On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Ryan Mathews wrote:

Once again, I jump in on a thread late...

Join the club.  I don't think I've posted to this list in two months.  
These days it seems I'm barely around enough to _read_ it, let alone 
write to it.

If quantity is more important than quality, I guess this is true.  
Myself, I admire writers who can commit themselves to a long work, 
provided it's a *structured* long work, not a work that's long simply 
because the writer hasn't yet decided to stop writing.  Taking the time 
to write a long work of which you can be proud takes a lot of nerve and 
a lot of heart, especially since you have to accept that the public may 
not be interested in it.

	The big problem is that true structure is really elusive in 
longer works ... particularly fan works.  Too many works seem to just 
wrap things up and, well, end.  Effective denoument seems like it should 
be sooo much more.  We remember our favorite works not so much by their 
beginnings, but rather by their ends.  There's something faintly noble 
about a story which has <obviously> been continued only so that the 
_author_ can see his (or her) characters reach closure.

Unfortunately, quantity does seem to be more important in terms of 
recognition for fanfic writers.

	I agree with this 120% -- Some of the best work I've seen on this 
list has been short, making points as much through space as inclusion 
(Jeanne Hedge and Rutsch are paradigmatic of this).  I hope to learn from 
their brevity.

CHL