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rynneSo, way back in the beginning of February, the night before I had a 9am class, I stayed up past 5am, absolutely enthralled by this amazing fic--but when I went to bed, my predominant feeling was of dissatisfaction, because of an author's note at the very end of the fic. The next time I posted here, I mentioned that I had a lot of meta-ish rambling to do about author's notes, but that February ended up being the crappiest month I've had in a long time, so I never got around to actually rambling. But for some reason, I've been thinking about that again, so I wanted to get down my thoughts.
First, a sort-of disclaimer. I will be directly referencing the fic that inspired this, to use as an example to explain just what rubbed me so much the wrong way, though I will be fairly vague, since it's just an example, and not the main focus of this post. I'll be using examples from published authors too, contemporary and not. This ramble might end up controversial as it is, but I want to make clear that I'm not going after anyone in particular. *cough* Anyway.
I have always been a romantic at heart. Few things make me happier than reading about people being happy, and healthy love and romantic relationships tend to make people happy. I adore fluff (providing it's well-written and characterized), and always have.
I also love novel-length fanfic. One-shots are good for a quick fix, but I adore long fics (and arcs), with plot and character progression that can catch and hold my interest for hours. And because of my romantic heart, I am always happy to find a novel-length pairing fic, with the progression of a romantic relationship along with plot. And while I know that not all love stories end in happily-ever-after, that's what I like best.
I don't want authors to casually ruin my happily-ever-after, not in the fic (or novel) itself, but in any post-fic author's notes. I can accept a love story whose plot leads it to an unhappy ending. Hell, in Harry Potter, I love Remus/Sirius, and considering Azkaban and the Veil, no one can ever say that they had a happy ending. But in this fic, at the end of the epilogue, the two characters were alive, regularly having sex with each other, good friends with each other, and, really, with nothing to indicate in the fic that either they aren't in love or won't fall in love with each other very soon. It's just that at the end of the file, right below "THE END", the author said quite clearly that they aren't in love, that they don't get married, and that they're too damaged for love.
Frankly, I felt cheated. I loved the fic itself, as evidenced by me staying up til five in the morning reading it when I had class four hours later. But unlike other times I've stayed up all night reading an amazing fic, I didn't go to bed in a haze of "amazing fic" euphoria. The fic itself had a fairly open ending, regarding that relationship, but I don't mind open endings because it means I get to imagine whatever I want. But thanks to that note, I hadn't been able to do that, because I'd remember the note and feel angry and disappointed, first that these two characters were "too damaged to love" (which I find downright OOC for one character in particular), and second, that the author would tell me so. Any happy romantic endings I might have imagined were tainted.
Fanfiction is all about imagination. Something in the canon just speaks to us, and we imagine more than we were given. And I don't like having my imagination curtailed like that. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading JK Rowling's interviews--I fell in love with the source, the books, and I want them to speak for themselves. Maybe I preferred imagining Remus's middle name to be Janus, rather than knowing it's John, or maybe I didn't want to know that Harry's christening ceremony only had him, James and Lily, and Sirius. Maybe I wanted to imagine my own scenarios, since she didn't give us hers in the actual canon.
And besides, no one will have the exact same perception of a story as somebody else. Even if I hadn't spent years in fandom and come across it again and again in fic and reviews, I've taken enough English classes to know that everyone will take something different out of a story. Maybe one person believes that Catherine was too selfish to really love Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, while another will defend the depths of her emotion. Since Emily Bronte hasn't told us one way or the other, both interpretations are valid, providing there's textual support, and both people can (theoretically) be satisfied with their belief. Reader interpretation is what literature classes are based on, not to mention fandom.
I want to have my own interpretations, my own opinions, especially if the source material is fairly open about a particular subject. And if the author discusses his/her intentions regarding a story somewhere, I want to have the option of reading it, not just have it so soon after the ending line that I read it before I can stop myself. As a writer myself, I completely understand the urge to explain to the readers what I'd meant, especially if they're thinking the opposite of what I'd intended--but I would let the story stand on its own. Maybe I hadn't clarified something enough for the readers to understand what I'd wanted to say, but that would be my fault, for not making the story clear enough. Yeah, sure, there are stupid readers who just might not have caught the clues in the story, but the story can still stand on its own.
...This is feeling incomplete, but I'm really tired and can't think of what else I wanted to say to clarify my position. I guess, basically, I just think that authors should let their stories speak for themselves and let the readers have their own interpretations--or, if the author just has to correct an interpretation (even though there's nothing in the fic itself that invalidates that interpretation), they should give people a real option in reading it or not.
'Kay. Time to go to bed. Maybe I'll add stuff later, especially if I get jumped on for this and have to keep explaining myself. Also, the icon is meant to be ironic. :p
First, a sort-of disclaimer. I will be directly referencing the fic that inspired this, to use as an example to explain just what rubbed me so much the wrong way, though I will be fairly vague, since it's just an example, and not the main focus of this post. I'll be using examples from published authors too, contemporary and not. This ramble might end up controversial as it is, but I want to make clear that I'm not going after anyone in particular. *cough* Anyway.
I have always been a romantic at heart. Few things make me happier than reading about people being happy, and healthy love and romantic relationships tend to make people happy. I adore fluff (providing it's well-written and characterized), and always have.
I also love novel-length fanfic. One-shots are good for a quick fix, but I adore long fics (and arcs), with plot and character progression that can catch and hold my interest for hours. And because of my romantic heart, I am always happy to find a novel-length pairing fic, with the progression of a romantic relationship along with plot. And while I know that not all love stories end in happily-ever-after, that's what I like best.
I don't want authors to casually ruin my happily-ever-after, not in the fic (or novel) itself, but in any post-fic author's notes. I can accept a love story whose plot leads it to an unhappy ending. Hell, in Harry Potter, I love Remus/Sirius, and considering Azkaban and the Veil, no one can ever say that they had a happy ending. But in this fic, at the end of the epilogue, the two characters were alive, regularly having sex with each other, good friends with each other, and, really, with nothing to indicate in the fic that either they aren't in love or won't fall in love with each other very soon. It's just that at the end of the file, right below "THE END", the author said quite clearly that they aren't in love, that they don't get married, and that they're too damaged for love.
Frankly, I felt cheated. I loved the fic itself, as evidenced by me staying up til five in the morning reading it when I had class four hours later. But unlike other times I've stayed up all night reading an amazing fic, I didn't go to bed in a haze of "amazing fic" euphoria. The fic itself had a fairly open ending, regarding that relationship, but I don't mind open endings because it means I get to imagine whatever I want. But thanks to that note, I hadn't been able to do that, because I'd remember the note and feel angry and disappointed, first that these two characters were "too damaged to love" (which I find downright OOC for one character in particular), and second, that the author would tell me so. Any happy romantic endings I might have imagined were tainted.
Fanfiction is all about imagination. Something in the canon just speaks to us, and we imagine more than we were given. And I don't like having my imagination curtailed like that. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading JK Rowling's interviews--I fell in love with the source, the books, and I want them to speak for themselves. Maybe I preferred imagining Remus's middle name to be Janus, rather than knowing it's John, or maybe I didn't want to know that Harry's christening ceremony only had him, James and Lily, and Sirius. Maybe I wanted to imagine my own scenarios, since she didn't give us hers in the actual canon.
And besides, no one will have the exact same perception of a story as somebody else. Even if I hadn't spent years in fandom and come across it again and again in fic and reviews, I've taken enough English classes to know that everyone will take something different out of a story. Maybe one person believes that Catherine was too selfish to really love Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, while another will defend the depths of her emotion. Since Emily Bronte hasn't told us one way or the other, both interpretations are valid, providing there's textual support, and both people can (theoretically) be satisfied with their belief. Reader interpretation is what literature classes are based on, not to mention fandom.
I want to have my own interpretations, my own opinions, especially if the source material is fairly open about a particular subject. And if the author discusses his/her intentions regarding a story somewhere, I want to have the option of reading it, not just have it so soon after the ending line that I read it before I can stop myself. As a writer myself, I completely understand the urge to explain to the readers what I'd meant, especially if they're thinking the opposite of what I'd intended--but I would let the story stand on its own. Maybe I hadn't clarified something enough for the readers to understand what I'd wanted to say, but that would be my fault, for not making the story clear enough. Yeah, sure, there are stupid readers who just might not have caught the clues in the story, but the story can still stand on its own.
...This is feeling incomplete, but I'm really tired and can't think of what else I wanted to say to clarify my position. I guess, basically, I just think that authors should let their stories speak for themselves and let the readers have their own interpretations--or, if the author just has to correct an interpretation (even though there's nothing in the fic itself that invalidates that interpretation), they should give people a real option in reading it or not.
'Kay. Time to go to bed. Maybe I'll add stuff later, especially if I get jumped on for this and have to keep explaining myself. Also, the icon is meant to be ironic. :p
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 09:07 pm (UTC)Also, keep in mind this was back in the days before the relationship was canon, when almost every single fic about the couple either ended in wedding and/or pregnancy with everyone turning into OOC Mary Sunshines to make that possible. I just can't see them as that kind of couple, even after the dues ex machina of the canon get-together. Their history is more complicated than that.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the afterword was written mainly to stop the frequent requests for sequels. ;)
Anyway, this all may be besides the point, but that's my interpretation.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-06 11:18 pm (UTC)I figured it was something along those lines, but in that case, I would have preferred something like "There won't be any sequels. Imagine what comes next yourself." Or something like that. *shrugs*
And it is the fic you're thinking of--I knew if you read this post, you would recognize the fic. And I like the fic, a lot. I think it does speak for itself, which is why I didn't like that note at the end. That was the main point of this ramble, not what these particular characters do. I understand the point of the fic is that they don't need to get married to be happy, but I'm not really talking about the fic, apart from it having the afterword that I used as an example. I just wish the author hadn't told us so definitively, outside the fic itself, what happens (or doesn't happen) next.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 03:16 am (UTC)I believe a lot of frustration went into that afterword, and it was probably a late edition. Now I don't know for sure - I'm just the foggy-minded archivist and comma Nazi, not a member of the inner circle - but I get the feeling the author was rather overwhelmed by the response to the fic.
But I really wouldn't take it all that seriously. It's just snark, after all.