Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related The Recent Spate of Deathfics

I would not put deathfics at the top of my favorite reading list, but I don't find them incomprehensible either. The best stories for me are the ones that make me feel...something. Some strong emotion. It might be humor, or it might be sadness, or it might be sexual tension. It might just be empathy or sympathy for what the characters are going through. But if you can make your readers care enough about the characters to feel right along with them, then you've probably done something right as a writer. Fan fic writers have a head start because readers generally go in caring about the characters, but you still have to make those characters seem real enough that the reader cares about what they're going through.

Writers write deathfic because it's an obvious venue for exploring some very strong, very basic emotions - anger, grief, etc. And the episode TOGOM gave this fandom the freedom to do that in a "safe" way, with a happy ending; judging by the success of many of those stories, the readers lapped it up. It may be that writers feel that the potential of that episode has been exhausted at this point and are moving on to deathfics where you don't get the happy ending. Also, in TOGOM, Lois is the one who does the grieving; some of these writers may want to shift the focus to Clark and what his life would be like if Lois died. I'm just guessing and haven't read any of the recent stories in question, so I can't comment on them specifically.

Writers also write deathfic for the challenge of it. Writing "extreme emotion" is pretty hard - to me anyway - and it can be exciting to actually pull it off. It's scary, too, because if you miss, you miss by a mile. You can get by with a so-so chapter in a plotty story, but if you try to write a laugh-out-loud fic and nobody does, or a deathfic and nobody cries...well, that's just a disaster.

As for why readers like deathfic, I think it's because when it's well-done, a good cry can be cathartic, and crying over a fictional character - even a beloved one - beats the heck out of crying over a real life friend or loved one. I've only written one story where a major character dies, and it was the only story I ever posted in that particular fandom. Granted, it was a "peaceful death at the end of a long life" scenario, but still, I fully expected to be hounded right out of the fandom! Instead, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I got all these e-mails from people who said they'd cried buckets over my story, and would I please write some more. So go figure. Looking back, my most "popular" stories overall, the ones that have garnered the most feedback from readers, have not necessarily been the ones that I thought were the best-written, best-plotted, etc. Without exception, they've been the ones that made people either laugh or cry. The latter might not be everyone's cup of tea, but some readers really do respond to it.

I won't address the issue of how much warning an author should be expected to give, except to say that I can see both sides of the issue. As a reader, there are certain themes I prefer to avoid, and I do appreciate having a heads up so that I can do that. As a writer, I can relate to the reluctance to give too much of the story away in the author's notes.

I am very sorry for Nan's loss, however, and sorry that reading fanfic lately hasn't been the escape from real life that she wants/needs it to be.

Best,

Caroline