Thread: What makes a fic crack?

The second line of discussion in this series. Besides "dark fics", another classification that doesn't seem to have a universally agreed-upon definition (but that my one-shots often get called) is a "crack fic".

The general gist is "a fic that makes you go WTF" or "a fic that makes you think the writer was on crack". But because this category is less looked for than its cousin, the "dark fic", there isn't as much controversy over its actual meaning. For example, slash fics make me go WTF personally, but they're not generally considered crack fics. I personally consider comedy one of the elements of a crack fic, but many people think it is not so.

What makes a fic a "crack fic" in your opinion?

Crack fics, for me, are fics written to appear like they were written badly. Whether that badness comes in the form of completely screwed-up humour, way-out pairings, contrived, overused plots or whatever, they all look like they were written by a bad author, when in reality the writer is often quite competent. Basically, when you sacrifice skill and sense for laughs. I don't read much crack, though, so I'm probably not the best judge of what is and isn't.

The term 'crack fic' very likely derives from crack cocaine, suggesting an original denotation of being a fic written by a writer who appears to be on drugs. That's the obvious bit, but it doesn't tell you very much apart from that. The important thing to note is that crack fics are deliberate, and typically stated to be crack, by an author fully aware of how terrible theirs is. In any case, I've always thought of crack fics as being intentionally absurd, written for humorous purposes, or to satirise bad writing. (Or to troll.) I think Misheard Whisper put it quite well when he said

Originally Posted by Misheard Whisper

Crack fics look like they were written by a bad author, when in reality the writer is often quite competent.

Originally Posted by Smuglord

For example, slash fics make me go WTF personally, but they're not generally considered crack fics. I personally consider comedy one of the elements of a crack fic, but many people think it is not so.

Not sure why you'd think a slash fic would be crack fic, or why it would make someone 'go WTF'.
As for comedy; yes, it often is present, either in the text or as a result of how hilariously bad it is, but I've seen crackfic written to provoke rage for the author's amusement or to satirise or to make a point.

Originally Posted by Smuglord

What makes a fic a "crack fic" in your opinion?

Any fic intentionally written to be ridiculous. That's really it. Very common traits though, include unjustifiable romantic pairings, OOC behaviour, much poorer writing - bordering on illiterate - than the author's typical work, enormous plot holes or other suspensions of realism and hyperbolic Mary Sues. You could write a crackfic without any of them though.

Originally Posted by unrepentantAuthor

The term 'crack fic' very likely derives from crack cocaine, suggesting an original denotation of being a fic written by a writer who appears to be on drugs. That's the obvious bit, but it doesn't tell you very much apart from that. The important thing to note is that crack fics are deliberate, and typically stated to be crack, by an author fully aware of how terrible theirs is. In any case, I've always thought of crack fics as being intentionally absurd, written for humorous purposes, or to satirise bad writing.

The one problem with this definition is that I've had fics that I've written be retroactively labelled as crack. I mean, I knew exactly what I was doing when I wrote the fics, but I definitely didn't have ridiculous-ness in mind.

Here are two examples of such fics.

In my experience, satirical fics are not put down as crack, because the author has a very specific purpose in writing them, one which he would not have come up with if he were on drugs. Normally the author himself is not qualified to call his fic a crack, unless he was literally snorting cocaine when writing it. Maybe afterward, when he reads it a few months later, he'll think, "what kind of crack was I on?"

@Smuglord: Ah, I do see what you mean. I think that's a problem with the existence of vaguely defined 'genres' in the first place, really: too much is subjective. Come to think of it, the first fanfiction I ever wrote, if a sane person were to find my sole backup copy (kept for posterity, hidden out of shame) I suspect they would consider it a crackfic written by an expert troll. It was written in complete sincerity, however, hard as that is for me to accept. In that case, might one argue that the term 'crack fic' is about as nebulous, colloquial and unhelpful as 'Mary Sue'?

Originally Posted by unrepentantAuthor

In that case, might one argue that the term 'crack fic' is about as nebulous, colloquial and unhelpful as 'Mary Sue'?

I do believe we're onto something here.

Yes, uA is definitely on to something - something that every such label has: It's just a label, and thus very vague, varies from person to person, and whilst carrying general connotations it's rendered moot by the sheer difference in definitions various people inhibit. It's the same with, as he exemplifies, a mary sue. Or a dark fic. Or any such label. I mean, even genres, like "action" and "sci.fi.", while being more definite, have fuzzy borders where subjective definitions takes the stage as the lead actor of determining what is what. The only difference between genres and labels such as dark/crack fic and mary sue is that the latter have less ground in which most people agree on its definition.

I spent this school year - my last year before university - studying satirical literature. The teachers spent a full fortnight getting my class to study what makes satire what it is, that we might understand why the texts we were given were satirical. There were some fairly amusing discussions about whether or not Catch-22 was satirical, but in the end we did manage to settle on a single defining trait of satire, based on a quote from the archetypical satirist Alexander Pope.

Originally Posted by Alexander Pope

Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.

This and some other comments by him, Swift, Juvenal and others, led us to conclude that satire is a device to expose or ridicule human failings. But you see, even then, that does not necessarily differentiate between satire and blunt criticism. So the amendment "through the use of irony, sarcasm or wit" was required. It still didn't express the techniques used though, like parody, hyperbole, etc. The exercise taught me above all that works of writing simply refuse to be plainly categorised. Genre systems are impossible to use as intended, and these days I don't think they should be. Every story is like an individual gem to be assessed not according to an imperfect classification, but either on its own, or against all literature.

Typically something that makes me shake my head and say "What the heck did I just read?" When I finish it. I'd say there is always little or no effort into making the fic, there's no real plot, and it has a strange/awkward/miserable ending.

I read a crack murder fiction one time, the writer made it seem funny that the character was killing other people, I'd say that's a crack fic.

I've never thought crackfics are hard to define. They're just fics that depict things (usually pairings) that are so absurd or impossible that there is absolutely no way that they could ever be taken seriously, and aren't written to be taking themselves seriously. For instance, a shipping fic that is between, say, Max and Professor Oak is a crackfic, so long as it doesn't actually try and take itself seriously.

Originally Posted by Feliciano

I've never thought crackfics are hard to define. They're just fics that depict things (usually pairings) that are so absurd or impossible that there is absolutely no way that they could ever be taken seriously, and aren't written to be taking themselves seriously. For instance, a shipping fic that is between, say, Max and Professor Oak is a crackfic, so long as it doesn't actually try and take itself seriously.

But that is still very subjective! One reader might find a particular shipping fic to be absurd, whereas another reader might believe it to be stunning, even perfect writing, the epitome of romantic rapture. There is not objective scale to decide how seriously a fic can be taken.

Originally Posted by unrepentantAuthor

But that is still very subjective! One reader might find a particular shipping fic to be absurd, whereas another reader might believe it to be stunning, even perfect writing, the epitome of romantic rapture. There is not objective scale to decide how seriously a fic can be taken.

Everything is subjective - to try and argue otherwise would be an exercise in futility. Readers may take a fic seriously, but it's quite another thing for the story to not take itself seriously. I suppose (somehow) the example pairing I gave might be considered legit for a "serious" fic, but what about something like "Ash's Charizard's tailxDrake's left shoe?"

That's true, an example like that is crack by anyone's standards. However, I still have an issue with the defining boundaries of crack fics being especially subjective, which means that many fics not as easily called crack as that pairing will be fairly ambiguous. Is that sound reasoning?

TVTropes has several categoies of Mary Sue. Perhaps several categories of crack fic are in order? (I'm sure someone somewhere has beaten me to it.)

Fair enough. I suppose, more specifically, I've always determined which fics were crack by figuring out how seriously they tried to take themselves. If the author's trying to be serious with their story, it's usually obvious (their success in doing so notwithstanding). Likewise, it's also usually obvious when an author's NOT taking their story seriously. The quality of the actual writing can vary, though.

Originally Posted by Feliciano

Fair enough. I suppose, more specifically, I've always determined which fics were crack by figuring out how seriously they tried to take themselves. If the author's trying to be serious with their story, it's usually obvious (their success in doing so notwithstanding). Likewise, it's also usually obvious when an author's NOT taking their story seriously. The quality of the actual writing can vary, though.

I actually brought up the author's intention, but Smuglord's account of having his fics retroactively labelled crack made me reconsider that. In fact, 'death of the author' theory makes it even harder. Perhaps crack fics should be labelled as such by the author...