Let's talk about fanfic.: seanan

Let's talk about fanfic.

So I've had this lovely link about fanfic and why some people may not be comfortable with it and why maybe those are feelings that should be examined sitting at the top of my link file for literally three years. I mean that. Three years and a month, it has waited for me to feel up to talking about it.

Y'know what? Sometimes you just gotta stop waiting.

It's no secret around here that I love fanfic, although it's one of the three Big Truths that I feel the need to reveal for the first time every six months or so, as new people wander in and are totally shocked to discover that...

1. I have OCD.
2. I am Mira Grant.
3. I love fanfic.

These things are sometimes equal in their shocking nature. "Wait, you can be a best-selling author without being neurotypical?" Yes! "Wait, Mira Grant isn't a real person?" She's real, she's just, you know, me. "Authors can love fanfic?!" Yes.

Yes we can.

If I had the power, I would ask all the authors in the world to do Yuletide or something like it every year. Sign up for a fic exchange and write some porn for a stranger; tailor your stories to an audience of one, let go of the long-form plots and the careful wide-spectrum appeal, embrace the joy of spending a hundred words on Carlos's perfect hair or Buffy's perfect shoes or Jo's perfect knives. Remember the joy of waiting for one person to open a story and see what it contains.

Because fanfic is joy. Fanfic is fixing the things you see as broken, and patching the seams between what's written and what is not, and giving characters who got cheated out of their happy endings another chance. There was a time, not that long ago as we measure things, where all fiction was what we would now call "fan fiction." Shakespeare didn't come up with most of his own plots. He wrote plays about the stories people already loved. We didn't get a thousand versions of "Snow White" accidentally: people changed that story to suit themselves, and no one said they weren't storytellers, or looked down on them for loving that core of red and black and white, of apples and glass and snow.

Originality wasn't the god of fiction until the last few centuries, and even then, we didn't fixate on it until we reached the era of modern copyright. Mickey looks a lot like Oswald, if you know what I mean. Wanting to work with characters you already know and love is not a new urge. Hell, all television and non-creator-owned comics can be viewed as fanfic, if you squint and cock your head, because much of it is being written about characters and situations created by other people. It's just fanfic with contracts behind it.

I recently accomplished the fanfic writer's dream: I was paid to write a story about a character created by Charlaine Harris, Amelia Broadway, which was published in the anthology Dead But Not Forgotten. I admit, I kissed that check, because it was the fulfillment of a life-long dream. I didn't make canon, necessarily, but I made fanfic for the world.

I encourage and celebrate fanfic of my work, even if I can't read it right now. Because fanfic is amazing, and it's important. It allows us to interface with the things we love in a way that is otherwise virtually impossible.

That's amazing.

...go 1 level up... Expand

beccastareyes

June 15 2014, 11:24:15 UTC 3 years ago

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And, also, some of us don't have aspirations for fiction publication. I mean, I write some publishable fiction, but I haven't made 'edit and sell this' high on my priority list (I might change later). So, in that sense, all of my fiction will end up either left on my computer or free on the Internet, so why not fanfiction if the ideas strike me? I cook for myself (when living alone), and sometimes bring food to potlucks, but don't have aspirations to make it a career, so is that a waste of time since I'm not making my food widely available for cash?

Now, maybe a writing group wants to say 'we want to focus on workshopping writing for publication' which excludes a lot of (but not all) fanfiction, and folks who do want to make money on writing have to write things they can sell*, but hobbies are never a waste of time if you are getting non-monetary things for them.

* But again, they are not robots. Sometimes you just need to take a break. Few can sustain a profession for every waking hour.

elialshadowpine

June 15 2014, 12:01:00 UTC 3 years ago

Yup. There wasn't even anything on the site that was "We are here for publishing-focused writers"; it was just assumed that if you wrote, that you were writing to be published and paid, period. Very heavy emphasis on the "paid", too. If you wrote something for an online zine that didn't pay? It didn't count. Weirdly, I came back to that group after several years away and while there are some of the people still there, the attitude is completely different now that the former site admin left. Some of the most anti-fanfic publishing-only-focused people... are now primarily writing fanfic. The irony amuses me.

During the time I was off that site, a bunch of us splintered because of drama with the former site admin (who thought it necessary to PM me a transphobic rant because I said I was engaged to a man on her blog, and proceeded to tell me in great detail how my ex-fiance was not "really" a man, and how dare I lie on her blog?), and one of the first rules in the new community was: FANFICTION IS OKAY.

We had some folks join who specifically wrote only fanfic. They wanted to learn more about craft to write better stories, and they wanted to socialize with other writers. I had to bop a couple people for making snarky comments in chat, usually after the fanficcer had left the room (this sometimes happened with hobbyists too). People eventually got the message. IDK why it is such a big deal in writing communities. I've seen this in others, too, although that one was the worst.

I liked the quote from the post Seanan linked where they say that writing is the only artistic pursuit where it's considered not okay to do it for fun, or as a hobby. It's so very true. Maybe someone else has heard this, but I haven't... I have never seen fan artists get crap about how they shouldn't be wasting their time. I've seen outright admiration and praise for fan art from the very same people who deride fanfiction. IDGI.

June 15 2014, 14:08:08 UTC 3 years ago

I know. Art is like math in that if you can do it at all, you get praise heaped on you. (Sadly, elegant proofs do not delight authors as much as fanart and cosplay.) I can't tell if it's because 'anyone' can write (never mind that it takes work to write well, just as 'anyone' can draw a bit, but one has to practice to get good) or because most professional stories (even comics and TV and movies) start as prose or a script or something written, so there's less of a shift between professional and fan.

Also, boo transphobia and gender-policing.

ankewehner

June 15 2014, 14:45:25 UTC 3 years ago

I've seen some criticism of fanart; what comes to mind is "if all you do is fanart, you'll never develop your own style/understand anatomy, you need to branch out", which seems similar to telling fanfic writers that they need to write their own stuff.

And then there's frustration that "shitty fanart" gets more attention than original "masterpieces", which tends to come from people who are, or want to go, professional with their art. Seems like sour grapes to me.

I'd agree with the general observation that drawing is a more accepted hobby than writing.

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