West Wing

teanna has had some interesting discussion on her LJ about the slowing down of the West Wing fandom. Mostly, why we're not attracting new writers like we used to.

In my mind, some of this has to do with fragmentation of the lists. When I started reading and writing WWfic, there was a huge archive site (where I posted my first story, and got familier with the stories) and three big lists - WestWingFanFiction, State of the Union and WestWingSlash (may have some of that wrong - it's 6am) - plus a lot of other lists like Josh/Donna and Josh/Sam.

The three main lists seemed to have defined purposes - general and het/shipper stories in WestWingFanFiction, Slash at the slash list, and anything overtly smutty at State of the Union.

Then there was the great 'slash should be allowed on this site even though the moderator doesn't want it' debate on WestWingFanFiction, and half the people left for another, not as busy list, taking new stories with them. And then WestWingFanFic lost its moderator (egads) and the list hasn't really been the same since.

It's hard to encourage people to write in your fandom when your main list (as this one once was) has descended down a long slippery slope of decay.

The amount of research involved has something to do with it too, I suppose. But the back story lines aren't that hard to understand, and a close reading of Television without Pity would give you a lot of it. And anyone can find a basic guide to US politics, which would help them out. (I have a shelf full now, due to taking that class on US politics to write fic, and haveing an unusual obsession with it)

OKay, there's some ramblings for y'all. I'm going to decorate a back drop for the concert (tomorrow! Aaargh!)