I started out writing fanfic in an X-Men APA, where all the fanfic was of course plot-driven, since that was the model we used derived from the comics. It wasn't until much later when I was out into the wider world of fanfic that I ran across non-plot-centered fanfic. So I'm more than a little biased by my personal history.

I want an adventure, not the journal of a person's inner turmoil.

I tend to want both. Those stories are very, very hard to find, but when I find them I hang on to them very, very hard.

I'm not sure I've ever really written a "plotty" story, then, by the definitions above. Hm.

I've never written a densely-plotted story.

But I do have charts and notes for the non-densely plotted longer ones! t /cheerful

Hey, woman, you feel like chatting?

Sure. Give me a mo. I'm in a translucent shift and it's somewhat cold, so I'm thinkin' clothing.

Something like Analise's Weight of the World, in which the interior life of the characters is driven by, and drives, the external happening? That's the way it should be for me.

Consuela speaks for me. I get bored with PWPs or character vignettes with strong undertone of navel-gazing very quickly.

In fanfic reading, it ultimately falls under preference. When I read fanfic, I usually read it because I love the universe in which the story is set. I *want* to see exploration into the characters' inner lives, but I want to see it in the context of this show I love, which, in case of Buffyverse, would feature demons and vampires and magic, and in X-Files, conspiracies and mutants, and in Stargate, wormhole travels and evil snakeheads. So a 'plotty' story to me, in its narrowest definition and purely speaking of fanfic, has elements that resemble/plausible as the episodes of the show in question. I'm not so much interested in stories in which the characters go on roadtrips/lie in bed talking/meet each other in a mall, and somehow come to vital realization/deeper understanding of themselves. But that's just my preference--I like plotty fic better, which doesn't mean that it has some implicit superiority to non plotty fic. God knows there are boring plotty novels a-plenty out there with uninspiring prose.

Interesting, Vonnie. I usually read fanfic because I'm interested in the characters, but want to explore some area that the original source material can't or won't go into--sometimes that means 'shippier and/or sexier, sometimes more introspective than a visual medium can easily be, sometimes taking characters far into the future or exploring their pasts.

See, I'm actually quite fond of past or future-fic, but I'd *still* want it to be feasible/compatible with the premise of the show. For example, a fang-gang story set in the past or a historical slayer fic would have very little problem inserting itself into the Buffy-canon--I love stories like these. For X-files and Stargate, I love dystopian future fic/post-colonization/AU stories, because these types of storyline can be a very real outgrowth from the premise laid out in the show.

Fic preferences are weird things, aren't they. When it comes down to it, you like what you like, and that's that.

When it comes down to it, you like what you like, and that's that.

I have such plebian tastes. Well-written schmoop with a touch of hurt/comfort, and I'm a happy woman. Oh, and if there are hell's own obstacles to get through before the couple gets to be together (no picket fences required, a safe but ruined bolthole somewhere together is sufficient), and I'll save it to my hard drive.

Because the big divide I seem to see is external/internal journey, where a lot of the time I see plotty defined as the external WRT: fic. But it's not a distinction I see so much outside of fanfic, which could just be how I limit my reading.

Well, a lot of people get interested in fanfic because they want to spend more time in a character's head, and certainly that’s a valid reason to write fanfic, but it’s not necessarily going to have a plot that way. Also, lack of plot is a really common problem among novice writers -- they (we) spend so much time inside their own heads anyhow that it seems natural that their characters would as well. And that’s why a lot of student fiction involves solitary characters on a journey -- the physical movement stands in for the emotional movement that should happen as the character interacts with other people. (God knows this is something I’ve done myself, and plot development is a real issue for me in my OC fiction.)

But, to paraphrase the writer and teacher Ethan Canin, plot is what you use to distract the reader so you can pick her pockets. That is to say, the external journey is there to get you to the internal journey, which is going to be what the reader gets emotionally involved in. To take examples from my own work, because I can, the internal journey in one of my favorite stories, "The Seven Year Itch," is about Lex coming to terms with the idea that Clark can be both Clark and Superman, and the changes in Clark’s life don’t have to mean an end to their relationship. The kidnappers are just there to push Lex to that realization -- that Superman isn’t this stranger in their relationship -- and are kind of a Macguffin, really. In my new story, (gratuitous self-pimpage moment ahoy!) Some Like It Hot, the boyband holds Lex and Lois hostage so they can learn to tolerate and even appreciate one another -- and also because being taken hostage by a boyband is always funny. In another, more in-depth example, Resonant’s “Transfigurations,” the battle for Hogwarts is on one level just there to bring Harry and Draco together; what makes that story good is that the emotional plot pushes the external plot along, and the external plot pushes the emotional plot along. Plot is what it takes to move these characters from suspicion to trust, to get you invested in seeing the relationship work out, to make the happy ending sweet. If “Transfigurations” was just Harry musing on Draco, it’d be a lot less interesting, and probably a lot shorter.