doing right, and give me the benefit of the doubt as to what I have planned. You keep me going on this. But I don't think I'm going to attempt any more longfic in the Harry Potter universe after I'm done with it. And I'll probably even end BAH at a decent pausing point in the action sometime during the summer or the beginning of second year and leave the universe fallow a good long while. At least in the crossover (and small-fandom) realms, people usually at least assume that I'm intelligent and creative; it's a much more energizing atmosphere to write in.
~
backagainharry over at The Pit of Voles-- and the review thread at the Dark Lord Potter Forums (which has at least increased my readership, though I find it baffling that they reviewed it at all given their biases)-- have pretty much transcended annoyance now and reached the realm of an interesting sociological study.It's fascinating to me how many people judge me as a writer based solely on this one story, less than thirty thousand words out of more than half a million in my complete body of work. And then they make assumptions that the story's going to be "just another canon-humper" based solely on the chapters available to view. Because they want instant gratification, and all this setting-the-scene shit is much too boring for them to tolerate, and makes Harry too "wimpy" for their tastes. Gee, should I apologize for trying to make it realistic?
I greatly appreciate the other sort of reviewer, many of whom read here on LJ, who have bothered to tell me what I'm doing right, and give me the benefit of the doubt as to what I have planned. You keep me going on this. But I don't think I'm going to attempt any more longfic in the Harry Potter universe after I'm done with it. And I'll probably even end BAH at a decent pausing point in the action sometime during the summer or the beginning of second year and leave the universe fallow a good long while. At least in the crossover (and small-fandom) realms, people usually at least assume that I'm intelligent and creative; it's a much more energizing atmosphere to write in.
~
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 02:09 am (UTC)Personally, I would say that the lesson to be learned is not "don't write long HP fic" but "don't ever post at the Pit of Voles".
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 08:38 am (UTC)I don't think it's the idiotic or mean-spirited or plain biased reviews that are getting to me: it's the ones calling me boring, uninspired, unoriginal, etc. I guess I still have a secret fear of Not Being Good Enough that's resonating unpleasantly with the criticism and sucking the joy out of the story for me.
Maybe that'll wear off by the time I'm done with BAH? =)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 08:57 pm (UTC)Boring: they're complaining because it isn't SHORT, and thus the pace is too slow for them. Ignore them.
Uninspired/Unoriginal: they're complaining because you're sticking to canon. They are nuts. Ignore them.
ALSO, hold this to your heart, something one of my fandom gurus said to me: "There's no such thing as an original idea, only an original treatment." I find that very freeing. They're probably saying it's unoriginal because time-travel AUs have been written before -- but that doesn't matter because there's no such thing as an original idea, only an original treatment. And you are always going to be giving something an original treatment, because you'd bore yourself if you didn't. So there.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-05 07:48 am (UTC)True. I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms.
> And you are always going to be giving something an original treatment, because you'd bore yourself if you didn't. So there.
*grin* Very true, too. Poster child for ADD in that area: I don't do boring.