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Meditation on yuletide
The yuletide request challenge, or whatever its correct description is, presses all sort of ancient buttons with me, ones I thought I'd left behind in high school. I write them here to see if they can be umm short-circuited, to keep the metaphor, or at least to see if the loud alarm bell can be changed to a gentle tinkle.
My first instinctive reaction to the list of requests (and my third, fourth, and on into the thirties) is sheer blind panic and nauseating anxiety. There's no reason for it. I'm not going to write someone's challenge. But the mere thought of 'Suppose I were going to write on this theme' makes my throat close up and my hands go cold and my stomach churn
I know that one. I had it from fourth year high school through third year university. It went away in fourth year but only because four years intervened between junior and senior year. At 26 I realized that what my profs wanted wasn't brilliance, it was readability, and if I was entertaining on top of it I'd get an A. I was and I did. I still sweated the papers- written on a typewriter, BTW, since PCs were in their infancy then- but it was nothing like the frozen despairing suicidal nothing that greeted my attempt to write in my first three years.
Note that I had no trouble writing personal essays in high school, which was all we were required to do until fourth year. But a research paper stopped me cold. I couldn't be me nattering on about what interested me in this subject. My work had to be objective and factual, and the result was going to be judged according to an outside standard that I myself knew nothing about. I myself had no way of judging if my paper was a good research paper or not. (Yes you think they might have taught us how to write research papers as they taught us how to write personal essays, but they didn't. They just assigned us topics wham out of a clear blue sky.)
So why does a stranger's request start the term paper panics in me? They don't want brilliance, they want readability...
Or do they? They're strangers. They have standards quite different from mine. /Probably/ they have standards quite different from mine. The stuff that gets recced, the stuff that BNFWs produce, leaves me blinking. This is supposed to be good? This is what everyone likes? So the chances seem excellent that no, they won't like what I produce because my stuff isn't like what's generally popular. (I'm bemused by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mikeneko saying that animanga fen wind up writing non-animanga fandoms. I wouldn't dare write a non-animanga fandom. At least I understand some of the conventions and rules in Japanese-based stuff. The rules in western fandoms have never made any sense to me at all. To my ears, Metafandom sounds like anthropological field reports from Papua-New Guinea when the live-action fen start talking about rubrics and reactions in their end of the world. 'Slash is another country. They do things differently there.')
And quite apart from disagreements as to what constitutes readability, I'm not so sure the requesters do want that and not brilliance, as they define brilliance. So many of the requests sound the alarm bell, the one that goes 'Maybe you should write this yourself, dear.' This person has a definite story in mind- she knows what she wants to see and she tells you what it is in fairly close detail. She doesn't want sappy romance? But who defines sap? And what if your definition of bitter snarkiness (for 'Lots of bitter snarkiness from Alec, of course') or biting and arch (for 'It should be very sexy, and the wit of Valmont and de Merteuill should be very biting and arch') differs from hers? We won't get into is she talking book or movie Liaisons Dangeureuses, which is the problem that stops me from telling people who've asked for Onmyouji that I have these Onmyouji fics if they're interested.
The thing about New Years is you get to pick your story. You can go stalk the requester and see if her notions of a story are generally compatible with yours, so you know from the start if this relationship is a go. (I'm tempted to do the Ageha one: because the requester is in my age group and is modest about what she hopes for. And because I have an Ageha story in the back of my mind and have had for eight years now. Didn't write it because a detail was subsequently cancelled by canon. But. Equally I'm not going to write another Seven Samurai story, for someone who doesn't remember that she requested one.)
However the yuletide challenge assigns you your person. You have to please a total stranger whose tastes, interpretations, preferences and what-all may be completely different from your own. You can't write as yourself. You have to write- yes, here we are- according to an outside standard that you yourself may know nothing about, and because it's foreign to your own way of writing you have no way of judging whether the story is a success or not- not as a story and not as a gift.
And that is why yuletide causes me panic and anxiety and flashbacks to high school writer's block.
My first instinctive reaction to the list of requests (and my third, fourth, and on into the thirties) is sheer blind panic and nauseating anxiety. There's no reason for it. I'm not going to write someone's challenge. But the mere thought of 'Suppose I were going to write on this theme' makes my throat close up and my hands go cold and my stomach churn
I know that one. I had it from fourth year high school through third year university. It went away in fourth year but only because four years intervened between junior and senior year. At 26 I realized that what my profs wanted wasn't brilliance, it was readability, and if I was entertaining on top of it I'd get an A. I was and I did. I still sweated the papers- written on a typewriter, BTW, since PCs were in their infancy then- but it was nothing like the frozen despairing suicidal nothing that greeted my attempt to write in my first three years.
Note that I had no trouble writing personal essays in high school, which was all we were required to do until fourth year. But a research paper stopped me cold. I couldn't be me nattering on about what interested me in this subject. My work had to be objective and factual, and the result was going to be judged according to an outside standard that I myself knew nothing about. I myself had no way of judging if my paper was a good research paper or not. (Yes you think they might have taught us how to write research papers as they taught us how to write personal essays, but they didn't. They just assigned us topics wham out of a clear blue sky.)
So why does a stranger's request start the term paper panics in me? They don't want brilliance, they want readability...
Or do they? They're strangers. They have standards quite different from mine. /Probably/ they have standards quite different from mine. The stuff that gets recced, the stuff that BNFWs produce, leaves me blinking. This is supposed to be good? This is what everyone likes? So the chances seem excellent that no, they won't like what I produce because my stuff isn't like what's generally popular. (I'm bemused by
mikeneko saying that animanga fen wind up writing non-animanga fandoms. I wouldn't dare write a non-animanga fandom. At least I understand some of the conventions and rules in Japanese-based stuff. The rules in western fandoms have never made any sense to me at all. To my ears, Metafandom sounds like anthropological field reports from Papua-New Guinea when the live-action fen start talking about rubrics and reactions in their end of the world. 'Slash is another country. They do things differently there.')And quite apart from disagreements as to what constitutes readability, I'm not so sure the requesters do want that and not brilliance, as they define brilliance. So many of the requests sound the alarm bell, the one that goes 'Maybe you should write this yourself, dear.' This person has a definite story in mind- she knows what she wants to see and she tells you what it is in fairly close detail. She doesn't want sappy romance? But who defines sap? And what if your definition of bitter snarkiness (for 'Lots of bitter snarkiness from Alec, of course') or biting and arch (for 'It should be very sexy, and the wit of Valmont and de Merteuill should be very biting and arch') differs from hers? We won't get into is she talking book or movie Liaisons Dangeureuses, which is the problem that stops me from telling people who've asked for Onmyouji that I have these Onmyouji fics if they're interested.
The thing about New Years is you get to pick your story. You can go stalk the requester and see if her notions of a story are generally compatible with yours, so you know from the start if this relationship is a go. (I'm tempted to do the Ageha one: because the requester is in my age group and is modest about what she hopes for. And because I have an Ageha story in the back of my mind and have had for eight years now. Didn't write it because a detail was subsequently cancelled by canon. But. Equally I'm not going to write another Seven Samurai story, for someone who doesn't remember that she requested one.)
However the yuletide challenge assigns you your person. You have to please a total stranger whose tastes, interpretations, preferences and what-all may be completely different from your own. You can't write as yourself. You have to write- yes, here we are- according to an outside standard that you yourself may know nothing about, and because it's foreign to your own way of writing you have no way of judging whether the story is a success or not- not as a story and not as a gift.
And that is why yuletide causes me panic and anxiety and flashbacks to high school writer's block.
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That is, even if the grade sucked, I'd still have been happy if I'd only done what I wanted to do. (Instead, I'd put too much effort into placating profs, so when the grade sucked . . . nothing left to be happy about.) So all that time trying to please others had been wasted. One of those late-in-the-day revelations. :P
As for fanfic . . . much the same deal. But unlike class papers, a) I do happen to like fanfic (whereas I have no nice mental associations with my college output). b) I'd not mind if I could crank some out. But my problem is that I'm not good at it and I know that, so it's impossible to produce it. However! I do like to give people things, even people I don't know. Thus, She Who Cannot Write Anything Unless Under Duress has discovered that Worthy Cause + Deadline That Cannot Be Shirked = Fanfic.
We all have our own freaky neuroses. *koff*
You have to please a total stranger whose tastes, interpretations, preferences and what-all may be completely different from your own. You can't write as yourself.
Umm, I dunno about the "can't write as yourself" thing 'cause that's all I ever do. I think it takes someone who actually knows what she's doing to manage anything else, and that person is not me. No one's stoned me for this yet.
(Me, I think it's a -relief- to me that someone else is taking all the responsibility for a request. I mean, it's going to be a fandom I like anyway, and this presents a good excuse to do something about it. As noted, some of us require an excuse. Or an apocalypse. Or something along that line. ^^;)
Thing is, what you're not really taking into account . . . one of the big reasons I like fanfic is because of the insane variety. No one seems to approach it in the exact same way. So that's what me, myself, and I are hoping for with requests -- getting something I'd never have thought of, much less have produced myself. (And so far? Me is a total winner. ^__^) My assumption has always been that nearly everyone looks at this the same way I do. Maybe I'm wrong. No clue.
Re: non-animanga, I've discovered that the realm of the literary pastiche is a-okay. If you slavishly imitate someone else's style, you'll never need to acquire one of your own. Ahh, what a relief. YMMV.
None of this, by the way, was meant to be exhorting to sign up. For my primary interest is in ambushing people who'd write *my* requests. /very selfish
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You and I clearly approach this from different backgrounds. If the challenge lets you write, more power to you. I don't need outside incentives to do fanfic, so the outside controls that come with it are going to chafe and make me unhappy.
My assumption has always been that nearly everyone looks at this the same way I do.
It's a comforting assumption but not totally borne out by what I hear sub rosa. Writers who ignore the specifications of the request to write what they want, recipients who were disappointed because the fic (IMHO) wasn't the fic they had envisaged or wasn't the fic they'd have written themselves if they'd tackled the subject. It's probably my own hang-up that reads 'I'd like to see a tender scene between A and B before A leaves for Wherever, with smut and witty dialogue and maybe C too if you like' as 'I have definite ideas about this story but I don't want the tedium of writing it myself. You do it for me.'
Specifying what you want in a fic make me twitch. It sounds like fangirl entitlement, and yes I know that's absurd because the whole point of the thing is to be able to specify what you want in a fic. *And* because everyone who specifies must also produce to someone else's specifications. It still makes me twitch, the way non-con fics do when they get too close to real life rape for my comfort zone.
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(Yeah, I seem to be accidentally sprinkling around a lot of anonymous comments these days. A little embarrassing.)
You and I clearly approach this from different backgrounds.
Yokatta, as they say. Who'd want to be nonconned into a fanfic? (Erm. Well. As happens.) Even I have a once-a-year limit though. TTG used to be pretty regular at temps_mort, and Q signs up for a lot challenges as well. I'd crumble under that sort of regular stress. ^^;
Specifying what you want in a fic make me twitch.
It's more like, as you'd pointed out below, saying you'd prefer a sweater -- as opposed to, say, a set of metric wrenches? (I vote wrenches!) I guess an improbable fanfic example might be someone asking for "Animal X" who dislikes mpreg. Wha, wha, wha? That sort of quirk would definitely qualify as Necessary Info. That just seems reasonable to me, really. I'm always happier when people just -tell- me what they like; I'm such a bad guesser. If it's something I can work, I'll give it a shot.
If it's -not- something I can work, then naturally I'll do something else. I mean, you can always request smuttiness, but no one's going to expect porn from a Queen of Gen Fic. Seriously. People who distribute the plot bunnies liberally in their requests do realize they may not get any of them; the FAQ's pretty clear about the "guidelines" nature of this sort of thing.
I know Rush was disappointed with the first one she'd gotten, but it really was a standard anime-type fanfic. Animanga doesn't have a huge pool of fellow fanatics to match with yet in this particular exchange, so that sort of thing is expected if you request it. (That one I did for Q had zero matches -- I asked.) I personally tried to compensate for this issue by giving whoever I was matched with an easily accessible non-animanga option (which she took, note).
I've noticed that most (though not all) tend to word their requests with fuzzy and reassuring taglines such as "Whatever you can manage is fine." I'm the same way; as long as I'm fed one of my fandoms o' choice, I'll be pleased. (As for fangirl entitlement . . . in fact, I -am- entitled to more Uta-kata fanfic. Why doesn't everyone realize that? Why?)
But. Y'know, some people are selfish such that no one else's preferences are relevant. "I don't care what YOU like, pathetic human. I am an ARTISTE! You do not deserve any input into my ARTE!" They don't understand this "gift" concept, can't deflate their planet-sized egos enough to produce one. That really does happen once in a while; I'd wanted to link to an eye-popping instance in another santa-type exchange, but it looks like the fic's been taken down since then. No loss.
The fanfic world's big enough for certifiable egomaniacs too, but they really ought not to be signing up for exchanges. ^^;;;
There are loads of different challenge arrangements out there. I've found this particular one appealing because of the weird fandoms, the radically diverse crowd it attracts, and the support structure. That's all it is, really. Plus I'm in love with some of the fanfics that have resulted. They'd never have been written if someone hadn't asked for them, after all.
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Uhh- translation? I thought matching was between people- her request, you write.
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1. Pre-sign-up period. They compile a master list of fandoms (plus all characters) in advance. All of the fandoms on the list won't be requested -- but they could be.
2. Request: Everyone looks over the master list and picks four fandoms (plus specific characters or "Any").
3. Offer: Everyone looks over the master list and picks all the fandoms they can handle (plus specific characters or "Any").
4. Computer matches up fandoms and characters, kicks out assignments.
Some people do get multiple fandom matches with lots of people. Failing that, it's down to matching one fandom only, with preference to fandom in slot 1 of your request list; if no matches for no. 1, then on to no. 2, etc. For me, slot 1 was Uta-kata, and I got matched with Rush. For Q, 1 was Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok; she likely got me because I'd specced "Any" for the characters rather selecting specific ones. (If I'd specced all characters but Odin, we'd never have collided. Hmm. Note to self time.)
So. Three of Q's fandoms probably had potential matches, but one of them had zero matches; this I know because I asked about a beta-reader. And that was the one I went for; like Rush, I scurried off my programmed path. :P
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Pst, not quite. The order of fandoms don't matter - the script just focuses on making sure everyone has a match.
Character-matching is slightly more complicated. You only need one character to match; that's why details such as gen/slash/het are optional.
This may result in a situation in which (saiyuki characters for example) someone requests Hazel/Kougaiji in hopes of a Hazel/Kougaiji pairing, but the assigned victim luurves Kougaiji and haaates Hazel and can't imagine writing anything in which Hazel doesn't die horribly, she could choose to write Kou gen-fic or slash Kou with someone else not specified, and it would still be a valid entry because she wrote about Kougaiji, who is one of the requested characters.
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Mostly I'm trying to figure out how to keep my fandoms yet not collide again. It's NOT that I don't want to write you fanfic, mind. It's that the whole sneaky part is too wearing on my nerves. When I realized what I was up for, mucho wailing.
(Is funny that topic above came up recently elsewhere. Over here (http://jadelennox.livejournal.com/220375.html) someone is insisting that the pastiche, one of the mainstays of the yuletide bookish types, isn't really fanfic. I dunno why not. O_O)
Mah goodness. I'm so spamming.
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As for the pastiche thing- most fanfic is based on unpastichable visual stuff. The dialogue may be spot on but the narrative framework is the author's, and absent from the source. There's little book-based fanfic and what there is almost automatically tends to pastiche. Unless it's HP, which is a) a young fanbase b) movie-influenced and c) from a stylistically uninspired author. Thank god people *don't* try to write like Rowling.
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Frankly, even if they only know the movies, I think people will like your Onmyouji fics. You might not like theirs, but I think they'd like yours.
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I'm not so sure people would care for my fics. I've sent links once or twice to people who've asked Is there Onmyouji fic? and never heard back. Could be I picked duds who don't answer email; could be they were seriously underwhelmed and too polite to say so. Nothing like reading a gen story when what you wanted was romance and relationship.
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I think that people do write what they want to read, but they also write what they have seen other people write, what they think their talents are capable of, and what they think other people want to read. (Not that I'd have any more charitable a view if I sent someone a link and never heard anything back.)
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I have less hangups re gift-giving than gift-receiving but I doubt that I would be able to write for it either. But that's because in the likely case the assigned request doesn't set my fancy a-fire the fic will simply fail to happen. I'm not capable of writing purely to please someone else, be it the best of friends (am actually in this situation at the moment w/r/t a birthday fic request ^^;).
I was pretty bad at structured papers in high school, because I found the rules constraining and out of principle refused to give them what they wanted. XD In college it was better, but I got out of the game the first time I wrote an English essay contradicting what the professor had said in class point by point. If you're going to be that way you're better off in sciences where pi is always 3.1415 and a bit.
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If it fit, and if this stranger didn't expect to see me in it, I guess I wouldn't complain much =D
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Nor does it take much thought to figure out someone's preferred fictional themes and methods. Otherwise that 'How you can tell when you're reading one of my fics' meme would be meaningless. The whole point is that someone who reads you will pick up on the same identifying features that you the writer are so aware of and laugh with rueful agreement. (Supposing you are aware of them. I've known a writer of cool reserved prose who insisted that her works reflect the fever-heat of the passionate all-nighters in which they were written, and a writer of over-heated steam who insisted that everything in her stories is cool and calculated. Both were blind to their own styles to a truly frightening degree.)
And bottom-line, people still ignore the specific requests of their recipient to write the story they want to write, thereby annoying a lot of other people. One can always count on writerly egotism to save you from the interest of strangers.
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To be fair I'm a little like this with real-life gifts too. XD If I know what I want to the point of being able to say "crochet knit in spring green with marilyn collar", I'm probably already headed out to the store to buy it for myself. If I don't know what I want, I don't ask. And the instinct I have is that my fiction-kinks (which cut to the core of my personality after all) are private, not even to be stated as such unless in relative comfort zones. When I write fic I take trouble to disguise them. ^^; I just really hate the idea of someone I don't know attempting to dissect my preferences.
Of course, the point is moot because I don't sign up for Yuletide. XD It would be barmy if I did.
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I don't blame you for having anxiety attacks. I quit fandom for years because of that sort of anxiety. I still suffer from that sort of anxiety and people in fandom don't even know who I am anymore so there's no reason for me to suffer it.
Writing a story for a particular person is different from writing a story that you're just writing for the world at large because in the world at large you're bound to please at least someone. When you're writing for only one person you've only got one shot at pleasing your audience. Who wouldn't be at least a little worried about it?
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And what's obvious from these comments here is that everyone has hangups about the thing, they're just totally different and occasionally diametrically opposite hangups.
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Thanks for the link!