A Question About Fan Fiction

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

Hey everyone, I've got a question for anybody who reads fan fiction:[Poll #1624139]Thanks for the feedback, and have a super day. <3

Comments

[a_blackpanther]

In spite of the fanfic that is most often posted quite a few people here like the show because of the lack of pairings (anecdata gathered via ep discussions), so don't be afraid to post!

[emploding.livejournal.com]

I love gen fic, because a lot of the time a ship is overdone with very few original ideas.

[thedamaged.livejournal.com]

I didn't read the last one, whoops! I enjoy shipping but I ship anyone and I don't mind reading gen fic as long as the fic of any kind is written well I am willing to give it a chance.

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

I may be in a minority, but I would RATHER read gen fic than ship fic! There's just so little good gen fic around, though. I'd certainly welcome, and would read, your contributions!

[ms-creant.livejournal.com]

I agree!

I'm a bit of a canon-head, so I dislike the super-shippy and shippy-centric fics, unless they're well-written. Though, I love the platonic/friend ships.

[aguaracu.livejournal.com]

Word!

[midnight-jo.livejournal.com]

I agree with this x10000000.

If anyone knows of a good archive for gen fic (or even a specific fic that is 100% canon and is well written), I'd love to hear about it.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

I remember a lot of interest in genfic back when melliyna ran a few gen-a-thons with open prompts and responses. So while it seems like CM fandom is all about the pairings, I guarantee you that there are fen out there who enjoy genfic.

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

I took option 2, because there's ships/stories I just won't read, so I'm not going to read *anything* as long as it's well written, but I do like a lot of gen, and I read/write several ships myself.

[pabzi.livejournal.com]

I am a huge fan of gen fics as well as a huge fan of your writings :D

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

D'aw, thanks pabzi. :3

And I would also like to observe that when I wrote those seven oneshot requests, yours was the only gen one! That was one of the main things that made me ask.

[luckyasteroid.livejournal.com]

I don't read ship fics (: I'm sure they are very well-written and I give the authors props, but not my cup of tea, mainly because there are no pairings in the show and that's something I enjoy. (I miiiiiiight just read a Morgan/Garcia fic here and there, but only if the pairing is very slight or discreet ;) )

[writerjc.livejournal.com]

You need more options in your ticky boxes. :) I didn't really fit into any of them, though I did chose "I will read anything as long as it is well written". There are lots of qualifiers though.

I MUCH MUCH prefer gen fic,but those stories are so few and far between! Hotch is my favorite character, and I've come to find that I will read Hotch/Prentiss if the story is well written with a good plot and the relationship is believableable enough to allow me to suspend my disbelief without flinching.

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

Yes, I realized that my options were probably very restrictive. I struggle with poll-making. xD

And I definitely see your point. I myself won't necessarily read anything as long as its well-written (ex: I am far more likely to read things about certain characters, or more likely to read oneshots over multi-chaptered fics). But yes, believability and subject > shipping.

[fun-french-fri.livejournal.com]

I voted for #2. I only read gen, femslash, and my pairing.

Looks like a lot of people would read your fic :)

[pink-siamese.livejournal.com]

Enjoying one doesn't preclude enjoying the other.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

It's not like NO-ONE is going to read gen fic. Just fewer people. Whether you want to post them or not probably depends on how important popularity and comments are to you ;). I see plenty of great stories in this fandom with very little hype--that doesn't mean they're not great stories.

I think this is pretty much a "fandom effect", rather than a "Criminal Minds effect".

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not going to say I don't love comments (ha, who doesn't?), but it's more that I just don't know if anyone READS it. It's not like FFnet, where you can track hits and get an idea if people even clicked the link, ya know?

Every fandom is different in that way, and it's just really interesting to see how the CM is different from my last one! It's a huge learning curve, but it's kind of fun. :)

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and then even at ff.net you might get hits but not comments and not know if people liked it and just didn't leave a comment, or clicked and then went "aaah, my eyes..." and hit back.

[alice-the-raven.livejournal.com]

Excuse my ignorance, but I'm getting the sense that you don't mean like shipping as in freight? What does that mean?

[elventree.livejournal.com]

In fandom, 'ship' is a short form of 'relationship'. ;)

[silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com]

Not to be pedantic, but there are at least two canon pairings, Garcia/Kevin and JJ/Will. I don't read much Criminal Minds fic, but I have liked some Garcia/Kevin I've seen.

[basinbrat.livejournal.com]

I prefer a good gen fic to a good "oh my God how can you even think of pairing them together" fic.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Gen only, and frankly, these days, very little of that.

[antoinettemason.livejournal.com]

i didn't vote because none of the choices really fit me. i strongly prefer gen, and if it weren't for the fact that there are so few gen stories in this fandom, i'd probably stick exclusively to gen with maybe 3%-5% shipfics thrown in if the premise intrigued me enough and the writer could convince me of the pairing. as it is, the "premise intrigues me and i'm not rolling my eyes at the shippy stuff" is pretty much my current criteria for which fics i read.

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

While I like some ships (and honestly, will usually skip fics that don't fall into that my favs category) I adore gen fic. After all - that's why I love the show.

But at the end of the day, it's the quality of the writing that matters most.

[cathaign.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the general fics, especially because there are few canon pairings on the show, but I also love really out there ships when the authors can make the ship plausible. I love reading in character characters in relationships you wouldn't normally think about.

Note the in character part.

I think it's a credit to authors that can make these oddball pairings work like they do, and I enjoy plowing through as much fic as possible!

[finnickodair.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, I'll read anything that's well written, really. I'm more likely to stick a mediocre/not-so-compelling fic out if it's for one of my favoured ships, and there is one ship that I just won't touch with a barge pole because it makes me *headwall* but definitely nothing against gen. :)

[aguaracu.livejournal.com]

I'd love you for posting good casefic without shipping! :-D

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Answered "Will read anything", but it's more "I'll read seriously good paired fics, but I prefere gen." (At least in this fandom, where it takes considerable and sensitive interpretive work to get any relationship between canon characters off the ground.)

[frost.livejournal.com]

I prefer shipping in my fiction, but... it depends on the fandom.
In some fandoms, I don't mind Gen because the characters in canon are already really close (like in this fandom, for example). =)

[liliaeth]

This is a hard question to answer, since it depends from fandom to fandom. In Criminal Minds though I prefer reading gen (non shipping) fic and crossovers.

I actually prefer gen as a rule, but in most fandoms there are certain ships that I like as well, where I won't read fics that involve ships I don't like.

I much prefer casefic, over fic that basically just takes two chars and puts them in a romantic relationship, ignoring pretty much anything that makes these chars interesting onscreen to begin with.

[maldeluxx.livejournal.com]

I chose the last one. There are some pairings I won't read, but mainly cos I'm not interested, but Gens can be okay, especially if the plot is interesting.

[edom56.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is, I read fanfic to get things I don't, or can't, get on the show itself.

Since my OTP isn't really there on the show (other than in the things only I and others that ship them see ;) I read and write fanfic to see them together.

[tragicllyhip.livejournal.com]

I love love Gen fic and I wish there was more. But that said, I only read stories that are Reid-centric, but i absolutely prefer stories where he's not paired with anyone, because he isn't on the show. So there needs to be a push for Gen i think, so lead the way:D

[icy-imaginary.livejournal.com]

I don't ship and I don't like it. I would read it if it is well written but I prefer stories about friendship without love and romance.

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you there, in preferring stories about friendship to stories about romance.

And also, I am head-over-heels in love with your icon. That is one of my all-time favorite snapshots, and I failed multiple times at iconning it! So... nice job. xD

[icy-imaginary.livejournal.com]

Really? Good to meet some people who share the same opinion about that :)
So your FF's are more about friendship without romance? Definitely need to check them out.

Awww, thank you so much :D
Took me about an hour to create this icon (yep, I'm slow). If you like this scene that much you can use the icon if you like.
Love your icon, too ♥ need to watch some episodes again :)

[invaderk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I try to avoid romance at all costs (at least for the Criminal Minds fandom), but I've only really posted one story. (Two and a collection technically, but the more recent one was not meant to be taken seriously, and the collection was requests and therefore full of romance).

Maybe I shall use the icon in the future! Will be sure to credit if I do. ;)

[drasticbarbie.livejournal.com]

I also felt there weren't enough choices. In general, I will only read CM fic that is hard-core slash with either Reid/Hotch or Reid/Adam J.

BUT!!! I would probably read gen stuff that was Reid centric IF it didn't involve any actual crime drama and IF it was extremely well-written and IF it was short, say one chapter with a few thousand to around a ten thousand words. I'm talking things I'd like to see Reid's character actually do on the show, like visit his mommy or some other mundane thing like that.

I love the show, so my personal preference in reading fanfic would be to read something that the show lacks, like quiet, drawn-out moments between only two of the characters or with one character (Reid) doing something that he might actually do in the show's reality. That, or hard-core gay sex.

But don't let the seeming lack of gen interest keep you from writing anything you want to write. As you can see, there is interest. And, as it is gen and not slash or het slash, you can post it to other sites as well in order to reach a wider audience where explicit stories aren't always allowed.

[kandy-barr.livejournal.com]

FAITHFUL SHIPPER.
Thats what FF is all about, escaping the "reality" and writing something that COULD be or that you feel/wish was a reality.
I read non-cannon if it doesnt squick me out too much.