alexseanchai | (no subject)

(no subject)

You know, reading actual books for the fun of it used to be a thing.

I wonder what happened.

(I do not think depression is the answer here; I have never lost interest in reading fanfics, and those are often quite as voluminous.)

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Just my opinion: Fanfics tend to be much more satisfying, in my experience. It also helps that since no one's writing them with the expectation to publish that the work tends to be truer to the spirit of the story than some publishers would have allowed.

Edited (words don't like me) 2016-03-31 05:25 (UTC)

Hm, true. Still.

The way fanfic is written is just so...different than published books. Like the "OMG will this story ever begin???" part of regular books drives me crazy. I hate the lack of tags/warnings/enticements. Not knowing if it's going to even push the right buttons by the time I'm done with it. so frustrating.

I'm looking at e-pub sometime this year, and I've been trying to read a book/day from the kindle unlimited on amazon, and OMG books are bad. I'm staring at this thing like "Did she really use the word 'preternatural' in two different ways in two adjoining sentences on the third page of this book??" This is one of the best-ranked (#20 in fantasy e-books) authors, and not some random. this makes my eyes hurt.

Wow. Do publishing people not pay copy editors anymore?

Well, most of them are self-pub, so it varies...

True.

I don't think depression necessarily ISN'T the answer, or at least part of it. Fanfiction is an entirely different experience and it takes a completely different kind of brainpower and focus. You go in knowing the characters (and standard deviations, generally -- fandoms tends to get characters wrong in very specific ways repeatedly, not a million tiny individual ways), probably knowing the setting (because it's either canon or you've read a hundred [X] AUs and you know how they general work), and let's be honest, you probably know how it ends just from the summary. Even really, really good fic tends to follow established emotional and plot arcs. And on the other hand, fic is somewhat less likely to spring awful things at you, while with unfamiliar authors, you never can be entirely sure they won't suddenly hit on your I-never-want-to-read-about-this topics.

I read ~50k-70k of fic every work night, which means over 250k of fic a week, generally. But I don't think I've read anything new fiction-wise since October. Discounting the latest Toby book, it's been ... I think almost two years since I've done anything but reread. I'm pretty sure that's largely because of depression. Fic is just not taxing on the brain in the same way as actual books, and it's easier to find good ones without slogging throguh, and easier to get recommendations for from people whose tastes I trust -- it's just easier in a lot of ways.

I'm not saying your issues are exactly the same, because they're probably not, but it's worth considering.

(Hi, I think about this a lot lately, trying to figure out just WHY I can settle in and happily read a 150k fanfic -- sometimes that isn't even that good, it's just the right kind of emotional popcorn -- in three work nights but I have been meaning to read certain books for forever and just can't get around to picking them up, no matter how good they sound.)

It is worth considering! Possibilities I have thought of are college while working has trained me that all reading is meh, or reading is a reward I don't deserve...but what you say makes sense too.

Available time to read? Because if your free segments are being eaten by writing or school, fic is often easier to squeeze in than books.

Yeah but I do things like reread Vathara's Embers or Anne Walsh's Dangerverse. Them's voluminous. Idk.

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