What is this human thing called crackfic? by Carolyn Claire

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

*waves* Hello, all, it's me--CC, the absentee landlord. I've been kind of busy, RL kind of busy, but I've wanted to talk about crackfic for a couple of months, and now here I am to do it. Thenk yew for your patience and/or your poking.

So, what the heck is crackfic? Where'd the term originate? Who calls crackfic on a story? Is crackfic a new genre, a renaming of an old one, or just a state of mind? Does labeling a silly story crackfic confer some kind of legitimacy on it that wasn't there before? What about humor? Kink? AU? Have those labels been assimilated under the crackfic label? Does 'crackfic' cover a multitude of sins? Does it mean never having to say you're sorry? I wonder about these things. Do you? Tell me what you think about crackfic.



So, crackfic. The first time I really noticed the term, it was being called on one of my own stories. Hrm, I thought, yes, appropriate, interesting, kinda cute. And then I started noticing the term being used everywhere--writers were labeling their stories as cracked, readers were calling crack on others' stories--crackfic was abounding, apparently. And people were talking about it, asking each other what it was, having discussions and sharing their interpretations, but I never saw anyone come up with anything definitive, though that didn't seem to bother anyone. Crackfic, it seems, is all about the fun, and I stand firmly behind the having of fun. But the gears in my head won't stop turning, and crackfic continues to proliferate, so I want to talk about it some more.

Is it a fad, or is crackfic here to stay? In SGA fandom, crackfic seems to be running rampant, enough so that people are commenting on it. Are there really more stories being labeled crackfic in SGA fandom than in others? If that's true, why? Is it the nature of the show? SGA is fairly standard-issue television SF fare, no more bizarre than Trek or Farscape or SG-1. Is it the characters? Are John and Rodney more fun to place in wacky situations than characters from other fandoms? Is it the influx of new writers? SGA fandom is steadily growing, with writers from other fandoms pouring in and first time fans and/or writers eager to contribute stories. Is there some greater sense of security in starting out in a new fandom with a less serious story? Could the term confer some sort of perceived legitimacy on less serious efforts? And did the term begin in SGA fandom, or is it another bit of fannish culture with roots in venerable old fandoms like XF or Trek? Did SGA invent crackfic, or just embrace it wholeheartedly?

I've collected some thoughts about what crackfic is and what it's about from discussions I've observed all over the fandom. Here are a couple of them:

- Crackfic is any story with a cracked premise, a wildly AU setting or wacky characterizations. You can't define it, but you'll know it when you see it, and readers can call it on a story. Interesting, but...what if the author wasn't feeling cracked when she wrote it? Is crackfic really in the eye of the beholder? I, personally, would rather whack an elf with a stick than read about one, and I might call both a writer of an SGA elf story and the story itself cracked, but maybe that's just me. What about the elf lovers? What about the writer who worked long and hard on her story, carefully crafting her prose, researching elf lore through the ages and generally taking it all very seriously? What if she wasn't feeling the least bit cracked when she wrote it? Here's another example--centaur stories. Yes, I'm a big centaur fan (okay, it's kind of a kink) and James' and Leah's centaur stories are terrific, IMO, well written stories about the characters and their relationships and trials and triumphs...and some of them just happen to be centaurs. They're AU stories, definitely, and, as a reader, they push a definite kink button for me, but are they crackfic? I can't speak for the writers, but I certainly wouldn't call them that. But YOU might. Would you, to the writers? If writers don't say, in their notes, "I was on crack when I wrote this," would you point and call crack in their comments? Would they mind if you did, if that hadn't been their intention? I didn't mind, but that had been my intention. What about you? Would you mind if someone called crackfic on your story, and you hadn't meant it that way?

Which leads us to...

- Crackfic is as the author does; the author calls crack on her own story, and her intent defines it. We talked about this a few posts back concerning one of Ces's stories, which was a nifty little "aliens made them do it" sort of slave-kink thing, hot and sweet and well characterized and a very satisfying read. A number of us couldn't figure out why she'd called it cracked; it's no more out there than lots of similar stories, and a lot better written than many. From her notes, we deduced that maybe she felt cracked when she wrote it, felt silly and crack-headed as she was creating it. Authors do sometimes seem to want to distance themselves a little from some of their stories, to say, in effect, "I wasn't being serious, here, this isn't really me" or "this isn't my best, I just threw it out there" or "I don't know where this came from, I think I have an evil twin." We used to just say 'silly' when we were feeling silly; now we say 'cracked.' Is it the same thing? Is saying "this is crackfic" just another way to say "this is just something silly I tossed out there, so don't take it seriously?" What if the reader doesn't think it's cracked? What if they enjoy it thoroughly and rate it above more serious efforts by other writers--is the reader cracked for taking it seriously? If a majority of readers look at a story and say, "I don't think that's crackfic," what then? Do we take a vote, make a poll? Or does the author have the ultimate say in whether it is or isn't? I didn't use the term 'crackfic' on my story, but others did. It was, but I hadn't said so. Were the readers usurping my labeling authority?

And what about AU, humor, kink? Where we would have once said "humorous AU" or "strange kinky thing," are we now saying "crackfic?" And did we ever really figure out what constitutes an AU, where and how far the departure from canon has to be? My story was a definite AU, transplanting the characters to Atlanta and turning their commute into a wacky parody of a mission. Not that long ago, it would have been pointed to as a humorous AU, and, now, it's crackfic. Since when? Why? I'm working on the definition, now. When is it an AU and when is it crackfic? Can it be both, or need it only be one or the other? We seem to have taken a shortcut and dropped some identifying labels along the way to creating the new term. And, here's a thought; would more or fewer people feel inclined to read a story if it was labeled as crackfic rather than as humor/AU? Those of you who avoid AUs (and I used to be one of you), what difference, if any, would the label make to you in your decision to read? And do readers in general prefer more identifying info than just 'crackfic'--do they want to know more about what kind of story it is, beyond slash/het/gen, before they'll read? Do you ever dismiss a story that an author labels as crackfic without reading, because of the label?

And, speaking of dismissing, about that distance I was talking about--just how far can an author distance herself from her story by using the crackfic label? Does anything really go, if it's crackfic? Is there such a thing as too cracked? What about badfic? There's deliberate badfic, of course, where the writer is parodying clichés or poor technique or failure to spellcheck, that kind of thing, and then there's plain old poorly written. Can a writer who doesn't want to get a beta or use spellcheck or learn a few elements of style slap a crackfic label on her story and relax? Do we hold crackfic to the same standards that we do 'serious' stories? I'm not talking about non-humor vs. humor stories, because one can certainly take writing a humorous story very seriously and craft it just as carefully as one does a story that makes the reader weep or gnash her teeth. Do we judge crackfic by different standards? Is it more acceptable to us if an author "lets herself go" in any area of her writing if she calls the story crack? Part of the humor in a certain type of silly AU, for instance, can be created by skewing characterizations a bit. Do we define whether or not it's crack by the degree of skew? When does it become just bad characterization? How much can we blame on or excuse with the crackfic label?

And, riddle me this, Batman: are we better or worse off as a fandom for adopting and adapting to the crackfic label? Or does it matter at all? Are we seeing more good stories, or fewer? Are we just swapping out one or two labels for another, with no net change in the types of stories we're reading/writing, or has the label spawned a silly story frenzy? Or is it the fandom itself, something inherent in the show/fen/water? Is there a silly story frenzy at all, or are we just taking more notice? Will we even care about any of this in six months time? Do we care about it now? Do you? I do, but I haven't made up my mind exactly how.



Since this topic is about larger ficcish issues--genre, style, direction, etc.--than a single author's story, it's okay to respond to this post from the perspective of a writer as well as a reader, but please do also respond as a reader if you're responding as a writer. Specific stories can be cited as examples, that's fine, but let's discuss crackfic as a whole rather than do in-depth discussion of specific stories, in this post.

Comments

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Crackfic is, IMO, a matter of premise. Crackfic implies an initial premise that is implausible, if not impossible, a premise that's surrealist, even absurdist.

But, who decides what that is? Who says, "this premise is cracked, and this one, but not that one, that's just AU?" That's the issue that's come up whenever I've seen this definition discussed (as per my second 'point' in my post), that one woman's crackfic is another's AU. You say wingfic, for example, is, by definition, crack, but there are those who don't think so, who think it's AU, yes, but perfectly plausible in a SF universe where wild things happen in canon. Where's the list of crackfic themes? What committee decided which ideas belong on the list, and which don't? The "I know it when I see it" definition presumes that we all agree on what's cracked, and we don't. I know of a couple of writers who write what some might call crackfic, but to them, it's not crack, it's AU, and many of the fans of their stories think so, too. There are writers of 'out there' stories, those that you might class as crackfic rather than AU, who wouldn't thank you for labeling their story that way. Who calls it? Where's the stone tablet with the list of cracfic topics? The problem is, there isn't one. There are too many eyes in too many beholders to make that work.

There are also writers who very much intend for anything they label as crackfic not to be taken seriously, and they say so, in their notes--it's the reason they used the crackfic label. Their intent was what made the story crackfic, in their minds--Ces' story 'Haladoria', as previously mentioned, was one of those. The readers didn't see anything particularly cracked about the 'aliens made us pretend a master/slave relationship and have sex' premise; it's actually pretty common, and she wrote it really well. But she felt cracked, apparently, wrote it with that 'whee, crack! *blush*' feeling that some have brought up in comments, so she labeled it crack. The premise isn't out there, at all, for SF/SG-uni fandom--in fact, it's cliched. But the writer herself called it crackfic.

And I think execution can very much make a difference in what is crack and what is AU, because a premise that might originally seem cracked to some might be worked by the author into a story that's so spot-on in terms of characterization and plot that she turns the cracked into the plausible, makes a workable AU out of a wacky idea--was Shallot's mail-order bride story crackfic, or AU? You might say crackfic, but I say AU, when I consider the care she took to create a universe where this kind of thing could plausibly happen, and then gave us characters that fit both what we know and her, literally, alternate universe. So, if it's really a judgment call, if there is no consensus, then a definition that narrows it down to only "very out-there premise" doesn't really work.

That's where the difficulty comes in, because, for some, the definition seems simple, but, on further examination of discussions and writer practices and reader reactions--not so simple. Is the line somewhere between crackfic and badfic, or crackfic and AU? If it's about state of mind, then whose--the writer's, or the reader's? I think the whole concept is much too fluid to really pin down; I think it's one of those terms that's going to mean whatever the user wants it to mean.

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

Pt. 1, because I got long-winded ...

But, who decides what that is?

Not who, what: the rules of the characters' reality. Is the premise actually possible within the reality the characters inhabit? Then it's plausible. Is it absurd or impossible by the rules that govern their reality? Then it's implausible. If the characters are in a reality where waking up a girl or sprouting wings or having men run around in white eyelet and petticoats without anyone taking notice of it or insert-premise-here is against the rules of biology or physics or society - then it's implausible.

And once you make it plausible - or at least start trying to explain and legitimize it - it ceases to be crackfic. A story with a winged character who's from a canon in which people can have wings, that isn't crackfic because it's possible within the reality of that character's universe. A story in which you have Carson messing about, splicing DNA to try to create a winged Wraith, that isn't crackfic (although it may be further evidence of his cracked-in-the-headness, not to mention his lack of medical ethics), because you're attempting to provide a scientific explanation for the wings. A story in which Rodney wakes up one day on Atlantis to discover he's sprouted wings - that's contrary to basic biology, and it's crackfic, it doesn't matter how well it may be written or how stunningly it may illuminate Rodney's character or his relationship with John, because Rodney doesn't live in a reality where people from Earth can or do suddenly sprout wings.

Of course, one of the reasons I think this line gets so mushy in SGA is because of the handwavey "new Ancient device" fallback, and the question's come up of whether that provides enough explanation and legitimacy - enough plausibility - to make some of these tropes not-crackfic. I'm hesitant to say that a simple mention of some new Ancient device that turned someone into a girl is enough to make it not crackfic, just as a throwaway vague reference to some odd family genetics isn't enough to make some of the pop girl! stories or mpreg not crackfic.

There are also writers who very much intend for anything they label as crackfic not to be taken seriously, and they say so, in their notes--it's the reason they used the crackfic label.

Reading back over this, I suspect I sound much more "It's SERIOUS BUSINESS" about crackfic - and fanfic in general - than I really want to. One of the appealing things about crackfic is the absurdity and the ability to be all "Whee! Shiny!" But again, though, tone isn't what makes it crackfic or not. If someone is writing zany crackfic that they don't intend to be taken seriously, that's not any more crackfic than the story about McKay sprouting wings that's written by a writer who uses them as, oh, I don't know, a manifested metaphor for his artistic creativity that's been suppressed but is finally starting to show itself. (Ugh. That's a horrible example, and I only use it because I'm trying to find an SGA-appropriate idea that’s similar to a winged!Britney story about how she lost her wings as she got older and more jaded by her work and celebrity).

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

Pt. 2

Re: Haldoria
The premise isn't out there, at all, for SF/SG-uni fandom--in fact, it's cliched.

But just because something's been done enough to make it a cliché in fandom doesn't mean it can't be crackfic. Aliens making people do it may be so normal as to be mundane in our fandom reality, but is it normal within the reality of the characters?

I could try to build an argument that in the case of "aliens make them do it" the implausible premise is not that aliens make them do it … although, you know, I'm not sure I can take myself at all seriously after typing that, because aliens making them do it as a premise that isn't absurd? I soooo have to take it back. That's an absurd premise, even if it is one of my bulletproof kinks. What I was going to say, though, was that it might be argued that there are other things about that fanfic trope that create the absurdity - I feel fairly sure that if the AF had an SOP for a situation in which aliens try to make you do it, there'd be a lot more paperwork involved than what we usually see.

I'd have to really think about whether that's enough to make it crackfic, though. I think something can be crack-ish without being crackfic, the same way I think something can be slashy without being slash.

And I think execution can very much make a difference in what is crack and what is AU, because a premise that might originally seem cracked to some might be worked by the author into a story that's so spot-on in terms of characterization and plot that she turns the cracked into the plausible

But execution doesn't make a difference in whether an originating premise is plausible by the rules of the characters' reality. Characterization and plot work isn't what makes the difference. World-building is what makes the difference, what makes a premise plausible. Because …

was Shallot's mail-order bride story crackfic, or AU? You might say crackfic, but I say AU, when I consider the care she took to create a universe where this kind of thing could plausibly happen

If she did that, I probably wouldn't call it crackfic.
If you build a reality in which something is normalized, if you create the explanation and legitimize the premise, if you make it possible within the reality you've got your characters in - if you leach it of the absurdity - then it's plausible. And all of that can be done badly, or it can be done well. But the thing that makes the premise plausible or implausible is the normal rules of the reality the characters inhabit, and that's got to do with setup and worldbuilding, not with execution.

My biggest problem with tying the label of crackfic to execution, though, is that "if it's well-written, it isn't crackfic, it's AU" tells people that crackfic by definition isn't good, it isn't well-written, isn't well-characterized. That it's something a writer necessarily wants to distance herself from because she's embarrassed about it or ashamed of it in some way. And I've read too much good crackfic - and spent way too much time "embracing my shame" in pop fandom (heh) - to accept that.

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

(reposted, because my html skillz are weak, and to clarify something)

Back again. :g: It suddenly struck me that there was a whole set of connotations and associations to the word "crackfic" that I learned that a) influence how I see what crackfic is and b) make me resist the idea of tying execution to it, if it's going to connote lesser quality fare.

I mean, before this discussion, I never considered using "cracked" to describe the premises or stories that make up crackfic, maybe because of the possible connotations of "flawed" that the word can carry. Something was either straightforward "crack" - as in (as someone upthread said) "What kind were you smoking when you came up with that?" and hence the idea of absurdity as a defining characteristic - or, if there was an adjective form, it was "cracktastic."

And I think it's telling that the adjective form related to crackfic that I learned is a portmanteau of "crack" and "fantastic," because "crackfic," more often than not, also carried a connotation of fabulousness. Crackfic was something that people looked at and said "That is completely whacked out and should never, ever work - and yet it does."

The thing is, because of my intial experiences with the label of "crackfic" and the quality of the writers who were producing the surrealist and magical realist and absurdist stuff that lends itself to being crackfic ... if quality of execution is going to be tied to the label, I'm going to go into it expecting it to be the good stuff not the badfic.

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

I'm going to consolidate replies to all three sections, here, but I'm probably going to go over one comment, too. Also quite wordy, I am. *g*

Not who, what: the rules of the characters' reality. Is the premise actually possible within the reality the characters inhabit? Then it's plausible.

I like this, the definition you've created and all the reasoning behind it--in large part because it's very similar to my own thinking. *g* So, I think you're pretty much Right, with a capital R (as in True with a capitol T ;), insofar as this covers a lot of how I feel about crackfic and how it maybe should be defined, myself, but as far as the rest of fandom goes...possibly not. I mean, this is a great argument for the 'absolute values of crackfic' position, that anyone can call crackfic on anything if it fits certain criteria, but I do still have to ask, according to whom? I imagine quite a number of people could go along with this definition as a workable one, maybe with a few of their own adjustments, but there are so many people who I've seen discuss the idea of there being any sort of definitively cracked theme who reject that there is, for good reasons of their own. And so many people are using the term to mean so many different things that I can't look at this definition and say, yes, this is universal, this is what crackfic is. That's why, to me, it is a "who" and not a "what", because, though this definition works for me, there are others, and even other ways of looking at what constitutes a cracked theme, and that's where I think the "who" comes in.

It's certainly a good enough definition for me to use in my own reading/writing/commenting, but it won't be for some, and that's where it gets tricky--it becomes a whole 'who says?' kind of thing. Besides us, I mean--we can come up with a really great definition, but from whence did we pluck it? Do individuals define a new term for anyone besides themselves, or does the community that creates and uses it? When I'm interacting with someone for whom this is not THE definition, I'm still going to have to explain myself if I don't call crack the way they would. I think having a definition is good, and a well thought out one is even better, but I'm going to end up carrying my reasoning like a missionary with a Bible to those who feel that "crackfic = wheeeee!" or "it's only crackfic, so anything goes!" So, I want to find a definition that encompasses other folk's mindsets, as well--and can't, except for a fairly loose-limbed, eye-of-the-beholder approach that also allows for people just feeling cracked when they write, or not finding things cracked that I would, etc., because significant portions of the community see it that way. Crackfic is like a movement that contains multitudes, so maybe I'm being overly ambitious in trying to pin it down and should just stick to the definition that works for me. *g*

Reading back over this, I suspect I sound much more "It's SERIOUS BUSINESS" about crackfic - and fanfic in general - than I really want to. One of the appealing things about crackfic is the absurdity and the ability to be all "Whee! Shiny!"

Yeah, that's the thing. Sometimes, it's just fun to feel shiny. :)

(cont.)

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

But again, though, tone isn't what makes it crackfic or not. If someone is writing zany crackfic that they don't intend to be taken seriously, that's not any more crackfic than the story about McKay sprouting wings that's written by a writer who uses them as, oh, I don't know, a manifested metaphor for his artistic creativity that's been suppressed but is finally starting to show itself.

I get what you're saying, but there are a lot of people who think that it does, that crackfic is about tone, or intent, and, since this is an evolving term, a living sort of concept, maybe they're right, too. I think that however the majority of fandom decides to see/use the term, if there ever is any sort of consensus, will be considered the 'right' way (except by those of us who don't agree and like to argue.) But it may all stay as fractured and flexible as it is, too.

But just because something's been done enough to make it a cliché in fandom doesn't mean it can't be crackfic. Aliens making people do it may be so normal as to be mundane in our fandom reality, but is it normal within the reality of the characters?

This is another place where I think the definition may be too narrow, because I think there is very much a sense in fandom that those clichés that have become a sort of fanon, a default, "everybody's written one" premise, aren't crackish, or at least, not anymore. I think a definition should allow for what a fandom finds crackish or not. In some fandoms, having two characters encounter aliens and be forced to have sex would be crackfic, yes, but in a SF uni where the characters often encounter aliens--well, ST did it, and I certainly think the Goa'uld would be capable of making SG-1 do it, because they're freaky that way. *g* But, mostly, the fandom takes AMUDI stories pretty much in stride. They're not seen as being so 'out there', premise-wise, anymore, and I think that's meaningful to any inclusive definition. (Maybe aliens made Mulder and Scully do it?)

I feel fairly sure that if the AF had an SOP for a situation in which aliens try to make you do it, there'd be a lot more paperwork involved than what we usually see.

I really like the stories in which aliens making them do it has become old hat. *g*

I'd have to really think about whether that's enough to make it crackfic, though. I think something can be crack-ish without being crackfic, the same way I think something can be slashy without being slash.

(And there's another foray into the land of tricky definitions. If slash means some sort of gayness between two characters not depicted in canon as being together, what's 'slashy'? Doesn't homoerotic work just fine as a term for it? But I digress. Unless you want to talk about it. :)

(cont. again....)

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

And I think execution can very much make a difference in what is crack and what is AU, because a premise that might originally seem cracked to some might be worked by the author into a story that's so spot-on in terms of characterization and plot that she turns the cracked into the plausible

But execution doesn't make a difference in whether an originating premise is plausible by the rules of the characters' reality. Characterization and plot work isn't what makes the difference. World-building is what makes the difference, what makes a premise plausible.

But that's what I mean by execution--what they did with it, how they handled it, how well they created a world where this premise works, including plot and character work; those are tools. If it all slots together, it becomes plausible. If any of those aspects aren't right, if the story is in any way shoddy, the whole attempt to convince the reader can break down.

My biggest problem with tying the label of crackfic to execution, though, is that "if it's well-written, it isn't crackfic, it's AU" tells people that crackfic by definition isn't good, it isn't well-written, isn't well-characterized.

To me, well written, in this case, means doing the work in every area of the story that allows me to suspend disbelief and buy into what she's doing, and, in my case, that includes everything from the tools for good world building to comma placement. A shoddily written story won't take me anywhere with it; the plausibility can't be achieved. So I do feel execution matters.

That it's something a writer necessarily wants to distance herself from because she's embarrassed about it or ashamed of it in some way. And I've read too much good crackfic - and spent way too much time "embracing my shame" in pop fandom (heh) - to accept that.

In the post on 'Haladoria', and in this post, a number of us talked about how we use the term to cover our asses, from time to time. Not all stories are labeled crackfic because the author feels somehow shy about them, of course, but some definitely are. And that's okay, I guess, if it helps them to put something out there that they otherwise wouldn't have. Kind of sad, IMO, but it happens.

Back again. :g:

All your thoughty stuff is very cool. :)

It suddenly struck me that there was a whole set of connotations and associations to the word "crackfic" that I learned that a) influence how I see what crackfic is and b) make me resist the idea of tying execution to it, if it's going to connote lesser quality fare.

Yes, I think that's true for all of us, that we all come at the term with a different mindset. I've seen thoughts about the terim shared in this post that never would have occurred to me.

I mean, before this discussion, I never considered using "cracked" to describe the premises or stories that make up crackfic, maybe because of the possible connotations of "flawed" that the word can carry.

That's one of the most touchy things about the whole question, I think, the value judgments people assign to different forms of the word and then assume others are, too.

The thing is, because of my intial experiences with the label of "crackfic" and the quality of the writers who were producing the surrealist and magical realist and absurdist stuff that lends itself to being crackfic ... if quality of execution is going to be tied to the label, I'm going to go into it expecting it to be the good stuff not the badfic.

What I've seen has been mixed, so I probably come to the term with less definite expectations. Kind of tentatively, peeking through my fingers, sometimes. Because I never know what I'm likely to get.