Alison wrote:
What if the very simplicity or indeed amateurishness of a piece of fanfiction (its cheekiness if you like) is part of its message. That's pretty challenging and interesting
in
itself.
Thurber cartoon caption: It's a naive little domestic Burgundy, but I think you'll admire its presumption.
And this is Tavia:
I agree in principle this is possible, but can't think of a fanfic example offhand (perhaps you can provide?) where 'amateurishness' was (IMO) anything other than a partial failure of the writer's skills to carry the plot/message.
I really like the ethos of letting everyone who wants to, write and post-- I've read stories that were not particularly polished, but had interesting ideas or had no ideas at all but were interestingly written.
(That might sound fairly unkind, but I'd include all of my
own fiction writing in that heap, and I wouldn't necessarily consider it other than a compliment -- better to have tried to pull off something complex and only 60% succeeded than to have attempted something easy and 95% succeeded, or indeed to have sat and carped on the sidelines...)
Tommy Tune was talking about musicals--he said that if you go for a five and achieve a five, you get applauded, if you go for a 10 and achieve an 8 you get hissed.
-(Y)