So What Am I Looking At?
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | So What Am I Looking At? |
| Creator: | Rambo Dawson |
| Date(s): | June 1998 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Star Trek and The X-Files |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | So What Am I Looking At?, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
So What Am I Looking At? is a 1998 essay by Dawson Rambo.
It is part fanfiction primer and part a pitch to agents to hire fan fiction writers.
It has a focus of The X-Files and Star Trek.
Excerpts
Depending on how you arrived at this website, you may not understand exactly what "fan fiction" is, its history, heritage and impact on the world. Many people, when first exposed to the sometimes overwhelming world of fan-generated fiction, dismiss it.
Geeks, they think, toiling in obscurity in a world that no one but themselves and a few equally dysfunctional friends care about.
Not so.
This site, and hundreds more like it around the world, are dedicated to the creation and distribution of fictional stories containing characters created by other people. Usually, but not always, these other characters are from television shows or movies.
Two of the most popular creative dynasties of the last 30 years enjoy overwhelming fan support and generate more fan-written fiction than any other.
"Star Trek," and "The X-Files." It is interesting to note that both of these shows achieved critical popular mass as a direct result of fan actions. When NBC first attempted to cancel Star Trek after its first season, the sheer number of letters written by fans received by the network caused the show to remain on the air for another two years. After its eventual cancellation in 1969, almost ten full years passed before the release of the first movie, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Although that first movie was not an overwhelming success, it did generate enough box-office to fund a second, and then third and subsequent movies, as well as three more television shows. To date, "Star Trek" has earned Paramount just over two *billion* dollars in combined earnings.
Similarly, "The X-Files" began as a cult television show. Through the first two seasons, the show enjoyed moderate overall ratings, but slowly and carefully built a base of hard-core fans that spread the word.
The Internet as it is known today didn’t exist in 1966-1969. If it had, I daresay that Star Trek would not have had the problems finding its audience that it did in those days.
Shortly after the cancellation of "Star Trek," magazines created, written, edited and distributed by fans of that show sprang up around the country. Nicknamed ‘zines, since they weren’t "real" magazines (and were often printed on cheap paper with inexpensive newsprint that smeared the fingers of eager readers,) they focused on the show, its stars, rumors about the TV show "Star Trek II" (which never aired,) and eventually, the motion picture. A chief element of those ‘zines were stories written about the characters by the fans. Fan fiction, even though it wasn’t called that at the time, had been born.
When I try to describe to most people what, exactly, fanfic is, a lot of them assume that it’s a collection of frustrated writers hacking away on stories that aren’t good enough to sell in the Real World. Again, this is overly simplistic and just not true. I am a voracious reader, and I can say without fear of contradiction that I have encountered fan fiction stories that are better than the majority of what passes for "popular" fiction available in your average bookstore.
So the question always arises. If these writers are so good (and some of the original ‘zine fanfic writers from the Star Trek years have gone on not only to write Trek novels for Paramount’s paperback [and later hardback] markets, but to actually work on "Deep Space Nine" or "Voyager.") why would they want to use characters created by someone else? Why not create a universe of their own and reap the potentially huge financial rewards from being the Next Big Thing?
Quite simply, devotion.
Fanfic authors generally have one thing in common: Devotion to the characters and the universe that those characters inhabit. Devotion to the intercharacter dynamic as portrayed by the actors and as created and delivered by the production team.
Another attraction to the fanfic author is being able to play with the characters in new and interesting ways. Mr. Chris Carter, the creator and executive producer of "The X-Files" has publicly stated that the characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully will *never* become romantically involved in a physical way. Simply put, Fox won’t be airing any snuggle-bunnies at 9 on Sunday nights. That is a red flag to a large contingent of fanfic authors, who devote their stories to that very issue: What if Scully and Mulder were to become romantically involved?
The width and breadth of the stories themselves is breathtaking. There are close to 10,000 fan-written stories about "The X-Files" archived online around the world. They run the gamut from one and two-page vignettes to multi-megabyte full-length novels that would give Danielle Steele or Tom Clancy a run for their money, if it were possible for the authors to reap any kind of financial rewards from their efforts.
Which raises a thorny issue: Is this stuff *legal*? In a sense, yes. Fanfic is considered to be protected by the "Fair Use" statutes of the current US Copyright law. I’m not an attorney, but my understanding is that Fox would have to prove damage in order to force a fanfic author to stop writing, "damage" usually being defined by the courts as "hindering the ability of the lawful copyright owner" to earn money from their creation. No one can argue that fanfic damages the characters from the shows. If anything, fanfic *increases* awareness of the show, its characters and its dynamics.
I will be the first to grant the point that sometimes fanfic authors write stories that have the characters doing things that the original creators would never have imagined. Most of the stories that fall into this category, frankly, deal with sexuality.
Sex plays a large part in fanfic. Along with the normal "Mulder/Scully" parings, there are "Scully/Skinner" stories, and after that...we move into the world of "Slash."
"Slash" is a term that was originally coined by the Star Trek ‘zine editors to indicate a story that contained a non-typical portrayal of a character’s sexuality. At the beginning, this referred to stories with Kirk and Spock enjoying a homosexual relationship. The shorthand notation for these stories was "Kirk/Spock", or as read, "Kirk slash Spock." The term has grown to mean *any* non-typical portrayal of a character’s sexuality. (This also contributes to minor flame wars on the ‘net as regards "The X-Files," chiefly because in the five years the show has been on the air, neither character has had sex with *anyone*, let alone each other. Therefore, "slash" writers claim that their stories are *not* slash, since the character’s sexual identity has not been clearly established. Sometimes the argument is expanded to the point that since neither character has been defined "strictly" as heterosexual, the "chance" that they might be bisexual is always there.)
Finally, if you’re an agent or editor reading this, ask yourself this: You get query letters and unsolicited manuscripts from thousands of would-be authors every year. Less than 2% of them will ever "make it" as a published author. It’s hard to decide who to risk your time and effort on. The sheer volume of manuscripts you toss into the slush pile must be frustrating and tiring. The next time you think about who you might want to represent or do business with in the future, you might want to consider a fanfic author. We have a "track record," such as it is (fanfic tends to be a self-policing community; good authors thrive, while less-skilled ones either fade away, or work harder to improve.) and a built-in audience. Because the only "payment" we get is feedback emails from the readers, fanfic authors have a unique ability to be able to describe what the "public" *really* wants to read. A good fanfic author can take the abstraction of what they’ve done with Mr. Carter’s or Mr. Roddenberry’s characters and relate them to a new story with new characters in a way that is sure to satisfy the readers. Indeed, some of the best fanfic out there doesn’t satisfy itself with just using the characters of another’s creation, but instead create new, real, vital characters of their own and let them play in the fertile fields of their imaginations.