I've recently seen a lot of posts, mostly from women but sometimes from men, saying they read tens of thousands of words a day of fanfiction. These same people will talk about how they cant sit down and read a book.At first I assumed it was just pure smut but a lot of their recommendations are teen ratedDoes anyone have any Idea what's up with that? Do we think this is a bad thing?
My current theory is that having characters you already know skips a lot of introduction which people don't like very much
>>24689231I wrote some, it can be fun but it's sublit. It's pretty much toying about your desires to make a work of fiction go into a way not intended by the author. I did read some good style, though.
>>24689231Have you tried some? It's worringly addicting. Several times I've pulled something up in the morning and found myself staring at a current-end-marker at 5 PM, still in bed in the same position I begun. I avoid it for that reason, now. Generally, though, it doesn't have much literary value. It's just poking needles into your brain to manipulate you, and the better stuff is as >>24689309 says, toying with desires with surprisingly good style.Is it a bad thing? Yes. For the reader, and for literature in general, in the same way gambling machines were bad for games.
>>24689231i think the appeal of it to me is that there is thematic or narrative resonance i can appreciate in stories i've seen and it requires very little work to set them up, or convince someone to read them. It's even faster of a beginning than you get with in medias res beginnings because people already conceptually understand some of the themes rules and characters. All the setup's been done and you don't even need to flashback or explain it.
