Dance with Them What Brung You
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| Title: | Dance with Them What Brung You |
| Creator: | Hope |
| Date(s): | July 8, 2003 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction feedback |
| External Links: | Dance with Them What Brung You, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dance with Them What Brung You is an essay by Hope.
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
For additional context, see Timeline of Concrit & Feedback Meta.
Excerpts
The Dance with Them What Brung You School of Criticism is a fairly simple principle, and it applies both to betaing and reading for pleasure: the story is what it is. Let's take a totally made-up story for example... we'll call our story Jonathan's New Dress. This is a gripping tale of Jonathan Kent's secret life as a crossdresser. Now, there will be opinions on all sides as to whether or not Jonathan would ever enjoy the way that lace and silk panties make him feel sexy, and that, in itself, is a fair topic of debate.
I believe in public criticism and critique of stories posted in the public - I think it's valuable for the fandom, for the readers, and if the author is thick-skinned enough, valuable for her, too. But I think there is a vast difference between "This story didn't hit my happy buttons," and "This story had these flaws." Unlike professional criticism, nobody's making us read fan fiction. Savaging Gigli is cathartic for somebody who had no choice but to sit through it; savaging Mary Sue Fan Fic Author for writing a story in a genre you don't like is just plain mean. Forget what your mama told you - no need to be nice, but if you don't have anything useful to say, don't say anything. You don't shame a peach for failing to taste like an orange. And you dance with them what brung you.