elisi | Happy Birthday Fer! I got you... em... an essay?

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Happy Birthday Fer! I got you... em... an essay?

First of all: Happy Birthday fer1213

I hope you have a wonderful day with lots of hugs and cake!!!

Now I can’t write birthday fics at the drop of a hat (and why would I? Weird expression!), but I’ve been writing this essay for a while and I thought I’d post it today in your honour, since it’s about fanfic! Or more precisely about why people write fanfic in the first place - what is it about some shows/books/films that make people run to their keyboards, plot bunnies multiplying in their heads? I’m not saying that I know - I just came up with some ideas. I hope people find them interesting:

To start:

Some weeks ago now, my husband and I had a little discussion. I was reading someone's LJ and he said something about sad obsessives writing about Buffy. I answered that people had been analysing and writing about Shakespeare’s plays for centuries and no one took exception to that. To which he replied that they didn’t write b****y fanfiction about it! (pardon the swearing)
Which of course people don’t (I think? Is there a thriving ‘King Lear’ community out there?). But this made me wonder - why not? Why do some things (Buffy, Star Trek) inspire fanfic and others not at all?

So after a lot of thinking I’m going to write down what conclusions I came to.

(And I‘m excluding ‘FitB’s’ or ‘Missing Scenes’ from my definition of fanfic for the purposes of this essay, since the basic premise is different. I’ll deal with FitB’s separately at the end).

Also many, many thanks to

lillianmorgan for the feedback and suggestions!

Essay: What entertainment genres inspire fanfiction and why

All shows - films, books, plays etc. need two things: A story and characters. Sometimes the story leads proceedings, sometimes the characters make the story.
Now I think that different genres tend to lean to either one or the other - and sometimes both. Let me try to show what I mean:

Theatre (and opera): Very much story driven. That’s not to say that plays can’t have exceptionally good characters - but the point of the show is the story. What matters is the particular journey the characters take. To pick an obvious example: ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The fact that their love is doomed is what makes it so compelling. If the families were best friends, and they got married and lived happily ever after, it might have been a nice romance, and they might still have been a sweet couple, but it would not have been captivating.
The story is the point of theatre.

Films: Now, here it gets more difficult. A lot of films lean toward the storytelling. Even when you get a whole series such as ‘The Godfather’: the point of that trilogy is to show how a young man loses all that is good and innocent and turns into a monster. And the fact that the characters are excellent, make the story better. But it is the story that’s important yet again. Even in films almost completely character-driven this applies. Take ‘Lost in Translation’: nothing really happens - it’s just two people thrown together by chance. But - I for one don’t want to know what happened after - that little segment we see is perfect and by adding anything you would take away from the completeness of the movie.

But - there are films that do not conform to this model. To take one of my favourites - 'The Pirates of the Caribbean': The story is good fun, but not really that important - it is easy to imagine different outcomes with out spoiling anything. Most big 'blockbusters' probably belong to this type. The spectacle is mostly what matters.

Books: Now books can be either/or - or both! There are books that are completely story-driven - those where you turn the pages desperate to know what happens next. There are those with amazingly intricate characters, where a conversation about muppets can be more exciting than sex. There are books - such as LotR - where a whole world is brought to life and you can delve into it as deep as you like. There are books where the writing is so beautiful, that you don’t care what it’s about, as long as the prose just keeps flowing.
And since fanfic is writing, books ought to be it’s natural home, but 'real' fanfic didn't happen until tv came along! But still - look at LotR and Harry Potter. The thing with these two books in particular is the attention to detail! We get so much information about supporting characters, about food and places and everyday life, that it’s very, very easy to get a full picture. Also they create new languages that you have to understand in order to fully participate. And of course these have both been turned into films - but films that work so much better if you know the books, because you understand so many things that there is no time to show. The main achievement of the films in fanfic terms is to give a coherent, shared visual for fans to draw upon.

Television: Now tv is nearly as adaptable as books I’d say - although since tv is dependent on many people working together, quality is not a given.
As the main inspiration for fanfic seems to come from long running TV-shows, that’s what I’ll concentrate on. Now tv-shows can be character or story-driven, but IMO for them to work as a base for fanfic, they need to be mainly character driven. There is only a limited number of stories to tell, but if your characters are good enough, you can take them on any journey you like. Let me explain:

What does all this character/story talk have to do with fanfic? Well, the main premise of fanfic is ‘what if...’. And my theory is that you need a character-driven story to enable this. Because fanfic is essentially using established characters and taking them somewhere different - somewhere other than or beyond where they originally went. And if the characters were only there to go on one journey - if their purpose was only to tell one story - then you can’t say ‘what if...?’ very easily. You could write a story where Hamlet's father wasn't murdered, but in doing so, you would rob the story of all it's power!

In my opinion, for the reasons above, I think that tv-shows are especially suited to fanfic - essentially that is what they are, if we substitute ‘writer’ for ‘fan’. And also because all viewers know what the characters look and sound like and what the surroundings are, it is easy to set a scene without overly long descriptions.

Now about characters and story... the more we know about a ‘verse and the characters within it, the better fanfic is possible. And - the wider the verse, the more possibilities for fanfic. I think it is no coincidence that the stories inspiring the most fanfic tend to be either sci-fi or fantasy. Since you can use the tools of either science or magic to achieve what would otherwise not be possible.
Also, the longer the tv-show runs (or the more books in a series) and the further the characters are taken, the deeper a knowledge we get and therefore fanfic can go more places. And I think it’s not surprising that Trekkies started fanfic - it was probably the first tv-show to have all these possibilities.

Although of course, nearly any character-driven show can inspire fanfic. Take f.ex. ‘Starsky & Hutch’, ‘Friends’ and ‘The West Wing’! The prime example of this is ‘The Simpsons’: We have a huge verse, populated with an awful lot of characters, and different episodes deal with different people and different situations rather than continuing storyarchs. What if Principal Skinner was an impostor? What if Milhouse’s parents got a divorce? And - as the ‘Treehouse of Horror’ are essentially AU - what if Maggie was an alien? What if everyone died and became zombies?

To touch upon another aspect, I’m going to quote J.R.R. Tolkien (this is from the foreword to LotR):

‘I cordially dislike allegory in all it’s manifestations, and have always done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect it’s presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with it’s varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of
the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.’
J.R.R.Tolkien

This is another distinction - if a story is an allegory it can not support fanfiction, because you can’t change it. Now Buffy was never an allegory. There were themes and messages - like female empowerment and High School being hell - but the show always told it’s own story and because of that it has become so much to so many. It is endlessly applicable to all sorts of situations - loss, depression, first love, growing apart, growing up... everyone watching can find something to relate to. And when ever ME went with an allegory (the best example being Willow’s magic-addiction) this sat very uncomfortably with the fans, because this was not something they were used to, and it seemed clumsy and preachy.

Finally getting to BtVS fanfiction, I think that the reason that fanfiction is so varied, is because the writers went to so many different places with the show and the characters. The characters were shown at their best and their worst:
We know that Buffy is capable of killing Angel, but not her sister (not until s7 anyway), we know that she shuts down emotionally when things get hard, we know that there is darkness in her, we know that she wants love, but is also scared of it. We know that Spike is capable of the greatest sacrifices, and that if pushed far enough (unsouled) he will snap. We also know that he can love selflessly, and that he can feel guilt and remorse even without a soul. We know that Angel can kill in cold blood if necessary and that he gives in to despair if he feels he has no purpose... to mention just a few examples. And however people might have disliked s6, it gave us insights into the characters that are extremely valuable, because we saw them at their worst and the better you know a character, the better you can write them.

So as writers we can take those characters and put them in any situation we want, and have a fairly good idea of how they will react. We know how far they will go, what will push them over the edge, who they would die for and who they would kill for. We know which characters spark when together, what interesting plots could be developed by changing just a small detail at any point - it’s almost like a box of LEGO where you have the same base components, but you can build something different every time. Because we know that Joss told his story, but we might like to tell another one. So, we’ll borrow his toys for a while to play with, since there is nothing as interesting as other people’s toys!

------
(About FitB’s: Because missing scenes can be slotted in anywhere, technically they could be used in any genre. My husband f.ex. when doing his English degree wrote a ‘missing scene’ from 'Romeo and Juliet' for an essay (he chose Juliet learning of Tybalt’s death from the POV of an old servant). This is why I didn’t include it in my definition of fanfic, although of course it’s such an important part!)

I hope that was not too long or peculiar Fer - I would like to give you something different, but this was all I had! ::hugs::

ETA: Have incorporated a point by

azdak - thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is a very stimulating essay - thank you!I'm inclined to think that having a shared understanding of what the characters *look* like is more important to fanfic than you give it credit for. I know people were writing what might be regarded as Jane Austen fanfic for years before film and TV came along, but that's pretty much an exception. When you look at modern fanfic, it's very much orientated towards the visual media (LotR fanfic only really exploded with the arrival of the film, and the first Harry Potter film came out so quickly it almost coincided wtih the books - plus it's pretty clear that most of the time people have eg. Alan Rickman in mind, when they're writing about Snape). Plus you have the phenomenon of real person slash, and popslash, where the characters don't really exist as such, it's all about the bodies. I think that's why plays don't get fanficced, because however gorgeous the leading actor/ress, only a handful of people will have seen that one particular production. I'm not sure the "story" argument holds up for all plays, because Hamlet, for example, is almost all character and very little plot. (I suppose you could even make a case that the various "Hamlet" figures that crop up in world literature are examples of AUs written by great writers;-)) And it's not just Hamlet. An awful lot of plays deliberately don't have the tight (one might even say formulaic) structure that is common to a lot of films, a lot of them are open-ended or episodic or have characters that are/were wildly popular, so I'm not sure that it's the structure that's the inhibiting factor. The lack of "bodies" would also account for the lack of radio-based fanfic, in spite of the existence of episodically-structured series (Hmmm, I wonder if there's any "Archers" fanfic out there? What a horrible thought...)I do know of at least one instance where someone write fanfic based on a radio series in the days before TV, but of course she didn't think of it as fanfic, because as far as she knew, what she was doing was unique.

Where I think your argument works very well is in the distinction between films and TV, which are both visual media that reach mass audiences. After all, films have been an integral part of popular culture since the 1920s, yet there was no great outpouring of Gone With the Wind fanfic. But here I run into my own lack of knowledge - did Gone With the Wind inspire fanfiction, that simply languished in the perpetrators' knicker drawers, because they had no way of knowing that other people were writing it as well?

I still think though, that the open-endedness of the TV genre (especially in the early days)naturally encouraged people to write their own episodes, in the interlude when they were waiting for the next one to be screened, so in that sense I completely agree with you.

Oh, I forgot to say that I don't think that books are the natural home of fanfic because (a) lack of bodies, and (b) the original author usually writes so much better than the fans that there's always something inherently unsatisfying about book-based fanfic. Because they're using the same medium, there's a sense in which the author and the fans are trying to do the same thing, or at least using the same tools, so comparisons are inevitable, where TV-based fanfic is perforce not trying to do the same thing as its source.

Goodness, that was something! I don't really have the time to reply properly, but I've edited the essay slightly to incorporate your point about books not being the natural home of fanfic - you're absolutely right! Thank you so much!

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to flood your lj with interminable comments :-) It's just that I found your essay very thought provoking, and once my thoughts had been provoked I couldn't resist sharing them with you.

Sharing is always of the good! :)

And well - I hoped that it would make people think! Especially since I had all this stuff knocking about in my head for ages!

And my theory is that you need a character-driven story to enable this. Because fanfic is essentially using established characters and taking them somewhere different - somewhere other than or beyond where they originally went.

Yes, I'm sure you're right. As you say the advantages of a long-running TV show is that you know so much more about the characters. What I'm finding interesting about fanfic at the moment is that it seems to be expanding outward all the time. Once upon a time it seemed to be only TV shows that inspired fanfic but it now it appears (and it's only my impression) that book fanfic is growing too, which is fascinating. I think as more people know about it it's going to increase exponentially, but you have to have the interesting characters to begin the process.

as more people know about it it's going to increase exponentially

V. good point! And slash is turning out to be women's version of porn it seems... it's a weird and wonderful world out there!

All you had is quite a bit! And you've raised many interesting points here. I guess my opinion is that fanfic is a way to "fix" things the viewer/reader was unhappy with or to continue a story that's wide-open at the end.

_jems_ and I had a small discussion about this once. She said she reads "X-Files" and "Buffy" fanfic because she wants the writer of the fanfic to make weird or "bad" situations better. But she's completely satisfied with the outcome of "Farscape", so she doesn't seek out fanfiction for that show.

Thanks so much for this and for the birthday wishes, Elisabeth! :D

I guess my opinion is that fanfic is a way to "fix" things the viewer/reader was unhappy with or to continue a story that's wide-open at the end.

Of course! Excellent points! And I'm glad you liked your 'present! ;)

I guess my opinion is that fanfic is a way to "fix" things the viewer/reader was unhappy with or to continue a story that's wide-open at the end.

I was once going to write an essay on fanfic (or, to be entirely honest, Why the Kind of Fanfic I Like is Better Than the Kind of Fanfic Anyone Else Likes), but I gave up because in the end what I kept coming back to is that quote from Leonard Nimoy: "Whatever floats your boat." Seriously, I think that's the key point, that fanfic is entirely there for people to do their own thing with. Some people like to "fix" storylines they didn't like, some people like to watch their favourite characters shag like rabbits, some people want lots and lots of schmoop, some people want action, some people are canon nuts, some people like AUs, some people like huge long novels, some people like drabbles - the list is endless. I know that what I get out of fanfic is quite different from what most of the people I respect get out of it. There are probably as many different reasons for reading and writing fanfic as there are individuals reading and writing it, and really, the only standard you can apply is "whatever floats your boat." It's all one big happy post-modern mess :-)

Totally agree that it's spreading, as well.

Why the Kind of Fanfic I Like is Better Than the Kind of Fanfic Anyone Else Likes

Hee! But I get what you're saying. F.ex I really don't get the point in slash - I've even read some (well-written, in-character, even in-canon) but it just wigs me out! But it seems to float a lot of people's boats, so well - a big happy post-modern mess, as you said! :-)

And it's definitely spreading!

She said she reads "X-Files" and "Buffy" fanfic because she wants the writer of the fanfic to make weird or "bad" situations better. But she's completely satisfied with the outcome of "Farscape", so she doesn't seek out fanfiction for that show.

LOL. I was thinking about this before I read your comment. As much as I love Farscape I've never felt compelled to read any fic. That's not to say I wouldn't, but I'm so satisifed with how they handled the various relationships on the show, I have no burning desire to see how they could have been handled differently.

Now, with Buffy, while I'm not bitterly dissappointed with how the ships were handled, there are many aspects that I wonder 'what if this had been done this way' and fic allows me/us to explore those avenues. And while Buffy was certainly a character driven show, I don't feel that Joss ever wanted to focus so much on the romantic relationships (which fic seems to do), but how they manifested and were affected by events on the show. On Farscape, for instance, the J/A relationship was always given equal importance as John's desire to return home.

Great essay Elisabeth! :)

Great essay Elisabeth! :)

Thank you! One of the best things about having an LJ is that I'm able to share all my weird and wonderful thoughts with such clever people!

And I'm very happy with what happened on Buffy and Angel, but - all those 'what if's' are just too entertaining! Especially since I thought up a few of my own (there's nothing like a stray thought turning into a 15000-word long fic to convince you of the power of the 'what if'! Hee!)

Thanks for your comment! :-)

I write Fanfic mainly because I thought I could do better than a lot of what I read, and I wanted to give something back to the community from which I'd taken a lot from.

I dislike fic based on books intensely. Books allow you to recreate the picture the writer creates in your own fashion, it's jarring to read another interpretation of of something so personal. The same with films really, they can obliterate your vision and supplant them with someone else's.

I write Fanfic mainly because I thought I could do better than a lot of what I read, and I wanted to give something back to the community from which I'd taken a lot from.

I didn't really write this from a writer's POV, so that's a very good point!

And I get your book-fan-fic dislike. I have never actually read any, and have never felt inclined to do so.
About films, I always make a point of reading the book first, if the film's based on one - because I want my own images first! F.ex. I love LotR, but if I had to choose between the books and the film, I'd choose the books in a second! (And Pippin and Galadriel are completely wrong in the films - I see why they chose those actors, but they are vastly different from the characters in my head!)

I'd choose the books too.

I think the films were very well casted, with only a few exceptions. There were a few that although I might not have picked them, at least convinced me (Pippin for exsample, I thought Galaderiel was prefect actually). My problems were with Elrond (too austre), Eomer (much too dim), Legolas (a twat) and Eowyn (too wet). I suppose they were more portrayal/script problems than the choice of actors though.

Oh, I really like Pippin in the films - he was just so different from how I imagined him, that it took a while to adjust. And Galadriel... my head tells me she's perfect, but for some reason she just doesn't work for me. It's very annoying. I liked Elrond, but wish we could have had his sons too. And Eomer's part was just much smaller in the film. Eowyn wasn't 'cold' enough - she's supposed to be this glacial princess, but that didn't really come across that well. And I adore Legolas - the only thing that bothered me is that he seems 'too young'... he's supposed to be around 3000 if I remember rightly!

Must go do sensible things... *sigh*

Sensible? How dull!

Considering Eomer was going to be king, he was bit of a dimwit. He was nowhere near regal enough imo.

My problem with Elrond was that my picture of him was set in The Hobbit, and it never gelled properly with the LOTR books either.

I liked Legolas in the first film, but Orlando Bloom has become grating since.

Sensible? How dull!

I know, but husband is at home being poorly, and we're way behind on Christmas organising!

He was nowhere near regal enough imo. Good point!

Elrond was quite different in The hobbit, that's true. And Orlando Bloom is everywhere these days, isn't he?

Christmas? What's that?

Well, once upon a time, 2000 years ago... *giggles*

I'm unbelievably unprepared.

Good to know I'm not alone!

Fer took the words right out of my mouth. Quite literally, in this case. =)

But yeah, I read fic to get the things I don't feel the show ever gave me. And while I've read Farscape fic (all of three, if I remember correctly) I don't seek it out. At all.

I'm very much into character driven fic. If something is chockful of plot I may continue reading it and even enjoying it, but it's the character studies that grip me and have me rereading them over and over. I think that might be connected with the "fixing messed up plotlines" theme that I have when searching for fic. And then there's of course the post-series fics that fill the void of having no shows to watch.

Books are a media where I would never even think of searching out fic. If a book doesn't give me what I want I'm not going to even keep reading it, why on earth would I look for fic to fix it? I guess another reason is that I've never enjoyed a single book or series so much that I want to know what happens next. The perfect book is a self-contained entity by definition, at least for me. If it left me wanting more it wouldn't be a perfect book.

Oh, I love character driven fic too - I have abandoned several lengthy fics, because of too much plot! And I've discovered that I write character driven fic too. I end up with tons of dialogue and not much action. And I'm reading a fair few post-series fics (as well as writing a little one) so definite void-filling there!

The perfect book is a self-contained entity by definition, at least for me. If it left me wanting more it wouldn't be a perfect book.

Exactly! I can understand where fanfic comes from in the case of HP and particularly LotR, but I have no urge to read it what so ever. Also it is much, much harder to copy an author's style than a tv-show's!

Fascinating discussion! I agree with the point about not bothering to write fanfic based on a book. I'll even take that a step further and say that I do NOT like book sequels written by someone other than the author because the author is dead.

I am surprised that there isn't more fanfic for plot-driven stories. What happened to "what happened then?" fics? I would think that unless a story was wrapped up very tightly, there'd be plenty of room for fics about what happened to the characters after the story ended. Of course, that would in itself require compelling characters, otherwise, no one would care.

I think one of the important aspects is that the show has to leave the viewers/potential fanfic readers and writers with the feeling of not getting enough. It seems to me that a show with standalone episodes, and particularly one which may have ran out of "gas" before it went off the air, wouldn't inspire fanfic the way BtVS and Angel do. What drove me in the direction of Buffyfic was the fact that I had finally seen the last season of Buffy in re-runs and I couldn't let it go.

Thanks for the food for thought, Elisabeth!

What happened to "what happened then?" fics?

I guess it depends on how well the plot was wrapped up - if everyone retired to the suburbs, there would not be a lot to write about. ;-)

the feeling of not getting enough

That's probably true - Angel ended on a cliffhanger, and it has inspired some incredible stories! And yes - no one wants to let it go...

Glad I gave your brain some nosh! :-)

It seems to me that a show with standalone episodes, and particularly one which may have ran out of "gas"...

May. Have. Ran. Ack, I really shouldn't post in the wee hours of the morning.

*shaking head at own painful grammatical errors*

Heh. Try having english as a second language!

So very glad you posted it, not just for the wonderful ideas you give us to mull over but the responses that people give you too. This leaves me thinking for so long!
I liked what

bogwitch said about writing being something she gives back to the community - that's such a lovely idea.
Fanfic is something that helps you think about and discover more about the TV programme(s) you like, but also extends further into new worlds. It also helps tidy things up that the programme makers leave messy *coughsSpuffyresolutioncoughs* but also messes things up even more (in a good way). *g*

Oh, the responses were fabulous! So much food for thought! And you probably noticed how I worked most of your ideas into it! Thanks again!

It also helps tidy things up that the programme makers leave messy

Actually, I just had a thought - NFA leaves our heroes facing certain death, and in one way it could be seen as Joss' way of making sure his fans think up ways of saving them... a la Spike:

But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but ... after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again ... do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways ... (softly) Every night I save you.

That's what we do isn't it, with fanfic - every night (or day I guess) we save them... and because they left it open ended we can!!!

Hm, that was rather neat! :-)

Oh, the responses were fabulous!
Congrats! You deserved it! :) No problem with the help, what you wrote produced so many ideas - as I said, I just got caught up in it!

Hm, that was rather neat! :-)
Completely! Even this reply, had me running the full spectrum of emotions! *g*

*hugs Jossverse*
::blinks::
*hugs you*

I love your replies, have I ever said that? They are very funny! *giggles* *hugs you back*

Your topic is one I've often pondered and I think my general conclusions were along the same lines: people want to spend more time with the characters and/or want to fill in the "spaces" that were left in the text. If you have a story with weak or uninteresting characters the setting for the story would have to be pretty interesting for someone else to want to write in it. And even then they might bring in a lot of original characters.

Which leads me to another point in support of your discussion, the feelings of readers, pro or con, towards OC in fanfic. Aside from the issue of Mary Sues, it seems there would be a lot of scope to have new characters come in. My sense is, however, that OC are often not a popular feature in fanfic and they are used generally as villains, straw men, or minor characters brought in for a particular function.

Another supporting point is, I think, the issue of actors. Clearly some shows/films are popular largely because of the actors in them not the plot or even the characterization. Actors also fit certain stereotypes. Despite the fact that technically an actor should be able to play any part in fact few of them can, and some can barely do one well. But certain films (and TV shows) can be sold on the idea of X actor in a Y type plot. One could say the same about a lot of fanfic. There's something about the "known quantity" that can sell a project.

I would also agree with other comments about popfic, bookfic, theaterfic and filmfic. I think that the visual is quite critical in fanfic, both as an instigation for writing as well as a shared understanding of what is being discussed. Plays are meant to be performed by many different people with different sets. They may be character oriented but they can't be too rigid about visuals. Books tend to be mostly the vision of one person, and, as you mentioned, matching voice becomes a real problem. (There is also likely to be less "open space" for creation in books unlike the more meta-constrained film and TV). TV is by nature meant to be open-ended, worked on by numerous people, restrained in the type of subject matter that can be explored and shown, and let's not forget the influence of audience size. More people are likely to have seen a TV show than read a book or even seen a film. And the idea of writing during that "waiting" period for TV is indeed an influence. It's one reason there is so little soap opera fanfic despite its largely female audience and character-centered stories.

Which brings up the (to me) even more interesting question of why fanfic is so heavily female? Yes, certain types of stories, characters, and genres inspire fanfic but generally not by male writers. Why not? Clearly there are a lot of male fiction writers. Why is fanfic so female?

What a lot of good points! To concentrate mainly on the last one... well there are a few male writers around (

speakr2customrs and

toysdream f.ex), but fanfic is generally female dominated. One reason for this might be the sex - men get turned on by visual stimulus, women by well written smut/slash/sexy fanfic.

And maybe male fans tend to concentrate more on the collectors items etc - I don't know. It's strange, but maybe the friendship/gossipy nature of fandom is particularly suited to women. On-line dating is apparently more miss than hit, but on-line friendship seems to be an evolution of pen-pals. Maybe (most) men aren't interested in knowing about day-to-day details along with the fandom stuff?

My husband think it's all terribly sad, and can't understand for the life of him why anyone would want to write fanfic - if you're going to write, write something original! (He likes Buffy btw - he think s it's a fun and clever show, he just doesn't understand the need to analyse and write about it.)

Hm, I'm not sure that was at all the answer you were looking for, but you got me thinking! ;-)

why anyone would want to write fanfic - if you're going to write, write something original

This seems to be a common theme. I've heard it before and it often puzzled me. I mean, how many people are likely to become professional authors? I personally don't even consider it an issue of talent so much as an issue of speed and marketability. In today's publishing environment being flexible and able to write on demand is even more important than being able to write well because, frankly, a lot of people can do that.

After reading various comments about fanfiction from non-fic readers, however, I started to wonder if the issue wasn't marketability, or doing something "productive" (because there's fanfic out there that has had names changed to protect the copyrighted and with a little tweaking has been published as original fic). Rather it seemed to be an issue of ownership and control, and this seems to be something men have more of a thing about than women. If something is "original" you have control over it. It's yours, you get to be the god in charge, what you say goes. With fanfic, it's understood from the start that you as the writer own nothing, control nothing, and in fact what you write is open to debate and disagreement by your readers, who may take issue with any number of things you've done. You're playing in a common sandbox. It's also fairly clear in fanfic where your own personal biases lie -- it's a very emotionally revealing thing to do. Again, I think women have far less trouble with this concept than most men do.

I'm sure there are other issues involved as well, but this seems to be one I haven't heard expressed elsewhere, at least not that explicitly.

In today's publishing environment being flexible and able to write on demand is even more important than being able to write well

That's a very good point! And talking about ownership and control, there has apparently just been another case of 'stolen' fanfic (see

spikewriter's LJ). This is something I cannot understand - there is no money involved and how can you get pleasure from praise of something that you didn't write? But yes, men are possibly more controlling in that way.

It's also fairly clear in fanfic where your own personal biases lie -- it's a very emotionally revealing thing to do. Again, I think women have far less trouble with this concept than most men do.

This ties in with my previous reply... from an article in 'The Sunday Times':

'While men gaze passively at dirty pictures produced by a few mega-pornographers, women are busy creating a vibrant interactive culture that doesn't depend on anyone being exploited.'

The emotions are what make it interesting, which might be why character-study fic is often more popular than plot-based fic (not that you can't have both of course!).

The whole thing might show another side to the different ways men and women see the world!

This ties in with my previous reply... from an article in 'The Sunday Times':

I looked back to see if there was a link to the article but I must have missed it. Do you have it still?

Thanks too for the link about the plagiarism issue. Yes, it surprises me that it seems to occur on such a regular basis. I guess in such a large group of writers it's easier for people to think it might go undetected. Kind of interesting in the way it sheds light on the issue of derivative status.

I don't have a link to the article, since you have to pay for a subscription to The Sunday Times internet service. I do however have the article itself, and I'd be happy to scan it and e-mail it to you if you like. It deals with slash specifically rather than fanfiction as a whole, but it's very interesting and open minded!

That's very sweet of you. There's certainly no rush but whenever you find the time for it, yes, I'd love to see it!

Ok! :-)

I thoughroughly enjoyed reading your essay. Here's the opinion of a foreigner. I think American narrative art had always been more open-ended and even "serialised" than European art. F.ex., "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" reads like a seson of TV shoe with more or less isolated adventures loosely stringed together. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" reads like the second season of the same show, complete with Tom Sawyer guest-starring in the final two-parter. "Gone With the Wind" ending is a perfect opening for fanfics. Comics had been serialised from the very beginning. In European tradition, the story has to have the beginning, the middle and the ending. In American - not so much. I think Joss had brilliantly combined two traditions on BtVS: each season has the main narrative with the beginning and the ending and additional stories that create the ground for future seasonal main narratives. That's another reason why Jossverse is so appealing for ficwriters.

On a bigger scale, I see fanfiction as the ultimate manifestation of post-modernism. To boil it down to basics, po-mo in literature is one text created after some other text(s) - either as a homage or as a revisionist twist. This is what fanfics do.

Oh - and the first Russian fanfic had been written by famous Russian poet Pushkin about 180 years ago.

Oooh interesting thoughts! Now the thing that this brought to mind was Dickens - because his stories were published chapter by chapter in weekly magazines, and people would wait impatiently to find out 'what happened next'! Not surprisingly he became v. popular in America also... *g* Not sure what that means exactly, but it's definitely the same sort of thing you get with comics and TV series. Maybe there's also some sort of point to be made about message - a single narrative with beginning, middle and end will tell *one* story, with one main message (like a play or a film), but something serialised will by its very nature need to be different and have a lot more action and character interaction and development.

To boil it down to basics, po-mo in literature is one text created after some other text(s) - either as a homage or as a revisionist twist. This is what fanfics do.
Hmmm. *ponders*

Oh - and the first Russian fanfic had been written by famous Russian poet Pushkin about 180 years ago.
Neat! :)

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Happy Birthday Fer! I got you... em... an essay?

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