As a professor, may I ask you what you think about fanfiction?
I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn.
Most of the history of Western literature (and probably much of non-Western literature, but I can’t speak to that) is adapted or appropriated from something else. Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic (where he makes himself a character and writes himself hanging out with Homer and Virgil and they’re like “OMG Dante you’re so cool.“ He was the original Gary Stu). Milton wrote Bible fanfic, and everyone and their mom spent the Middle Ages writing King Arthur fanfic. In the sixteenth century you and another dude could translate the same Petrarchan sonnet and somehow have it count as two separate poems, and no one gave a fuck. Shakespeare doesn’t have a single original plot–although much of it would be more rightly termed RPF–and then John Fletcher and Mary Cowden Clarke and Gloria Naylor and Jane Smiley and Stephen Sondheim wrote Shakespeare fanfic. Guys like Pope and Dryden took old narratives and rewrote them to make fun of people they didn’t like, because the eighteenth century was basically high school. And Spenser! Don’t even get me started on Spenser.
Here’s what fanfic authors/fans need to remember when anyone gives them shit: the idea that originality is somehow a good thing, an innately preferable thing, is a completely modern notion. Until about three hundred years ago, a good writer, by and large, was someone who could take a tried-and-true story and make it even more awesome. (If you want to sound fancy, the technical term is imitatio.) People were like, why would I wanna read something about some dude I’ve never heard of? There’s a new Sir Gawain story out, man! (As to when and how that changed, I tend to blame Daniel Defoe, or the Modernists, or reality television, depending on my mood.)
I also find fanfic fascinating because it takes all the barriers that keep people from professional authorship–barriers that have weakened over the centuries but are nevertheless still very real–and blows right past them. Producing literature, much less circulating it, was something that was well nigh impossible for the vast majority of people for most of human history. First you had to live in a culture where people thought it was acceptable for you to even want to be literate in the first place. And then you had to find someone who could teach you how to read and write (the two didn’t necessarily go together). And you needed sufficient leisure time to learn. And be able to afford books, or at least be friends with someone rich enough to own books who would lend them to you. Good writers are usually well-read and professional writing is a full-time job, so you needed a lot of books, and a lot of leisure time both for reading and writing. And then you had to be in a high enough social position that someone would take you seriously and want to read your work–to have access to circulation/publication in addition to education and leisure time. A very tiny percentage of the population fit those parameters (in England, which is the only place I can speak of with some authority, that meant from 500-1000 A.D.: monks; 1000-1500: aristocratic men and the very occasional aristocratic woman; 1500-1800: aristocratic men, some middle-class men, a few aristocratic women; 1800-on, some middle-class women as well).
What’s amazing is how many people who didn’t fit those parameters kept writing in spite of the constant message they got from society that no one cared about what they had to say, writing letters and diaries and stories and poems that often weren’t discovered until hundreds of years later. Humans have an urge to express themselves, to tell stories, and fanfic lets them. If you’ve got access to a computer and an hour or two to while away of an evening, you can create something that people will see and respond to instantly, with a built-in community of people who care about what you have to say.
I do write the occasional fic; I wish I had the time and mental energy to write more. I’ll admit I don’t read a lot of fic these days because most of it is not–and I know how snobbish this sounds–particularly well-written. That doesn’t mean it’s “not good”–there are a lot of reasons people read fic and not all of them have to do with wanting to read finely crafted prose. That’s why fic is awesome–it creates a place for all kinds of storytelling. But for me personally, now that my job entails reading about 1500 pages of undergraduate writing per year, when I have time to read for enjoyment I want it to be by someone who really knows what they’re doing. There’s tons of high-quality fic, of course, but I no longer have the time and patience to go searching for it that I had ten years ago.
But whether I’m reading it or not, I love that fanfiction exists. Because without people doing what fanfiction writers do, literature wouldn’t exist. (And then I’d be out of a job and, frankly, I don’t know how to do anything else.)
The year is 2042. Your daughter is awkwardly silent as she eats her dinner. “Something wrong sweetie?” She sighs and puts down her fork. “I was digging really deep in AO3 last night…Why didn’t you finish that coffee shop au?” It happened. Your past has come back to haunt you. Nay, it never truly left.
U CANNOT OUTRUN UR CRIME
OKAY BUT WAIT. This has happened to me. Recently. Because I am old and I have things out there from previous fandoms with previous pseuds and one day my teenager begins a rant at me about people never finishing any WIPs on the pit of voles (which he does not call the pit of voles because he has No Knowledge of such a thing but yet he still reads on which I didn’t think anyone did any longer) and he points out an example to me of something I WROTE AND LEFT WIPing for ages and he has NO IDEA #1 that his mom wrote this and #2 How much it still haunts me to this day that it will. sit. there. for. eternity. because I am too lazy to pull it down.
Oh wow though. The temptation to screw with your kid’s mind though?
I mean, how could anyone resist the urge to update, and then just put something in the author’s note like “I know you got a B- on your last history paper, Jason. You can do better.”
All I’m saying is that you could very slowly get them to question their own sanity and the nature of existence itself and when is the universe going to drop another golden opportunity like this in your lap?
* who has shipped Spirk since that night in 1967 that Amok Time first aired * and helped storm NBC to keep TOS on the air for a 3rd season * and wrote fanfic way back in the day * and was privileged to be around for the earliest days of fandom, when Leonard used to come to your house if that’s where the fan club was meeting and sit on the sofa with you in that Spock hair cut and eat cake
All of you who are writing TOS/AOS fan fiction and creating fan art now: remember, YOU are the ones shaping the traditions of fandom. You have inherited the kingdom. Bless you for keeping it vibrant, growing, alive. In fifty years, you will be the ones who are remembered for molding it and handing it down to the future. It probably doesn’t feel like now, but you are making history.
Your current addiction to TOS and the feels you get when you contemplate the love between Jim and Spock will be with you for life. It won’t always be in the forefront; you will sometimes go years, sometimes go a decade, without Star Trek being more than a passing thought. But then something will remind you and every consuming feeling you feel right now will come rushing back, every bit as powerful and deep and strong as it is today. All there, right where you left it.
The friendships you make in fandom will be with you for life. Like all friendships, they will wax and wane as the focus of your life shifts over time, but you will always be able to pick up the thread. You will — to give you a hypothetical example — be 77 years old and discover Tumblr and get a rush of Spirk feels after a decade of not giving TOS a thought, and contact your 83-year-old fangirl friend in the nursing home, to whom you haven’t spoken in several years. You will open the conversation with, “So, Jim and Spock love each other and that just makes me so happy.” And your friend in the nursing home will sigh and say, “Yes. They do love each other. It’s such a comfort.”
That look that Jim and Spock give each other, of absolute adoration and acceptance and love? That’s real. It’s rare, but it’s real. One of my greatest joys in life is to see my son and his husband give each other looks like that. Of course I don’t know you; I don’t know your strengths and struggles or your place on the spectrum of gender or anything about your sexuality or what you look like or what your life has taught you to believe about yourself, but I do know this: YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED AND LOOKED AT THE WAY JIM AND SPOCK LOOK AT EACH OTHER. Please don’t accept less than that in your life.
The future of our planet does not seem very hopeful at the moment. But please remember that when Gene created Star Trek, the world was in turmoil and the future seemed very bleak. Star Trek is, was, always shall be about hope. Reach for it. When TOS first aired, we hoped to see some form of a Starfleet on the horizon in our lifetimes. That vision must be passed on to you. Do it. Make the world worthy of launching the human race out into space. CREATE STARFLEET.
You are all creative and funny and amazing. Far more amazing than you know. Be kind to yourselves. Live long and prosper, kids.
Tags are in reference to my first bullet point. Meant as a kudos to your work, but feel free to untag yourself if you don’t want to be linked to my ramblings; I won’t be offended! (Also, this extends to a thousand other artists and writers out there who deserve kudos. tag at will.)
Aren’t you glad that this woman didn’t leave fandom once she graduated college/got a job/got married/had kids?
So, as you guys know, AO3 has those icons that indicate whether a story is complete or not. There’s the “this story is complete” icon:
And there’s the “this story is incomplete” icon:
But “incomplete” is a really, really broad category, and WIPs are incomplete for lots and lots of reasons, right? I bet many authors wish they could put a little more nuance into that statement, in order to better communicate details to their readers, and I bet readers would totally appreciate that. I think AO3 should do away with the trite old circle with a bar through it, and give the authors access to some more flexibility and detail! So, I thought about some of the things an author might want to say about a story’s “incomplete” status, and I came up with some new icons!
First, the “still writing!” ones:
“I’m still writing this story!” (This would be the default icon for a WIP)
“I’m still writing this story, and I promise I will post a new chapter… just as soon as I figure out what’s going to happen next.”
“I’m still writing this story, but I’ve just realized that it has to be much, much, MUCH longer than I originally thought, and I’m currently rearranging everything.”
“I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I will finish this story even though the last time I posted an update was 2 ½ years ago.”
And then the “not writing anymore” ones:
“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore.”
“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore because fuck that show/movie/book/fandom right in its fucking face“
(of course we wanna be multi-racial, so there are some options for this one):
(And multi-cultural!)
“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore because I’ve been sucked into a new fandom and have already written 37 stories for it!”
“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore–but if someone else wants to take over and continue the story, I’m fine with that!”
And one I can’t believe AO3 didn’t put into use years ago:
“WELP I DUNNO YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE YOU FOLLOWED A WIP OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL LOL”
Feeling personally attacked right now
I need this one:
WHILE I DON’T ENTIRELY RULE OUT THAT THE SPIRIT WILL MOVE ME TO CONTINUE THIS AT SOME POINT, PLEASE DON’T STAKE YOUR HOPES ON IT
so i just googled the phrase “toeing out of his shoes” to make sure it was an actual thing
and the results were:
it’s all fanfiction
which reminds me that i’ve only ever seen the phrase “carding fingers through his hair” and people describing things like “he’s tall, all lean muscle and long fingers,” like that formula of “they’re ____, all ___ and ____” or whatever in fic
idk i just find it interesting that there are certain phrases that just sort of evolve in fandom and become prevalent in fic bc everyone reads each other’s works and then writes their own and certain phrases stick
i wish i knew more about linguistics so i could actually talk about it in an intelligent manner, but yeah i thought that was kinda cool
Ha! Love it!
One of my fave authors from ages ago used the phrase “a little helplessly” (like “he reached his arms out, a little helplessly”) in EVERY fic she wrote. She never pointed it out—there just came a point where I noticed it like an Easter egg. So I literally *just* wrote it into my in-progress fic this weekend as an homage only I would notice. ❤
To me it’s still the quintessential “two dudes doing each other” phrase.
I think different fic communities develop different phrases too! You can (usually) date a mid 00s lj fic (or someone who came of age in that style) by the way questions are posed and answered in the narration, e.g. “And Patrick? Is not okay with this.” and by the way sex scenes are peppered with “and, yeah.” I remember one Frerard fic that did this so much that it became grating, but overall I loved the lj style because it sounded so much like how real people talk.
Another classic phrase: wondering how far down the _ goes. I’ve seen it mostly with freckles, but also with scars, tattoos, and on one memorable occasion, body glitter at a club. Often paired with the realization during sexy times that “yeah, the __ went all they way down.” I’ve seen this SO much in fic and never anywhere else
whoa, i remember reading lj fics with all of those phrases! i also remember a similar thing in teen wolf fics in particular – they often say “and derek was covered in dirt, which. fantastic.” like using “which” as a sentence-ender or at least like sprinkling it throughout the story in ways published books just don’t.
LINGUISTICS!!!! COMMUNITIES CREATING PHRASES AND SLANG AND SHAPING LANGUAGE IN NEW WAYS!!!!!!!
I love this. Though I don’t think of myself as fantastic writer, by any means, I know the way I write was shaped more by fanfiction and than actual novels.
I think so much of it has to do with how fanfiction is written in a way that feels real. conversations carry in a way that doesn’t feel forced and is like actual interactions. Thoughts stop in the middle of sentences.
The coherency isn’t lost, it just marries itself to the reader in a different way. A way that shapes that reader/writer and I find that so beautiful.
FASCINATING
and it poses an intellectual question of whether the value we assign to fanfic conversational prose would translate at all to someone who reads predominantly contemporary literature. as writers who grew up on the internet find their way into publishing houses, what does this mean for the future of contemporary literature? how much bleed over will there be?
we’ve already seen this phenomenon begin with hot garbage like 50 shades, and the mainstream public took to its shitty overuse of conversational prose like it was a refreshing drink of water. what will this mean for more wide-reaching fiction?
I’m sure someone could start researching this even now, with writers like Rainbow Rowell and Naomi Novik who have roots in fandom. (If anyone does this project please tell me!) It would be interesting to compare, say, a corpus of a writer’s fanfic with their published fiction (and maybe with a body of their nonfiction, such as their tweets or emails), using the types of author-identification techniques that were used to determine that J.K. Rowling was Robert Galbraith.
In an earlier discussion, Is French fanfic more like written or spoken French?, people mentioned that French fanfic is a bit more literary than one might expect (it generally uses the written-only tense called the passé simple, rather than the spoken-only tense called the passé composé). So it’s not clear to what extent the same would hold for English fic as well – is it just a couple phrases, like “toeing out of his shoes”? Are the google results influenced by the fact that most published books aren’t available in full text online? Or is there broader stuff going on? Sounds like a good thesis project for someone!
Toeing out of one’s shoes may be a fanfic trend, but toeing them off is in the Oxford English Dictionary:
[Image description: A screencap of the Oxford Dictionary’s web page for the word “toe.” The first definition for the verb “to toe” is [with object and usually with adverbial] push, touch, or kick with one’s toe: ‘he toed off his shoes and flexed his feet.’ ]
How it mutated from common usage “toed off” to fanfic usage “toed out” is a mystery that has been lost to time, but I felt like pointing out that it’s not something fanficcers invented out of whole cloth.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower This seems like the sort of discourse you’d be happy to jump in on…thoughts?
Well…the internet has sped up the evolution of language and word definitions and useage at a pace where linguists are basically screaming “WAIT WAIT WE CAN’T KEEP UP WITH THIS SHIT WHAT THE HELL GUYYYYYSSSSSSS–”
Take yes and yeah.
Yea. Yeh. Yas. Yis. Those last two? Those are very, very new, and yet they are EVERYWHERE. Before global communication, new terminology didn’t spread that fast.
Let’s start out by saying that I am 47 years old, and I have a daughter who will be 18 in January. I’m not just out of my teens, I have a kidlet that’s almost out of HER teens (and it’s probably very funny watching us watch TW together).
I’ve been in fandom, in some way or another, since I was 12 years old. In the years before internet, in the years when in order to be “in fandom” you either contributed to fanzines or you went to conventions or you just hung out with your friends to do things. I started gaming when I was a teen, I read & collected comics, I wrote filk, and I wrote both original work and fanfic (except I had no idea I was writing fanfic, honestly).
What I’ve found is that fandom isn’t just about teens. While I’m often one of the oldest in the crowds I’m in online lately, I’m rarely THE oldest. Fandom is ageless, in my opinion. When I was a kid, I had friends who were as old as my parents (still do).
For face to face hobbies, like tabletop gaming, there are game shops and bookstores to meet folks who are like-minded. I basically keep finding my tribe, finding folks who like the same stuff. Fall in with other adults. I started in college; when I got to Union, I wasn’t ready to put away my hobbies. I went to the gaming group and made friends there. Through them, I made friends at RPI, and that’s where I ended up for grad school. And I also started hanging out online way back then (late 80s, seriously, not even joking) and I made friends online before it was considered normal to do so.
It’s about finding anchors. Talk to folks, don’t worry about age. I seriously love folks in fandom, love adults in fandom. Love that there are other people of all ages who love the same things, and want to flail about them.
Are you worried about being ostracized by fandom? If someone’s being an ass to you, they’re just not a good person, it has NOTHING to do with your age. If it’s out in the world that you’re worried about being ostracized, that’s a little different. Fandom has become more mainstream, more acceptable, but it’s not perfect yet. Folks DO understand that adults are fans now, at least, I think. I don’t go into it in detail, but my screensavers are various media, and I have art from fics hanging on the walls of my office.
Inside of fandom, some folks just want to pull people down. Trust me, fandom is full of folks who are over twenty, over thirty, over forty, and even over fifty. I’m planning on keeping on writing, well into my dotage, right up until the time I don’t have any more words. And when I’m older, I will be right there with the younger folks, encouraging them to keep loving what they love, and don’t apologize for it.
They call us fangirls because they belittle our fandom by making it childish. But it’s not childish. It’s just loving a thing, like some folks love sports. And like it says in Harry Potter, love is the strongest force in the world. So I encourage it.
Someone liked this today, and I reread it, and I’d just like to say that it’s a year and a half later (and I’m watching that teenage daughter angst about her 20th birthday approaching), and I still stand by all of this. Love what you love, and celebrate that love.
Pros of being a Fandom Old:
– never have to worry about my mom finding out about my porn fic
– have seen it all before and give few if any fucks
Cons of being a Fandom Old:
– forced to work at actual job instead of writing fic all day
– have seen it all before and get regular “ugh not again” moments
This is what it feels like to be Agent Mulder. I want to chase you down eight flights of a parking garage, screaming at you about what your name is and how you know this, desperate to know if I can trust this information.
Steel Phoenix Studios 