In Blogland lately there's been a lot of what Shakespeare, rather revoltingly, called 'throwing about of brains' on the topic of bad fanfic. People have been ranting about bad fanfic and the writers who write bad fanfic and writers who evidently don't want to write good fanfic and how terrible it all is. Some voices of reason have been pouring oil on the bad-tempered waters, but here I'd like to address a point that, to my knowledge, no-one else has raised.
The Bloggers who complain about purple prose, cliched plots, unlikely psychology and/or anatomy, and above all the unwillingness of many fanwriters to solicit and endure unsparing criticism of all these things from those who Know Better (such as ahem the bloggers themselves), are operating on a certain assumption, and I think it's wrong. They're assuming that a fanfic is exactly the same as any other story and is created for the same reasons. To wit:
The Blog-critics have another unexamined and incorrect assumption going. It's a natural one. Good writing consists of the things I like to read. Bad writing consists of the things I hate to read. Hence anime charas turned into weeping teenaged girls is bad-- not in itself, demonstrably, but because the disser doesn't like it. 'But it's not canon.' But who defined good fanwriting as canon writing? 'Well if you want to write the series characters you should write the characters.' But who said the writers want to write the characters as they appear in the series? Maybe they just want to play with them, by, say, making them act like weeping teenaged girls. 'But they *ought* to want to write the characters IC.' Why? 'Because that's good fanfic.' And back we go again.
'If they want people ie me to read their stories, they should write them the way people ie me like them.' Yet stories which by objective standards are terrible still garner praise on ff.net, a fact which drives the dissers bananas. The ficwriters clearly don't have to write stories the way 'people' like them for people to like them. Terribly annoying, I agree.
So why don't we just give up and go home? Carping and complaining and handing out bad fanfic awards clearly accomplishes nothing. The bad fics keep on being posted on ff.net to enthusiastic comment. The fanbitchers may see themselves as thundering prophets chastizing the erring Israelites and bringing them back to the True Standards of Fanfic, but much of the time they look more to me like people standing knee-deep in the ocean yelling 'Back! Go back! Jeez, *how many times do I have to tell you*- go back!!' at the waves.
Am I saying we shouldn't apply objective standards of good writing to fanfic, simply because it's fanfic? Yup. That's what I'm saying. Obviously, if the writer is writing her stuff for the reasons given up near the top there and herself regards it in the same light as mainstream fiction, then go for it. Critique away. But, getting back to the point here, I don't think that's the reason many people write fanfic.
I'll give you an analogy first. Someone invites you over to dinner and asks, 'Did you like it?' afterwards. 'Hell no!' you say. 'You added too much salt and cooked it too long, and anyway I *hate* sautéed chicken, I like my chicken barbecued.' Do you? Of course not. You say No, that was delicious, and if she says Really? you lie some more and say Really. She isn't offering you a meal to receive an honest appraisal of her cooking talents, but as a friendly gesture and a way of showing connection.
So in fandom. People want to belong to a fandom. They want to feel part of it, and one of the best ways to feel part of something is to produce for the other members of the organization. Then the other members will say Oh gee what a great story thank you for writing this! and the writer will feel connected and good. For them writing is a social exercise, not primarily a creative one. That's what explains the common practice of posting half-written fics with the note 'Feedback! Give me feedback or I won't finish this!' The story itself is secondary to the fact of feeling connected to other fans. And it would seem a good many fans recognize this. That's why they say nice things about fanfic which, viewed as fic, is execrable. They're responding to the intention, not the thing itself.
That's why IMO it's perfectly legitimate to tell a ML or an archive that you only want positive feedback. This is not a signal for the listmod and list members to burn the vile heretic at the stake. She doesn't want negative 'constructive' comments, largely I'd say because such comments tend to be destructive, even for the serious writer. (The common notion that criticism must hurt to do good is, quite simply, wrong.) The poster wants appreciation, not critique. And that's an allowable thing to want. It would be even better if fans felt confident enough to be able to say I only want positive feedback. And if the two-tiered view of fanfic was adopted-- fanfic as fic and fanfic as offering- maybe they would.
In fact, I'm all for making appreciation the default mode, the 'good manners dictates' one, just as it's the default when you're a guest in someone's house. Let people who want honest indepth critiques of their work beg for them, preferably from their friends who have a personal incentive to take time from their own activities to comment on someone else's writing. People will say appreciation already *is* the default in fandom, and the difficulty is getting someone ever to offer an honest appraisal. Good, say I. Let's see this tendency to niceness spread. It saves those of us on fic MLs from having to state our truly honest reaction to most of the stuff given for our perusal- 'This fic left me totally unmoved.' However adamant a writer is that she wants honest comments, somehow that's the one thing she never wants to hear.