What's The Story, Morning Glory
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| Title: | What's The Story, Morning Glory |
| Creator: | Cesperanza |
| Date(s): | December 11, 2003 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | page one; archive page one; archive page two |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
What's The Story, Morning Glory is a 2003 essay by Cesperanza.
The topic is a then-recent meme about authors talking about their own fics. "I'm a little baffled and freaked out by the "what's my story" meme going around right now, which I have problems with on a number of different levels."
Some Topics Discussed
- becoming more like your online persona
- fanworks as therapy
- repetition of themes
- self-introspection
- betas
- somebody gets invited to dinner
Excerpt
First of all, the literature professor in me most sincerely believes that the author is the least qualified person to answer this question. Least qualified, and also least interesting on the subject. Even the professional writers suck at this--Christ, are professional writers boring on the subject of their own work! And frankly, I think that's holding true here as well--y'all are much more interesting and write much more interesting stories than this dagblasted meme of yours indicates. In fact, the meme would be much more interesting if we were each assigned to review the writer to our immediate virtual left.
Which I've done occasionally but not often, because my second problem with this meme is that this particular kind of critical thinking feels like work--hell, not just "feels like", it is work, it's a lot of what I do for a living. When I write feedback it's mainly of the emotional kind--I liked, I loved, I laughed, I cried!!--because you know what? This is my pleasure zone, and it's all about me and analysis be damned.
That being said, I have on occasion unzipped the critical brain in order to do literary analysis of particular stories (as opposed to meta analysis, i.e. fandom theory, which is something else entirely and a lot more fun for me). But it's rare that I want to do literary analysis in fandom, and when I do it's often because I need to explain why a story worked for me or didn't, what I thought it was saying or didn't. But the beauty--the absolute joy of fandom for me--is the chance to do applied criticism, ie. cue heavenly choir, singing perfect and eternal harmonies, flooded with light--the beta process.
Yes, ahahaha, behind this cut tag is yet another Ode To The Beta Process, but holy fuck how I love it. (heavenly choir stalks away, offended.) But see, that kind of applied criticism--where the literary reading you do can actually affect the way the story turns out! is just sweet sweet monkey crack to me. I like to do it, I like to have it done to me--so much so that I would say that that's the fun part of fandom for me now, and actually releasing the story and getting feedback for it is just gravy. (I mean, good gravy, don't get me wrong; but gravy nonetheless.)
[snipped]
Anyway, the point of this run in robes down memory lane was to say that that's often how I feel as a critic, like I'm doing autopsies. The Critic! in her tweed jacket and elbow patches jumps into her car, drives like a freakazoid down the street to the Mission Impossible theme music, BA-ba-ba ba, DA-da-da-da, doo-doo-doo... and then leaps out and grabs Sylvia Plath's arm, "No, Sylvia, don't!!! Agggh, too late!" But see, in the beta process, you get to say things like, "You know, I think this story is really a story about cheese, underneath," and then suddenly the story IS about cheese, you can bring out all the cheesy goodness in it. It just rocks like a rocking thing.
And see, I guess the larger point here--and my disinterest in the meme--is that--that I'm interested in writing to the extent to which writing, like therapy, broadens the mind. I decide to tell a story. I think I know what the story is, but--ah ha! lo and behold! it's different on the page, and it's different in ways that surprise me. That's the first layer of wow. Wow, as I'm writing this, these words are doing things, they're giving me ideas that I didn't have when I started, and huh, maybe I'll take things in this direction. And then, see, working with a beta is a second level of wow, because when different eyes look at those words they see--inevitably--things that you didn't. And if they're articulate, they can make you see things about your own work. And then, if you're still in beta, you can make decisions based on those insights. ** Add more people, and dude, by the end of the beta process, you can have a really rich and multilayered version of that first flat idea you thought you had when you started. The whole point is about getting beyond what you thought you knew--and the same for the critical process. I know what I know about my stories; I think it's more interesting to hear someone else's POV.
**The feedback that I don't write often begins, "This should have been a story about X but wasn't." or "This was almost a story about Y, couldn't you see that?" I write comments on student papers that way: "This is really a paper about X." "This is almost a very good paper about Y."
Fan Comments
yahtzee63: I agree that too much introspection -- what am I writing, and why -- can kill the process, but surely there's a balance between asking too much and asking not at all. I strongly dislike the current mood of fandom, which is about 85% navel-gazing, 10% creative and 5% actual appreciation of the source. But at the same time, can I think of authors who not only could but should have asked themselves, a long time ago, "Have I done this before? Have I done it to death?"
I mostly did the meme in the hopes that I could ask the readers if they agreed with my conclusions and what they'd add. Nobody's said jack, though. :(
Cesperanza: I think of authors who not only could but should have asked themselves, a long time ago, "Have I done this before? Have I done it to death?"
Dude, I am not being anti-critical or anti-introspective here--what I'm saying is, sometimes a writer needs input from others, people that she trusts. In the case above, if that writer had a real beta, the beta might have told said, "Hey, you know, you've done this before. You've done this to death." I'm not advocating the "creative muse"--the "muse" is responsible for more crap writing than anything else. Rather, I'm advocating the advantages of an outside perspective, i.e. real communication--and I appreciate that that's what you were trying to get when you did the meme. Though I think a good outside perspective is hard to get, especially on LJ, which fosters a lot of faux communication, where everybody's talking and nobody's listening. (You probably get much of your real perspective from co-writers like Rheanna, I'd bet!)
There's actually a really interesting point to tease out in there, about the difference between reading critically and reading for pleasure. I may hang on every word you write, and of course I do, but in order to have something interesting to say about what Irina says to her sister in the Metro station, I have to read it *differently*, in a way that takes effort and time and care. This is, I think, part of why so many of the people I went to graduate school said that they no longer read for pleasure -- they didn't know how to switch effectively between the two modes, and no longer could read for pleasure. I will say that if you've been reading critically for a long time, certain readerly muscles get developed that can be used no matter how you're reading (e.g., I could see the way the plot of Breakout reiterates the same theme with a difference very clearly, and that became part of the pleasure of the book), but if I'm beta-reading, I need to read two or three times, I need to pause over things, I need to be a critic, as Cesca says.
[ex mommybir]: I strongly dislike the current mood of fandom, which is about 85% navel-gazing, 10% creative and 5% actual appreciation of the source.
I think I said this a few months ago, only in much more verbose manner. Got in metablog and everything. *g* But seriously, this is a very concise summation of my feelings about fandom about now. I appreciate it muchly. *returns to dressing and undressing original characters*
thete1: Hmmm. I can see what you're saying, and I can understand the meme being useless for *you*... but.
I don't think of it as being about *writing* so much as about who we *are*.
And, you know? I get off on that. I don't care about the entries where people find a snazzy name for their uberstory and go back to whatever they were doing before, but I fucking *wallow* in the entries where people dive off into their navels and tell me *why*.
Because, you know, I'm actually pretty obsessed with people, and how they think, and how they think about themselves. It's all about the process of knowing, man.
That said.
I also can't see the bad in people taking a moment to step back and *realize* what they've been talking about ad nauseam for 300 stories. If only so they can then, say, "hunh. Well, why don't I try it *this* way."
Because you can get a lot out of the beta process, but a beta's not going to tell you you're writing the same damned story over and over again unless the beta is also a Good Friend, and An Expert Critic, besides.
Sometimes we can be *damned* subtle, and sometimes?
People just don't give a shit. Because lord knows the vast majority of *my* audience wouldn't weep if I wrote the same fucking thing until I died. Hey, that's *why* they're my audience.
So... yeah. Stop thinking of this as being lit crit.
Start thinking of it as being focused self-study.
You might not care for it any better, but it might, *might* give you a different perspective. ;-)
[cesperaza]: So... yeah. Stop thinking of this as being lit crit. Start thinking of it as being focused self-study.
Dude, I'm down with that, but my answer's the same. That's why therapy is good--for the outside perspective. You can spin your own wheels for YEARS without a decent therapist to ask the right questions, move you a bit in the right direction. That's what you pay for, it's why therapy helps. I'm all for doing what you can on your own--in fact, my comments are premised on the fact that you are doing what you can on your own; I'm not interested in writers who aren't--but ultimately, I think you learn more about yourself from listening to what others say about you rather than talking about yourself.
[cesperanza]: Because, you know... there's nothing like writing a story -- EVERY story -- live and in chat to one or two (or four) people to get all the lettuce out of your teeth before the *first* draft is done.
Dude! Totally! You cow, we're talking about the same thing. I write ALL my stories in chat--not live, like in the window, but uploading drafts frequently and taking comments, making changes... If you know your lettuce is out, then that's that--and I do think that you're more...well, taking your own metaphor from above--cock-brained than I am, more yank yank thhhpt! about your fiction. I'm a little more 18th century about it; it's a harpsichord, not even a piano.
kassrachel: See, and this is what I love most about fandom at this particular moment in time -- it's like this big freaking party full of the smartest people around, and we can sit around and shoot the shit about things like this! Honest to god, this is just the coolest damn thing. My favorite part of fandom is the fans, baby.
I see your point about the author being both tbe least qualified, and perhaps also the least interesting, person to answer questions about what her work is about. And I also see your point about the fun of the beta process -- I'd never thought of the beta process as applied criticism, per se, but it totally is.
This is, I'm realizing, what I miss most about grad school -- I have colleagues now who read my poems in draft, and who occasionally have insights about what the poems are "really about" (or ought to really be about, if I'm not there yet, as often happens), but I miss the beta process I had with my faculty advisors. Who were really just fantastic readers and betas, and who I trusted implicitly to have smart opinions about my work. Fandom offers me/us this amazing beta support structure, and I wish I had that for my poems...
cesperanza: Fandom offers me/us this amazing beta support structure, and I wish I had that for my poems...
You know, I was thinking about this just the other day...it used to be that fandom reflected my "real" life, but now my real life is starting to be seriously changed by my fandom life. I'm becoming in LIFE more like who I am ONLINE. It's freaky. And I think that's part of what you're saying--the fannish writing interaction seems vastly superior to the "real-life" context I have for reading and writing literature and criticism. I wish I had more RL betas, too; I wish that life worked more like fandom, and I find myself working to MAKE my life work more like fandom!
musesfool: *raises hand tentatively*
I do.
I don't always mean to, but it seems to work out that way. The characters and pairings I'm drawn to, the situations I like to read and write, yes, they're mostly best friends-become-lovers, and learning to live with what you can't rise above, and if woody had gone to the police, this never would have happened... er, maybe not that last one *g* - fanfiction for me fills that need to see that same story played out in a multitude of ways.
Did Remus and Sirius get together in their seventh year at Hogwarts? After Hogwarts? If they were a couple back then, how did Sirius suspect him? Or did they not get together until sometime after Prisoner of Azkaban/Goblet of Fire? By OotP, they're pretty damn coupley.
I never write with theme in mind. But I can look over all my stories and see there *are* themes I've come back to over and over again - (mis)communication, forgiveness, growing up and letting go, and yes, I have had some extremely helpful betas who helped clarify and strengthen those aspects of the stories.
I also answered the question looking at what I like to *read* in my fanfiction. I like romantic comedies, especially comedies with witty banter. I like stories tht give me the same achy feeling in my chest as when Willow says to Xander, "You'd rather be with someone you hate, than be with me."
I think, as with so many of these questions, it comes down to what you're (generic) looking for out of the fanfic experience - some people want to explode the canon, explore the world, do and see everything. Me, I like to pick two or three characters and keep delving into them in small stories about love, missed connections, second chances, etc.
*snicker*
There's a reason I've been called hopelessly mainstream.
Anyhow, like I said, some writers are muralists, some are portraitists, some are miniaturists. Skill as much as desire plays a part - I'm good at romance, not so much with action, so while I do write the occasional fight scene or what have you, and I like to stretch (usually by going darker than by going plottier) I tend to play to my strengths. I have fallen into ruts, yes - this is where the multi-fandom thing comes in - I've been able to switch to a different fandom, a different pairing, a different set of issues and I think my writing has improved because of it. But I'm also lucky enough that I had betas who could point out to me my growing dissatisfaction with my own writing was because yes, I'd written the same story before, and done it better the first time around. On the other hand, there are some stories that weren't so good the first time around, so I may want to dust 'em off, turn 'em upside down and see if that works better.
I wasn't gonna comment on this, b/c it's smart and I'm not a writer, but then I commented on something in my lj after reading your entry and realized that your view of beta process to finished fic is a lot like mine of fanfic to source text. B/c isn't the beauty of fanfic that things are still malleable while in our professional lives we are usually stuck in good old literary analysis trying to reconcile the contradictions, to take the work as it is given to us?
[Cesperanza]: B/c isn't the beauty of fanfic that things are still malleable while in our professional lives we are usually stuck in good old literary analysis trying to reconcile the contradictions, to take the work as it is given to us?
Oooh. Yes. Yes. Nicccccce. (It's all about agency, baby! Unalienated fucking labor. *g*)
[jenboo]: I haven't seen the meme, but I have to agree with you on many points here.
Christ, are professional writers boring on the subject of their own work! Anne Rice. Boring and pretentious. Hasn't allowed her books to be edited by someone else since 'Queen of the Damned'. Writes about it on her website. Talks about it in interviews. No wonder I hate her stuff now.
Now, when authors I like talk about their *processes*, that's when I get interested.
As I was reading your early comment about feedback being about responding to the pleasure centers, I thought "because critical thinking is what betas are for" and then I got to the next paragraph.
Oh, holy fuck, indeed! I'm only beginning to revel in the beauty that is insightful beta. I want more, I want people to ask tough questions about what I write because it only makes it better. That's when the critical thinking is valuable to the author, as you say. When you can apply it to a work in progress.
As a writer, I have no interest in doing critical analyses of what I've written. When it gets posted (or hopefully published someday) I'm done with it. I'm done thinking about it and mulling things over and what have you. I'm interested in what other people have to say and love to hear what my words have sparked in other people. But don't make me do it for my own stuff. Gak. That's like critiquing a meal you've cooked after you've eaten it and then thrown it up. Bleah.
carenejeans: Interesting. I agree with you, and I agree with Te.
But your essay here made a resounding "click" go off in my mind. I also love the beta process, though I've only been on the receiving end. When I started out (way back in February *g*) I began with this large, freewheeling story, and even though I had one beta (the friend who got me into slash) I felt I needed more input, so I asked for one, cautiously, on a list. And I was lucky to get a very, very good beta (tehomet) who was cheerfully *ruthless*. Unafraid to say, "I don't get this," "This doesn't work," and even "Here, this is how I'd do it." She lectured me on POV, pointed out where I'd over-used phrases, untangled run-on sentences and pounced on cliched sex terms.
I was in love. *g*
So, I've written a bunch since then, and still send everything to these two betas, even shortish pieces. I was thinking, maybe I'm just being a wimp, having to have my hand held this way, but there was something else going on, because I realized it wasn't that I was unconfident about the stories (the typos, *yes*) but I was *looking forward* to the beta comments. Your post really articulated *why*.
On a tangent -- I was talking with another fan who was nervous because she found out one of her stories was being discussed. What really bothered her was the fact that the story was finished. Done. She couldn't, or wouldn't, change it. So it panicked her a bit -- because, I suppose, it was like getting beta comments *too late*.
Now, for me, this wouldn't be a problem. There *might* be things I wrote long ago that I wouldn't bother to change now, given the chance. But -- I doubt it. I mean, if I read criticism like "she should never have written mpreg to begin with" that's not something I can do anything about; but if I've got a story on the web, and someone makes a criticism I think is good, I'll be looking at that story. That's just me. If I were a pro author, I'd be one of those writers who make changes on final proofs on their deathbeds...
Cesperanza: (Sekret message 2: free for dinner Friday night? my place?)
rivkat: Dinner would be excellent, though later is better.
Cesperanza: Come whenever you want tomorrow; we'll be here and there will be some kind of food.