ficsnark

[cimorene]

wtf? pwp fades to teacup poodle methos convinced duncan is going to leave him soon, then duncan convinces him with a few sentences that his insecurity is unfounded and the story closes with: And as they kissed again a pair of night-hunting hawks flew silhouetted across the moon. uh... well... good for them? the weird thing is that last night i read two really good stories by esjay, the same author--the marrying kind and straight and low, the latter of which was truly outstanding, well-characterised, hilarious and wicked and unfolding perfectly--in short exemplary story-telling. like... what happened?

this icon is a group effort, the result of mace_m's couch and highlander eps and comments by everybody present, more or less. as the eminent master chi has said, who cares that you can barely read it?

Comments

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's very rare that i even have the desire to read something that long. i opened it up once... no... twice... but i didn't read more than half a chapter before my attention span ran out.

[morningfine]

Ah. Well, I'm all for epic fiction, when it works. When it doesn't feel like it's stretched thin and worn to a thread before the author can let it go. I had a time when I hardly read nothing shorter than 50 000 words, but I've had to give that up. No time anymore. Still, I enjoy long and involved fiction most.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

50,000 isn't all that long--it's not even official novel-length, just novella. i'm sure that kiss series all put together is a loooooooot longer than that. i think 20.000 - 70.000 or so is my favorite length.

[morningfine]

i'm sure that kiss series all put together is a loooooooot longer than that.

Sure. But it's been a while since the last time I read anything that long. My favorite fics of all time range from 95,000 words to 412,000 and on to a huge arc of 12 fics in which the parts vary between 10,000 and 107,000 words. Longer the better, but I havent really found anything good and epic in my recent obsessions. More's the wah.

I think the thing I love about long and involved fics is that they have a way of sticking with you that short fics, no matter how good, can't really accomplish.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i don't find that i remember long fics more. if i remember a long story it's usually a sharp moment of impact that i remember, and i remember those from very short stories, even scene-length vignettes (although i don't really like one-scene stories much), too.

it's probably a difference in brain chemistry or something. my attention span is short in everything, not just stories. although i remember when i was a child reading novels all day, they have to be quite good, and it's easier to find high quality science fiction than high quality fan fiction. especially if your parents have a large private library of it... .