I have done a few posts on fan fiction here, though not recently. I wrote about 150 fan stories in my time, based on series such as Star Trek, Blake’s 7 and Robin Of Sherwood, then stopped when I, a. ran out of ideas, in the middle of a story and b. started getting paid to write.
What is fan fiction, in case you aren’t familiar with it? It’s using existing films, TV shows, books and even games to write fiction of your own. Some fan stories are very good, others appallingly badly written, but even those have their fans, something I know from comments made on them.
Not everyone stopped when they started being paid. Jenny Pausacker, an Aussie YA novelist who moved to England, was a big fan of Kerr Avon, one of the protagonists of Blake’s 7, and wrote online fanfic under a pen name(may still be doing it, I never found out what the pen name was). She even wrote an Avon-like character into a novel. Kerry Greenwood(best known for her Phryne Fisher books) said she composes Dr Who fanfic in her head. Not long ago, I told Diane Duane, author of the Young Wizards series, on Twitter, that I had read some of her fan fiction way back when, and her reply was, “What makes you think I have stopped?”
I have several shelves of fanzines, bought in the days when people were publishing them in print. I even edited a few myself!
But nobody is doing that now. There are fan fiction web sites; the best known one is Fan Fiction Net, which publishes stories from a huge number of universes. I used to read stories on that site, mostly based on books.
Some were based on the Harry Potter series. Draco Malfoy was a popular hero in those, because everybody loves a bad boy, right? Even Professor Severus Snape had his own Mary Sue tales. In one of them, written before the final book explained why Snape had no love interest in his life, he marries the niece of Auror Madeye Moody and they move to Sherlock Holmes’ cottage.
My favourite was a humorous Lord Of The Rings story, “Fellowship Of The Thousands” in which the Fellowship leave Rivendell accompanied by an entire army of Mary Sues - humans, elf maidens, Dwarf girls, etc., more than enough for each of the Fellowship members. The story is told from the viewpoint of Boromir, who is resurrected when his own Mary Sue cries over his dead body. A very funny tale that has great fun sending up the tropes.
By the way, I used to know the fan writer who coined the term Mary Sue to describe the sweet young thing who has a PhD at 16, is related to Spock by adoption and is adored by the entire bridge crew. The author’s name is Paula Smith and she wrote a tongue in cheek piece only a few hundred words long using every trope she could think of in that type of story, with a heroine called Mary Sue; I have lost track of Paula(my pen pal), but I’m betting she never dreamed how far her little story would go.
Another friend, Diane Marchant, unwittingly started slash fiction, ie erotic m/m stories, called slash because it started with Kirk/Spock. She wrote something erotic on the end of a letter to someone big in Trek fandom, as a joke, and next thing she knew it had been published and everyone was doing their own stories about what Kirk and Spock get up to behind the scenes; while people take it very seriously these days, Diane’s preferred pairing was Spock and Nurse Chapel. She has passed away, so no chance to ask her now how she feels. It has moved on to many fandoms, but in those days all we had was Star Trek, and only the original series.
As I said, I used to read the stories on Fan Fiction Net, but I’ve now discovered Archive Of Our Own, which I prefer because you can download stories as e-books and delete them when finished - or when they turn out to be too dreadful to finish. Furthermore, some inspire or commission fan art, taking me right back to the days when I was reading and publishing printed fanzines.
Many authors write entire sagas, some well over 100,000 words long, publishing a chapter a week. It has got me thinking; if fan writers can do a chapter a week, why can’t I, in my own universes? Something to think about.
Meanwhile, I’m back to reading fan fiction, something I haven’t done for quite a while. I will never write it again, but it’s fun to pick a universe and a genre on the web site and read stories set in that world. Some of them are so good that I want to tell the author it’s time to move on to create their own universes. Of course, I may very well be reading something by Diane Duane or Jenny Pausacker, for all I know…
Others will never sell anything, but they are having fun and even they have their fans.
So why write stories set in someone else’s world? When I started writing it, it was mostly because our show had been cancelled and we wanted more. Sometimes it was because there was something that didn’t make sense and we wanted to fill in the hole. Other times, we wondered what happened after the episode, or “what if”?
And then there are those fan writers who create their own characters in someone else’s universe. In a way, Star Trek: Lower Decks, a very funny animated series set on one of Starfleet’s less important ships, about a bunch of Ensigns, reminds me of a series of fan stories written in a fanzine published by my friend Paula Smith. It feels like fan fiction.
These days, there are even fan videos on YouTube. There is a film about the three Black sisters from Harry Potter, Narcissa, Andromeda and Bellatrix, written, filmed and performed by fans. I found another film set in the Blake’s 7 universe, with original characters.
Who knew, way back when we were just wanting more Star Trek that it would come so far?
Anyone willing to admit here to writing fan fiction, or even just reading it?
8 comments:
Well, you know I'm a huge fan of slash m/m fanfiction about Captain America (Steve) and Winter Soldier (Bucky)! I love all the tropes and variations, the goofier and cheesier the better! And yes, I must confess that I myself have written a few steamy fanfics about Steve 'n Bucky under my AOL pen name, which I never reveal to anyone who knows me, LOL!
And now, please indulge me while I expound a little on the subversive nature of fanfiction and why it does not deserve the denigration it so typically receives. One of my favourite insights in this area is by Henry Jenkins, Director of Media Studies at MIT, who wrote:
"Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk."
And Laura Penny, in "Sherlock and the Adventure of the Overzealous Fanbase," wrote:
“What is significant about fan fiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans - women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly.”
Power to the fandoms and the fanbase, LOL!
Hi Debra! I must admit, I’m not a fan of slash fiction - and I have read some, yes, many years ago when I was new to fandom and visiting a friend who had some, but I didn’t enjoy them. I submitted a poem to an ordinary fanzine and was accepted, but by the time my contributor copy arrived it had gone to slash, with embarrassing cover art of a VERY naked Kirk and Spock - well, it was embarrassing to ME, when I opened it in front of my flat mates, who laughed and teased me! I read it anyway, but thought the stories poorly written and exchanged it with a friend who had a fanzine I was more interested in.
And in those days it was largely being written by hetero married women. A trans friend of mine, who was a gay woman at the time, before transitioning to male, was on a panel at a convention I attended, and, with a straight face, said, “In the interests of research, I asked some of my male gay friends what they thought of these stories, but I never found out, because they haven’t stopped laughing.”
Things have changed since then, of course. Online fanfic is written, under pen names, by whoever wants to, and they take it very seriously. Unfortunately, on Twitter there is a lot of toxicity among the “Loki” fans, much of it by LGBTQI folk, but not only them. There are some nasty exchanges online and quite a bit of abuse of the character Sylvie, both by those who think Loki should be in a m/m relationship with either Mobius or Thor and by those who would rather see a Mary Sue with a character based on themselves, and call the relationship “selfcest”. Some of those have been very nasty to the actor’s real life fiancée. Yuk! Some people need to get a life.
Steve and Bucky? Yes, I can see that, but what have you done with Peggy? She is the reason Steve returns to the 1940s, to be with her. Why not return to the time when Bucky was about to fall from that bridge? Mind you, that would get the attentions of the TVA, but they don’t know that. 😉 Well, not knowing your fanfic, maybe you have done that.
And yes, I have heard of Henry Jenkins, though not read his book. I haven’t heard of the other person you quote. Interesting that “horny teenagers” are listed among the oppressed “other” fans! But as I said, nowadays it’s all on line and under pen names, so anyone can write what they want and be read and enjoyed, though the fanfic I have read on Archive has all been written by women - there is no way men are writing some of the stuff I’ve read! 😂
I love fan fiction. I prefer media fic to stuff based on books, because I’m not comfortable with people not only rewriting a book, but thinking theirs is better than the original - someone I know wrote her own version of The Three Musketeers, set in space and gender swapped, and I bought a copy. On Twitter, people were telling her it was better than the original - I stayed out of that discussion, but really, better than the wonderful Alexandre Dumas? I read the original novel in an afternoon, but couldn’t finish the fanfic.
Still, I love it. It’s fun to read all those “what if’s” and the entire sagas composed by passionate fans. And there are quite a few pro writers out there who started in fanfic. What’s not to love?
Oh yes, stay far, far away from fandom wars and fandom drama! That malarkey is all too, too tiresome. I know slash is not to everyone's taste but personally, I love it both because it subverts the dominant heteronormative "rules" of superhero and other stories but also because I know how wonderful same-sex relationships can be and am not "put off" by them. And who wouldn't want a happy relationship for Captain America and the Winter Soldier, LOL? Steve and Peggy ("Steggy") have their adherents too but I find those fanfics dull, although I do love Peggy as a strong, independent female character in the MCU.
It is indeed true that most modern fanfiction is written "by women, for women" and is focused on emotions and relationships, areas usually under-addressed by the canonical source material for the characters. There is a disproportionate queer representation among fanfic authors these days too. Such are the times!
Picayune note: My first comment should have referred to my "AO3" pen name, not "AOL" -- it was really, really early in the morning when I wrote that comment and I guess the coffee hadn't kicked in yet, LOL!
I did pick up what you meant. Typos are quite normal! Steggy? Good grief! I haven’t read any of those stories as yet, so haven’t come across that name.
There is also a LOT of “smut” in the stories I have read(their term, not mine). But I’m currently reading one without any, and a lot of action among the emotions. In it, the nuclear bomb managed to get through to New York City, wiping out most of the population, including ALL the Avengers. Loki, who did the invasion under the control of Thanos, via the Mind Stone, escaped, and now is trying to fix everything. Right now, he is in Wakanda, working with Jane Foster and little Shuri… Not a single sex scene after 150,000 words - I’m impressed. Some emotions, yes, but you would after losing family.
I spent practically all of my teens writing fanfic in my head (mostly Dr Who but also Blake's 7 and various other TV shows). I started when I was really young, about 7 or 8 I think, telling myself stories set in the world of my favourite books before I fell asleep at night, and incorporating a Mary Sue version of myself in the stories. I didn't write many of them down but I definitely spent a lot of time in borrowed universes!
I've just read a wonderful book by Tabitha Carvan, This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, which is about carving out a space for private (or shared!) pleasure and how difficult it can be for women in particular to take time to do things just for fun. The great thing about fandom and thinking about fanfic is that it's so portable! You can carry around your own private world and escape into it any time.
I'm really intrigued by this area of experience, must check out Henry Jenkins' work.
Hi Kate! We must be secret twins. I started writing about the age you did, and also composed fanfic in my head while in bed! Although I did watch and love Dr Who, mine was based on The Cisco Kid. Why? Well. It did help that I loved the horses, Diablo and Loco…
Very true about the portability of fannish stuff!
Oh I remember the Cisco Kid! That didn't tempt me for fanning though, even though I did love pony books. But I think MASH was my main TV love to start with, I had a big crush on Hawkeye :)
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