Yet another post about the whole gen issue

[salinea]

(See the last 2 or 3 metafandom editions if you wonder what i'm talking about)

The more I think about, the more I think that the categories of het, slash and gen, as categories, are mostly useless. In fact, I never actually included them in any fic I've posted myself (the information is usually contained in the "Characters/Pairings" line).

If we want categies denoting genres/focus, "Romance", "Drama", "Action/Adventure", "Character exploration", "Smut", etc. make much better descriptors, as well as some kind of descriptions about how the story stands vis-a-vis to canon (A/U, post-canon, missing scenes, just-like-a-canon-episode, retcon/canon-fix...)

I also think the issue is that we're thinking of these categories as mutually exclusive. What is gen cannot be het, what is het cannot be slash, what is slash cannot be gen. Which is bollocks. There's nothing saying a story couldn't focus on both a canon-like-plot and a non-canon Romance! Nor is there anything saying that a story can't be focussed on two couples, one het, one slash.

But yeah, people want to be warned against the pairings they dislike, in every cases, so warning for pairings all the time should be the best behaviour.

ETA : Okay, so non-exhaustive list of genres I can think of right now

- Romance / Smut (probably handier to merge them)
- Plot driven stories (with subcategories for things like action/adventure, mystery/investigation, war-stories, intrigue, Sci-fi...)
- Noromo relationships (a fic which focus on a relationship which is not explored as romantic, whether it's family, friends, partners, colleagues or people who hate each others)
- Character study (any fic which is about exploring a character's personnality, or their reaction to something)
- Comedy / Humour (need I specify?)
- World exploration (for fics that want to expand that little obscure corner of canon)
- Surrealism / Fairy Tale / Dreamscape (because I'm not sure where else this kind of stories fit)

any suggestions/criticisms?

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

listing pairings AND/OR all main characters should be mandatory, really. That the most important thing about a fic IMO. A/N are nifty but the can tell, well, anything ^^ I mean nothing specify what should be in A/N.

The Gen explosion really shows that the issue isn't clear in people's mind, which shows it's not that good a descriptor ^^

I also hate when people don't include word count! I like to know if a fic is a novella or a drabble before i start reading it ^^; especiall when it's a novella.

I admit that the trouble with my "genre" is that they're not always easy to define. For exemple I remember a "gen" fic by klynie1 which centers around Remus' first month in Hogwarts and his interraction with the Marauders. No pairing, of course. It's not really plot heavy and can't be defined as action or adventure or mystery. How would anyone tag it? character/friendship study? Of course in this case the summary is a good indicator of what's the fic's about, but if we want a label it's not always easy.

The only warnign I thing spoil stuff are character death warnings!! XD

[mnemosyne-1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just like A/N in general - not that they tell lots of stuff necessarily, but I love reading about where authors get ideas or how they have to explain something in an AU setting...

And word count not being included always gets me! I know how long I have to read at a given time - sometimes I only have time for a ficlet, sometimes a fic, and sometimes I have all weekend to read a novella/novel. I hate starting something and not be able to finish it b/c I didn't know how long it was!

I think I'd characterize the fic you mentioned simply as character-centric - and there the summary will play a big role in telling you what kind of a fic it is.

Also, I don't think with any kind of fic that just one label will always fit, especially with longer fics. You can have romantic comedy, romantic action, comedic action, dramedy... just one label isn't going to fit necessarily.

I have to say that I do like to be warned when the main characters are going to die - that way I can prepare myself. *g* But that's just me. I've seen people do the warnings where, if you want to know, you have to highlight the space. I think that's a good compromise between those who really want warnings and those who prefer not to have them.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

More than A/N, I love DVD commentary ♥ and yeah I love it when people talk about the writing and how and why^^^

I don't think with any kind of fic that just one label will always fit, especially with longer fics. You can have romantic comedy, romantic action, comedic action, dramedy... just one label isn't going to fit necessarily.
Absolutly!! No mutually exclusive labels!!

I try to do the highlight space trick ideally. Otherwise I think I do put a character death pairing more often than not. I just don't like to be warned, myself, when I read fics ^^ but i bow to the majority.

[mnemosyne-1.livejournal.com]

I like your list of categories that you added - makes so much sense...

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I've started to bookmark all my to-read fic on del.icio.us and one of the tags I'm giving fics is length. I have suddenly developed a huge hate-on for people who don't include word count. :p Especially if a story is spread over multiple chapters. It's one thing for me to highlight and do a quick word count if it's on one page, but if your story is twenty chapters, no way. And I have no way of knowing if those twenty chapters are a thousand words each, or five thousand.

[mnemosyne-1.livejournal.com]

Or 10,000. *g* I've had that one happen before. And the story was lovely, but I would have liked to know that I was going to be up until 4am reading the darn thing b/c when I started it at 11pm, I had no idea how long it was! If I know, then I can bookmark for reading the next day, instead of getting sucked into a vortex of can't-stop-reading plot.