In the world of fan fiction, great TV and movie characters never die
| News Media Commentary | |
|---|---|
| Title: | In the world of fan fiction, great TV and movie characters never die |
| Commentator: | Marlene Arpe |
| Date(s): | possibly 2004? |
| Venue: | The Toronto Star |
| Fandom: | media fandom |
| External Links: | Toronto Star, Archived version, repost |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In the world of fan fiction, great TV and movie characters never die is a look at fanfic and the part it plays on keeping television shows alive. It is by Marlene Arpe of "The Toronto Star."
This essay was reprinted in whole at Octaves, as well as other fan sites.
It quotes Joss Whedon and other pro-fanfic TPTB, as well as several fans including Bardsmaid, Yvonne Connell and Clevenger. It also notes that George Lucas and J.K. Rowling are anti-fanfic.
Excerpt
Making no money from his or her writing, a fan fiction writer is a hybrid of pure storyteller and creative borrower. There are thousands of these more or less anonymous writers on the Internet — although there is no way of knowing precisely how many there are out there, even for a particular show.Fan fiction, a.k.a. "fanfic," is the practice of writing stories based on characters and storylines created by someone else. Fan "ficcers" use movies, books, comics, cartoons, video games, sometimes the "real" lives of celebrities and, most of all, television shows as inspiration for their own tales.
Some writers set their stories during the run of the show — sometimes filling in the blanks, sometimes taking a certain episode in a completely different direction; others will start off where the show stopped in a "further-adventures-of" mode. Other modes of fan expression include creating music videos and visual art.
"I love it. I absolutely love it. I wish I had grown up in the era of fan fiction, because I was living those shows and those movies that I loved and I would put on the score to Superman and just relive the movie over and over," says Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, when asked how he feels about his shows living on in the fanfic community.
"I think it's kind of a glorious thing to be able to be carrying the torch. That's why I made these shows. I didn't make them so that people would enjoy them and forget them; I made them so they would never be able to shake them. It's the way I am as a fan. I create the shows that would make me do that."
Fanfic will usually be rated to warn readers of content that may offend. Some stories are set in alternative universes (transporting, for example, the entire cast of Babylon 5 to England, ca. 1750); some are erotic, including the popular "slash" category, which imagines male/male and, increasingly, female/female relationships between characters who don't necessarily have such relationships on the source shows.
Fan fiction at its best exhibits the qualities of "original" prose: strong characters, inventive plotting and fine pacing, with the added value of being a fan's methadone, both in between episodes and when the show is gone.
Methadone that sometimes gives you a high as good as the real thing.