People sometimes ask me what’s good about glowfic, as a reader.
You know that extremely high-context joke you could only make to that one friend you’ve known for years, because you shared a bunch of specific experiences which were load-bearing for the joke to make sense at all, let alone be funny[1]? And you know how that joke is much funnier than the average low-context joke?
Well, reading glowfic is like that, but for fiction. You get to know a character as imagined by an author in much more depth than you’d get with traditional fiction, because the author writes many stories using the same character “template”, where the character might be younger, older, a different species, a different gender… but still retains some recognizable, distinct “character”. You get to know how the character deals with hardship, how they react to surprises, what principles they have (if any). You get to know Relationships between characters, similarly. You get to know Societies.
Ultimately, you get to know these things better than you know many people, maybe better than you know yourself.
Then, when the author starts a new story, and tosses a character you’ve seen ten variations of into a new situation, you already have _quite a lot of context_ for modeling how the character will deal with things. This is Fun. It’s even more Fun when you know many characters by multiple authors like that, and get to watch them deal with each other. There’s also an element of parasocial attachment and empathy, here. Knowing someone[2] like that makes everything they’re going through more emotionally salient—victory or defeat, fear or jubilation, confidence or doubt.
Part of this is simply a function of word count. Most characters don’t have millions of words[3] written featuring them. I think the effect of having the variation in character instances and their circumstances is substantial, though.
I haven’t read glowfic before, but this resonates with me re: what’s fun about all-star seasons of Survivor. Players you know now being in new contexts, with new opponents, and with you maybe having more emotional stake in a specific player winning because you’ve rooted for them previously.
In the case of Survivor though, you also get players who are now aware of their edit/meta, and which can sometimes flanderize them or cause them to have baggage that requires a change in strategy. That’s sometimes interesting - can this known liar somehow trick people _again- ? - but also sometimes results in the fan favorite players getting voted out earlier.
People sometimes ask me what’s good about glowfic, as a reader.
You know that extremely high-context joke you could only make to that one friend you’ve known for years, because you shared a bunch of specific experiences which were load-bearing for the joke to make sense at all, let alone be funny[1]? And you know how that joke is much funnier than the average low-context joke?
Well, reading glowfic is like that, but for fiction. You get to know a character as imagined by an author in much more depth than you’d get with traditional fiction, because the author writes many stories using the same character “template”, where the character might be younger, older, a different species, a different gender… but still retains some recognizable, distinct “character”. You get to know how the character deals with hardship, how they react to surprises, what principles they have (if any). You get to know Relationships between characters, similarly. You get to know Societies.
Ultimately, you get to know these things better than you know many people, maybe better than you know yourself.
Then, when the author starts a new story, and tosses a character you’ve seen ten variations of into a new situation, you already have _quite a lot of context_ for modeling how the character will deal with things. This is Fun. It’s even more Fun when you know many characters by multiple authors like that, and get to watch them deal with each other. There’s also an element of parasocial attachment and empathy, here. Knowing someone[2] like that makes everything they’re going through more emotionally salient—victory or defeat, fear or jubilation, confidence or doubt.
Part of this is simply a function of word count. Most characters don’t have millions of words[3] written featuring them. I think the effect of having the variation in character instances and their circumstances is substantial, though.
If you don’t, you’re missing out.
Works even if they’re fictional.
Often by fairly talented writers, who themselves have much better taste in conflict-drivers than the average author of published fiction.
I haven’t read glowfic before, but this resonates with me re: what’s fun about all-star seasons of Survivor. Players you know now being in new contexts, with new opponents, and with you maybe having more emotional stake in a specific player winning because you’ve rooted for them previously.
In the case of Survivor though, you also get players who are now aware of their edit/meta, and which can sometimes flanderize them or cause them to have baggage that requires a change in strategy. That’s sometimes interesting - can this known liar somehow trick people _again- ? - but also sometimes results in the fan favorite players getting voted out earlier.