Bridgerton fixits have taken over my brain

[tielan]

Fixits is what happens when I get a fave who doesn't get love in-canon.

Unusually, my fave and her OTP are for once actually the focus of the media property (however badly done), and so there are many other people who are producing/getting involved! It's kind of exciting! Although after toiling for 10 years to produce and encourage ~850 fics for Maria/Steve, it's been, oh, two weeks, and there's well over 1000 fics for Kate/Anthony. The speed at which the Anthony/Kate tag moves is unbelievable.

*sigh*

Give me five people who can write like the wind, plot like a villain, and obsess like a fangirl, and I can change the face of a pairing in a fingersnap.

I never had five people in Maria/Steve fandom. I barely had one at any point in time.

Also, the Bridgerton fandom skews...young, so far as I can see. And the people with the worst takes (Edwina deserved better than the show gave her, Penelope is an awful person) are always the ones who have a media publication for their platform.

So far there's the multichapter-only-two-written-so-far:

formed, not declared (4185 words) by tielan
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield | Kate Sharma, Edwina Sheffield | Edwina Sharma & Kate Sheffield | Kate Sharma & Mary Sheffield | Mary Sharma
Characters: Kate Sheffield | Kate Sharma, Edwina Sheffield | Edwina Sharma, Mary Sheffield | Mary Sharma
Additional Tags: Romance, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sharmas as family
Summary:

In the froth and flutter of the season, the ton - and royalty - so easily forget this simple truth: a diamond is formed, not declared.

And I have about 2000 words to a fic about the wedding-which-we-didn't-get-to-see. With Hindi wedding traditions, and Kate dealing with stuff that we didn't get to see her deal with in the show. Hopefully that'll be out mid-week.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

I looked at the Bridgerton fic, and realized that the authors must skew young from the average quality of the writing and immaturity of the takes. Disappointing. The Victoria fandom was similar.

[tielan]

I haven't read very many stories so far, mostly because I prefer to keep my mind clear for my own works, not filled up with other people's ideas.

I'm curious what you mean about the immaturity of the takes, though. Do you have any examples?

[beatrice_otter]

Not off the top of my head, it wasn't any one thing. It was just a lot of really, I don't know, high school type drama + uncomplicated view of romance stories, without the leavening of more complex and nuanced takes and less formulaic story premises that I'm used to in other fandoms. And a high percentage of fic where the quality of the writing says this person is fairly new to writing and hasn't developed a style yet or really figured out how to use language to their advantage--fics where the writing is competent and without error, but also not very good. (Which is usually a sign of an inexperienced writer.) A lot higher percentage of fics that (from the summary and tags and a casual glance) stuck like glue to the standard tropes of the genre. Which, romance is an extremely trope-y genre, and there is nothing immature with sticking to the tropes you like! But when you combine that with "not many tropes that are common in fanfic but not in origfic" and all the other factors, it gave off a vibe to me of being either a lot of people new to writing fanfic, or new to writing in general.

[tielan]

I guess I've never been entirely sure about my writing compared to other peoples. Like, I think it's better but I'm stuck as to how to explain why other than "well, obviously I wrote it, so clearly it's better".

Specifically I wonder if I'm just being supremely snobbish when I read fics and think "that wasn't very good" or if there's something else that I just can't pinpoint that means I don't get through this and think what a ride, let's go read that all over again!

I mean, I can see the simplicity in some phrasing, the way that people can write correctly and competently, but not in a way that makes the words sing, but I don't think I could explain why it doesn't work for me - and then, is that just for me, or is it for everyone? (It's hard to tell when a popular pairing badly written hits the mark for most people, but entirely misses for me. Is it the pairing? Is it the writing? Is it both?)

[beatrice_otter]

There are levels of quality, and there are also levels of "how well this connects with me" and those are not very related. There is also some snobbishness about what's "good" writing, but then also there's legitimate differences in quality. For me, "is this good writing" is less about whether I connect with it, or whether it conforms to an arbitrary standard of what type of writing is "good," and more about "does this accomplish the writer's goals and would it have the desired effect on their target audience (whether or not it resonates with me personally)?"

For me, a lot of what helped develop my ability to see that is years of betaing for people (and editing stuff for people before that), and having to figure out "this isn't working for me, why isn't it working for me, and what could they do to change it?"

Your writing is both very good and also resonates with me.