Juvenilia

You may be looking for Juvenilia (doujinshi).

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See also:	Graying of Fandom
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Juvenilia refers to things a person created when they were young.

Often these works are considered, either by the creator or the consumer, as being immature, and not very polished.

Some fans prefer to delete or downplay their juvenilia, while others embrace (or at least tolerate them).

The Word

Juvenilia is a word that is often used in literary fiction circles, especially for the early works of Jane Austen and the Brontë Sisters.

While fans use it for fanworks, and AO3 has it as a tag, the word itself doesn't appear to have a big footprint in fan discussion.

A fan in early 2010 took issue with it, writing: "Juvenilia" means exactly what I need, but I just don't like the word. It sounds like a sex crime."

Feelings When a Fan Creator Disses Their Own Early Works

[runpunkrun]: Readers, does it make you feel sad to know that an author doesn't like one of their fics? I know it makes me uncomfortable when authors dismiss something they wrote, especially if I enjoyed reading it. It makes me feel dumb, and I don't want to make anyone feel dumb.

[panisdead]: I hate it when authors do it. Especially when I go back and read the story and...can't figure out what the big embarrassing deal is. So now the author thinks I'm dumb and unevolved for liking the story, and twice as dumb for not understanding why they've disowned it.

Actually, on (brief) reflection, this fits under the larger umbrella of "I can read; stop telling me how to interpret your work." I don't like it when I get told in the author's notes that the story is from their immature and embarrassing period any more than I like it when the author explains to me that the story's dirrrrrrty.

[mirabile_dictu]: Don't make me feel bad for liking your story! I solve that problem by not leaving feedback.

[runpunkrun]: ...nothing turns me off faster than an author's note telling me how lame a story is. Fandom is a gift economy; don't tell someone your gift sucks!

[sholio]: *nods* Yes, this! I'm currently struggling with it; I haven't started uploading my old stuff to AO3 because I don't even really want to look at it. I've learned so much since I started writing! And yet, I hate hate hate when an author starts out by apologizing for a fic (actually, I usually just won't read it) and I don't want to fall into that trap. I actually once had a conversation with someone in which I was disparaging one of my old stories and she said (paraphrasing; it was a long time ago), "But I like that story, and what you're basically saying is that my taste is crap, then", and that kinda brought me up to a screeching halt, because yeah, that is what I'm saying, isn't it? So now I try not to do that. (Not always successfully, but hey.)

[runpunkrun]: There was this author I used to have friended when we were in the same fandom. When I returned to her journal to check in, I found an entry where she was complaining about the feedback she got on an older story from that fandom, saying that everyone praised it, but it was just some self-indulgent masturbatory thing (not her actual words, but close). First I felt stupid, then I regretted ever leaving her feedback, then I felt smug for having defriended her, because if that's how she felt about her readers, I was glad I was no longer reading her journal.

Reasons for Erasing, Deleting, or Being Thankful That Juvenilia is Gone

From a fan in 2009:

I started wanting to be a writer very early, at about the same time that I realized that books were things made by people, and not just the naturally occurring fruit of the fiction tree. I wrote a lot of really awful stories and poetry in junior high and high school -- the kind of thing that the term "juvenilia" was invented to cover, and thank God this was before the internet and the permanent archiving of everything, because if I'm lucky all of it got thrown out years ago...

[Snacky]: But why upload them then? If you don't want people to read them, don't put them in the archive.

I am so puzzled by this post and all the possible tagging options offered up in the comments.

[...]

And then I have to wonder why you all are wasting your time uploading and tagging these stories you don't want anyone to read? Of course, I know that's not the case - you (general you) obviously want people to read them or you wouldn't upload them to the archive, but then I don't get all the handwringing.

Reasons for Preserving Juvenilia

Some of the reasons fans keep their juvenilia visible and available.

History Disruption

Fans often made a point of saying that they were glad their juvenilia had been lost somewhere on the internet or erased in some way. One example: "Somewhere in the landfill, there's probably some really terrible poetry I wrote about Star Trek when I was fifteen, which—thank God—is in a landfill."

[garryowen]: I like the idea of being comprehensive because part of archiving the stories is creating a history. I don't want to leave things out.

[trascendenza]: I tried, really *tried* to put up my first ever fic and upon re-reading I just... couldn't. But especially for rare fandoms I've just been forcing myself to put it up out of small fandom guilt.

[rebecca2525]: This. Also, my inner archivar yearns for completeness.

A Lesson to Others

Some fans support their juvenilia as a lesson to others: Don't do what I do, and what you are doing, young reader, is part of the natural progression of creativity.

[runpunkrun]: I've tagged my first fic in each fandom, but that's mostly for nostalgia purposes; though I suppose it could be seen as a warning, too.

[...] The embarrassing part [in my earlier stories] is the writing, all the stuff that newbies eventually get beaten out of them if they're paying attention -- too many italics, awkward metaphors, wandering POV, OTT characterization, or pure OOC.

So, put that way, I guess it's not that embarrassing on the whole. It happens to everyone! This is why you should upload your XF fic. Solidarity! No one just shows up and is awesome at writing. It takes time!

Show How Skills Have Improved

[runpunkrun]: Even as embarrassed as I am about my earlier writing, I love having it all lined up, proof that I've grown as a writer. I'm proud of it in a weird way. Also, I seem to have written a million fics that first year I was in XF. The hell?

Altering/Editing Juvenilia

From an fan in 2003:

[My zine The Lost Stories were] previously net published over three years ago (but good luck finding them). As they were written in the full flush of new to the fandom and the whole concept of fic writing period enthusiasm and arrogance by someone who'd read way more fic than they'd actually seen the show, as I grew more familiar with the characters and got a bit more writing experience under my belt I became less and less pleased with these early efforts. Damned embarrassed by them, to be honest. I've been meaning to 'fix' them for a long time and now I've finally gotten around to it.

From a fan in 2010:

[ratcreature]:

I understand the urge [to "improve" a past fanwork], because I get the same for drawings and paintings though I try to rein that tendency in. It is not so much that I think a piece of fanart sucks completely, as that my skills in recognizing problems in art are better than my skills in drawing well to do better. So I can't actually improve that particular drawing just because I see what is wrong with it. I may hope to get better with practice, but it is not like fixing an error, say accidentally you put in a thumb on the wrong side of the hand (happens easier than one would think!), but that you aren't very skilled at drawing hands, which won't just go away because you tinker with that drawing for some more.

But then I still feel the urge to tell people that I *know* that something is wrong, i.e. that I'm not actually too clueless or stupid to understand perspective or anatomy or whatever, I'm just better in theory than in practice, so thus I get the urge to write notes detailing all the failings I'm aware of.

I try to refrain because I also know that viewers might not notice all the problems first if I don't put a red arrow on them, and might like the art better, not to mention bother clicking in the first place, but the urge is there.

Tagging and Labeling Juvenilia

From an fan in 2010:

[runpunkrun]: I really want a tag that signals to you, the reader, that I, the writer, am aware that this work is less than awesome technically or, shit, thematically, but still might be enjoyable to you because it pushes your buttons or it's unironically adorable or whatever and in that spirit I am making it available to read and also because I am not allowed to delete fanfic that embarrasses me because there is the risk that I will eventually delete everything I've ever written. But that totally exceeds the archive's 100 character limit on tags.

Authors, how are you dealing with this problem? I've seen a "Purple! Purple! Purple!" tag that might address some of my problems, but even at my worst, purple prose was the least of my crimes. In my defense, I'm archiving everything with the date it was originally published; so maybe that's warning enough.

[...]

I think I will post [my old fic to AO3 ] without commentary. I just got freaked out because AO3 is so shiny and new and I didn't want to sully it with my less accomplished writing. Whatever. The internet is covered with my writing, good and bad; why should AO3 be any different.

Fan Comments

Unknown Date

Kabuki -- My first fanfic was written in three days flat. Various aborted projects of the previous year supplied me with much material on secret codes, sonic therapy and Kabuki Make-Up Syndrome; past a certain point, it seemed almost to write itself. I never expected that anyone would read it, much less respond. Today, I'm not sure I'd regard "Kabuki" as anything more than juvenilia, although the ideas are rather lovely.

2010

My first stories were in the Twilight fandom [regret so hardcore] and the spelling/grammatical errors make me want to claw my own eyes out.

I'm pleased others are thinking about uploading their older stuff [to AO2 ] as well. We can all be mildly embarrassed together! Plus it'll give the archive that lived-in feeling, instead of it being all brand new with immaculate carpeting. *g*

2012

that awkward moment when you notice the Game of Thrones video you made and are actually proud of has 50 views on youtube but the chuck/blair fanvid you made 4 years ago when you were an ~angsty teen~ has 80,621 views. i know my “good” vids are way more recent but jfc the comments keep rolling in on that damn gossip girl vid every other day. at least my old sylar fanvids to ~linkin park~ have been erased from history. This has been a moment of fandom regret with Nova."

2014

Should we preserve our history for posterity, or is it better to let our embarrassing juvenilia be lost in the mists of time?

Meta

• file under: too young to know better ; archive link page 1; archive link page 2; archive link page 3 by runpunkrun (January 10, 2010)