Post on fic preferences

[pendrecarc]

My Yuletide letter started to get a bit long, but I got interested in analysing the things I love about fic. Here they are. So tell me, O flist--what do you most like to read?

Things I like:

• Gen or mostly-gen fic. I do enjoy romance, but I prefer it when the characters’ romantic relationship isn’t both a) the most important way they relate to one another and b) the most important relationship in their lives.
• A sense of motion. In long fic you could call this plot, but even in shorter works I enjoy watching characters attacking problems and accomplishing things.
• Active female characters.
• Deep caring and respect between characters.

Things to which I have no objection:

• Character death.
• Alternate timeline-style AUs.

Things that don’t usually work for me:

• PWP. I don’t actively object to explicit scenes, but it’s rarely (if ever) the sex itself that interests me. If there’s a sex scene, I like it better if it’s actually about something other than the physical act. Also see below re: other types of relationships.
• Character bashing
• Non-con as a central element in a fic.
• Infidelity/cheating presented in an uncritical light.
• Unremitting angst.

Things that make me turn cartwheels:

• Complexity. I love layered character motivations and relationships that work (and don’t work--tension is lovely) on multiple levels. That is, even if the story is about two characters who’re in love, I also like seeing them share interests and goals outside that romance, and I like seeing them interact with people outside the relationship. I also enjoy reading about family and friendship, working partnerships, and people with long, deep, and not-always-cooperative histories together.
• Stories that don’t lay everything straight out for the reader. I love coming to the gradual realisation (sometimes along with one of the characters) that things aren’t at all what they appear on the surface, or understanding things about the story that the characters themselves might miss because they don’t have all the reader’s knowledge of canon.
• Active female characters who have plot-changing interaction with and great respect for other women (including antagonists) and have solid, non-romantic relationships with men.
• Restraint in expression of deep emotion between characters. The characters I love best tend not to be effusive. They often prefer showing love to talking about it, but they find ways to do so that are in character; when they do talk about it, the situation has usually earned it.

I love--hmm, I’m not sure how to word this. I have a deep appreciation for a sense of grace in fiction. I don’t mean this necessarily as a religious thing--I think Bujold’s very good at it in the Vorkosigan Saga, for example, though she doesn’t deal directly with theology in those books the way she does in the Chalion trilogy. I think Grossman gives us glimpses of it in The Magician King, though one of the things I liked least about The Magicians was how starved for grace the characters were. I think we see it over and over in the Tiffany Aching books, as Tiffany learns how to be a witch when it’s damned difficult and far from glamorous and finds herself reaching for something deep in the Chalk. It’s in the Thief books, too, in Eugenides’ exhausted acceptance of the hand (er, no pun intended) he’s been dealt in The Queen of Attolia and his realisation both of what he’s won and what he’s had to give up to win it. This isn’t about happy endings; it’s about giving the characters something to hold onto.

Comments

[philomytha]

The sense of grace - yes! That's a wonderful way to put it, and I love that in fiction too. And I have tremendous respect for writers who can manage your second thing, stories that don't lay everything out. I adore that, but it's so very hard to pull off.

[pendrecarc]

So very hard, and you so rarely see it in fanfiction, but I love it when it works!