Why so little genfic?

[author_by_night]

Disclaimer: Entry inspired by a secret on the fandomsecrets community.

Something I've noticed in almost all of the fandoms I'm in or know of -  Heroes, Harry Potter, Wicked the book, Wicked the musical, Rent, Pirates of the Carribean, Supernatural - is that there's a huge emphasis on romance. Actually, often smutty romance, at  that. Meanwhile, in all of those fandoms, save Pirates of the Carribean, the themes of friendship and/or family seem just as important, but they are not given the same amount of screentime. Well, I don't really know if that's the case with Supernatural, but gazing through the comms, it certainly seems to be the case. Also admittedly, Rent is clearly about romantic love, but there's still themes of friendship there too. (Mimi and Angel, Joanne and Mark - a friendship that probably wouldn't normally happen, all things considered - and Mark and Roger.)

I don't have a problem with people's shipping preferences - to each his/her own, right? If you want to write Petrellicest or Wincest, more power to you. Same with if you want to ship Remus/Sirius ( a ship I can see on some level anyway), Harry/Hermione, or Will/Jack. 

But I have  a general question - why is it that in these fandoms, non-romantic relationships, canon or not, do not generally get equal writing time? Even I have to admit that my entrance into the HP fandom came with musings about whether or not it'd be Harry/Hermione or Hermione/Ron, if Remus/Sirius was plausible, etc. I only became a genfic person later on. And even then, I still shipped Remus/Tonks (which wasn't canon at the time) and Ron/Hermione. 

So what is it about romance and smutfics that gains so much more popularity, and why do people see the need to put canon friends and siblings in romantic and/or smutty situations?

Discuss. :)

Comments

[jdbracknell.livejournal.com]

I've wondered this myself, since my shippy fics get about 4 times the number of hits/reviews as anything gen - which always seemed odd to me, since friendships (especially the ones JKR has provided us with) are so complex and fun to explore, and for my money, as rewarding to read and write as something with a smutty pay-off.

I've wondered if it's because people see romantic or sexual relationships as the only ones that can be interesting, or deep, and therefore worthy of exploration in fic - or that there's simply more interest in deconstructing a romantic relationship than a friendship one.

I think some people, too, have difficulty with the idea of a deep and far reaching bond that isn't based on romantic love. In a lot of ways, it's easier to express that two characters have feelings for each other by letting them kiss than by demonstrating in other, non romantic, ways that deep feelings exist.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I do think it is true that a lot of people don't realize other relationships can have
deep bonds without being shippy. And
yes, it is harder to write about two
people being close without making it
seem shippy; heck, sometimes that's a
problem IRL.

But I don't think that's true of all
smut writers - I know many who still
value friendship. And I do want to
clarify that I don't think smut is
bad, I just wonder why there's not
more focus on platonic relationships.

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

My initial thoughts:
1. Part of it is just where you are in fandom. Some places over represent in relationship fic and smut. If you're in one spot, it will look like way lots of that. If you're in another, you might see almost none.
2. Male to female composition may play a role in terms of stereotypical modes of telling a story based on gender. Over represented by women and you'll see more of the content you mention. Women tend to write more character driven fic which lends itself less to genfic in terms of how fandom does it.
3. Perception that the audience for this type of material is large, audience for the other is large. People write it because they want feedback or just to increase the size of their potential audience.

[katieay.livejournal.com]

In terms of Love, I think it's easier to write a fantasy than it is to write reality. We have all had one close friend (at least, I hope so!) and as such we all know what that experience is. We have not, however, all fallen in true love, nor have we all had sex, and so those are the stories that get the readerships.

And honestly, if we weren't writing to get read, we wouldn't publish on archives or LJ.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Both are good points - and the second
is sad but true. It's easy to say "post anyway', but in practice?
Yeah, easier said than done.

Of course, I still try and "post
anyway", including my gen, but often
stuff just goes to the inboxes of friends, or is flocked on my LJ at
least. Not all of that is doubt that
anyone'll read - but I think some of
it is. (Though I also think
if I got around to sending that stuff to my wonderful beta readers who
seem to know my writing style better
than I do...)

[awehla.livejournal.com]

You might have a point there. I am in a relationship and don't really want to read about sex as much as when I was younger. I would rather just read a good story.

Lisa
x

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think it's not that smutfics are more popular--it's just that they're more common. Some of my most popular stories (Mysticism, Laws of Probability, Bureau of Loopholes, The Last Supper) have been gen, while my fade-to-black romance and my single out-and-out smut have been either unpopular or middling-popular. (Admittedly, when I was trying to re-enter the Pirates fandom with genfic, things were a little shakier--I got as many reads, judging by the number of times I saw them get bookmarked, but I got fewer reviews.)

As to why smutfic is so popularly written, which I think is your main quandary--as opposed to whether or not smutfic is more popularly reviewed--I suspect it has something to do with the recreational nature of the fanfic endeavor. People who are writing and reading fanfiction are not doing it for profit, and in fact, they're afraid of being sued if they tried. This puts a heavy limit on the potential readership, but it simultaneously removes the necessity of creating a 'mainstream' work of fiction. One might just as well ask why fanfiction lends itself so much to vignettes as opposed to novel-length fics; it's because production of the work is meant as much to please the author as to please the audience--if not more. Fanfic writers, not bound down by what sort of story 'sells,' are free to write out-and-out kinky smut in a way that they never could were they writing for the mainstream media; they are free to write a drabble, if a drabble's all they feel like writing. I suspect that we see so very much smut here because people who write fanfiction for recreational purposes simply enjoy writing it, or enjoy the idea of writing it, and have no real reason not to. Likewise, people who enjoy reading smutfic do so not because they actively prefer it to gen (we've noted above that this isn't necessarily the case), but because they are likewise experiencing liberation from the gen of the mainstream media. They can't get this kind of eloquent, character-driven smut anywhere else, and so they're pleased to find it here.

Put shortly, therefore, fanfiction allows people to both produce and consume unconventional works suited to non-mainstream tastes. Smutfics are less like mainstream than other fics, catering to the desires of readers and writers alike, and so they're fanfic's 'special province,' in a way.

And proportionately, people probably have dirtier minds than you do, miss. I'm sorry; that's just how it is. =(

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I remember your old fics.
But - and I hope you don't mind me
saying this - you wrote them a very
long time ago, and since then, I think fandom has changed in that respect. Of course, that could just be me. I didn't even know what LJ was back then, and I really only left ff.n for better other sites when it turned into something the cat brought in and all the authors I read fled for their lives, if they already
hadn't. ;) But my point is, I think fandom is a lot more focused on romance and smut than it was in, say, 2002.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

But Mysticism and Laws of Probability were more recent--2003-04-ish, if I recall correctly, and they were all on LJ. And my still more recent (2006) gen fics, also on LJ, received approximately the same number of favorites/bookmarks/reviews. I'm not sure you're observing a fandom culture change, and I'm also unsure that you're witnessing a change at all. I came into fandom already shell-shocked by how much smut I'd found; the quantity seems to me to be proportionately the same.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Probably just has to do with where in fandom I've been, then. :)

[rahirah]

(here from metafandom)

I've been in fandom since the early 80s, and trust me, smut has always been with us. It's just that in the Olden Days, it was sold in adult-only fanzines that you had to know the secret password to get hold of. And that's just the het smut; to find the slash or the kinky stuff you had to really prove you were trustworthy to be admitted into the inner circle.

And it does vary from fandom to fandom. ElfQuest fandom, where I hung out for a long time, was very gen-oriented. But even there, the most common type of story for first-time writers to attempt was the Recognition story (basically this telepathic mate-or-die thing.)

I don't think a good romance or smutfic is easier to write than a good genfic, but they're certainly easier to plot. And plot is something that a lot of fan writers are afraid of tackling, or don't quite know how to handle. With romance, it's all laid out for you: A meets B, A loses B, A gets B back, fade to black (or to smut.) Which is also a large part of the reason why romance is so popular, in mainstream publishing as well as fanfic: it's a comfort read.

That said, I've also found that well-done gen, or romances with strong gen subplots, or gen with strong romance subplots, are very popular with readers. I get as much feedback (sometimes more) for my adventure or comedy fics as I do for my romances.

[purple-ladybug1.livejournal.com]

This is why I read comments before replying. Your second paragraph more eloquently states my opinion on the matter. In fandom we can indulge in what we cannot read or write in RL.

And as someone else stated, we enjoy what is different than our RLs. I enjoy genfic, but I'm living a genfic, so there's only so much I care to read. On the other hand, I'm part of this tiny population of people saving themselves for marriage, so I enjoy smutfic because it's not gonna happen in RL for another three to eight years (I hope I get married by then...)

[victorialupin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there's any specific reason, but I think that it'd be difficult to change the tendency towards romance. Shipping is the most popular aspect of fandom, IMO, and it's pretty clear that romance fics tend to get more hits. I think it's a bit discouraging to people writing gen, and that fandom as a whole is much more encouraging of romance. Gen can be hard to do because it's much more difficult to find an audience -- just look at how many LJ communities are devoted to ships! It's so much easier to find a constant stream of new R/S fics, for example, than MWPP gen.

Of course, the other problem, I think, is that it's just much easier for write ships. Not easier to write them well, but just write them in general. It's so easy for fill up the pages with kissing and sex; inexperienced/untalented authors can avoid the emotions. But it's much harder to avoid emotions with friendship fics because there isn't that physical aspect to fill up the space with.

[aggiebell90]

Real quick-like, since I need to go back to work...

Another reason for more shippy/smutty stuff than gen being written could be because, at least for HP (and I can't speak for any other fandoms, because I'm only involved in HP), the source material is pretty much gen. There's a little shippyness, true, but it's not the main--or most important--part of the story. I tend to write shippy (although I'm writing a gen Neville fic right now, too), because there *isn't* all that much shippy stuff in the books, but there are tons and tons of Ron/Hermione/Harry friendship moments. So I write to fill in the blanks (for me).

Does that make sense?

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I can see that point. Because also looking at stuff statistically, a book series I read has a ton of fluff and smut; the fics tend to be gen-ish, or at least under an R rating romance. At least, they were when I read the fics.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

Ah, the question that plagued my soul when I first began delving into the daunting abyss that is HP Fandom On LJ. In the past, I always had something like...righteous indignation when it comes to the obsession over shipping at the expense of gen in HP fandom. I guess that's because I came into the fandom from an intensely meta forum, where shipping was almost openly scorned, and since shipping is pretty much superfluous in canon, I would quirk a brow, steeple my fingers and heave a long-suffering sigh whenever I encountered a Squeeing Hardcore Shipper.

I have since lightened the frick up. Shipping still gets on my nerves sometimes, but I don't see why the HP fandom should be any different from any other popular fandom, most of which are built on solid ship platforms. But I think HP in particular, because it is a female-dominated fandom, is concerned with romantic entanglements because, for many of us, that's what sparks our imaginations. I can't think of any soap opera that was created with a male audience in mind. Even primetime TV shows like Lost and House break out the shippiness on a regular basis.

On the one hand, it's a shame that so many people seem to be unable or unwilling to examine close relationships and special bonds without romance being imposed upon them somehow. I still get frustrated from time to time with the immediate leap from "love" to "romantic love," as if it's the same gawddamn thing. But I can't deny that I'm attracted more to smutty fics than I am to gen...and I put the blame for that squarely on my dirty, dirty mind. ;)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom.

People use sex as a metaphor for emotional intimacy. It's simple, and it generally gets the message across. But the result is that all friendships end up sexualized (not that I have a problem with that, of course!).

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

People also use emotional intimacy as a way of getting to the sex. It's the Internet, and *it's for porn*.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's good too.

[eyra.livejournal.com]

Also here from metafandom.

This is where my opinion sits, pretty much. But I also think the metaphor isn't just emotional intimacy, but also vulnerability, which is really really interesting and fun to poke at. Sexualized relationships can be the same as their platonic canon counterparts, they're just allegorized. And now I've called NC-17 fic allegory, which has more or less made my morning.

Adding sex makes the reader's emotional connection to the relationship easier to come by, perhaps. But then, as has been amply covered, it's also (probably "mostly") about hot people, and about getting them to be hot together. There are lots of discussions I've read with phrases like "reverse objectification," a feminist movement in which women are claiming porn for themselves, and etc., but it boils down to "we write/read because we think it's hot. And yay for porn."

:)

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Gen is hard. You have to juggle a lot of characters and an actual plot. It requires more time and a lot more effort. Also, sometimes people want to explore a relationship between two characters, not an entire cast.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

A few possibilities.

1) Fandom is mostly chicks, and chicks dig love stories.

2) Fanfic tends to explore issues not explored in canon, and romance is often sidelined in the texts we are fannish for.

3) Fanfic tends to explore issues in different ways than canon does, and a lot of the texts we are fannish for have lame canon romances.

Maybe we're filling gaps, maybe we're revising inadequate storylines, and maybe we're playing with love, emotions, and sex like little ladies should. Dunno.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

1) Fandom is mostly humans, and humans like sex. A lot.

2) Canon doesn't have as much sex as humans want. Or even as much as we have, especially in our dreams.

3) The internet, being made by humans, is for porn.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

I approve of this list. :D

[anoel.livejournal.com]

I barely read gen fic and mostly relationship fic and mostly it's because I see enough of the gen stuff on TV shows. Shippy fic is a way to see relationships that I don't get enough of on TV because yeah, I love romance. The gen stuff I like the most is in vids as they can explore all the gen stuff in interesting ways. I'm more interested in looking at the material that's provided to me, I'm passionate about that rather than new fic about it. Whereas I'm most passionate about my ships and want to read about my favorite characters together.

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

Amen. My brain is shot from the week, so that's all I can think of to say.

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

I'm here via metafandom, and thank you for raising the question. It's one I've been puzzled by myself.

One of the things that attracted me to fanfic in the first place was the idea that, collectively, fandom could explore an almost infinite number of variations of the canon characters/settings. The idea seemed so fun and creative! After being here for a while, though, it's become clear to me that while the potential variations may be infinite, in practice they're quite limited. And while there's nothing wrong at all with the shippy/romance choice per se -- I enjoy reading it! -- after a while, the sameness of everything begins to bore me. I can keep things "fresh" for a while by moving from fandom to fandom, but eventually even that stops working.

There are so many stories we could be telling, but we often only seem to tap into the same 10% over and over again. It leaves me feeling a little disappointed sometimes.

[tielan]

There are so many stories we could be telling, but we often only seem to tap into the same 10% over and over again. It leaves me feeling a little disappointed sometimes.

The bulk of my writing is shippy, and I feel this as well!

Granted, my 'shippy' is usually more action-adventure-y or has some serious drama worked in.

Someone above said that plot takes time and effort and all they want is teh sexx0rs. I know that I love the plottiness, the time and the effort, but 90% of my readers don't appreciate the little touches. Most of them just want the emotional hit from a ship fic.

In a discussion with a friend, she once observed that fanfic is basically masturbation for the fan. Most fans read smut to get off - more emotionally-pscyhologically than physically. It hits their buttons, sings their arias, creams their panties, and shoots their highs.

And, as I once observed someone else exclaim after trying to write a team-fic. "It's so much effort to write team! I'm sticking with the characters I can write." So, she's pretty much a one-pairing horse now.

Path of least resistance (and most feedback), yadda-yadda.

Actually, I was asking for gen recs on Supernatural a month back and received a grand total of 2 responses. Granted, most of the people reading me are SGA, not SPN, but I know quite a few of the f-list are SPN fans...they just don't do gen SPN.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

Do you think that the proportion of sex-and/or-romance fics is much higher than the proportion of sex-and/or-romance popular songs? I have long thought that they are about the same (i.e. "most"), and therefor that "why so little genfic?" doesn't really need to be answered. Or rather, that the answer isn't about fiction or fandom, but about human nature (or possibly just about our culture in general).

In other words:

1. People like sex & romance a *lot*.

2. Most sources don't have as much sex & romance as people like.

3. Thus, fanfic is mostly about sex & romance.

I don't even know if we need step 2.

a theory via metafandom

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

fandom is crap at categorizing gen fics so I can find the sort of gen stories I might want to read. If I have the source, I can find gen stories like the canon with my dvd player. If I just want a particular sort of story without a romantic relationship in it, I can often find a published book or short story to give me a story dealing with those themes or using those plot points, even if it's not a riff of a tv show. (And, hey, sometimes with media tie-ins, I can find the sort of story I want to read that is a riff on a tv show.)

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

This probably makes no sense, but I wonder if another factor may be that there's a certain amount of objectification built into the fannish experience that leads naturally to a shippy/smutty end result.

It's most obvious with something like Sam/Dean, where the actors are so damn hot that you'd have to be stone to not notice, but for me personally, even in fandoms where I don't have any overt sexual attraction to my favorite characters, there's still a certain amount of "want" going on with my reactions. I can't always articulate exactly what it is that I "want" from them (except maybe "more of the same"), but the emotion is definitely there... and it's at least in the same ballpark as sexual desire.

If you look at it that way, with all characters serving as objects of desire in some way, it might actually make some sense that fandom leans toward topics that get the ol' hormones raging.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but I really like that theory!

surfed in from metafandom

[dossier.livejournal.com]

I have a working supposition about the lack of genfic, and this is to not denigrate or abuse or look down on anyone who likes or writes gen (I fall in this category as writer), but it's damned hard to truly generate an emotional response based on h/c, whump or infirmary fics. These stories have their proponents, I cheerfully soak them up by the dozens, but to generate even half the angst that a good romance might in a gen story, I have to work four or five times harder to really craft a story that hits people where they live. I have yet to succeed in this, so I'm still working towards that goal!

It can be done, and done well, even in the above mention categories of genfic--but someone who's looking for the rush that a good romance (het or slash, you pick) isn't likely to find it in the average gen story.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I personally detest incestfic and don't read it or write it, but whatever anyone else wants to read or write, well, that's their right to do. None of this is being done in reality.

I've written one gen novel and several stories, but I just prefer slash. There are more questions involved with slash, more character interpretations, more social "norms" debated, and etc. It also brings the whole concept of "partnership" or the merging of individuals into a metaphorical level with more visceral impact involved. Using the intensity of sex to relay to the reader the intensity of the partnership is a helpful writing tool. It bridges the story to the reader in a way abstractions about emotions often can't.

via metafandom

[i-am-schizo.livejournal.com]

I read slash almost exclusively. In fact, Supernatural is my very first fandom that I've ever read gen in. Of course, I read the Wincest too, a lot more so than gen actually.

The reason why I prefer romance to friendship or sibling!fic is pretty simple indeed, it's because I love love. Perhaps it's gotta do with the society we live in or whatever but somehow the kind of love that includes the romantic as well as the sexual seems to be some sort of an ideal, the one kind of love that is valued most. And no matter what I think of close friendships in RL that certainly can be just as loving and satisfying and lasting (probably even more so than any romantic love), in fantasy romantic love which I associate with a deep and exclusive bond between people is the most fascinating and emotionally satisfying thing I can think of.

And that's why I almost exclusively read romance mostly combined with a bit of smut (well, not big on the PWPs!).

In case of Supernatural though I have found that the love between Sam and Dean is pretty much always the same. I am deeply touched and fascinated by their canon relationship and reading gen where it's 'just' brotherly love as opposed to romantic love doesn't feel that different to the slash, i.e. Wincest, I read normally. It's deep-rooted, unshakeable love and it's so damn beautiful no matter in what way, shape of form it comes along.

And before I babble even more here...

[truwest.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

FWIW: there are two levels, for me.

At the simplest level -- we're social animals. We like relatedness and we like sex. Resulting in a lot of fanfic about couples relationships and sex.

At the more complex level: idealized romantic (including sexual) relationships are the modern Western-world metaphor for bliss/transcendence/perfection/God.

For most people in the post-industrial world -- sex is the most spiritual, ecstatic experience that they will ever have. And romanticized, idealized, sexualized relationships with another person are the modern metaphor for "heaven" (ie the ultimate transformative experience that is attainable by human beings).

[esorlehcar.livejournal.com]

I recently did an analysis of the SPN newsletter (http://esorlehcar.livejournal.com/482808.html) (which collects and posts all stories from all the major comms, and is by far the most comprehensive record of stories in the LJ portion of the fandom) to see if the claims that gen was underrepresented was true. In the fourteen months I looked at, gen made up 40% of the stories posted, and that was in some ways artificially low, as a decent percentage of the stories in the "other" category were gen (any crossover, for instance, was marked "other").

I can't speak for other fandoms, but I do have the numbers for SPN, and the perception that there is "little genfic" in the fandom is just that... a perception.

[countess-baltar.livejournal.com]

So what is it about romance and smutfics that gains so much more popularity, and why do people see the need to put canon friends and siblings in romantic and/or smutty situations?

I was wondering that myself.

I don't know if I agree with the suggestion that all the sources are genfic and omit the romance and smut. Particularly stuff like Battlestar Galactica (2003) where I've been known to say: "Enough with the bad soap opera and shoot something already!" (Actually that show is just limited to smut. There isn't any romance involved.)

I can only suppose that the perceived anonymity of the internet encourages the reading and writing of smutty romance. Maybe people are embarrassed to go out and purchase bodice rippers or erotica or check them out from the library. Maybe it's the "sex sells" thing. Maybe it's like the writing on Battlestar Galactica (2003) where the only conflict they can manage is petty personal squabbles and smut and can't develop a decent dramatic conflict around political, cultural, or ethical differences or even a decent action adventure story.

[zhie.livejournal.com]

I don't think it has anything to do with the writers, I think it has to do with the audience.

I write from G to NC17, but the majority falls around the PG/PG13 range. One of the most common comments I get is something along the lines of 'so when do we get to the sex?'

There are probably a lot of writers, especially newer writers, who really want the continued feedback and want to please the audience. So they listen to what the audience is requesting and that is what they create. (Luckily, I've been doing this far too long to care what anyone else wants, lol)

[awehla.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is because people can get gen just watching the show. When does Lex and Clark having hot sex ever happen in Smallville on screen? It doesn't. Fan fic is of course a lot about wish fulfillment and fans writing about what they wish would happen on screen. Most of that is romance/smut related.

Lisa
x

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I've always figured it's because canon is full of gen, but rarely porn and not always a lot of romance (and readers like romance: witness the romance genre, a good chunk of the historical fiction genre, and the number of Great Literary Romances in mainstream fiction).

As for why people like to put canon friends into romantic situations: it's an unexplored possibility, and a lot of fanfiction is about unexplored possibilities. *shrug* I think incest fic is more complex, but it's not my thing so I won't speculate.

Personally, I like gen a lot and I write more of it these days than I used to, but it's much easier for me to find gen I like in pro fiction than romance I like, since I don't really enjoy the Traditional Het Romance or many of the other popular patterns in mainstream fiction. So I look for interesting and unusual romance in fanfiction.

[tourniquette.livejournal.com]

In genral, I agree with what you said: it's about exploring what the author hasn't, and in the world of YA-oriented plotlines, that often translates into darker or shippier themes. Frankly, I'm much more inclined to write fanfic when I feel there's something that was LACKING or otherwise left unsaid, and only then do I get hooked on certain ships or scenarios.

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

1) Heterosexual romance/erotica and gay fiction/erotica are publishing categories. Gen isn't. People don't go into bookstores and think, "I'll pick up the latest gen novel." So they don't tend to think in those terms in fandom.

2) There's a lotlotlot of what we would call gen in the literary/media world. There's less of what we would call het. There's very little indeed of what we could slash, at least in terms of the types of stories that are popular with slashers. So people are writing the types of stories they can't get enough of from the pro writers.

3) Nobody loves gen. *Sniff*. Honestly, it discourages the heck out of me, because I'm a friendship fiction writer (as well as a slash writer), and to me friendship is just as exciting a topic as romance, but I just can't persuade my slasher friends in the fanfic world to get as excited about friendship fiction as I am.

I did have the major triumph of writing a friendship story that the editor of a slash zine liked so much that she promptly changed her submission guidelines to accept friendship fiction. So there's hope.

Reasons mentioned above that I don't think apply to the type of genfic I write:

1) "It's too hard to plot." No, it isn't. "A meets B, A loses B, A gets B back" is a typical friendship plot.

2) "It's not about pair-bonding between two characters, which is what fans look for in fanfic." Yes, it is. Friendship fiction can be a pair-bonding story; it just doesn't involve sexual attraction. There are blood brother stories, there are protagonist-and-sidekick stories, there are romantic friendship stories, and if anyone doesn't believe that these are pair bondings, they should go look at the canon that's being slashed.

Holmes and Watson are pair-bonded, no question about it. It's precisely because they are that slashers find it so exciting to explore what would happen if the two were sexually attracted to each other. So why not take a couple of characters who aren't pair-bonded in the original - say, two characters who have casual sex together but don't have deep feelings for each other - and explore what would happen if they ended up in a deep, deep friendship?

[anyone625.livejournal.com]

Eek, sorry about reply to an old post! I had several metafandom links open for discussions I missed and got 'em confused. :)