Let Me Wax Philosophical

A great while back I used to write just random musings. I then discovered that my musings are neither particularly random nor interesting, so I've stuffed what few I've decided to keep in a single archive, and have devoted this section to rants and essays on fanfiction, fandom, and writing in general. Suggestions for topics are fine and lovely -- do send them.

To see what I've done in the past on this subject, why don't you go to The Archives.

October 11th: A tiny introduction to fanfiction, with particular attention paid to the groups that make up the fanfic "community"

I often find myself needing to explain what fanfiction is to people, and, if they show interest, what makes up the community. (Points go to Thyme for reiterating the title of this essay. She bows to the audience, and swings up her racket again.) So this is a nice compilation of the whole, long-winded discussion on the topic.

Starting off, as all articles on fanfiction do, with an example, consider for a moment your favorite television series, movie, or book -- let's say, Star Wars. As fun as watching Star Wars over and over is, you really begin to wonder: What is Darth Vader's motivation, aside from complete evil? What were Ben Kenobi's teenage years like? What if there was an extra fight scene between Princess Leia and Han Solo that was never shown on-screen? What if Luke Skywalker decided to stay with Vader and then proceeded to take over the galaxy?

Questions such as these, though they may someday be answered with another movie or through Star Wars books (a vehicle authorized by George Lucas, but extremely limited in creative freedom), are answered regularly by fans with a form of devotion known as "fanfiction."

The term "fanfiction" has multiple meanings, though all have a common theme: fiction written by fans based on someone else's creation. Henry Jenkins, author of Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture gave an excellent definition in his talk The Poachers and the Stormtroopers: Cultural Convergence in the Digital Age: "An active subculture which produces new artworks through their appropriations from pre-existing media content."

Variants on the definition come into play when the definer is asked what "counts" as fanfic. Melissa Wilson, in Dr. Merlin's Guide to Fan Fiction, says: "Fan fiction, very simply, is the genre of stories, poetry, novels, filk songs, and top ten lists written by fans of a particular series, be it television, literary, or what have you. If you've ever written a story about something you like, involving characters created by someone else with a legal right to them, you've written fan fiction." In the Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit!: Fanfic Glossary, the definition is given as "fiction written by fans about characters created by someone else. Generally, fanfic is written about movie or television characters." And in The Official P/T Collective Archive: Frequently Asked Questions List, fanfic is "fiction based on a television series, written by fans. Fanfic -- by and large -- is not scripts but prose."

Just a hint, folks: It's a good idea to make a thorough examination of all the things I link to in this. They're written far better, by people far more intelligent. I'm not the be-all-end-all -- I'm just pointing vaguely at the shape of the horizon.

Professional parodies could also fall under the header of defined fanfic, and there are any number of published works currently in existence that, had they appeared within a fan context, would be labeled fanfiction (for instance, Gregory Maguire's recently published Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West). The key difference between these and actual fanfiction, then, is the legality. Parodies are protected by "fair use" within U.S. copyright law, and Maguire (or his publisher) no doubt sought permission from the owners of the Wizard of Oz franchise. Fanfiction has no such legal permission, and is therefore inherently illegal.

For a more thorough idea of how copyright affects fanwriters, see Rebecca Tushnet's Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law, or A.T. Lee's Copyright 101: A Brief Introduction for Fan Fiction Authors

Fanfiction has a long (and glorious) history, but, as Henry Jenkins suggests, its roots are within the oral folk tradition:

Historically, our culture evolved through a collective process of collaboration and elaboration. Folktales, legends, myths and ballads were built up over time as people added elements that make them more meaningful to their own contexts. The Industrial Revolution resulted in the privatization of culture and the emergence of a concept of intellectual property which assumes that cultural value originates from the original contributions of individual authors. In practice, of course, any act of cultural creation builds upon what has come before, borrowing genre conventions and cultural archetypes, if nothing else. Fans respond to this situation by preserving the traditional practices of a folk culture in responding to mass culture, treating film or television as if it offered them raw materials for telling their own stories and resources for forging their own communities.

[...] The key difference between fan culture and traditional folk culture doesn't have to do with fan actions but with corporate reactions. Robin Hood, Pecos Bill, John Henry, Coyote, and Br'er Rabbit belonged to the folk. Kirk and Spock, Scully and Mulder, Luke and Lea, or Xena and Gabrielle belong to corporations. Fan fiction repairs some of the damage caused by the privatization of culture, allowing these potentially rich cultural archetypes to speak to and for a much broader range of social and political visions than can be accommodated through what David Thorburn calls the "consensus narrative" of network television.

Fanfiction itself could have any number of starting points -- the word "pastiche" is a popular word for fanfic within the Sherlock Holmes fandoms, but suggests something like fan creation, in one form or another, as far back as the late 1800s.

Or further still. A (Very) Brief History of Fanfic, by !Super Cat, suggests that the first real fanfic was written in the 1400s.

Fanfiction as we know it today, however, began in the 1960s with the cancelling of a little show called Star Trek. Fans (mostly women, although the number of male fanwriters is not insignificant), feeling that there was more within the story/situation/characters than had been presented, began to write their own continuations of the series, delving into topics that either hadn't been or couldn't have been approached by regulated television. These stories were sent to friends -- particularly good stories were passed along to many, circulating through the fan community slowly. Shortly thereafter stories began to be collected into "fanzines," or APAs (Amateur Publishing Associations), and distributed that way. There was often a person who acted as an editor, and quality was generally a requirement -- space, time, and money were all factors in how many stories could be printed in any one fanzine, so there was a selection process involved.

The introduction of the internet, however, cut out the editorial process almost entirely. Fanwriters no longer had to depend on far-off distributors to accept their work -- the internet allowed fanwriters to post their works up immediately, while at the same time allowing for a much wider readership as readers didn't need to pay or wait for fanzines, and there was a much greater chance of an "accidental" introduction to fanfiction through links or search engines. However, the downside that developed was that while the quantity went up, the quality took a nosedive. The selection/editing process and other staples of fan publishing were no longer in effect for those who wished to publish on the internet -- the result being, essentially, Sturgeon's Law in effect.

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap." This derives from a quote from writer Theodore Sturgeon on the topic of science fiction. Fanfiction, in its early years, was being written by many people, but few were published in fanzines. The selection/editing process cut down on the worst fiction by simply not printing it. The internet, however, has allowed for more stories with less good-fiction hurdles to jump (interesting plot, good characterization, consistent spelling...) to be published because the quality-control middlemen have been removed from the process. Sturgeon's Law takes effect in that not only is the "crap" of a significantly worse level, but the number from which the ninety percent is derived is a great deal larger.

Over the years, several forms of compensation have developed.

As demonstrated, there are at least two groups involved in the creation of fanfiction: the original creators (a company, an author, a producer, etc.), and the fans who write the fiction based on the original creation. These two groups are at the very root of fanfic -- both are a requirement to the production of fanfiction. With the invention of the internet as a publishing medium, however, there come up several subgroups; among them, beta readers, critics, review/recommendation sites, essay authors, and, let us not forget, the readers themselves.

Beta readers are discussed in The P/T Collective Archive's FAQ:

The term "Beta Reader" originated in computer software. "Beta Testers" and "Beta Readers" were those individuals who reviewed software before its release, to check for bugs, critique ease of use, and basically test it to make sure it's something that should be loosed upon the world. Online fan fiction adopted the term several years ago to refer to volunteer copy and content editors who preview a story and provide critical and constructive feedback to help the author whip a story into shape before it is loosed upon the world.

A fanwriter, in seeking a beta, can ask the fandom in question for volunteers, or can find any number of beta groups or circles. The help is readily available for those fanwriters who ask.

For a more thorough discussion of beta readers, see shannono's What's a beta reader and why do I need one?, and Dasha K's Beta Readers: Finding One is Worse Than Blind Dating.

At this point there comes a grey area: critics. Beta readers clearly exist to benefit the writer; recommendation sites, as shall be discussed shortly, exist to benefit the reader. Critics, and critique sites, are a strange in-between.

Rachel Sabotini, in her essay The Fannish Potlatch: Creation of Status within the Fan Community, says: "[...] critics are constantly challenged on their 'right' to criticize work, and critique is relegated to the lowest rungs of the gift-status ladder. (While at the same time critique is highly valued by the authors who are interested in pursuing the craft of writing.)" One of the greatest debates within the fanwriter community is whether criticism should be accepted, refused, or ignored -- and what precisely can be labeled a criticism, and what can safely be labeled a giant mass of flaming spite.

For a more thorough discussion of criticism within the fanwriter community, see Lucy's Apology for Criticism, Lorelei Jones's Criticism and the Lost Art of the LOC, and, for a brief discussion on demanded commentary, see The Divine Adoratrice's Tell me again how much you love me, and Martha Wells Wilson's Hey sailor, got some comments?

Review and recommendation sites are an extension of criticism -- although they serve the reader more than the writer. Recommendation sites are used to direct readers toward good fiction (and are often the best way to finding the pearls in the mud).

If one follows Rachel Sabotini's argument, the development of the recommendation page is actually an outgrowth of the common assumption that critique of story equals critique of writer. A rec page is usually created by high-status fans of either a feast dish or gift-giving background, and emphasizes the positive aspects of a work, rather than drawing attention to its negative aspects. Thus, the community is re-assured that it is valued, and the quality work is acknowledged. But discussion of how and why the work is valued over another is still forbidden.

Rosa shows a different take on writers' reactions to recommendation sites in her essay Honesty Is Such A Lonely Word.

Review sites are most often a way to point out the stories readers should not read. Both receive a wide range of responses -- recommendation sites are most often seen as helpful and writer-friendly, as these sites only really mention the good/worthy, and if a fanwriter's fiction does not appear, that fanwriter can assume that perhaps the recommender hasn't read their piece -- instead of thinking that their piece was not good enough to be recommended.

We're going to skip entirely the issue of my recommendation page, which gives negative commentary just as much as positive, and would probably get me severely flamed if any of my less-than- sterling reviews caught an author's eye.

Review sites, on the other hand, are often seen as destructive to the very writing process -- writers, their friends, and their fans, will often launch a campaign against any negative commentary on a story, while there are times when complete strangers will decry the use of harsh words because it might stop a writer from ever writing again.

For popular sites, see Godawful Fan Fiction, whose guestbooks are a fairly even mix of positive and negative commentary about the site, and Slash Fiction Hall of Shame, a site that reviews "slash" fiction -- "stories which features characters of the same gender (mostly male/male but also female/female) romantically and/or sexually involved." Slash, if you haven't guessed, is the fodder for a dozen or more essays all by itself, and so won't be discussed further in this one. Later.

In the midst of all this are the essay authors. The essay authors write on popular/little-discussed topics within the fanfiction community to educate, to illustrate, and to call to attention things which may help improve (or even explain) fanfiction. These essays can be very fandom or situation-specific (for instance, the essay A Sentinel Is Not A Television Set, by Rat Creature, talks about certain traits within The Sentinel fanfic -- it has little or no meaning outside of Sentinel fandom), or have wide-ranging meaning (Macedon's The Craft of Writing; or Yes, Virginia, It's a Learned Skill gives good, working advice for how to write fiction that can be utilized by the fanwriter and the professional alike). Essay authors get little or no recognition for their work, with the exception of, perhaps, links from sites and the general improvement of fanfiction (which is something not easily measured).

Finally, within the fanfiction community, there are the readers. Readers are not necessary for the creation of fanfic -- and they need not play any role whatsoever outside of the simple enjoyment of a fanwriter's efforts. A fanwriter might not write for the enjoyment of others, which negates the necessary existence of a reader entirely, or a fanwriter might write expressly for the purpose of getting a response from an audience, whether that be in (public) fan letters or reviews or awards or (private) emotional response within the reader. All are valid.

Fanfiction is a rapidly evolving phenomenon, with a community developing that separates into groups and sub-groups far faster than can be recorded accurately at any one moment. However, there are some constants within the community at present, and, unless there is another rapid shift of mediums (as there was from fanzines to the internet, another happy rant), these constants are likely to remain.

Have yourself a field day. Write, read, review, and stomp into a pile of mush on the ground. Fanfiction's horizon is wide enough for the lot.