Trust the tale, not the teller

[thuviaptarth]

Thank you to everyone who responded to this.

I really do think this is the oddest meme. I don't even know how to express what strikes me as so odd about it. The phrasing seems to depend on assumptions about how fiction writers relate to writing, and fiction readers relate to reading, that ... are just so far from the way I have always thought of these things that I don't even know how to say what's off about them. Maybe also about how people present themselves in particular circumstances versus what they really think or feel, too.

Also, either some of you are much better at stripping out what you know of people than I am, or else I haven't made clear things about myself that I think are perfectly obvious. I haven't been able to respond to posts by people I know even a little because I do know them even a little, and unless I remember very clearly my impression of them before talking to them, it's ... no, I can't make it go away.

Comments

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Hm.

I find it hard to state what, exactly, it is that I learn about authors from their fanfiction. I can find out things about what gets them going, emotionally or sexually, but not the whys behind that - you're right. I can't tell why someone's obsessed with rape, or why people are forever making smart-aleck remarks in their stories (uh, guilty), or whatever.

I *will* tell you that some authors, through their fanfiction, make me think I would like them as people, and some make me think I would dislike them. Whether that's because I can see how they see the characters and if it is flat-out whack or not, or what, I don't know.

I do know that I've very rarely been wrong. I read one story of basingstoke's - her first posted Sentinel story, I think, and thought "damn, I would really like to be friends with her." And as it turns out...she's one of my closest RL friends, now. But I can't quite put my finger on what it was, in that story, that made me think that.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I do know that I've very rarely been wrong.

I should say, when I've had a chance to test the theory. For all I know, I just got a particularly awesome sample. :)