- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
I'd like to underline I am A-OK with trying this plan. I will write all the gay bakery AU's anyone could want for enough dosh.
SV has an even problem
- Thread starter logiccosmic
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Sv can be a vehicle for good concrit, sure, but it's an iffy thing at best.
If you really want concrit and not likes, your better option is to ask an IRL friend to help out.
I write online, sure, but honestly if i want concrit, SV is not where i ask for it.
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You are a brave soul.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Your question is not new. Compared to the commercially successful writers of a hundred years ago, our current commercially successful popular fiction is unstructured and crude. Where once writing was targeted at a group with a higher education level and more disposable income, it has, over the centuries, become easier to access by those with less education and free income.
So, part of what you are looking at is similar to the highbrow vs. lowbrow humor issue. Some audiences want clever, deep satirical commentary. Other audiences want potty jokes.
So, is highbrow or lowbrow writing 'better?' IMHO, the question does not compute. The quality of writing technicals can certainly be measurable in many ways, but the quality of art, what makes us enjoy fiction, is subjective.
Is Hemmingway a better writer than King? Some will say yes, others will say no. Hemmingway's technicals and subtleness were certainly far superior in his writing, but King reaches far deeper into our visceral fears, using cruder terms and structures. Highbrow vs. Lowbrow. That doesn't mean that King cannot write subtle and clever fiction. He has, but most of what people know as his work is far from the highbrow styles of most of the old masters of fiction. A better comparison, might be Homer vs. Shakesepeare.
So, IMHO, if you want to guide the site towards attracting more highbrow writing and readers who like it, then I would say the first priority would be to help people find what they want to read on the site. There is very little here to help readers find new stories, other than following specific writers and blindly trolling through a lot of unappealing writing.
Idea #1:
Implement a fiction finder that will help you find the highest rated stories, possibly weighted by the similarity of the list of people who have liked it, compared to what you personally have liked. For example, if you like story A, your personal story rating metrics would be modified individually to give a higher rating value to other stories that were liked by the same people who joined you in liking story A. This may be code and database intensive, but it may also be worth it.
Idea #2:
Generate some sort of synopsis of the likes of other people you are following. If you maintain a stable of followed individuals who share similar interests in writing, then your search for fiction will become communal as opposed to a lonely endeavor. Specifically, when a followed person likes a threadmarked post, you could get an indication that 'A person you follow has liked this threadmarked post' or some such. Random likes of non-threadmarked posts would not be reported, for clarity. This might be implemented either as a 'lite' version or a more data intensive version. The light version keeps no history, only reporting likes as they happen. A more in depth option might allow you to follow a new member and see their history of threadmark likes.
There are MANY ways that I can imagine to expand on the two basic ideas above, but an initial simple implementation of either would be fairly painless.
You might note that both of the above suggestions would also be useful to folks who fall on the lowbrow side of the fiction spectrum. That is intentional. I do not like literary elitism or highbrow snobbery, and have no desire to encourage it.
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- The Intellectual, Moral, and Literal High Ground
Since we're on constructive criticism, what problems are common to power fantasies and what's the best way to address them?
From what I've seen the problems include:
From what I've seen the problems include:
- The main character being the only competent one.
- The lack of agency by other characters, and a general lowering of their abilities to make the main character look better.
- As I already mentioned, it being a crossover or adding elements to make the main character more powerful.
- A lack of worldbuilding and acting like the only thing that exists is the area the main character is in at any given time.
- No ripple effects for the character's actions.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
There are places where you can get writing help anonymously from strangers.
Baen's Bar, for example.
There IS a floor to basic quality that you need to meet in order to get useful responses there, but even if you are woefully lacking in technicals, you might get a kick in the pants to help you find your way closer to better writing.
Edit: Tagging @WhoAmEye
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- Location
- Brisbane
Baen's Bar is the layer of hell that spat out a certain space marine and his fanboys.
Considering what I've seen of Baen writing(missile spreadsheets ahoy!) I'd probably writing advice from anyone who holds their output in high esteem.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Well, that really depends on how you look at things. See, the things you are describing are mostly a direct result of making it a power fantasy (or at least facilitate making it one). The lack of ripple effects is a lack of effort or skill, which if all it is the author is a power fantasy the lack of effort is unsurprising while if they are a newer author the lack of skill is unsurprising. Ditto for the preceding point.
In other words, are you talking about them being badly written for being power fantasies, or badly written because of being power fantasies, or badly written coincidentally to being power fantasies?
Like, I usually don't like most power fantasies, and that's not because they are power fantasies, but rather because... Well, points like other characters being less competent, less active, and weaker makes it harder for me to enjoy the power fantasy elements, because the protagonist is winning not by being powerful, but rather by everyone else being weak, stupid, and rolling over for him. At that point I'd rather be seeing the Story Of Some Guy, Completely Ordinary, Who Somehow Keeps Beating Gods And Demons, because then at least there is a comedy element. That's an example of the first; badly written for the goal of being a power fantasy (from my subjective framework, at the least).
Meanwhile, the second point: Badly written because of being a power fantasy. If you think the protagonist should be the underdog or the like, making a story a power fantasy is by definition making it badly written, and thus it's only worth discussing in terms of 'how to identify you are making a power fantasy and avoid it', because no amount of finessing it works if the core premise is a power fantasy and being a power fantasy is inherently bad.
As to the third, being badly written coincidentally to being a power fantasy, you get, for example, lore breaking in settings where it is unnecessary to do so to make an effective power fantasy but is common within the story. For example, a lot of Naruto fanfics will make claims like that Naruto is 'overloading' his jutsu to make him look more powerful or that Chakra Control is harder the more you have, thus making him better than Ninja with better control because they have it easy due to not being as powerful as him. These kinds of lore/setting violations are unnecessary to make a powerful Naruto who curbstomps everything, but are pervasive among Naruto power fantasies for whatever precise reasons. Likewise, it's possible to have a fic with those qualities without it in turn being a power fantasy, so it's not like it is only possible in power fantasy fics.
Quotes and tags do not create alerts for the user if edited in.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Baen Books has some authors I like, and others that I do not. I suspect that most of us can say the same.
To your point, there aren't many missile spreadsheets in Eric Flint's 1632 series, for example.
That seems broken. I'll poke them in a PM then. Thanks.
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I mean, i mock baenconservatism because it's got a bunch of silly tropes, but part of why baen is a successful publishing house is that they've been good to fans and kind to new authors.
I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand as a resource, they actually still read slush, which is getting rare for publication companies.
That said, Last I saw it, baen's bbs had the worst interface.
I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand as a resource, they actually still read slush, which is getting rare for publication companies.
That said, Last I saw it, baen's bbs had the worst interface.
- Location
- Hell
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Reminds me of Bad Mondays over at FiMFiction. They subverted the HIE power fantasy tropes by making every crazy thing the SI beats lose because of dumb luck. He then uses this to gain reputation as a great warrior from a warrior race. He accidentally kills a Deathwing size undead dragon by getting mad and hitting a wall with his hammer, causing the room he's in to drop from the top of the cave they're in to fall down, crushing it. He's basically a bard that's convinced everyone he's a high level fighter. His strongest piece of gear, his magic-resistant armor, was created on total accident, and sparkles and shines harder than a twilight vampire, which makes it a lot harder to see how shit his technique is.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
I infer that the alerts are only checked for new posts and not edits, and thus to fix the issue (assuming you consider it one, which you personally at least clear do) would require altering the system to do alerts on edits.
This would, among other things, probably cause you to receive multiple tags per post that got edited while having your name in it the whole time.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
I understand how it might work, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved. Rather than simply sending out tag notices, only send out new tag notices. Comparing a list of tags in the old post to the new post and only sending out new tags should be a relatively easy fix, and should not be terribly processor intensive either.
- Location
- The Intellectual, Moral, and Literal High Ground
It's completely possible to have a power fantasy without those problems. I just finished watching Persona 4 the Animation and it was a power fantasy without those problems.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
As an incredibly pretentious and self-indulgent individual, I reccommend we write more metafiction about the nature of power fantasies. 
I think part of what leads to bland power fantasies is that the idea of the story doesn't extend beyond the power fantasy. In the most literal sense, there's building your story off of "wouldn't it be cool if character x had the powers of this other character?" but there's a pretty wide range of conceptual starting points that, if relied upon alone, will rarely produce interesting stories whether fanfiction or original. It's easy to fall into the trap of relying on in-universe logic to dictate your story and filling out the rest with tropes you enjoy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if you don't consider the themes of your story at all you're simply leaving the quality of your work up to chance. Maybe you'll happen across a combination of events and tropes that creates a thematically resonant story, but most of the time you'll just get a work that's the sum of its parts. It'll only be there to serve up tropes and ideas to people who want them, and thus you'll only really get attention if you're serving up popular tropes and ideas. Power fantasies are just the formula that makes it easiest to pander to SV's majority.
That's not to say you can't start with an idea, just that an idea is not a story. Instead, when you come up with an idea that's interesting ask yourself why it interests you, and write a story about that. If that theme can be expressed through escalation and ridiculous power levels easily, then do it! Or you might find yourself moving away from your original idea entirely because you find a better option.
I think part of what leads to bland power fantasies is that the idea of the story doesn't extend beyond the power fantasy. In the most literal sense, there's building your story off of "wouldn't it be cool if character x had the powers of this other character?" but there's a pretty wide range of conceptual starting points that, if relied upon alone, will rarely produce interesting stories whether fanfiction or original. It's easy to fall into the trap of relying on in-universe logic to dictate your story and filling out the rest with tropes you enjoy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if you don't consider the themes of your story at all you're simply leaving the quality of your work up to chance. Maybe you'll happen across a combination of events and tropes that creates a thematically resonant story, but most of the time you'll just get a work that's the sum of its parts. It'll only be there to serve up tropes and ideas to people who want them, and thus you'll only really get attention if you're serving up popular tropes and ideas. Power fantasies are just the formula that makes it easiest to pander to SV's majority.
That's not to say you can't start with an idea, just that an idea is not a story. Instead, when you come up with an idea that's interesting ask yourself why it interests you, and write a story about that. If that theme can be expressed through escalation and ridiculous power levels easily, then do it! Or you might find yourself moving away from your original idea entirely because you find a better option.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Experimental fiction by good writers can overcome a lot of barriers. Stephen King wrote a solid novel with no antagonist, for example.
Most writers do not understand fiction writing well enough to 'break the rules.' I am not familiar with your stated example, but it may be another example of a good creative team breaking the rules. One Punch Man is another example. Typically, other fiction elements are expanded to fill the holes in experimental fiction. If you don't know all the parts, you might not even recognize what is missing, and not compensate for the absent pieces.
- Location
- Hell
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've talked about this extensively. SB and SV are very worldbuilding or setup oriented when it comes to premises. Look at our ideas threads. 'What if X had Y power?'As an incredibly pretentious and self-indulgent individual, I reccommend we write more metafiction about the nature of power fantasies.
I think part of what leads to bland power fantasies is that the idea of the story doesn't extend beyond the power fantasy. In the most literal sense, there's building your story off of "wouldn't it be cool if character x had the powers of this other character?" but there's a pretty wide range of conceptual starting points that, if relied upon alone, will rarely produce interesting stories whether fanfiction or original. It's easy to fall into the trap of relying on in-universe logic to dictate your story and filling out the rest with tropes you enjoy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if you don't consider the themes of your story at all you're simply leaving the quality of your work up to chance. Maybe you'll happen across a combination of events and tropes that creates a thematically resonant story, but most of the time you'll just get a work that's the sum of its parts. It'll only be there to serve up tropes and ideas to people who want them, and thus you'll only really get attention if you're serving up popular tropes and ideas. Power fantasies are just the formula that makes it easiest to pander to SV's majority.
That's not to say you can't start with an idea, just that an idea is not a story. Instead, when you come up with an idea that's interesting ask yourself why it interests you, and write a story about that. If that theme can be expressed through escalation and ridiculous power levels easily, then do it! Or you might find yourself moving away from your original idea entirely because you find a better option.
let's use Worm as an
The video game analogy is interesting but I think there's another, much better analogy here.
I think that sometimes it might be worthwhile thinking about a Quest as a RPG rather than a work of literary fiction, because it's going to have the same exact challenges regarding plotlines and thematics as a RPG, because as people know, players are super good at derailing things. Like in a RPG, you have a storyteller (or storyguide, as @horngeek's favorite RPG System Right Now, Storypath, uses) who has basically total power to set up the sandbox and scenario which makes up the setting and plot of the quest, and the players are largely given agency limited to responding to the setup the storyteller/guide creates.
Some players want to set up extremely exciting dramas and make themselves their own problems and interesting plot twists. Others want to make their numbers as big as possible. Yet others want to just fuck around with the setting and 'derail' it in some way or another. And especially in quests where you only have one main character who has their actions determined by consensus, that makes it in some ways even harder to write for. I think this is why quests lend themselves to becoming power fantasies-the default way of playing a RPG is dungeon crawls, and what is a dungeon crawl but a power fantasy where you go in, beat up challenges that come at you in a fairly linear fashion, and loot the treasure in the end to make your numbers bigger?
Just as a personal anecdote, I think Panopticon Quest has benefitted significantly from @EarthScorpion voting for what he finds interesting rather than what's powerful. I think it also helps that my current voterbase has an understanding that my unspoken guarantee is "if they make problems for themselves, I will throw fewer problems at them." So they do things that are occasionally stupid because it fits the characters doing it and it's great.
- Location
- The Intellectual, Moral, and Literal High Ground
I fully agree. For the first part, Persona 4 the Animation had the main character actually have flaws that held him back (including at least one case where it took other characters to keep him from making a huge mistake), was only more powerful than the others on his team because of his abilities and them backing him uo (which each of them getting their own time to shine), the villains were not only competent, they were able to score victories over the course of the story that had lasting repercussions, the writers did a great job making it so that world-building was either just a case of filling in the blanks with the real world or had an in-universe explanation (the story taking place in a town in the middle of nowhere and the events of the story further isolating it without raising any alarms). Furthermore every action taken had consequences that extended farther than their immediate effect.
For the part about people not realizing what they're missing, I've noticed the same thing. When I was criticizing a power fantasy on another thread, person after person not only agreed with me, but wondered why they hadn't noticed the problems before. It's a mistake anyone can make, so the best thing to do is not insult people for making it and instead try to explain it.
YES! Thank you. The lack of ripple effects is a major problem in these kinds of fanfics. One of the points I made in the aforementioned thread was how there weren't ripple effects from the SI's actions and the author was just cut and pasting his SI into numerous other works without considering how they'd fit together.
One example was when the SI creates what might as well be an infinite power-generator. No ripple effect. I pointed out how absurd that was, since almost every industry on the planet would be changed or destroyed as a result, governments would scramble to deal with it, and that was ignoring the numerous conspiracies involved.
Bursts in through window
HELLO YES DID I HEAR STORYPATH MENTIONED
To be a bit on topic, I'd say the best Quests are those where both players and QM recognise what the term storyguide implies, that you're basically telling a cooperative story even moreso than in rpgs.
In other words, I actually really hate the Quester Powergamng Instinct.
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- The Great Beyond
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- He/She/They
The thread is now uneven. Quick, someone else burst through the opposite window!
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
With a gun. We need to have a man with a gun. Maybe even Chekhov's Gun.
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
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- She/Her
Does that even count as a power fantasy? I mean, special powers alone are hardly what makes a power fantasy. The other stuff that you describe, IMO, defines the power fantasy in its absence. Giving badass moments to other characters? Letting the villains make concrete gains that aren't immediately reversed? Character flaws that actually cause problems?
You need to tag someone first
- Location
- The Intellectual, Moral, and Literal High Ground
Getting powers almost nobody else does, stopping murders that have the police stumped, getting friends who like and respect you,
saving the world
And I'd already mentioned those flaws in my previous posts as being common.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Does that even count as a power fantasy? I mean, special powers alone are hardly what makes a power fantasy. The other stuff that you describe, IMO, defines the power fantasy in its absence. Giving badass moments to other characters? Letting the villains make concrete gains that aren't immediately reversed? Character flaws that actually cause problems?
You need to tag someone first
Power Fantasy fiction isn't the same thing as Mary Sue fiction, though they can share a great deal of similarity.
Power Fantasy is not typically as self-centered. Mary Sue fiction is what you seem to be describing.