Write what?

I'll try to keep this short, since I'm at work. Incidentally, when I start out a blather like that it usually means it won't be short at all.

Anyway.

Yesterday I said that I thought it was a good thing that so many people are writing now as compared to a century or two ago. Today I'd like to add that just because I'm glad that people are writing doesn't mean I have to like what they're writing.

Case in point? Fan fiction.

As I've said before, I really don't get fanfic. I know that it's pretty popular in some circles and I've heard that some of it is quite good, but I don't get it. I don't get the why of it.

I also don't read it. Yeah, I'll admit that up front. The closest I've ever come to reading fanfic is the occasional Star Trek novel when I was a teenager. Not something I especially brag about, no, but I did read a few of them. I don't think I got the why of them either, though.

It probably has something to do with the way I watch television shows. I generally don't find myself needing a continuation, I guess. If a show's well done, I'm happy with the show. If I'm left feeling lacking after the show, I'll assume that either the show wasn't all that good or it wasn't to my taste. The end. No elaboration needed. Do I wonder what the characters are doing in the times we're not seeing them on-screen? Well, no. Not really. I'm more or less willing to go with what the makers of the thing have decided to show us. And if that doesn't satisfy me? I find something else to watch. I suppose I just don't have the need to complete things in a more satisfactory way for myself. Maybe I'm not a closure-type person, I don't know.

For the most part I don't care about fanfic since it's a world I don't feel the need to inhabit, but one thing about it puzzles me. In my time lurking around television show forums, I've noticed that some of the most vocal dissatisfied viewers seem to be the same people who are heavily involved in fanfic. It's like (well, in some cases at least) they've invested so much into their world of this-is-how-it-should-go that they have a really hard time dealing with things when that isn't how it goes. Sometimes it even sounds like they're terribly insulted when the actual show goes in a different direction than the fan stories were taking it.

I so very much don't get that.

I like a show, I watch it. I don't like a show, I stop. That's about as invested as I get.

Maybe that word invested is the key. I don't get terribly invested in television. It's just tv. It's not life. The people I'm watching are actors, not my buddies. I don't have tv boyfriends, so I guess that precludes me from being overly worried about what happens to them. Do I enjoy television shows? Of course, but I'm happy to let the creative types take me for a ride without wishing we were using a different road. Or a different car. Or a different driver. And if I start wishing for different, well... there are other shows and other channels, right?

Obviously if it were that simple for everyone, fanfic wouldn't exist. It does. To some of you, then, I'm the one who's missing out on something that may even be worth reading.

That's ok. If you knew what I'm currently finding worth reading, you'd probably be the first to say that some things are just worth not getting...