I imagine any responses you get here are going to be a little skewed; the internet fanfiction community is fairly obviously tilted in the direction of those who do read a story and then expand upon it in their minds. That said, "But what then?" is a fairly common question.
It may reflect a level of engagement in the story, or of imaginative flexibility. Some people may find it difficult to infuse 'reality' into texts they read and shows that they watch. A fair amount of what we get from stories depends on what we put into them, after all. And there's also the question of what one reads or watches. Some mediums tend to lend themselves to imaginative expansion more than others. (Or perhaps, some genres would be a better way of thinking about it.) A story that was clearly wildly imaginative to begin with may invite further imagination, while a story that clings very closely to a fictional but realistic depiction of the world, perhaps less so.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-18 12:20 pm (UTC)It may reflect a level of engagement in the story, or of imaginative flexibility. Some people may find it difficult to infuse 'reality' into texts they read and shows that they watch. A fair amount of what we get from stories depends on what we put into them, after all. And there's also the question of what one reads or watches. Some mediums tend to lend themselves to imaginative expansion more than others. (Or perhaps, some genres would be a better way of thinking about it.) A story that was clearly wildly imaginative to begin with may invite further imagination, while a story that clings very closely to a fictional but realistic depiction of the world, perhaps less so.