Readers on crack
Jan. 7th, 2003 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI swore I’d never talk about my writing here and get personal, and yet... I keep doing it. Sigh. I guess ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mlynne is right, sooner or later, LJ gets to all of us. But I was putting the finishing touches on a Magnificent 7 story last night and trying to figure out how to edit and restructure a Buffy story that’s hopelessly mired in my general incompetence, and also about some things friends said about one particular story of mine, and it got me thinking about perceptions of what you write vs. perceptions readers have. I think too much sometimes, and wear myself out. (I also know that almost no one who’s friended me is a M7 fan or would know this story I’m talking about, but lack of interest has never stopped me before!)
I had a great Saturday night with lots of wonderful conversation with M and L, and a fabu dinner, and I’d mentioned to them that soon I’d have a new M7 story. L made the comment I get a lot, that it was great if it had a happy ending (everyone associates my writing and vidding with depression, I guess). I declaimed that all my M7 stories have happy endings, and she said that one guy dying of consumption doesn’t constitute a happy ending. I melodramatically insisted that they were together at the end, finally, and in New Mexico, where tons of people with TB went to get better and did (at one point in Albuquerque, an entire street was line with sanitariums), and lived long happy lives, and anyways, Vin and Chris lived to be 90 after that story and died in each other’s arms. So there.
The thing is, I’m not sure they did, but I feel this weird need to defend the ending. It’s deliberately ambiguous, and I felt, terribly romantic (these two characters separated by over six years and awful mistakes, and after being alone and misunderstanding all this time what led to their parting, coming together and finding love even when it seemed too late), and I wanted it that way. The whole story was a bit of an experiment for me, I wanted to write as much between the lines as in the actual prose, where everything in the spare, careful structure also had layers underneath that an alert reader might find. And some people did, it seemed to strike a chord with a lot of folks in the fandom, but over and over people have told me how it made them cry, or left them feeling really melancholy. Which is okay, I love melancholy and sad and romantically tragic, but it’s always struck me that people seem to carry a fatalistic feeling away from it, when I think there’s a happysad feeling to take away. It’s good sad — they found each other, they’re together, and they’ll have happiness at least for a while whether Vin gets better, or dies, after the story ends.
One person told me that she rereads it for different moods — that when she feels melancholy or sad and wants something that will affect those emotions, she reads it as Vin dying sometime after the story ends. When she’s happy and wants to echo that, she sees the ending as Vin will get better and they’ll both live to be 90. I liked this best of all out of the wonderful, often complex and detailed feedback so many people sent on this particular story, because it really got to what I wanted to do — create an ambiguous ending that could be all things to all readers. I wanted the whole story to be that way too, to be surface if that’s how people read, or have layers to uncover if they wanted to read deeper.
Yet many people also just took away “consumption = Vin dies” and therefore tagged the story as either a death story, or just plain unhappy ending. I’m confused by how you could see two people together who love each other deeply enough to transcend years of loneliness and mistakes to get together as sad, but a lot of them did. In some ways, that’s fine, but I think it’s the overwhelming majority attitude in fandom that sad is bad, that any ending without people off buying curtains together is inherently unhappy, that makes me... well, sad. I feel I have to apologize and give people hope for something that is, I believe, one of the best things I’ve ever written, and should carry its own message of hope and redemption and second chances. I know I don’t understand what makes people so twitchy and afraid of tragedy or darkness, because I frequently seek it out in fiction, and I don’t get the concept that escapism automatically equals happy mindless fic (to me, escape is anything that absorbs me into its world, that completely takes me in and grabs me), so I’m probably missing something crucial that I’ll never comprehend. But it’s been an odd journey to hear those responses to this story, and wonder at why people perceive it the way they do.
It makes me curious, wanting to know if other writers in fandom have reactions from their readership that are wildly different from what they might have intended about their story. I often wonder if people who’ve crafted dark or ambiguous stories have felt the need to explain or apologize to friends who want happy happy joy joy, or if they only have friends who appreciate the melancholy or the darkness they might write. I have a couple friends who like the dark; the rest are largely intolerant and either bitch about anything from mild unhappiness to death, or just won’t read it at all because it makes them “depressed.” Or maybe it’s just peculiar to the fandoms — M7 has been, by and large, one of the sweeter fandoms I’ve been in, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Many writers turn a harsh world with tough taciturn guys into a girly world with girly men. Buffy is definitely a darker place where I’ve had less of the “you make me depressed” reaction, and where I’ve found a lot of the good slightly darker stuff I love so much (Kalima and Herself and FayJay, Annie SJ, Wisteria, Kita and Jessica, Ginmar, to name but a few), so it seems to be more a part of the culture. It’s one reason I never participated in M7, I just couldn’t handle the fandom at all. I know there were people out there who were looking for those edgier stories, but by and large, I think the idea of being left with anything less than so-happy-together endings was not acceptable to many fen.
I’ve never believed, ever, in an author discussing their intentions. In my book, you should never explain anything; if you haven’t done a good job of conveying your theme or concept, then you just didn’t do it. Or if you did and the reader isn’t sharp enough to understand, then no explanation will help. Yet over and over I find myself having to try to explain or somehow mitigate the reaction to this one piece, for my friends, mostly, because I care about them and want them to be satisfied, or at least to not greet my announcement of a new story after a long hiatus with “oh... um, great” and a pained expression. ;-) And then I get pissed at myself for doing it — I want to say, you know, that was a really good story, and I don’t generally say that about ANYthing I write, so just deal with the ending, put your own spin on it, and be happy or sad, whatever, but stop acting like I was cruel to you. Yet I can’t. And then I wonder if this ever happens to anyone else. I’m thinking not, but... it’s 9 hours till new Buffy tonight, so I have a lot of time to fill. And I think too much. Do other fan writers find themselves at odds with what they perceive their stories to be, and what readers obviously think? Or is it peculiar to certain mindsets? Pondering...
mlynne is right, sooner or later, LJ gets to all of us. But I was putting the finishing touches on a Magnificent 7 story last night and trying to figure out how to edit and restructure a Buffy story that’s hopelessly mired in my general incompetence, and also about some things friends said about one particular story of mine, and it got me thinking about perceptions of what you write vs. perceptions readers have. I think too much sometimes, and wear myself out. (I also know that almost no one who’s friended me is a M7 fan or would know this story I’m talking about, but lack of interest has never stopped me before!)I had a great Saturday night with lots of wonderful conversation with M and L, and a fabu dinner, and I’d mentioned to them that soon I’d have a new M7 story. L made the comment I get a lot, that it was great if it had a happy ending (everyone associates my writing and vidding with depression, I guess). I declaimed that all my M7 stories have happy endings, and she said that one guy dying of consumption doesn’t constitute a happy ending. I melodramatically insisted that they were together at the end, finally, and in New Mexico, where tons of people with TB went to get better and did (at one point in Albuquerque, an entire street was line with sanitariums), and lived long happy lives, and anyways, Vin and Chris lived to be 90 after that story and died in each other’s arms. So there.
The thing is, I’m not sure they did, but I feel this weird need to defend the ending. It’s deliberately ambiguous, and I felt, terribly romantic (these two characters separated by over six years and awful mistakes, and after being alone and misunderstanding all this time what led to their parting, coming together and finding love even when it seemed too late), and I wanted it that way. The whole story was a bit of an experiment for me, I wanted to write as much between the lines as in the actual prose, where everything in the spare, careful structure also had layers underneath that an alert reader might find. And some people did, it seemed to strike a chord with a lot of folks in the fandom, but over and over people have told me how it made them cry, or left them feeling really melancholy. Which is okay, I love melancholy and sad and romantically tragic, but it’s always struck me that people seem to carry a fatalistic feeling away from it, when I think there’s a happysad feeling to take away. It’s good sad — they found each other, they’re together, and they’ll have happiness at least for a while whether Vin gets better, or dies, after the story ends.
One person told me that she rereads it for different moods — that when she feels melancholy or sad and wants something that will affect those emotions, she reads it as Vin dying sometime after the story ends. When she’s happy and wants to echo that, she sees the ending as Vin will get better and they’ll both live to be 90. I liked this best of all out of the wonderful, often complex and detailed feedback so many people sent on this particular story, because it really got to what I wanted to do — create an ambiguous ending that could be all things to all readers. I wanted the whole story to be that way too, to be surface if that’s how people read, or have layers to uncover if they wanted to read deeper.
Yet many people also just took away “consumption = Vin dies” and therefore tagged the story as either a death story, or just plain unhappy ending. I’m confused by how you could see two people together who love each other deeply enough to transcend years of loneliness and mistakes to get together as sad, but a lot of them did. In some ways, that’s fine, but I think it’s the overwhelming majority attitude in fandom that sad is bad, that any ending without people off buying curtains together is inherently unhappy, that makes me... well, sad. I feel I have to apologize and give people hope for something that is, I believe, one of the best things I’ve ever written, and should carry its own message of hope and redemption and second chances. I know I don’t understand what makes people so twitchy and afraid of tragedy or darkness, because I frequently seek it out in fiction, and I don’t get the concept that escapism automatically equals happy mindless fic (to me, escape is anything that absorbs me into its world, that completely takes me in and grabs me), so I’m probably missing something crucial that I’ll never comprehend. But it’s been an odd journey to hear those responses to this story, and wonder at why people perceive it the way they do.
It makes me curious, wanting to know if other writers in fandom have reactions from their readership that are wildly different from what they might have intended about their story. I often wonder if people who’ve crafted dark or ambiguous stories have felt the need to explain or apologize to friends who want happy happy joy joy, or if they only have friends who appreciate the melancholy or the darkness they might write. I have a couple friends who like the dark; the rest are largely intolerant and either bitch about anything from mild unhappiness to death, or just won’t read it at all because it makes them “depressed.” Or maybe it’s just peculiar to the fandoms — M7 has been, by and large, one of the sweeter fandoms I’ve been in, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Many writers turn a harsh world with tough taciturn guys into a girly world with girly men. Buffy is definitely a darker place where I’ve had less of the “you make me depressed” reaction, and where I’ve found a lot of the good slightly darker stuff I love so much (Kalima and Herself and FayJay, Annie SJ, Wisteria, Kita and Jessica, Ginmar, to name but a few), so it seems to be more a part of the culture. It’s one reason I never participated in M7, I just couldn’t handle the fandom at all. I know there were people out there who were looking for those edgier stories, but by and large, I think the idea of being left with anything less than so-happy-together endings was not acceptable to many fen.
I’ve never believed, ever, in an author discussing their intentions. In my book, you should never explain anything; if you haven’t done a good job of conveying your theme or concept, then you just didn’t do it. Or if you did and the reader isn’t sharp enough to understand, then no explanation will help. Yet over and over I find myself having to try to explain or somehow mitigate the reaction to this one piece, for my friends, mostly, because I care about them and want them to be satisfied, or at least to not greet my announcement of a new story after a long hiatus with “oh... um, great” and a pained expression. ;-) And then I get pissed at myself for doing it — I want to say, you know, that was a really good story, and I don’t generally say that about ANYthing I write, so just deal with the ending, put your own spin on it, and be happy or sad, whatever, but stop acting like I was cruel to you. Yet I can’t. And then I wonder if this ever happens to anyone else. I’m thinking not, but... it’s 9 hours till new Buffy tonight, so I have a lot of time to fill. And I think too much. Do other fan writers find themselves at odds with what they perceive their stories to be, and what readers obviously think? Or is it peculiar to certain mindsets? Pondering...
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-07 11:38 am (UTC)Oh, I suppose this means now you know I read your M7 stuff, doesn't it? I really need to learn to send feedback instead of blindsiding you!
Looking forward to escapade so we can have a real conversation!
cJh
readers..
Date: 2003-01-07 04:13 pm (UTC)Visualize perked-up ears
Date: 2003-01-07 06:31 pm (UTC)As for authors not discussing their stories -- if that's your desire, then more power to you. I find one of the freedoms that I love best about writing fanfic is the ability to be able to talk about stuff I've written, to explore when and how things worked, or what I intended, if what I intended didn't quite make it across. But most often, I find what you did -- that it all works for people and not for others, and I don't think that's a problem a writer needs to try to fix. Readers bring their own issues and emotions and moods to a story and there's not a damn thing a writer can do about it except write the best story they can, in the best way *They* see fit...and hope it reaches some people.
I'm frequently surprised by what readers do and don't see in my work...sometimes they see things, themes, that I know I never made a conscious choice to include...and some times it seems they miss the point entirely...discussing it only helps me figure out how I might be more effective next time...as opposed to motivating me to fixing the story under discussion.
Anyway, I am breathlessly anticipating your story...because I'm never disappointed.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-09 04:41 am (UTC)Oh, yeah. The most common is that "Glimpses" is S/B shippy, when it's really not. Well, not emotionally, anyway. Especially the non-canon alternate ending I wrote for
And there's another one, where Buffy dreams that she asks Spike to bite her, and wakes to realize that "she wants the monster, still". One of my buddies, even, read that story as being about how much she loves Spike and is afraid to admit it...when I wrote it as being about how she still craves death.
I dunno. Seems that what a writer puts into a story is not necessarily what folks get out of it. That's not reserved for fanfic, either - Harlan Ellison used to get all kinds of complaints about how his 'Green Glass Goblin' story was encouraging drug use. He wrote it as an anti-drug story. I read it, and it seemed anti-drug to me, but others have read it and come away with the precise opposite opinion. Go figure.
My official position on the subject is "ambiguity is my friend." If different people are reading different things into it, then at least I made it interesting, even if they don't see what I did in the signposts.
What I find interesting are lines that I'll write, meaning them one way, and when I re-read the piece, I suddenly realize that they read completely differently from my intention. That's always disconcerting.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 05:30 pm (UTC)God, sometimes it makes me feel guilty because I'll get some feedback from a reader, and they'll be seeing things in the story that I didn't put there.