Crackfic?

[nattish]

So, how do you distinguish a crackfic from a comedy?

I just started writing what I thought was a comedy when the absurdity of the story began to trickle into my consciousness. I'm sure there's a fine line. But are there any charateristics of a crackfic that you have in your head that could help me decide whether I'm on the dark path?

Comments

[amorette]

I have thoughts about this... I have pondered this same subject actually. Like, what is crack fic? When does crack cross the line into not-crack?

I think it depends on how much you have to suspend your disbelief that this situation would be plausible in canon.

Like, super OOC or super crazy scenarios that are "unrealistic" or would never happen in canon.

But I mean.... that definition is probably too vague an unhelpful, sorry.

Humor can be infused in even the darkest fic, so humor and crackfic are mutually exclusive to me. And not all crack fic is funny.

[nattish]

I was going the same direction about suspension of disbelief. There are certain bits of humor that you can insert here and there in a comedy, as long as you pull in the reigns a bit and get back to a somewhat canon-based place. Perhaps it is the job of the writer to justify why the scenario is happening to the characters; a failed attempt could be construed as crackfic, perhaps? But then, crackfic is usually intentional, I think. The author just wanting to amuse herself and make the characters do absurd things... So much to ponder.

I have never heard of crackfic not being funny! Do you have any examples?

[amorette]

Hmmm... I was thinking of "crack" as "grossly unrealistic but idc because I want to write this"... but maybe the element of humor is somehow inherent in "crackfic"? I don't know, maybe it's a definition thing.

I've always wanted to do a challenge fest where people prompt really "cracky" scenarios and writers try to write them as realistically canon as possible LOL xD /random

What exactly is your cracky idea? Or humorous idea? Feel free to PM if it's for an anon fest.

[khalulu]

I guess I think of crackfic as going over the top for the sake of humor, and (hopefully) cracking me up with laughter. I'd say write what you want and you can worry about the labels (or not) later. Nothing wrong with a good crackfic!

ETA: I guess if I were going to expand on that, I'd say crackfic might be more like a farce? No pretense at believability, so you don't worry so much about plausible character development etc, you just let yourself be outrageous and hilarious and wacky? But I don't know if this is what it means to others, or just to me. I've only written one thing I considered crack - but it sure was fun!