My friend Tori recently coined a term for a habit of mine (bad, good, I can't decide) that I share with her and several others I know: "Literary Schadenfreude."
This is when you purposefully read poor writing for the sheer enjoyment of seeing how awful it is. Romance novels are great for this, but my personal favorites are bad fanfiction. Especially self-insert fanfiction, because it's very, very rare that self-insert can be written well and believably. Not impossible, just rare, and personally I've yet to see it done well.
I can't really explain WHY I love bad writing, or bad movies. There's something about going into something with zero expectations about its quality that allows you to just sit back and enjoy, and the poor writing (and acting and effect, when it comes to crappy movies) often makes it better.
There's a sort of fullfillment as a writer in getting to read literature that's worse than anything you write. It's a boost of confidence, anyways, and sometimes the laughs derive not from "oh this is awful," but rather from a place of "oooh I remember when I wrote like this."
I never judge the author based on the quality. Sure, they're creating and investing time in this poor writing, but they can always improve from here, and there's usually always something redeeming. A plotline or characters that you can't help but become invested in, regardless of how ridiculous.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this ramble, so I'll end it here. Perhaps tomorrow I'll write something short for a post. Until tomorrow, toodles!
No comments:
Post a Comment