write what you know: fandom edition

was in a writing workshop, not too long ago, where the facilitator delivered the maxim that "writing about people's jobs is inherently interesting."

i guess on an abstract level this makes sense—if you're writing about a job, it's very likely gonna have hecka verisimilitude, because you've either done it or you did the right kind of research to talk about it—but it didn't really hit me until i was rereading an old X-Men fic by a BNF.

while it's a fic that's heavy on the schmaltz and hurt/comfort—i think what made it so popular in its day is, in part, how packed full it is of detail: about people's jobs, but also about their hobbies, the towns they're in, and so on, and that shit's all just plain interesting of its own accord. even when they get the details wrong it's interesting! *

* the fic talks a little bit about how investing / finance / wealth management works for Extremely Rich People. i hate that i now know enough about Extremely Rich People to know that's not how it works!, but, hi my name is Lua and i know a disgusting amount about the lives of rich people

...also, having once been forced to order pizza to a gated subdivision, it's a pain in the fucking ass, don't do it, why was that in the fic

some interestingly-detailed shit from the fic, off the top of my head: the main character drives to Alaska, hangs out in Anchorage for a while looking for his parents' tombstones, author had clearly done their research on what Alaska is like. the main character crashes in the apartment of a friend who goes to Columbia, campus-y shenanigans are had, and yes there is the all-important local pizza place they go to. (also, we get actual details on the classes. like, we see freshman calculus, and some cute religions-of-the-world class, and goddamn if the main character isn't the cutest fuckin bright-eyed high school senior the whole time; i remember how magical i thought college classes were, before i was actually... in college... heh.) there's a medical student who talks absurdly in-depth about some relevant medical geekery at some point and it's awesome. and there's several lighter touches, too—a character gets weirdly into smoking via a pipe versus cigarettes because tobacco nerd reasons; a character becomes briefly blind and we learn about what learning braille is like; someone gets really obsessed with jigsaw puzzles for a while. there's a character who mucks horse stalls for a while and you see what that's like. it's a lot. and it's delightful.

which reminded me of another fic, an old Kenshin one i liked as a kid, which you can't really find on the internet anymore. it was an AU where Kenshin and Kaoru were both schoolteachers, right, and it had a lot of Angst and Trauma (i think Enishi was an abusive uncle to Kenshin as a kid or something?), and i'm sure the Angst and Trauma would make me cringe down to my toes if i read it nowadays, but—

—it was all centered around this private Lutheran school, and while it was very obvious this school was based on the author's school, i did not give one single solitary shit because that school was delightful. lots of detail about various school rituals, the comically varied teachers' personalities, middle schoolers pulling off very middle-school-esque shenanigans, right down to details of which playground equipment was hot or not...

...i mean, i finished the fic thinking, wow, this Corvallis town seems like a heck of a cozy place.

i'm not exactly saying anything revolutionary here; "write what you know" is a maxim for a reason. but i guess it's striking to notice how much that shit stands out in Ye Olde Fanfic, when it's there. (also, do they make fanfic like that nowadays? the AUs with wild divergences into Random Shit The Author Read A Fat Nonfiction About Last Week And Just Has To Tell You About But Like With Fandom Characters—granted, i don't seek that thing out explicitly anymore, but is it there if i go looking for it?)