I derive pleasure from two sources: my knowledge of the canon itself (Supernatural, Harry Potter, etc.) and the quality of the fanfiction and then - mh, there should be three sources, actually: seeing how skilfully the shadows have been overlapped/merged with the new fictional material.
Absolutely -- also my favorite. Nothing really makes a fanfic spectacular for me quite like the ones that take the canon and prod and push it just so, until it's both canon and something more, something that makes me stop and say, oi, I never even thought of that!, or, I never looked at it quite that way, omg, the author is so right! The kinds of things that make you wonder if some authors have direct pipelines into canon-creators' minds, or are just that good at seeing underneath the canon's presentation to see the potentials.
But that I went into more in the follow-up posts, if you've not found them already. The ideas in those are applicable to ofic as well (especially in the 2nd part), but it's just that fanfic really comes down hard on those particular skills, and that those skills really require the reader be able to participate in the author's ingenuity. Otherwise, it's kinda flat, like the piano-playing: you get that something's going on, but you don't have enough info to realize exactly what. As fans in a shared fandom, though, we do realize what else is going on, and that adds to our enjoyment even when the story is otherwise riddled with cliches, badly-written, flatly characterized, or otherwise pedestrian in some way.
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Date: 18 Dec 2009 11:15 pm (UTC)Absolutely -- also my favorite. Nothing really makes a fanfic spectacular for me quite like the ones that take the canon and prod and push it just so, until it's both canon and something more, something that makes me stop and say, oi, I never even thought of that!, or, I never looked at it quite that way, omg, the author is so right! The kinds of things that make you wonder if some authors have direct pipelines into canon-creators' minds, or are just that good at seeing underneath the canon's presentation to see the potentials.
But that I went into more in the follow-up posts, if you've not found them already. The ideas in those are applicable to ofic as well (especially in the 2nd part), but it's just that fanfic really comes down hard on those particular skills, and that those skills really require the reader be able to participate in the author's ingenuity. Otherwise, it's kinda flat, like the piano-playing: you get that something's going on, but you don't have enough info to realize exactly what. As fans in a shared fandom, though, we do realize what else is going on, and that adds to our enjoyment even when the story is otherwise riddled with cliches, badly-written, flatly characterized, or otherwise pedestrian in some way.