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I was talking to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slaymesoftly last night about how I'm finding myself disappointed with Spuffy fic more often, and I said something like, "Even though I'm a Spuffy fan, I get tired of reading fic after fic about them getting together. At some point, it just gets repetitive, and I feel like I'm reading the same fic over and over." There are, after all, only so many ways to "fix" Spuffy. And (as usual) I kind of got the feeling that I'm a little weird, because I don't really care if my OTP ends up happy, miserable, or dead, as long as it's a good story.
Then, today,angearia asked for recs for writing tips/websites/etc. and I followed a trail of recs from her post to this one on tension, and I had a lightbulb moment. Here's what the poster had to say:
"In the early stages, I am so in love with the characters that I always care about what happens to them, so absent the "killer factors" I am likely to read and enjoy a wide variety of stories. But at some point I am not automatically invested in, say, John and Rodney getting together. When that happens, I need more than just that. That is, it can certainly be a romance in which the plot is entirely about John and Rodney getting together. But the story needs to dangle compelling questions in front of my nose, to make me feel that it is important for them to get together, to show me the obstacles to them getting together - which will make me want to read more and find out how it happens."
That's exactly it. It's not enough for me that a fic has Spike and Buffy in it. It's not enough that they get together. (In fact, sometimes I'd rather they didn't get together.) I'm not automatically sold on a story just because it's about my OTP. Maybe I'm picky, but I want it to be compelling, too.
The thing is, I'm not tired of Spuffy. It's not that I find their relationship any less compelling than I used to. What I think I am tired of is reading the same old recycled plots and premises, because I already know how it's going to go, and that's not compelling.
I feel like this dovetails with a lot of different things - the "what if" approach to fic vs. the "fix it" approach, real conflict vs. false/manufactured conflict, predictable endings, gen fic vs. shippy fic, tension in sex scenes - but I don't have the energy right now to do a long meta, so I'm kind of just throwing it out there.
slaymesoftly last night about how I'm finding myself disappointed with Spuffy fic more often, and I said something like, "Even though I'm a Spuffy fan, I get tired of reading fic after fic about them getting together. At some point, it just gets repetitive, and I feel like I'm reading the same fic over and over." There are, after all, only so many ways to "fix" Spuffy. And (as usual) I kind of got the feeling that I'm a little weird, because I don't really care if my OTP ends up happy, miserable, or dead, as long as it's a good story.Then, today,
angearia asked for recs for writing tips/websites/etc. and I followed a trail of recs from her post to this one on tension, and I had a lightbulb moment. Here's what the poster had to say:"In the early stages, I am so in love with the characters that I always care about what happens to them, so absent the "killer factors" I am likely to read and enjoy a wide variety of stories. But at some point I am not automatically invested in, say, John and Rodney getting together. When that happens, I need more than just that. That is, it can certainly be a romance in which the plot is entirely about John and Rodney getting together. But the story needs to dangle compelling questions in front of my nose, to make me feel that it is important for them to get together, to show me the obstacles to them getting together - which will make me want to read more and find out how it happens."
That's exactly it. It's not enough for me that a fic has Spike and Buffy in it. It's not enough that they get together. (In fact, sometimes I'd rather they didn't get together.) I'm not automatically sold on a story just because it's about my OTP. Maybe I'm picky, but I want it to be compelling, too.
The thing is, I'm not tired of Spuffy. It's not that I find their relationship any less compelling than I used to. What I think I am tired of is reading the same old recycled plots and premises, because I already know how it's going to go, and that's not compelling.
I feel like this dovetails with a lot of different things - the "what if" approach to fic vs. the "fix it" approach, real conflict vs. false/manufactured conflict, predictable endings, gen fic vs. shippy fic, tension in sex scenes - but I don't have the energy right now to do a long meta, so I'm kind of just throwing it out there.
