Fanfic - where have all the guys gone? Or how we discuss things in Fan Fic...

Yeah, but we have these -->

Well...that doens't improve things much, but it's something.

 

Well, to each his own.

I can think of a ton of reasons to engage in debate, not the least of which is that, through solid discussion, we open our minds to other points of view. It is true that some people who engage in online debates only do so to get a rise out of people and, like I said, I understand the dynamic here--I simply am personally not fond of it.

I got an interesting PM from someone who was following this discussion and he suggested that the ban on con-crit is at the heart of the reason there is so little debate here in Resource. I'll quote (with his permission).

I did want to pass along one thought. I think it explains a huge difference between Fanfic and the JCC or Senate.

There is no concrit in story threads in fanfic. This is almost certainly a good policy, because most writers are just posting for fun and don't WANT serious concrit. Certainly, there would be overwhelming opposition to removing the prohibition on unsolicited concrit.

So the users in fanfic have become accustomed to not having their work challenged or criticized. Unlike anyone who posts in Lit or JCC or the Senate -- where you can EXPECT your ideas to be challenged and criticized.

And this fanfic no-concrit dynamic carries over into Resource. People do NOT like to have their ideas challenged or criticized.

It's that dynamic that paralyzes any attempt (including several in the Parthenon back in the day) to talk seriously about improving writing. Because any suggestions for improvement are necessarily criticisms of weaknesses -- meaning concrit. And most fanficcers can't take concrit, even indirectly by implication.

It struck me as insightful and pointed. I thought I'd share.

On the subject of male mods, I think the point that Maeti was trying to make is that men tend to think a bit differently and that this can bring up different perspectives. I don't think she was suggesting that the mods in place are bad ones or unfair in any way. At least, that's what I got out of what she was saying. Nat's point that, because fanfic is primarily women, it's not surprising that all the mods are women is a good one on that issue, though.

 

Along with diane, I was one of the regulars in the old Obi-Wan thread. Many, many times we had discussions about his character - serious, intelligent discussions. But here's the thing: we prided ourselves on being able to discuss his character in a serious-but-fun, intelligent-but-wacky way. A heated debate was a rare thing simply because we recognized that it was getting heated, and rather than upset the atmosphere of the thread, we agreed to disagree and moved on, sometimes taking the discussions to PMs or IMs.

So yes, on the surface it looked like all we did was drool over Obi-Wan and talk about jello, but we had very different opinions on what the character was really like, and that produced a lot of great talks.

And somehow Drabbo - a guy - survived all of that, and we loved him for it.

The reply length - I think that stereotypically in real life women will say more than men. They'll ramble on, gush, applaud, while men will say "Okay, good job." But this comes from observing a conversation between my brother and sister-in-law. For me, I just say whatever I want to say. Sometimes I want to say more but don't know how, so I say that. I may gush over a dark twisted vig, or if there's a really cool action sequence I'll quote a couple lines and go "NICE!!" Kind of goes back to what men and women will notice in a story.

As for the female mods and fairness thing, I'm not sure what was meant by that. If it implies that the lady mods are being unfair to men, well...I have two padawans, and they're both guys. If anything, I have to curb the impulse to favor them over everyone else. But maybe that's just because they're my padawans. At the end of the day, I don't care if you're a guy, a girl, or a vegetable.


edit: On the subject of concrit, I posted in Comms a few days back explaining that we have rules against it not just because we're protecting people's opinions. We're protecting people's original, creative work. As I said there, maybe we're coddling folks, but to me most people seem to be happy with it. Yes, it's difficult to balance no unsolicited concrit with deep discussions, but we try.

 

I had to dash off, mid-post so I didn't quite get to address one thing in the last post.

On quoting: I realized sometime last year that, here in Resource, some people seem to get offended by quoting. I'd never seen it before and didn't know what to make of it. For me, quoting is the only way to ensure that the person on the other end knows what points (if any) you're addressing (and it's a good way for you to know whether or not your points are being addressed). Given the lack of non-verbal cues that we all agree are missing, it seems like quoting's about the best way to go. That said, I recognize that some people cringe at it and always have to weigh quoting and risking the person getting offended against ensuring proper communication.

Everyone keeps saying "heated" as if debate automatically has to be heated. I'm not talking about heated debate or arguing or personalizing. Quite honestly, what you describe above as having a "serious-but-fun, intelligent-but-wacky" discussion sounds great to me. Anyway, I've beaten the horse and it's quite dead. I'll shut up on the issue. I simply don't like the fact that what I'm talking about is consistently mischaracterized.

On reply length, I usually have the longest replies on a given story I respond to. But then again, I'm just verbose.

Even the person who PMd me said that our rule on unsolicited con-crit is a good thing and I have no disagreement on the issue. I think the point was that it might explain the more subdued discussions we have in Resource. It wasn't necessarily a criticism of the policy itself (at least, I didn't take it that way).

 

Hmmm...I wonder why this is such a touchy subject? What the heck, I may as well throw in my two cents:

To begin with, there are many valid points being made here. I would be all day trying to quote and comment on each post I find relevant, so instead I'm just going to wing it.
As for the original question, all I can say is that during the last few months that I have been lurking, and then finally posting, on the fanfic boards I have inadvertantly noticed that females tended to dominate the active community. Not that I directly tried to discern the gender of any particular members. For me, it was more a matter of backwards realization. As I read more stories that I found interesting, it became fairly obvious that the majority of the work I read was authored by women. Frankly, I just didn't think that gender had anything to do with my perception of the which fics I was following. I definitely do not believe that the gender of the author effects my interest in a given story, nor do the other board members who were also posting in those same threads. After a while, I certainly learned to recognize some members more than others no matter what their gender, but I think that I tend to base my perceptions of each individuals work much more on content than any other factor. Of course, I noticed that there are some topics/ plots/ themes that women tend to cover much more frequently than men seem to. And vice versa. It's not exclusive and it's not unexpected either. Regardless of whether or not this occurs within the context of SW subject matter, it is only natural that such discrepancies exist.

So, be that as it may, a few points:

- There have been a few times already that I felt compelled to announce my gender, as if it somehow qualified me to post certain comments without feeling like I was intruding into the "girls' clubhouse" as it were. I don't really know why, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. In hindsight, it may have been a subconscious comprehension that I was in the minority as far as gender was concerned. It was certainly not my intention offend anybody, but I did feel like my posts would seem less ambiguous if people knew the gender of the person behind them. If anything, I thought that would lend some credibility to my contributions, from a male POV. OTOH, I am aware that my decidedly minimal understanding of female psychology might be getting me into more trouble than I hoped to avoid. Oh well, that's who I am...

- I would be the first to admit that I am much more apt to discuss sensitive & emotional topics with complete (female) strangers over the internet than I ever would in "real" life. Why? No mystery here. I don't know you and you don't know me. If I were mocked, no real harm done to ego as long as we all hide behind anonymous icon and false screen names. If a topic came up that that required individual conversation to resolve "off camera" that's what PM is for.

- Anyway, I submit that gender plays little role in the day to day activity of the board. From the mods down to the n00bs. Sure, there will be dissent from time to time, and perhaps there may statistical evidence that gender occasionally has something to do with that. So what? That's life. We are not about to have a collective epiphany regarding the profound fundamental differences between the sexes anytime soon. So let's just continue to enjoy the stories shared here by valuable members, and sort out the trolls as necessary.

 

As a female admin, working with two very male admins, I have to say I think sometimes we're seen as the "softer" side of moderating where that may not be true. I think I'm just the more verbose one, which really isn't a surprise, as I'm a Fan Ficcer.

And true debate is never heated, but when it becomes more personal in nature, it can set off a defensive mechanism that's just human nature. That's why we try to keep it to "post/not the poster" in most forums. I think that's a little bit more difficult in Fan Fic because a) writing is very personal b) we're a close knit community and we know each other well (a little too well, sometimes) and that sometimes leads to preconceived notions when listening (or not listening as the case may be) to people.

 

Hi, I'm going to throw my 1.7234 cents in because, well, I want to. This is my first post on the Resource Board, but this was a really interesting discussion so here it goes.

So far, as I read skipping through it, we are talking about:

1) Male representation on the boards;
2) Debates on the board as they may relate to point 1);
3) The dichotimy of the male/female experience and the need for a paradigm shift from the latter to the former through the whole of Star-Wars related fanfiction on these boards.

Okay, well, 3) might be stretching it.

I'm a male writer. Married. Young kids. Tired all the time. I lurked for a year before I made my first post. All the stories I loved were by women. My Beta is a woman. (I won't name names, but if I did, I'd say: Jedi-2B. She rocks as both Beta and writer). I'm not going to claim to be a great writer because I've never attracted the billions of responses that some others have. That's okay. If I were a great writer I'd be published by now instead of posting on a fan fiction resource board. But I have noticed that females dominate the boards here.

Which is exactly what I would have expected. In fact, I would be shocked silly if it had been otherwise. I went to grad school and studied English lit for my MA. On average, my class size was around a dozen. I never saw a class with more than two men, including myself. Usually I was the only male. (Great place to pick up girls, any guys out there. That's where I met the wife.)

I was in a sci-fi writing club (a very established and successful one with three published authors including a Nebula award winner) and 80% of them were women, and the entire league was essential run by women because the men showed no interest in being a part of the leadership of a volunteer program that didn't pay any wages.

Schools on average graduate more women than men, and liberal arts areas even more so. One could even argue that the shift to empower girl students has at the same time disenfrachised male students and led to a new reverse discrimination in the American public school system against boys, but I'm not going to.

Instead, I'll say that I'm not at all shocked women dominate fan fiction, regardless of genre. I've personally noticed women tend to be more effusive and verbal than men on average, and this translates into writing as well. There are the exceptions to these trends, and there will always be men in the mix.

Is there any discrimination in the boards? Probably not. Those men who want heated debate should head over to the some of the other sites that exist solely for debate, argument, and rancor. You can debate there until you're blue in the face, be made fun of, ridicule other posters and have a jolly old time.

This is simply not the place for that. Like many of you have said, the boards are sedate because the users like it that way. Heck, I like it that way. I don't mind someone suggesting alternatives or even making critiques of my writing. I value constructive feedback as it is allowed. One of my best readers challenges me all the time, and I've made better stories for those challenges. But I have no more interest in being flamed than the next, and without the policies in place that would happen because the only thing more difficult than giving good constructive criticism is recieving it in the manner it was intended.

As for perspectives--a truly gifted writer can place themselves in any characters mind. The ones that you don't know are men, or women, are the writers with the greatest gift of writing, or the ones who are so bad it doesn't make a difference. Needless to say, most people pick me for a guy three words into the fic.

Anyway, that's my 1.7234 cents on the matter from a relative newbie on the boards. Great thread!

Cheers.
D_M

 

On confusion over what Souderwan is calling for: My impression was that for people who think we're already having plenty of discussions with disagreement and differing opinions, the natural interpretation was that Souderwan was hoping for something a bit harsher.

On concrit or its absence: The thing that bothers me about the prohibition is that it codifies an erroneous definition. "Con" is short for "constructive," darn it, not "contra." Far too many people seem to think that "concrit" means telling someone everything that's wrong with the story, with at most a few often-insincere compliments thrown in like perfunctory packing peanuts to cushion the blow. This isn't true. If you go through a story and analyze how the writer accomplished the things that worked... that's concrit. But that's allowed, as it should be. Which means we're perpetuating a problem definition.

Yes, I know I am a pedant sometimes. But it really bothers me when people dismiss the ability of positive commentary to be thoughtful, useful, and yes, a legitimate result of critical thought. It also troubles me that because of this definition issue, requesting concrit on a story here sounds like you're asking only for the negatives.

On quoting: It... honestly never occurred to me that this would be offensive.

On the lack of nonverbal cues: I tend to think this is somewhat overrated, especially since we are dealing with... you know... writers. People have been communicating via writing for centuries, conveying information and conducting debates and even making friends. The key is to remember that you are in fact writing, not transcribing what you would say if you could gesture and raise or lower your voice.

Then again, I never feel I'm any better at getting stuff across in person anyway. Plus I know at least one person whose nonverbal cues screech disapproval pretty much all the time, sometimes even when she is giving a sincere compliment.

On character/writing discussions vs. "community" threads: I do think there may be some effect from the fact that if you're talking about character interpretations or how to write something, you can end up actually going to write a story about it instead of writing a discussion post -- whereas this is not as obvious a result of, say, a thread like this. Plus, where another fanficcer's ideas about Star Wars don't necessarily affect how I'm allowed to write or behave, their ideas about policy can affect that a lot.

 

To momentarily hijack the thread, I think that the policy against unsolicited constructive criticism is good, but it discourages solicited constructive criticism because people see that the former is bad and instinctively avoid the latter to avoid breaking the rules. In addition ...

I'm not so sure it's the abbreviation of 'constructive criticism' into 'concrit' as it's very few knowing what constructive criticism really is, as said so well by Persephone_Kore. Not knowing what it is, few feel comfortable offering it and even fewer feel comfortable soliciting it.

We're invested in what we write and our 'payment' is the admiration and enjoyment of others. It takes a brave soul to open themselves up to more evaluation than 'I loved this story!'.

 

Ahhh, okay, now I get what you're saying. Never thought of it that way before.

Persephone has a point that "concrit" doesn't always mean solely negative comments. But I don't know of a better way to word it. Certainly people do give some type of concrit on the boards - those long, detailed replies that can analyze a single chapter. And for the most part I'm not going to stop readers from saying something like, "I don't agree with what Obi-Wan did" because often that leads to good discussions between authors and readers.

Also, when I say "heated debate," I mean that people get passionate about their opinions, whether it's in Fan Fic, Senate, movie forums, wherever. So in my head "heated" isn't always the same as "mudslinging debacle." I suppose I use it a bit more lightly than others, but then I'm very verbose and animated when I'm going off on a topic.

 

I believe my muse is a girl... or a very sappy guy

My muse is a girl. An intelligent, very bratty, occasionally uncooperative, girl.

I can vouch for Darth_Marrs on the ratio of female to male in English. Even at the beginning level of my college English classes there was already a disparity between female and male. And when doing my ACT prep courses I was grouped with those better at English and reading . . . and I was one of three guys surrounded by eleven girls. Conversely, I was middling in science and in the worst class at Math . . . science there was parity but at math I was surrounded by girls (mostly the same ones as in English/reading) again.

I've also noticed that women tend to write with a more flowery style, with greater use of vocabulary and detail than men on average, and often have longer chapters and paragraphs. I'm a bit of a misnomer here, considering I tend to cram details into my work and my chapters tend to go over 10 pages. I'm not going to completely PC here, but I think it has to be the way the female and male minds are geared. Men love action. They want to go straight to the point and start the stuff blowing up already. They don't want to read detail-filled sentences. They want you to get to the freaking point already! While women tend to show greater patience and like having more fleshed-out situations and environments, and don't mind having more time taken to describe the same scene. I've noticed that when it comes to suspense/horror novels, men tend to go to Stephen King while women favor Dean Koontz. When you compare King to Koontz you notice a great difference in their styles. King's prose is plain and sparse, and goes to the point quickly without dwelling too much. Koontz's books often have scenes that often carry over all over the book, and hint at the eventual twist or conclusion at the book, often requiring you to pay absolute attention. And I'm not going to go into the differences between King's and Koontz's heroes and heroines.

As for constructive criticism, I usually don't mind it. In fact, I'm often more uncomfortable receiving praise than a critique. I'm not going to stop somebody from dropping a remark about an awkward moment or that s/he doesn't think that a character handled a situation correctly and in character. It causes good discussions, as Jade Solo has mentioned.

 

You've just described my husband to a T.

 

I'm not sure how else to say it, so I'll just stop saying it. But really, debate is not rancor.

Really. I mean it. This is not what I'm talking about. I'll pretend you were being funny and laugh instead of cringe.

Anyway, this has all been interesting. I got to say what I was thinking, which is more than some might be inclined to do. I'll comment on the other stuff if time presents itself.

 

Souderwan, I think I understood what you were saying.

Perhaps a spectrum...

Heated, angry, arguments = Bad
Thoughtful, intelligent, true debate = Good
Slightly cautious, agreeable debate that rarely gets into heavier matters for fear of getting that first category = What we usually have in FFR
No debate whatsoever = Bad


Close?

 

Spot on, my man! Thank you!

 

I'll buy that for a credit.

Any topic that drifts too far into the first category is likey to get out of hand quickly while people start getting too defensive and either start taking sides or just blasting away at anybody who challenges them. At which point, gender based issues are probably the least of our worries anyway, unless somebody is deliberately being sexist for the sake of stoking the flames. Uncalled for, certainly, but hopefully it can be curtailed or eliminated from these boards whenever possible. I cannot deny that a certain amount of censorship is implied by that last statement, but since we are all subject to the TOS regardless, it really makes no sense argue over something we have no control over to begin with.

 

I wonder if one of the reasons we steer widely clear of controversial debates is actually representative of the board's majority female demographic. This is not universally true, of course, and depends a lot on the individual as well, but I've found that, when it comes to disagreements and differences of opinion, women are more likely to take things personally than men are. I know, that's a bogus generalization that I don't even really buy into... but it is important to think about the fact that preexisting patterns of social behavior can play a much larger role in discussions than we think they do. And when the disagreement is between people of different genders, there are other, messier things that can creep into the mix--like power dynamics, for instance.

I'm not saying we're all subject to the impulses of our dominant societies, but I am saying we might not be as detached from those impulses as we think we are. As a general rule, I try to be as explicitly unoffensive as possible when engaging in online discourse, but I triple- and quadruple-check myself when I know there are females in my audience. It's not some sort of self-censorship for the sake of politeness, or a grudging chore I perform to avoid some sort of imagined reaction. I just spend more time considering the sensitivity of what I say when I'm interacting in a mixed group than I do when I'm interacting only with men.

This isn't just the case online, either, though the detached nature of internet text adds another layer to the need for sensitivity. I should make it clear, too, that I'm not positing my own experience as universally representative (though I do have it from reasonable authority that my case is far from an isolated one). And I certainly don't want to make it sound like mixed-gender discussions are inferior to all-male debate; on the contrary, mixed-gender debates are highly valuable. I'm just trying to suggest that we might not be able to completely dismiss gender from our current discussion of, well, discussion as it exists in our corner of the boards.

I suppose I mostly wanted to throw this idea out there, because even though we've talked about the ways gender doesn't play a big role in our writing and interaction, we haven't talked very much about the ways that it does. Any thoughts?

 

Wow, I must hang around the wrong threads around here I've always found that discussion around the threads I like to inhabit is wonderfully constructive. I guess I don't stray far from what I know, however I can point to two examples of recent debate that were fruitful. One in Seedy Side where we had a look at the nature of Morality in the underworld of the GFFA, and the recent Mary Sue discussion in the Essential Guide - both of which had plenty of viewpoints. A bit further back in that thread there was also a discussion about death of main characters in which multiple viewpoints were offered and discussed. None of it ever got to the point of 'heated' or 'argumentative', so I think I've been spoiled with my experiences

My question is, maybe because I still think of myself as relatively new despite having been here a year now, is there often a call for these big debates we've been talking about? (Note I said 'debates', not arguments. I understand completely where Souderwan is coming from when he distinguishes these two things. Colliding viewpoints are not necessarily colliding fists) Certainly I've had great literary discussions here, and haven't felt stifled at all. I guess the closest thing I've seen to one of these big debates was the one a little while ago about 'how much is too much...for you?'. That one flared a little, but I find that when you're talking about people's personal moral values that tends to happen

So to try and succinctify (word now trademarked) my post: When we're dealing with fanfic, what sort of 'big debates' are really required? We have character threads, we have genre and style threads... is the point that these threads aren't hitting their potential because people are too hesitant to offend? I rather think they're stimulating good discussion already

 

I don't think my gender has affected much. I think my heroines are generally stronger and more decisive than my heroes (and in the case of my villains, my female villains are generally more vicious while my males are more calculating). This of course, only applies when I'm not working with someone else's material (which is what I'm generally doing right now), but as my own spin on things grows stronger I'm noticing my signature quirks appearing more and more. My original work is like that as well, only in spades. I don't know why I'm seemingly a big fan of the 'strong heroine', but perhaps it is because of my own social experiences and how I was raised. Most of the girls I've dated were athletes and/or strong-willed, and my mom is a lot like that too. So I expect that's had a factor in my interpretation of girls. I've written my share of quiet female characters, too, as well as mentally unbalanced ones and even a crybaby, but I find them more difficult to handle than a more confident, or outspoken, or quite simply, an 'enpowered' woman. My mom and a lot of people she knows are also feminists, so that's probably played a role in how my most naturally written female characters act.

Not to mention there seems to be more female characters than males in general in my work, anyway. I don't know. I have two brothers and a dad as well as my mom, so maybe I'm just sick of being around guys all the stinking time, and I don't see why I have to write them all the stinking time too.

My subconscious knows more than I do anyway. I've found unintentional naunces and layers that have served to better my stories all the time, and since I've already established, publicly, that my muse is a girl, maybe that's the all-defining factor, right there.

 

Then why didn't you just say all that in the first place?! Some male you are.*


*This referencing the comments that men get to the point while women add details, this is a joke, no offense meant, disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer.

Reminds me of an episode of The Office, when Dwight tries to take over Michael's job. Though Michael makes him pay, he still forgives Dwight. Angela, on the other hand, having been offended by Dwight's attitude on his non-trip to the top, just has this look on her face as though she's going to be holding a grudge for the next 300 years.

In other words, you made a good point. I think the social conditioning does make a bit of difference. Women are taught that speaking forcefully isn't a desirable trait to have, so when they do raise their voices - in a respectful but emphatic manner - sometimes it's preceded by "I'm going to sound like a *****" and followed by "Wow, she's such a *****." I often think that way, and I have to push myself to say something that I know people won't like for whatever reasons.

Maybe that's why people seem to hold back on some discussions? It's as much not wanting to offend as not wanting to be labeled the offender?

 

--you get fifty awesome points for illustrating my comment with a reference from The Office. And what does Michael say at the end of that scene when he exposes Dwight's scheme? "Hug it out, *****. That is what men say to each other after a fight. They hug it out and in doing so they just let it go and walk away and they?re done. Not a good idea to say that to a woman, however. I have found it doesn?t translate."

Anyway... yeah, I swear, I'm on topic .

 

I was this close to quoting Michael. It fits, doesn't it?

Guys can pummel each other and then be the best of friends afterwards. Girls can become life enemies over the slightest thing, but only if they let things go that far...? That's a theory, I don't know if it's even generally true in discussions here.

 

50 Awesome Points are equal to one Schrute Buck.

[image=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y165/YodaKenobi/schrute_buck.jpg]

This Schrute Buck is awarded to JadeSolo.

 

Darth_Marrs, what can I say, you're consistent. You did in fact give away your gender in the first sentence. You see, you made an obscure math reference. I graduated from a college with "Tech" in its name. Tech schools, or schools that use the word "institute," are like the polar opposite of liberal arts schools and universities. There are very few girls to be seen. And the ones you do see tend to be...different. Not often average, in other words. It takes a special kind of girl to prefer a tech school over a nontech school, I've found. I blame math. (but I hate math, so that's not unusual for me. I also believe math is responsible for WW2)

You know, I think this detail plays a part in our own subdued behavior, but in the exact opposite way than you think. In most forums across the internet, because Type is so limited, flame wars are always a loose comment by a noob away from exploding out of what would have otherwise been perfectly civilized conversation. Here, you rarely - if ever - get that.

I think it has something to do specifically with the fact that we're all writers. We're familiar with words and how to use them. I believe it was TheCrazyRodian who noted that he uses lots of different tactics to keep his words from being ambiguous. I'd say that's amazing, since most of what we do to keep ambiguity out of conversation relies on context, which is almost always a subconscious thing. That he's able to pick apart his own technique exemplifies my theory. Our unusually more advanced wordsmithery and far-deeper knowledge of how to express emotion through text all lend a hand to help make us extra civilized during discussions.


(discussions, like, for instance, say...this one)