Fan-fiction - Why?

[chyron8472]

My wife and my mother read fanfictions because:

1) They're free

2) They use existing characters from a series they love in various situations that the canon books don't explore.


I have to admit, that I've read a couple of them, and some are really very good.

[MTAlto]

As a fanfiction addict (and I've tried breaking that habit, honest!), as well as a long-term introvert whose best friends have been characters from books since I was a child, I can honestly say that fanfic provides explanations for those things that made no sense in the original. They make the illogical logical, take the "never gonna happen" into the realm of more than possible, and straighten out all those problems that I yelled at the authors about. Now I'll agree with many on this board who say there's a lot of really awful fanfiction, and if there's a distinct lack of quality, I can easily put it down and never think about it again. Fan fiction is free, can inspire ideas (which it has many times in my own work), and is generally a fun way to spend an hour or two (or more...).

[MV64]

99% of it is trash and amateurish or just fulfilling some sick fantasies. However, when I was younger I did write some Star Wars stories. It's fun writing exercise. I mean, after all, what else are famous writers doing when they publish a book in a series like Star Wars?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

[...] I think they're one part of fanfic. Male writers also write fanfic. Het is also fanfic. Gen is also fanfic. (RPF is just creepy) There's room in the genre for everyone, not just the people who conform to their Way. [...]

Is there a place that lists the meanings of "Gen", "Het" and similar? (I found "slash" in dictionary.com and "RPF" in acronymfinder - and yes that last does sound creepy.) I never realised the industry had evolved its own language in this way. I'm learning more on this thread that I expected when I started it.

[stormcloude]

Originally Posted by gmw

Is there a place that lists the meanings of "Gen", "Het" and similar? (I found "slash" in dictionary.com and "RPF" in acronymfinder - and yes that last does sound creepy.) I never realised the industry had evolved its own language in this way. I'm learning more on this thread that I expected when I started it.

I can tell you that "het" means that the main romantic relationship is going to be a heterosexual one (as opposed to a slashy one). And "gen" means it's general (no romance other than what's already in the source material).

These seem to have pretty good basic vocab lists: http://www.wellinghall.net/abbrevs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fan_fiction_terms

[Worldwalker]

Stormcloude explained it rather well. Sorry about that; I didn't even realize I'd slipped into subcultural jargon.

For those who haven't looked it up, by the way, "slash" comes from the description of homosexual pairings as, for example, "Kirk/Spock", pronounced "Kirk-slash-Spock". At the time of the term's creation (there is some speculation that it may predate Star Trek), those matchups were by definition non-canonical. I don't write for, or generally read, anything particularly modern, so I'm not sure if that would be correctly used for fanfic about a canonical gay pairing, or what exactly one would call a story splitting up a canonical gay couple and pairing either or both with a heterosexual partner. Back when the whole concept was taboo on TV, that never came up.

I think the major point about fanfic that anyone should take away from this is that it embraces just about everything. Reading a random fanfic story on the Pit is no more a gauge of the quality of good fanfic than reading a random story on Smashwords is of the quality of good indie writing.

By the way, for the uninitiated, "the Pit" is short for "the Pit of Voles", which fanfiction.net is called by its detractors (and even its fans) for some reason I'm a bit unclear on. FFN is the largest public fanfic archive, almost totally unmoderated, and prone to demonstrating Sturgeon's Law to the utmost. I'm not sure what it says about me that you can find my writing there.

[cfrizz]

Oh that's very bigotted & narrow minded of you.

Windwalker pointed out the best explanation of why fan-fic exists and how it provides hours of FREE entertainment for fans of movies & books that can delve into and expand characters that we like, and maybe take them into situations that the authors/writers are'nt interested/won't take them into for whatever reason. Writing it allows people to improve their skills to greater levels, sometimes even going on to become published writers of their own material, and it lets readers enjoy reading it.

As far as I'm concerned that's a win for everyone.

Originally Posted by MV64

99% of it is trash and amateurish or just fulfilling some sick fantasies. However, when I was younger I did write some Star Wars stories. It's fun writing exercise. I mean, after all, what else are famous writers doing when they publish a book in a series like Star Wars?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by gmw

Is there a place that lists the meanings of "Gen", "Het" and similar? (I found "slash" in dictionary.com and "RPF" in acronymfinder - and yes that last does sound creepy.) I never realised the industry had evolved its own language in this way. I'm learning more on this thread that I expected when I started it.

Fanlore is a fannish history & culture wiki; it has listings for slash, het, gen, RPF, and a whole lot of other glossary listings.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

By the way, for the uninitiated, "the Pit" is short for "the Pit of Voles", which fanfiction.net is called by its detractors (and even its fans) for some reason I'm a bit unclear on.

It comes out of the legend/rumour that if you had an infinite supply of monkeys at typewriters, they'd eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. FF.net was said to have an infinite supply of voles, who are less literarily-inclined than monkeys, and it will take them longer to produce works of value.

There's some great stuff at FF.net, but I shudder to think of anyone just wandering through trying to find it without recommendation lists.

[Lemurion]

I think fanfic is natural, it's just a further expression of the same drive that has kids running around acting out their version of a show or movie they've just seen. It's one of the things people do, and I think that anyone who dismisses it out of hand has lost touch with what it means to be a child.

That doesn't mean I think it's childish, but that its roots are so fundamental to the human condition that they first express in childhood.

I will admit that I can't speak to m/m slash as I've never really seen the point of it. I'm sure some is very good, but it's one of those things that just doesn't resonate with me. It could double or disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't notice either way.

[Carriebear]

Originally Posted by MV64

99% of it is trash and amateurish or just fulfilling some sick fantasies. However, when I was younger I did write some Star Wars stories. It's fun writing exercise. I mean, after all, what else are famous writers doing when they publish a book in a series like Star Wars?

Well, that's a rather unnecessary blanket dismissal. The fanfiction that I and my friends write is neither trash, amateurish, or fulfilling some sick fantasies, unless you would categorize our establishing relationships between characters that wouldn't have a relationship on our respective shows, as sick. I write mainly "slash" fiction, with female/female relationships, which would never occur between the two characters, that I write about, of my show. I create plots around them that both fit with the "canon," meaning what has already been established between the characters on the show, and also expand on it, which takes those already established storylines further and creates interactions and relationships that would not otherwise happen. I don't find anything sick about this at all.

[gmw]

Thanks for the definitions people. I see that the dictionary definition I found for slash was not appropriate for this context, so just as well you educated me.

The fact that fan-fiction has evolved terms like mpreg, non-con, otp and pwp I find a little scary. I'm trying to remember the quote, something about the most frightening thing about "friendly fire" is that it happens so often they made up a term for it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gmw

Thanks for the definitions people. I see that the dictionary definition I found for slash was not appropriate for this context, so just as well you educated me.

The fact that fan-fiction has evolved terms like mpreg, non-con, otp and pwp I find a little scary. I'm trying to remember the quote, something about the most frightening thing about "friendly fire" is that it happens so often they made up a term for it.

.

[cfrizz]

Well at least you are finding out up front, rather than half way into a book.

But don't let all of that put you off, you can find all kinds of fics that are more to your style is that is what you want.

Me personally, I prefer the more well rounded characterizations of fan fics that tv shows can't do because they have to conform to a certain standard or the audience they are trying to target to run their idiotic commercials.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by gmw

The fact that fan-fiction has evolved terms like mpreg, non-con, otp and pwp I find a little scary. I'm trying to remember the quote, something about the most frightening thing about "friendly fire" is that it happens so often they made up a term for it.

Two words: Rule. 34.

There is a lot of fanfic out there. If we assume, for the sake of practicality, that half of all fanfic is posted on FFN, then the half-million Harry Potter stories on FFN imply that there are at least a million such stories out there somewhere.

Let that soak in: one million Harry Potter stories written by someone other than J.K. Rowling. If we assume 5,000 words each (short story length) to cover everything from drabbles (that's 100 words for you following along at home) to the massive tomes some writers churn out, that is five billion words of Harry Potter fanfic (or five thousand million, for you Europeans). The canon novels total a bit over 1 million words (1.08 and change) which means that there is approximately five thousand times as much fanfic as there is canon material. Five. Thousand. Imagine that you have one book in front of you -- say, Dune -- and the fanfic written about it amounts to five thousand more books of similar size. Shelves of them. Boxes of them. Stacks of them on the floor.

While that might be a bit exceptional, there's still a staggering amount of fanfic out there. And, yes, because so much of it is written by people just learning to write, a large percentage of it is terrible. When you have five thousand times as much fanfic as you have canon, you start needing words for all the permutations of human behavior that turn up. That's where pwp comes from, for instance, although I defy anyone to seriously claim that pwp is unique to fanfic, or even to amateur fiction ("Anita Blake, Vampire Humper" anyone?). And otp (something else far from unique to fanfic). And all the rest. There might not be a need to devise a word for something J.K. Rowling just hinted at, but if even 1% of 1% of the HP fanfic goes beyond hinting, that's a hundred stories that have just described something they need a word for, so a word will appear.

And remember, also, that fanfic goes back decades. Centuries, by some definitions, or even millennia, if you consider Vergil a Homer fanboi! That's a lot of time to invent words.

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Well at least you are finding out up front, rather than half way into a book.

Or a series.

But don't let all of that put you off, you can find all kinds of fics that are more to your style is that is what you want.

That's one of the great things about fanfic: whatever you want, someone probably wrote it. Probably several times. And this includes categories like "really good stories about how X did Y" too.

Me personally, I prefer the more well rounded characterizations of fan fics that tv shows can't do because they have to conform to a certain standard or the audience they are trying to target to run their idiotic commercials.

That's a big thing for me, because of my focus on writing fanfic for old TV shows. You look at our canon, and every story has to be jammed into 22 minutes, be immediately understandable to people who have very little clue about what the whole point is, and be transmitted through a purely visual medium without any explanation that must be told rather than shown. Also, due to the era of the original shows, there is no real continuity -- they had to be able to be broadcast in any order, for benefit of syndication, so none can make any reference to, or have any dependence on, any other. And, frankly, in one of them I write for, the canon writers ... well, sucked. Their research was execrable. Their assumptions about their audience were insulting. Some of what they wrote is embarrassing to watch. But we have the advantage of any length of time we need to tell the story we want to tell, and the whole Internet to research it to get the facts right. We can make our stories dependent on the canon, on our other stories, on other people's stories, you name it. We're not limited by putting in breaks for the commercials, nor by assumptions that the audience would have the collective IQ of a potato. Fanfic has -- if its writers will use it -- the opportunity to be better than the original. Obviously that's harder in some canons than others. Outdoing ST:TOS season 3 is a lot easier than outdoing Firefly.