The Forest of Fan-Fiction

How to Write from the Perspective of the Reader

Simon de la Rouviere had a great post recently about Clarkesworld closing to submissions. They had to, apparently, because they were getting inundated with AI-generated stories. It’s a fair, balanced, and most importantly curious examination of “what’s going on right now,” which I appreciate. That quality is also in line with all of SdlR’s work.

I have conflicting thoughts about what this AI thing is morally (I oscillate between “it’s an abomination” and “well, it’s inevitable, and could have some utility”) but as with everything else, it’s important to force your moral compass to take a seat to make way for your curiosity. To separate the two lest you get steamrolled by the staunchly amoral march of history. I’ll figure out whether it’s good or bad later. For now, I want to understand what’s going on.

Anyhow, that’s not what this post is about. We’re interested in writing, selling books, and finding audiences. SdlR has a fascinating riff toward the end of the piece, which goes like this:

What lies beyond? What if you did accept AI works and under what circumstances would it be desirable?

The likely area where AI produced works will flourish, is in the niche, where being okay isn’t that bad, and where the workload will be more manageable. If AI writing is just okay, you could still find audiences for it, especially among people that want to tell stories, but whose day-job isn’t being a storyteller.

And that’s ultimately, fan-fiction. Writing well is not a requirement for a good fan-fic story. It’s about comfort. It’s about fantasising and world-building. It’s about the social aspect of sharing the story and world with others. It’s not about necessarily being a good storyteller. Writing poorly or not being a good storyteller is forgivable, because the fans are often, too. They can see past the quality for the joy in building worlds together.

He goes on to quote Allegra Rosenberg:

Historically, fans have tended not to think of the (very real) work they do as labor; they conceive of it as leisure. It’s a hobby, it’s a passion, it’s how they spend their time outside of work, or instead of it. Fandom is fun!!!!!!!!! Dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What we’re dealing with are three different words: “writer,” “storyteller,” and “fan.” In the case of the quoted Stack, “writer” and “storyteller” are conflated where I think they shouldn’t be. “Good writing” is the ability to locate the correct nouns and place them in the correct order, with the correct cadence, in order to orchestrate a musicality that imbues the story with its desired tone.

The story being told can be good outside of any “good writing” at all. For example, check out the bestseller list. The most successful books contain writing that aims to disappear, so that the reader can stack the blocks of the story together without getting tripped up on tricky language. Most readers don’t care about what’s lost here, because it’s not what they’re looking for in the first place.

Fandoms, per the quote above, are looking to engage in play, to stack the blocks of character and story, and share them freely with other fans. Because it’s fun.

What can we learn from this?

When we approach a project, “good writing” should be the last thing on our minds. Imagine three concentric circles. The all-encompassing circle is “Fandom,” the one inside that is “Storytelling,” and the one inside that is “Writing.” In this example, we’re not starting from the center, but from the black void outside of the circles. We’re wandering through the forest of fandom, into the cave of storytelling, and finally, if we dig deep enough, the hell of good writing.

For some of us, this could be a nearly impossible task, because we’ve spent decades working from the inside out. But if we don’t approach a project from the space of a newborn, every time, we’re just engaging in autofiction no matter what genre we’re writing in. It becomes therapy. Self-expression. Some people like that, I guess. I don’t think I’m interesting enough for that anymore, if I ever was.

So we’re a newborn, toddling through the forest of fandom. The goal here is to empty the brain of any preconceived notions and just wander, and notice. We engage in the mindset of the fan not because we have some cynical goal in mind. This is very important. We’re engaging in the mindset of the fan because it is a pure space to be in. It invites creatures to visit you, some real “birds landing on Snow White” type shit. Images from manga you’ve read, movies you’ve watched, even (perhaps) some lines from books you’ve read will peek around tree trunks or poke their heads up gopher-style out of the ground.

We walk through the forest of fandom, noticing, engaging at the level of detached curiosity, thinking to ourselves man, I can’t wait to tell my friends about this when I get home.

Once we enter the cave, we start writing. We’re putting images together, keeping ideas compartmentalized and quiet until we’re ready to take them off the shelf and paste them collage-style into our work. Slowly but surely, we’re digging deeper and deeper, until occasionally we scratch our way into the hell of good writing. Hell is hot, and hell is where you’re thinking about writing, which is the same as thinking about thinking. It’s vital to pull back when we’ve gotten here before the vortex of flame sucks us under and up into our own ass.

From there we exit the cave, back into the forest, and we empty our minds again. We’re not in the cave anymore. We’re not turning over story ideas in our head. We’re back to just being fans, carrying around an ambient sensibility of wanting to share cool shit with our crew.

This is about understanding the ways readers experience the joy of reading. For someone like me, this is something that has to actually be learned, because what has always attracted me to books is not how well the story comes together. And it certainly hasn’t (until recently) been about the “joy of building worlds together.” But once I discovered this approach, it took hold, and it has been a joy to watch projects come together.

This shit is fun.

I’m afraid that for the first season of my writing life, though I was a good writer and a decent-enough storyteller, I was only really a fan of how good I was at writing and storytelling. Because of this I was missing the alchemical, communal element hinted at in SdlR’s original post.

When you’re only a fan of yourself, you’ve set a monumental task in front you: to convince readers to read your shit just because it’s good…trust me.

And I’m not sure anyone is that good.