I don't get fan-fic

Cafe Society
41

I’ve written quite a lot of fanfic, and wrote an article about it earlier this summer for an online zine that addresses what, for me, is the appeal of playing with other people’s characters. I wrote the article particularly about slash, but the main points apply just as well to non-erotic fic as well.

The fun of fanfic writing for me is seeing what I can do with the characters and settings as established by the canon sources without taking them too far from the source. When I write a story, I think in terms of “possible scenarios” and “character parameters.”

The first is a sort of “what if…” speculation on some event that happened in the book, movie, TV episode, or whatever, and spinning it out in another direction to see where it goes, and see if I can get a story idea out of it. The same point of departure can lead to multiple story ideas, depending on how that “what if…” gets spun out.

The second is a way I use to limit how far can I take my chosen characters while still keeping them identifiable and making what they do in a story seem plausible. I ask myself “How might this person behave in a given hypothetical situation?” and then see what works from there. If I can’t see them doing it, I can’t write it (except maybe as parody or something else bizarre).

That’s the game for me, and that’s where the chief fun of writing fanfic lies. (There’s also the fun of getting feedback and fan letters about my stories, but that’s more of a reason for posting stories online than for simply writing them; I wrote in notebooks for years before I discovered the slash community or there was even an internet to share stories on.)

Writing about my own characters is another type of exercise entirely, since I’m the one who’s creating them, establishing who they are and what they’ll do, and setting up the situations in which they will act. I can still play “what if” and “what would X do here?” with my own characters while I’m working on them, but I have to pick one outcome if I’m going to finish the story.

42

Terrifel, It’s the attitude with which one approaches the job of writing that makes the difference.

Although there have been a few instances in which fanfic has been sought out and published, the work of writers in a universe with the expectation of being published is a different thing than something done for the sheer love of the universe. And the editors make damn sure that the work conforms to their expectations of the franchise.

Fanfic is fanfic and pro work is pro work. They start out differently and end differently. There is almost never any crossing over. It’s not simply a matter of quality - I’ve reviewed sf for 30 years and I can tell you there is some unbelievable drek that gets published - but more of the expectations that are set up for the reader.

I’d strongly suggest that you get some familiarity with fanfic, its writers, and their communities before you comment further.

43

Exapno: You’ve been quite clear in your contention that fan writing and professional writing are very different. You mentioned that, though you’d never write fanfic yourself, you “weren’t slamming fans for fanfic.”

Given that, I’d like to ask for a clarification of this line:

Is ‘the difference’ only in your own personal motivations, or does getting paid make, according to you, an objective difference in the worth of the writing?

Is it a difference that is only relevant to writing with someone else’s characters, or is the difference also there in writing original fiction to get paid (or with a significant expectation of getting paid) versus writing original fiction as an enthusiastic amateur, as most of the NaNoWriMo contestants are doing?

44

I’m surprised to see so much discussion here about the comparison between fanfic and published works. For me, there is essentially no connection. The closest analogy I see for fan fiction is singing in the shower. I am not a very good singer, but I love to sing. So I do it frequently, occasionally even in front of people, but always with the understanding that I’m doing it because it is something that I love to do, not something that I have talent for or expect to make my career.

When I was a child, I was obsessed with the T.V. show MASH. I would lie in bed at night and make up my own MASH stories – things I wished would happen on the show, pieces of storylines that didn’t get shown onscreen, etc. I did this for other shows as well. It was never about being a writer, just about imaging scenarios for characters I loved. Eventually I started keeping journals, which I filled with my imaginings about what might happen to various T.V. characters. Finally, years later, I discovered that on the Internet, people actually wrote down this type of story and shared it with other fans. I read a few pieces of fan fiction, but they weren’t very good, and didn’t interest me. Then one day, I came up with an idea for a story from a T.V. show that I was into at the time (O.K., so it was General Hospital), and I thought, what the heck, why not write it down. I shared it with a few online fans through email, and they liked it, and eventually I put it on a fanfic website, and the people who read it there seemed to enjoy it. But I never saw it as a career, or a stepping-stone to becoming a writer – I write plenty in my job, although it’s not creative writing.

My point, to answer the OP, is that I didn’t set out to write a story, and say, “I know, I’ll use General Hospital characters.” I took what was in my mind (essentially, why aren’t these characters a couple, and why couldn’t I just watch the characters I really enjoy, and dump the rest) and put it on paper. I don’t read a lot of fan fic, any more than I listen to people singing in the shower. But it was a lot of fun to do, and even now, when I no longer watch soaps or write fan fic, I sometimes find myself thinking about what the characters on the shows that I do watch might be doing when I’m not watching.

45

Gee, all this talk about fan-fic makes me wonder, what would it be like if someone else wrote Lord of the Rings?

46

You know, all the arguments over quality are irrelevant. Yes, there is a lot of truly horrible fanfic out there. Thre is also some decent fanfic. (the trick is knowing where to find it, Livejournal has made it much easier to find groups of good writers) The quality doesn’t have much to do with the basic reasons for fanfic: written because people enjoy writing about their favorite characters and others enjoy reading about them.

If you’re not in one of those groups, you’re not gonna "get’ fanfic. And that’s Ok, different strokes, etc. I don’t get watching sports. It seems totally lame to me to go sit there (or even lamer, watch it on TV) and watch other people play a game you could go out and play yourself. Even the sports I personally participate in are relatively boring for me to watch.

Hmmm, the more I think about it, the more I like the sports anology. Plenty of people like to watch amateur sports (like high school). Would you say they are lame because they’re not watching professionals?

47

Oh, I admit to speaking out of ignorance here. But Menocchio’s question wasn’t whether being a pro makes you better than fanfic writers, but whether it makes you more original. Consult your answer to that question. It sounds pretty categorical to me. Now you say that editors ensure that pro work conforms scrupulously to the franchise’s expectations. How, pray, does restricting a writer’s subject matter automatically enhance the originality of that work?

I never claimed that pro work wasn’t generally better than fanfic-- I’d be astonished if it wasn’t. I’d venture to say that pro work is also better than most original fiction written for noncommercial reasons. The reason that there’s a billion lousy fanfics about J.K. Rowling’s characters is precisely because the characters are well-known themselves. If you were to assemble a collection of, say, stories from beginners’ creative writing classes featuring totally original characters, or the author’s family members, or their pets, would the stories be unambiguously better-written than fanfic in general? Would they compare more favorably to professional work? I’d be surprised if this were the case across the board.

However, originality is not necessarily synonymous with quality, is it? I believe Samuel Johnson made a remark about a story that was both original and good; you may have heard this quote during your 30 years of experience. Though again I have no direct experience, I’d think when working with someone else’s characters, it’s necessary for a professional to know when not to be original. Fans don’t need to keep this limitation in mind.

I have here in my hand an envelope, which has been kept in a mayonnaise jar on Joss Whedon’s porch since noon today. It contains two stories, one of which has been written by a paid professional and one which has not. Without reading them, which is more likely to be the better-written one? I’d concede that it’s probably the pro’s work. Now, which is the more original? Is it really possible to make that choice as reliably? What if the paid one is about Batman, with an editor on hand to ensure that nothing in the story conflicts with the overall franchise? What if the fanfic is also about Batman, but isn’t slash? What if it is? What if the pro writer in question is John Byrne? Hah? What then?

48

I don’t read or write fan fiction, but I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand either.

After all, isn’t Le Morte d’Arthur essentially “fan fiction”?

49

I don’t consider myself as an artist because I write fan fic. I just do it for fun.

50

Ok, here’s an anology I like even better than the sports one: painting. A lot of painting classes have all the students paint the same thing. (still life, nude model, nature scene, etc.) The students aren’t pros and they’re doing something that’s been done before many times. Does that make their work pointless? Each student paints in their own style and every painting is different even if it still is a vase with two pears on a checkered table cloth.

51

For everyone that thinks fanfiction is poorly written crap, I simply think you aren’t looking in the right places. 90% of the stuff you find on archives like fanfiction.net (the Pit of Voles!) or through a search engine will be crap. The good stuff you truly have to look for. The real gems are hidden. Many fanfic writers keep their work under wraps in unpublicized website or journals, the URL only distributed to their friends. Until you get someone you know that is into fanfic give you some recs, you won’t have any idea of what is good. There are two sides to fic, and the good ficcers rarely advertise themselves the way the bad ones do. How many times have you found a novel hiding in a dusty stack in a used bookstore that you love, and wonder how this author hasn’t gotten the praise and fame of Stephen King, Anne Rice or Robert Jordan? It is the exact same thing.

52

Not really mentioned yet: fanfic is just another commercial form of pastiche, although elements are generally distilled from a much narrower group of influential works.

Episodic radio and television made fanfic inevitable. A set writers provide the scripts for a group of actors and/ or characters given a premise and made to act on it. This has been the hallmark of TV since sketch comedy variety shows, and it’s no wonder fans would do the same. Fans pay homage in different ways, and the skill of those fans vary at least as much as paid writers do. Alas, you just get more of crap and artless writing.

The only difference between fans and pros is pay. Skill, inpiration and creativity don’t really have much to do with it, IMO. There are plenty of pros who are either hacks or indulge in hackwork, and plenty of talented amatuers who for a variety of reasons --lack of time, lack of confidence – aren’t professional writers.

53

Is it geeky? Incredibly so.

Is it lame? Most of the time.

Is it fun? Abso-fucking-lutely.

I don’t think I would have gotten into writing or drawing at all if it weren’t for fandom. And I’ve ‘met’ people that I otherwise would have never had the opportunity to (or, if I passed them on the street, wouldn’t be able to establish any sort of meaningful relationship because it took a lot for me to move out of debilitating shyness).

I find writing and drawing incredibly fulfilling. While I may never become rich and/or famous, I think what I’ve invested into creating fanworks has been worth it all.

54

This seems like a suspiciously unlikely claim to me, particularly your comparison to “real” books. You’re saying that there are real life published authors who go out of their way to NOT seek publicity for their published books, so you have to stumble upon them, and they’re better than Stephen King? There are quite possibly authors who are better than Stephen King and less popular, but I’m quite sure it’s because of public taste, publicity, and a myriad of other factors, NOT because the author deliberately only sells copies of books to his or her close friends and livejournal buddies.
If it is in fact the case that the best fanfics are hard to find, well, that’s a screwed up system.

55

The internet could be immeasurably improved by a fanfic search database ranking stories by popularity.

Now that I have typed this, I wish this into existence.

56

And Wicked?

The Wind Done Gone?

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead?

57

…except “popular” isn’t necessarily the same as “good”.

(IIRC, Mediaminer has a 1~10 ranking system, but it’s nearly meaningless as people either don’t use it or just react to the story on an opinion level - “I hated the ending, so I’m giving it a bad rating.”)

58

Granted. But popularity is an indicator of some broad appeal.

You look at threads with high post counts, right?

59

The endless Sherlock Holmes pastiches and parodies, by luminaries as wide as Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Stephen King, Alan Moore and Nicholas Meyer.

And as someone pointed out, the genres of science fiction shared universes, superheroes, hard boiled detective* noir* and serial television are all done by (albiet professional) fans, and sustain a sizeable amatuer fanbase.

60

Absolutely great post, and I like what you have to say very much.

But one mini-hijack:

“There are people for whom writing fanfic led to writing original fiction and then to being published (Lois McMaster Bujold, for one)…”

I would absolutely love to know the story behind this comment. Response here? New thread? Simple link to a site giving the story? Makes no difference to me, but please divulge it! :slight_smile: