Fiction Categories
May. 7th, 2020 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitThe 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.)
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.)
