Fiction Categories

[writerkit]

The four categories of fiction are:

Excellent writing with excellent premises, which are wonderful but only a small fraction of writing,
Excellent writing that redeems a *terrible* premise,
Terrible writing that ruins an excellent premise,
and WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT AND IT'S NOT EVEN WELL-WRITTEN.

It is, of course, generally considered rude to express either of the latter two sentiments at an author, particularly a fanfiction author, whatever you privately think of their writing. Really, you want to be careful how you phrase option 2 as well. ("I'm not normally a fan of ~premise~, but your take on it has very much interested me", not "~Premise~ is TERRIBLE but you've somehow made it READABLE.")

I do find it very interesting how writing quality can ruin a great premise or save a terrible one for me, though-- like, there are a number of fanfiction plot descriptions that I look at and go "This shouldn't work. This is going to be terrible. Of *course* this is going to be terrible because this SHOULDN'T WORK." And then, of course, it turns out to be amazing.

(While the categories apply to all fiction, I find it more obvious in fanfiction, where I can read a hundred stories with the exact same characters and plot and thus get a much clearer picture of how the writing style and quality affects the story. I have a number of specific plots I really like in theory that I have a lot of trouble finding actual *fics* for that I like.)

Comments

[schneefink]

I'd add another category that has an average premise and average writing and there's not really anything wrong with it, it's not bad, sometimes you're even in the mood for it, it's just nothing special in any way.

[writerkit]

Yes; I tend to forget about that category because none of the stories that fall into it are particularly memorable. (Whereas that time before I knew what crackfic was and stumbled across HP fic that included the giant squid as part of the primary pairing was unpleasant but VERY MEMORABLE.)

[jducoeur]

To be fair, I think of a lot as being through a slightly-different lens, where the premise is neither inherently good or bad, but where I know that the writing will determine it. "Tony Stark invents a race of sentient flying Roombas; hijinks ensue" is a classic example...