Short fic, and why I love it.
Dec. 31st, 2009 03:17 pmGood, short fanfic is like the TARDIS, bigger on the inside.
I'm enjoying reading fic for some beloved small fandoms in the Yuletide archive. I was particularly thrilled to see fic for Connie Willis' time travel series. I love Willis' world building, plots and high concepts, but she has a problem with the human element, so I need and want fic to bridge that gap.
Anyway, compare these two fics:
The Season of Grace, 7527 words
and
The Toll of History, 575 words long.
The first fic is 13 times longer than the second fic, and yet, they're about the same topic.
Both fics are about a character named Kivrin, who is a time traveling historian. In The Doomsday Book, Kivrin is accidentally sent to the wrong time when she goes on a research trip, and ends up in a small village where she experiences the tragedy and horror of the plague. She grows close to the people who live there, and doesn't have the comfort of sharing her grief for them, because to everyone else in her home time they've been dead for 700 years.
The first fic is long, very rich in detail, a fic you can climb into and experience. Kivrin's experience of the village is vivid and visceral. There's suspense and humor, and it's impossible not to feel Kivrin's physical sensations and her emotions with her as they are described. It's the emotional argument of The Doomsday Book brilliantly condensed, and a fic I wish all readers of the book could read as an epilogue.
The second fic is short. It has only three scenes, but they're stark and vivid, and they say everything. You can't climb inside this fic. The first fic you could read, knowing only what I wrote in my summary of the book, and while you wouldn't get the full benefit, you would think, yes, I want to read more in this fandom, and you would understand why it was both sad and cathartic.
The second fic, you can't read on its own. It is perfectly condensed and pared down, and it calls on canon in all the right ways that bring both the emotion and the plot of canon back to mind as you read; where the first fic could have been an extension of the book, this fic is a pinhole image of it. It is the perfect example of the art of derivative, transformative work, supporting itself on the original work and unable to function on its own, but at the same time adding a completely fresh, new perspective on it.
I wouldn't want to do without fics of the first kind, that expand and build upon original works, and take on life of their own. They're the foundation of fic fandom, and so rich that you can subsist on them alone, allowing canon to take shadowy shape in your mind, a far off ideal you need to know for reference purposes, but don't care to experience directly. The second kind of fic is insubstantial, a luxury fandoms can survive without. They're not very accessible, and they don't pass the time and entertain you for more than a few minutes, but the elegance goes through me like the sun breaking through the clouds and illuminating everything for a few seconds and stuns me with its beauty and clarity.
I'm enjoying reading fic for some beloved small fandoms in the Yuletide archive. I was particularly thrilled to see fic for Connie Willis' time travel series. I love Willis' world building, plots and high concepts, but she has a problem with the human element, so I need and want fic to bridge that gap.
Anyway, compare these two fics:
The Season of Grace, 7527 words
and
The Toll of History, 575 words long.
The first fic is 13 times longer than the second fic, and yet, they're about the same topic.
Both fics are about a character named Kivrin, who is a time traveling historian. In The Doomsday Book, Kivrin is accidentally sent to the wrong time when she goes on a research trip, and ends up in a small village where she experiences the tragedy and horror of the plague. She grows close to the people who live there, and doesn't have the comfort of sharing her grief for them, because to everyone else in her home time they've been dead for 700 years.
The first fic is long, very rich in detail, a fic you can climb into and experience. Kivrin's experience of the village is vivid and visceral. There's suspense and humor, and it's impossible not to feel Kivrin's physical sensations and her emotions with her as they are described. It's the emotional argument of The Doomsday Book brilliantly condensed, and a fic I wish all readers of the book could read as an epilogue.
The second fic is short. It has only three scenes, but they're stark and vivid, and they say everything. You can't climb inside this fic. The first fic you could read, knowing only what I wrote in my summary of the book, and while you wouldn't get the full benefit, you would think, yes, I want to read more in this fandom, and you would understand why it was both sad and cathartic.
The second fic, you can't read on its own. It is perfectly condensed and pared down, and it calls on canon in all the right ways that bring both the emotion and the plot of canon back to mind as you read; where the first fic could have been an extension of the book, this fic is a pinhole image of it. It is the perfect example of the art of derivative, transformative work, supporting itself on the original work and unable to function on its own, but at the same time adding a completely fresh, new perspective on it.
I wouldn't want to do without fics of the first kind, that expand and build upon original works, and take on life of their own. They're the foundation of fic fandom, and so rich that you can subsist on them alone, allowing canon to take shadowy shape in your mind, a far off ideal you need to know for reference purposes, but don't care to experience directly. The second kind of fic is insubstantial, a luxury fandoms can survive without. They're not very accessible, and they don't pass the time and entertain you for more than a few minutes, but the elegance goes through me like the sun breaking through the clouds and illuminating everything for a few seconds and stuns me with its beauty and clarity.