> [...] But it struck me, as I was reading both the Bear and VanderMeer opinions, that within their remarks, sat what I consider one of the reasons short fiction doesn't reach further audiences, and that is in how we talk about it. I've watched people in this scene scramble over children's television like Dr Who, scream fucking murder at bad episodes of Lost, rub themselves over superhero comics, burn the ones with stains, and actively praise and condemn directors and stars of movies, all without one concern that the people involved in that might read their opinion... but when it comes to short fiction, and indeed, long fiction, the conversation is with the positive, and as soon as it hits the negative, statements like VanderMeer saying, "I'm not naming names," and Bear's, "But they're trying really hard," are the usual, and reveal the closed in, club like scene of the writing world, in which authors worry about hurting the feelings of the fragile flowers around them. How, for example, with such statements being said, fiction can get a little more punk, a little rougher, and a little wild, I have no idea. Indeed, with authors themselves saying, "Well, I'm not going to point fingers, even though some people try real hard," is it any wonder that the majority of the work is often considered mediocre, tasteless, and plain?
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> There is a culture to these things, I find, and one only has to look at the culture to see the cause of an end product.
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I don't know... that seems to be such an uneven comparison as to be useless. With comics and television shows, he's talking about existing series with established fanbases, who are going to watch and judge each episode against what they've come to expect. (And, I should note, the opinions expressed are still largely supportive when one is talking about a property that is being run by its original creator... Even when quality falls off in a beloved creator's show or comic, the expression of fans at the time is usually cushioned.)
Short stories are a completely different animal. You usually read them because of the author's name, or because of a general interest in the subject matter, and as such you're not likely to have such a strong reaction to the ones that you don't care for... They aren't usually derailing a series, or making lasting changes to a beloved property. And, unlike movies, comics and television shows, an individual short story is unlikely to be such a topic of conversation online that it would draw in the opinions of people who weren't making the effort to search out a place to comment on it. (I hated "Transformers" and gave a rant on it because people all over the web and elsewhere were talking about it at the time. I don't do that with some bad movie that nobody else will have seen or heard of... what's the point?)
And tying into this, the work that brings out the most vitriol online is the work done by the mega-popular. The top movies at the box office, the best selling comics, the highest rated television shows. Short stories don't tend to occupy this lofty position on a pedestal (and the authors who could occupy it don't tend to write a lot of them) and so aren't prime targets to people who just want to tear them down.
Move down the charts and find the small, struggling self-published comics, the little seen independent films and the obscure television shows that are clinging to life and compare the average amount of positive to negative comments bandied about online. Only the real fans of those things are involved in the discussions, and so rather than help stamp them out and kill their chances, they tend to couch their criticisms in a way that is balanced against all that the effort has going for it.
