Lament for Genfic
Jun. 18th, 2008 07:30 pmIt's official. The fandom is now completely devoid of active genfic writers.
Okay, well, it's not official. And that's an exaggeration, anyway. But the point is, the fandom is absolutely swamped with romance and smut. On one side, there's FF.net, where you get practically nothing but Mary Sues, sometimes four at a time (the other things you get are the world's worst wangst and "Send in the Clowns," a fic which I excitedly recommend to anyone and everyone--and at the same time, too!). On the other side, there are the LJ communities.![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tmnt_fanfic is barely active, while turtlecest is exploding with activity and turtleslash is...moving along, sorta. By their very nature, turtlecest and turtleslash don't really produce much genfic. So FF.net isn't producing genfic, and the LJ comms pretty much can't. Where does that leave us genfic lovers? I dunno.
It's not that I think romance is bad. I've read some great romance. Kameterra's "Bound" tickles me pink. I even wrote a romance oneshot myself once (granted, it was a request, and I owed him). But the way I feel about romance stories is comparable to the way I feel about romance songs--there are tons of them, they've been doen and done, most of them are the same, and there are many, many other things to write about. Romance is just one of many genres, and romance fics are a dime a dozen. You can write about romance, but you can also write about friends, parents and their children, coworkers--relationships that don't need romance to be deep and meaningful. People can connect with relationships like those in stories. Not all of our relationships in life are romantic or sexual. Don't we ever want to see those sorts of relationship in stories?
I don't blame people for writing what they like to write, just griping that almost no one writes what I like to read. Which is why I write. I also feel kinda bad for people who stick themselves in the rut of writing only one genre. Maybe I'm hoping someone will get inspired by this post and test themselves creatively. Just one different kind of fic. It's fun! Actually, a massive fic I'm working on has romance in it, but it very much takes the back burner to all the other things going on, so it's possible to write gen with romance in it.
Okay, well, it's not official. And that's an exaggeration, anyway. But the point is, the fandom is absolutely swamped with romance and smut. On one side, there's FF.net, where you get practically nothing but Mary Sues, sometimes four at a time (the other things you get are the world's worst wangst and "Send in the Clowns," a fic which I excitedly recommend to anyone and everyone--and at the same time, too!). On the other side, there are the LJ communities.
tmnt_fanfic is barely active, while turtlecest is exploding with activity and turtleslash is...moving along, sorta. By their very nature, turtlecest and turtleslash don't really produce much genfic. So FF.net isn't producing genfic, and the LJ comms pretty much can't. Where does that leave us genfic lovers? I dunno.It's not that I think romance is bad. I've read some great romance. Kameterra's "Bound" tickles me pink. I even wrote a romance oneshot myself once (granted, it was a request, and I owed him). But the way I feel about romance stories is comparable to the way I feel about romance songs--there are tons of them, they've been doen and done, most of them are the same, and there are many, many other things to write about. Romance is just one of many genres, and romance fics are a dime a dozen. You can write about romance, but you can also write about friends, parents and their children, coworkers--relationships that don't need romance to be deep and meaningful. People can connect with relationships like those in stories. Not all of our relationships in life are romantic or sexual. Don't we ever want to see those sorts of relationship in stories?
I don't blame people for writing what they like to write, just griping that almost no one writes what I like to read. Which is why I write. I also feel kinda bad for people who stick themselves in the rut of writing only one genre. Maybe I'm hoping someone will get inspired by this post and test themselves creatively. Just one different kind of fic. It's fun! Actually, a massive fic I'm working on has romance in it, but it very much takes the back burner to all the other things going on, so it's possible to write gen with romance in it.
