The Misery Trap
| Meta | |
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| Title: | The Misery Trap |
| Creator: | Emily Brunson |
| Date(s): | November 26, 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | fiction writing |
| External Links: | The Misery Trap/WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Misery Trap is an essay by Emily Brunson.
It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.
Excerpts
It happens like clockwork. A new writer bursts onto the fanfic scene with a story. And it's a great story; it's flat-out terrific. Response is huge: lots of LOCs, maybe a few awards, recognition.New writer posts/publishes her second story, and that too is very warmly received--maybe even more so than the first. Huzzah!
But by the time she writes the third and fourth and fifth and tenth stories in that fandom, she's started to notice something. All her LOCs are taking on a sameness that is a little dismaying. And, well, she'd really like to maybe write something a little *different* from what she's done before, but it seems as if when she tries that, response is really lukewarm.
There's another show, and another new fandom, and the cycle starts over again. She might delay that transition by posting either pseudonymously, or simply ignoring the fact that her readers simply don't seem to be quite as receptive to the newer stuff as before, but eventually she'll probably wander.
It's all about preconceptions and expectations. I'm an "angst writer." Francesca is a "humor writer." Other writers have other labels, and many have the same ones. But it's rare to find a writer who has more than one label. Why? Several reasons. First: most writers do tend to write a certain type of fiction. A label may be constricting in some senses, but in others it's simply truth in advertising. I am an angst writer by and large (although I prefer the term "drama" over "angst," since it's more all-inclusive). Francesca does write a lot of humor.But Francesca writes a lot of stuff that isn't really very funny at all. And I've been known to write a few lighter pieces, myself. By and large my own response to the lighter stuff hasn't been that good. Not bad -- but with a faint air of dismissiveness, as if this wasn't really representative of my ouvre.
Which leads me to the second reason why we tend to slap one label on a writer, and attach it with super-glue: As writers, we've created a sense of expectation on the part of the reader. Post a couple of serious, dramatic stories, and your readers will expect your third, fourth and fifth stories to most likely be equally serious and dramatic. Write humor, and your readers are unlikely to expect heavy drama from your fourth story.
Are they right to expect such things? Of course they are! After all, you as the writer have created the precedent.