To elaborate on the conversation I was having above.
Crackfic: A premise when stated outright, outside of the story, sounds like it SHOULD NOT WORK. "Today John is a rainbow and Rodney is a unicorn!" (To author of this fic: We use it as an example out of love and adoration! IT HAD SPARKLES!!!) Without any 'story context' that premise sounds absurd. HOWEVER once you read the story, the author does enough work to convince you that premise does indeed work for varying levels of work. I.E. we just accept that John is a rainbow, because somehow the author has managed to convey rainbow like qualities out of an inanimate object AND somehow get John like qualities to mesh with the rainbow like qualities.
The PROBLEM here, as with a lot of fic, is that once you reach this level of possible disbelief, you're going to have a lot of people just not hang in there with you. So to them, the story didn't work, but I don't think it's necessarily badfic. Just not their thing. The problem is getting both reader and writer alike to understand the difference between "I didn't like it" and "That was badly executed" and "Are you sure you didn't copy/paste those names in?"
Badfic is when, even if the basic premise (aliens try and kidnap Rodney) sounds pretty plausible (Rodney's got a lot of skills that so far, Pegasus seems to be lacking in) the execution lacks a fundamental internal logic. A then B, therefore C. Where C CAN be something pretty insane, as long as the author convinces me that C is a decent answer to the events A and B.
Ex w/out crackish ending: Rodney breaks his arm, John splints it in the field, therefore there are minor complications because before Rodney can get back to atlantis he has to run around and possibly fix and or shoot things.
Ex WITH crackish ending: Rodney breaks his arm, John splints it in the field using ancient debris, the ancient debris was really a leftover science project. Therefore Rodney sprouts wings.
Sure, I might have do a little footsie to make that work-- but you can see how it MIGHT.
Badfic would be:
Rodney breaks his arm, John refuses to splint it in the field because Rodney can't take anymore pain, instead he zaps him unconscious and throws him over his shoulder. (without splinting even after he's unconscious) See, no logical progression of thought AND a lack of basic emergency medicine research.
no subject
Crackfic: A premise when stated outright, outside of the story, sounds like it SHOULD NOT WORK. "Today John is a rainbow and Rodney is a unicorn!" (To author of this fic: We use it as an example out of love and adoration! IT HAD SPARKLES!!!) Without any 'story context' that premise sounds absurd. HOWEVER once you read the story, the author does enough work to convince you that premise does indeed work for varying levels of work. I.E. we just accept that John is a rainbow, because somehow the author has managed to convey rainbow like qualities out of an inanimate object AND somehow get John like qualities to mesh with the rainbow like qualities.
The PROBLEM here, as with a lot of fic, is that once you reach this level of possible disbelief, you're going to have a lot of people just not hang in there with you. So to them, the story didn't work, but I don't think it's necessarily badfic. Just not their thing. The problem is getting both reader and writer alike to understand the difference between "I didn't like it" and "That was badly executed" and "Are you sure you didn't copy/paste those names in?"
Badfic is when, even if the basic premise (aliens try and kidnap Rodney) sounds pretty plausible (Rodney's got a lot of skills that so far, Pegasus seems to be lacking in) the execution lacks a fundamental internal logic. A then B, therefore C. Where C CAN be something pretty insane, as long as the author convinces me that C is a decent answer to the events A and B.
Ex w/out crackish ending: Rodney breaks his arm, John splints it in the field, therefore there are minor complications because before Rodney can get back to atlantis he has to run around and possibly fix and or shoot things.
Ex WITH crackish ending: Rodney breaks his arm, John splints it in the field using ancient debris, the ancient debris was really a leftover science project. Therefore Rodney sprouts wings.
Sure, I might have do a little footsie to make that work-- but you can see how it MIGHT.
Badfic would be:
Rodney breaks his arm, John refuses to splint it in the field because Rodney can't take anymore pain, instead he zaps him unconscious and throws him over his shoulder. (without splinting even after he's unconscious) See, no logical progression of thought AND a lack of basic emergency medicine research.