Hurt/Comfort and Literary Merit

[ysabetwordsmith]

As part of the three_weeks_for_dw project (running April 25-May 15), I'm posting some content just to Dreamwidth. This is a good opportunity to seek new readers for your blog and new blogs to read, and to recommend stuff you enjoy on other people's blogs to help them make new connections too. Here is a set of posts about hurt/comfort literature. Start with "Hurt/Comfort as a Genre" and "Hurt/Comfort Plot Structure."


Hurt/Comfort and Literary Merit

Some people look down on hurt/comfort as inferior to other types of writing. This is no more true of hurt/comfort than it is of any other literature that people like to disrespect. Any genre, plot dynamic, mood, or other literary motif may be done well or poorly. There is nothing inherently laudable or disgraceful about them. It depends on the individual merits, or lack thereof, concerning a specific example. A genre may attract more or fewer serious writers compared to people who just want to fool around for fun, and therefore, may trend lighter or heavier, smoother or sloppier, depending on taste. But it's always possible to have good and bad examples.


Hurt/comfort is sometimes criticized for fetishizing other people's pain. Take a look at literature in general, and most of it does that to some degree, except for gentle fiction and early childhood fiction. Horror and its relatives, and mystery, lie heavily at the "hurt" end of the spectrum and may contain little or no comfort. They're all about watching people squirm. Romance is another genre widely mocked for being shallow, unrealistic, sometimes voyeuristic.

All that stuff is okay -- it's just storytelling. Storytelling is what humans do. We imagine things for fun. Other times we imagine things to warn each other away from potential danger, whether physical or psychological. Sometimes we also imagine things to think about what we might do in a similar situation. Hurt/comfort posits that, if somebody is sick or injured, you do your best to help. That's a solid foundation for human decency. An interest in that is not something to mock.

There are, of course, different reasons to read and write literature of any kind, not just hurt/comfort. Some people do it just for fun, especially fanfic. Some seek catharsis -- a way to get troublesome emotions from the inside to the outside, where they will be less of a bother. Some seek to communicate, a factor which drives the exchange of author/audience interaction, particularly in fanfic and crowdfunding venues. Some desire a pinnacle of craft, the artistry of language and literature; this is more common in original work, but also appears in fanfic. Some wish to make money, the purview of original work from which we get whole new canons to enjoy. There are mountains beyond mountains; there are many more motives people may have. These are just a few of the popular examples.

All of these reasons for reading and writing are okay. It's great to have options, to have different goals. Ideally, you know what your own goals are, and those may vary depending on your mood at the time. Know what you like. Know how to find or make it. Don't disrespect what other people are doing. Don't listen if other people try to put down what you enjoy either. Storytelling is for everyone. Tell ALL the stories.

How do you feel about the quality of hurt/comfort stories you have read or written? Do you find discussions of literary genres to be fun and welcoming, or full of wank?

Comments

[antivol.livejournal.com]

I've read a lot of excellent fics in fanfiction (including yours : )!). I've also read crap, and sometimes enjoyed it because it was heavy on the H/C and pushed all my buttons even if I could see it was not good.

I guess fanfiction is often criticized because it's not published, not official, and a lot of people don't know about it and have an uninformed opinion about it.

And like you said, hurt/comfort is a particular genre, it doesn't seduce the majority, it's more confidential. Like horror, you like it or not. I don't like horror, but I don't go judging those who do, I understand that, like you explained, it can be cathartic, or just plain fun.

I'm becoming more difficult to please now in my reading, and I don't read badfic as much as I used to (also, I got better in english, so I guess the bad writing is a lot more of an issue for me now !!)

Thanks for these discussions, it's interesting and enjoyable!

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I've read a lot of excellent fics in fanfiction (including yours : )!).<<

I'm happy to hear that. I've seen fanfic improve vastly over the decades, especially with the recent advent of editing in the form of beta readers. Some fanfic now exceeds the quality of some professionally published fiction. Yes, I can say that, I'm a professional editor. Take my word for it, slush is about on par with fanfic. It's just that fanfic now has a cream layer on top.

>> I've also read crap, and sometimes enjoyed it because it was heavy on the H/C and pushed all my buttons even if I could see it was not good. <<

I'll read fiction with a lower technical level if the storytelling is good. Technical skill can be learned. I spot typos for kajones_writing in trade for more fiction, which makes us both happy; and over time the quality is going right up. But it was the stories I fell in love with, the settings, the cool things going on that nobody else was writing about. That's how to hook me -- do something new and interesting.

>> I guess fanfiction is often criticized because it's not published, not official, and a lot of people don't know about it and have an uninformed opinion about it. <<

Fanfic is criticized because most people know bupkis about literature.

Fanfic is published by being released to the public. If it's in a fanzine, it's also edited and selected. It just isn't SOLD.

It's also easily categorized improperly. Some fanfic is written for personal pleasure, not for a literary goal. That's okay. But don't confuse it with stuff that's intended to have a complete plot, character growth, and all the other trappings of full-blown storytelling. Some things are just for fun, and fanfic has a lot of that. If the writer had a good time, and especially if the strokefic strokes off the good feelings for readers with similar tastes, then it is meeting its goal and therefore effective writing. It's just not going to look like something written for a competitive market or literary idealism.

The really cool stuff? Is the aspected work, often described as transformative work. This is where an author asks some thoughtful question such as "What if Tony Stark was a girl? What if Batman was black? What if somebody noticed that Harry Potter was being abused and stopped that?" Then they write a story to explore what happens based on that change. Some people make clunky stories as a result, but you know what? I don't care. They're thinking. Let them experiment. If they keep it up, and some do, eventually we get freaking awesome benderfic. And then you know what happens?

Somebody shoots Elementary. I really don't think we'd have that show were it not for fanfic's deep tradition of benderfic.

>>And like you said, hurt/comfort is a particular genre, it doesn't seduce the majority, it's more confidential. Like horror, you like it or not.<<

Maybe not the hardcore H/C, but there is far more of it in the mainstream than most people realize. Think about the vast swath of romantic and comedic entertainment that centers around somebody having a broken heart (hurt) and their friend(s) trying to cheer them up (comfort).

>> I'm becoming more difficult to please now in my reading <<

I'm getting frankly spoiled by crowdfunding. I walk into a bookstore now, I have to drive an hour to get there, and I'm likely to get as many ideas for fixit writing as I am for things I actually want to buy and read. Plus the books on the shelves are competing not just against each other, but all the projects I read and can rarely afford to support.

I still buy some hardcopy books, but it's getting harder to sell me a book when so much of it is derivative and less interesting than my ability to go home and say, "I wanna thingie" to my friends who will then write me the thingie I asked for. Not a thingie somebody else thinks I should like and buy: MY THINGIE. If I want a strong female character, a black guy who lives through the story, happy lesbians, an unemployed hero, a hera in a wheelchair, a sane AI -- all I have to do is pop into somebody's prompt call and ask.

I don't think publishers have quite realized how serious a threat this is.

>>Thanks for these discussions, it's interesting and enjoyable!<<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

Re: Thank you!

[chordatesrock]

I don't know what "aspected work" means, but it sounds like you're talking about my favorite kind of AUs. I love those. They're fascinating to work out. A good AU can do many things. It can:
1. Fix a problem.
2. Develop a minor character who was lovable but died early.
3. Allow a ship to work.
4. Explore another intricate plot in the same style as canon, without needing to introduce a new villain.
5. Explore the ways that seemingly small things can change who you are, or the ways that seemingly big things can fail to change people, or even both at once.
6. Do everything fully-canon-compliant fic can do!

And this is why I took over au100.

I find it hilarious and sadly ironic that published books are so derivative that you end up in fan-dominated spaces to avoid the derivative stuff. (I also think it's flat-out amazing that you have crossed over your own canon with another canon. Existing models don't usually allow for that kind of thing and I love you break them.)

That said, I personally like to read slightly crappy popular books, to get a feel for what happens in them. Of course, I read them for free from the library, which helps a lot.

I think that if The Hardcopy-Creating Machine really understood the power of fanfic, fanfic would be seriously threatened, as opposed to laughably attempted!threatened.

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I don't know what "aspected work" means, but it sounds like you're talking about my favorite kind of AUs. <<

It means taking one aspect of a character, setting, etc. and magnifying it or altering it. Frex, Erik Lensherr is both a Jew and a mutant; Magneto focuses on the mutant side. Aspect that and you could get a Zionist Magneto instead (magnification). Drop the Jewish aspect and put him in a concentration camp for homosexuality (alteration) and you get a different characterization yet again.

As I mentioned before, a more common term is transformative work. I like aspected because it refers to aspects of character or setting such as are discussed in literary analysis. Those are exactly the kinds of things that people like to play with: not just in fanfic but in revisioning works in the public domain, as happens with King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

>>I find it hilarious and sadly ironic that published books are so derivative that you end up in fan-dominated spaces to avoid the derivative stuff.<<

*shrug* I'm a hobby-scientist, a linguist, a literary analyst, a kitchen-sink scholar. I go where the data is. I have no qualms about mining fanfic to see what excites readers, then loading that into my original canons. It works. As I am not currently in school nor being paid to read slush, I don't have to read anything that bores me.

>> (I also think it's flat-out amazing that you have crossed over your own canon with another canon. Existing models don't usually allow for that kind of thing and I love you break them.) <<

*laugh* Existing models and I have a ... fragile world relationship.

I actually got Hulk muttering "Stupid reality tunnel. HULK SMASH." I really need to catch him doing that onstage.

>> That said, I personally like to read slightly crappy popular books, to get a feel for what happens in them. <<

I like Sharon Shinn's science fantasy Samaria novels. The science part is traaaaash. But the romance is usually fun and the worldbuilding is cool too. I just have to leave my suspension-of-disbelief bound and gagged in a trunk in the basement first.

>>I think that if The Hardcopy-Creating Machine really understood the power of fanfic, fanfic would be seriously threatened, as opposed to laughably attempted!threatened.<<

They are already engaged in a self-destructive game of whack-a-mole. I really don't see that ending well for them. If you are selling a nonessential product and you make your consumers hate you, they will leave in droves and take their money with them. Several other industries have learned this to their great sorrow.

Re: Thank you!

[chordatesrock]

So it overlaps with "always-a-different-identity" AUs, but isn't quite the same?

Thanks! I'll add that series to my list!

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes.

Re: Thank you!

[antivol.livejournal.com]

Yes to all you said, and you're right, fanfics are published. I meant officially, in stores with selling prices.
I hadn't thought about what you say in the last paragraph, but I think I also read less store books because I find a lot of what I need in fanfiction online. And there is a lot more choice of subjects (and rare, specific, seldom treated subjects!) in fanfiction.

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Yes to all you said, and you're right, fanfics are published. I meant officially, in stores with selling prices.<<

Consider that in a society worshipping money above all else, controlling what can be sold or is customarily sold controls what is valued. What is not paid for is rarely respected. This applies to far more than just literature.

>>I hadn't thought about what you say in the last paragraph, but I think I also read less store books because I find a lot of what I need in fanfiction online.<<

Conversely, fanfic can sell canon. We don't get television broadcasts anymore, haven't for years. It's people talking about a new show that makes me consider watching it on DVD.

>> And there is a lot more choice of subjects (and rare, specific, seldom treated subjects!) in fanfiction. <<

Yes, precisely. This is true of any field that caters to niche markets. Crowdfunding and small press do the same.