bookworm_2005 (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bookworm_2005) wrote,@ 2008-01-06 11:04:00 |
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| Entry tags: | my essays |
Why Read Slash?
I’m an avid slasher and I’ve read lots of articles/discussions about why people write slash, but not so many about why people read slash. So here’s my two cents worth:
Why do I read Slash?
Mainly, because it’s more interesting and of a higher quality than fan fiction het. I mean, if I wanted to read well (or not so well) written hetfic, I have what is otherwise known as the Romance Genre, a prolific source of professional hetfic. Romance books surround me at every turn, in the market, at home, at the library, etc. Also, in many fandoms, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, CSI, Buffy, etc., high quality het fan fiction gets published professionally and ceases to be classified as “fan fiction”. This leaves the Online fan fiction community with the left-over hetfic. After all, if you want to be able to publish your work professionally, you certainly aren’t going to post it online. In addition, many of the het pairings available in a fandom have already been thoroughly explored in the fandom’s canon, making it harder to create fresh and interesting plot-lines for het fan fiction. While I have read some good quality hetfic online, it’s much harder too find, because for the most part, the bar for the whole fan fiction genre is set lower then it is for “professional” works.
However, there is quite a bit of high quality slash fan fiction available online. Since it’s not nearly as easy to get slash published professionally, the online community has access to a lot of professional-caliber works, which raises the bar for the entire fan fiction genre. I’m not saying that all slash is high quality, because it’s not. I’ve read good slash, bad slash, and “must scour my harddrive immediately, it’s so awful” slash. But the percentage of high-quality slash that is available is much higher than it is for hetfic. Slash readers help to keep the bar for slash quality high by expecting writers to produce better and better slash. And, of course, slash pairings are rarely, if ever, explored in a fandom’s canon, which means that even before it’s written a slash story already has something fresh and interesting in the plot.
So I read slash because I overdosed on romance books as a teenager and find the same-old, same-old in hetfic to be incredibly boring. Slash looks at a situation from a new and interesting perspective and adds a whole new dynamic to a story.
Why do I read Slash?
Mainly, because it’s more interesting and of a higher quality than fan fiction het. I mean, if I wanted to read well (or not so well) written hetfic, I have what is otherwise known as the Romance Genre, a prolific source of professional hetfic. Romance books surround me at every turn, in the market, at home, at the library, etc. Also, in many fandoms, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, CSI, Buffy, etc., high quality het fan fiction gets published professionally and ceases to be classified as “fan fiction”. This leaves the Online fan fiction community with the left-over hetfic. After all, if you want to be able to publish your work professionally, you certainly aren’t going to post it online. In addition, many of the het pairings available in a fandom have already been thoroughly explored in the fandom’s canon, making it harder to create fresh and interesting plot-lines for het fan fiction. While I have read some good quality hetfic online, it’s much harder too find, because for the most part, the bar for the whole fan fiction genre is set lower then it is for “professional” works.
However, there is quite a bit of high quality slash fan fiction available online. Since it’s not nearly as easy to get slash published professionally, the online community has access to a lot of professional-caliber works, which raises the bar for the entire fan fiction genre. I’m not saying that all slash is high quality, because it’s not. I’ve read good slash, bad slash, and “must scour my harddrive immediately, it’s so awful” slash. But the percentage of high-quality slash that is available is much higher than it is for hetfic. Slash readers help to keep the bar for slash quality high by expecting writers to produce better and better slash. And, of course, slash pairings are rarely, if ever, explored in a fandom’s canon, which means that even before it’s written a slash story already has something fresh and interesting in the plot.
So I read slash because I overdosed on romance books as a teenager and find the same-old, same-old in hetfic to be incredibly boring. Slash looks at a situation from a new and interesting perspective and adds a whole new dynamic to a story.
Bookworm
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