Some uses for fanfiction

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Title:	Some uses for fanfiction
Creator:	Patricia C. Wrede
Date(s):	May 11, 2011
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External Links:	Some uses for fanfiction, Archived version
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Some uses for fanfiction is a 2011 essay by Patricia C. Wrede, a professional writer.

Some Topics Discussed in the Essay and Comments

• the benefits of practice and feedback
• the what if factor
• writers of fanfic and their " frequent obsession with romance, etc." and varying skill levels
• fanfic as "training wheels" and "childish"
• the value of more direct communication with your readers

Excerpts from the Essay

Fanfiction is a fascinating phenomenon. Yes, yes, I know that there’s still a huge argument going on between the people who think it’s all right to do and the people who consider it illegal, unethical, and unprofessional, but I think it’s a rather silly argument, on the whole, and I certainly don’t want to get into it here. What I want to talk about today are the ways fanfiction can be instructive for writers.

The thing that fascinates me about fanfiction, though, is the way that it models the decision tree that writers go through (whether consciously or unconsciously) to get to their final product. For those of us who do this part mostly unconsciously, it can be interesting and instructing to see the multitude of alternate paths that a story could have taken, all laid out more-or-less neatly in different authors’ fanfics. The main character’s horrible childhood could have been much worse, or much better, with interesting plot-consequences either way. The protagonist could have chosen to trust a different wise mentor figure or companion, or to go it completely alone. Different aspects of the background are brought forward or pushed back, sometimes changing the whole feel of a story even if the basic plot remains much the same. The main character’s decision to take – or ignore – a particular bit of advice, to provide – or not provide – a bit of crucial information to someone else a few chapters earlier, an impulsive or better-considered act by anyone at all results in the plot veering in a completely new direction. Friends become enemies; enemies become friends; goals and objectives and results shift and change.

I think the whole question of alternatives is key to understanding the mixed-to-lukewarm reception a lot of fanfiction gets from authors. I rarely read any of the fanfiction based on my own books (never, unless it’s been recommended by one of the five people I trust to screen for me), and a large part of the reason is that I, like most writers, know a whole lot more about my characters and my world than the stuff that gets into the books. I can’t let go of that when I read the fanfiction; consequently, there is about a 95% chance that even the best fan story will “feel wrong,” because the author has no way of getting the unpublished details right. I suspect this is a problem for a lot of writers who squirm uncomfortably when they’re asked about fanfiction.

My other problem is that if, by some miracle, the fan author does get it right, their story tends to slide into my head and take up residence as “what really happened.” Which creates all sorts of potential for legal problems if I ever hope to write anything else in whatever the base series is. It’s much simpler to just avoid the problem, and to be able to say truthfully that I don’t read it.

Excerpts from Comments

[Cara]: A good plan, it seems. I may have learned this lesson the hard way. I came up with a pairing, a crossover, that I thought was really interesting (precisely because of the alternatives idea, there were so many crisis points to play with, so many different ways to break them) and I wrote a ton. (I was out of college and unemployed. I had time.) Unexpectedly, I built a fanbase.

There were a few people who really liked my pairing, and wanted to try writing it. I was fine with that, and they sent me bits and pieces, and I enjoyed a lot of them, or just wondered ‘why shapeshifting dragons?’ ‘Why not?’ But then I read one that I wasn’t okay with. It was very much in character, pretty well written, and it was the most horrifying thing I had ever read. ‘How can you do that to my characters?’ was all I could think, ‘how could you leave them like that? All broken and hurt and unrecoverable.’

I suppose I never did like other people playing with my toys, because they didn’t know the stories, and they didn’t know what the toys would do, and what they wouldn’t.

Writing fic helped me learn to sustain my interest in a story, to go back to it with positivity rather than dutifulness, and it let me be less afraid of being funny. If it also taught me to not read fanfiction of my own writing, before I’ve published anything at all, that’s only a good thing.

[Louise]: I am one who has enthusiastically embraced the fanfiction trend. I have found it a tremendous help to my writing in general, a fantastic way to meet other like-minded writers, and, quite frankly, a lot of fun. I love creating my own worlds and characters, but sometimes it’s great just to play in someone else’s world for a change.

[LyraJane]: Although I don’t write, this is the major reason I don’t care for the concept of fanfic. If you have a whole host of alternate choices/roads not traveled/additional endings I think that’s fabulous to discuss and consider because it enriches your understanding of the book. But writing it all down and saying “This is what happens next” or “If X hadn’t happened, this would be the outcome” seems to me like encroachment. You are making a definitive statement based on incomplete information. Only the author truly knows the characters and no matter how many times you re-read the book that’s not additional research.

[Chicory]: One of the things I really like is when I find a fanfiction that re-tells events from another character’s viewpoint. It’s so much fun to see how a story would play out with a different protagonist. I wrote my first fanfic this year. It got me over a nasty writer’s block and showed me exactly what I was doing wrong with one of my regular stories, which I could then go back and fix. Definitely a helpful exercise.

[Deborah]: I suspect that fan-fiction has been around as long as story-telling itself. People tend to project their own experiences into creative works, often in ways the creator never expected, nor intended. To my mind, fan-fiction is an expression of that. Too, I’ve always considered my fan-fiction writing as part of my apprenticeship. There came a point where I had to stop so that I could focus on my original work, but I’ll never be sorry I did it.

[James Eades]: I agree with the whole ‘training wheels’ viewpoint and I consider fan-fiction to be an excellent training method under certain conditions. Having a ready-made environment–characters, setting, situation– all laid out and ready for you to play with, makes it easier for the inexperienced writer to get into the writing mindset.

That being said, it only makes sense that you will eventually ‘set aside childish things’ and move on to make use of the skills learned while playing with someone else’s toys by creating your own original works.

The beginning writer must always remember that these toys do belong to someone else, even if that person says they don’t mind, and that ownership must be respected.

[Cheryl]: I wrote a lot of fanfiction during high school. The first serious novel I ever wrote was fanfiction. I’m sure I learned a lot from that writing, and I met some wonderful people in the fanfiction writing community. I gave it up mostly because I wanted to be able to take my writing further than I can go with someone else’s copywrighted material.

But I still go back to fanfiction occasionally when I have writer’s block on a main project. I find it to be very pressure-free writing. Besides not needing to create a world and characters and so on, I also know I’m never going to trot this writing past a literary agent…so I can write things I wouldn’t write if I had a public audience in mind!

So–in a lot of ways I’m very pro-fanfiction. But I also can easily imagine that it would be disturbing to read someone else’s writing about my characters, to look at it from the other angle. As it is, some of my fanfiction is about classic characters, and I sometimes freak out when a new version comes out telling them a radically different way!

[OtterB]: My daughter, who just finished her first year of college, began writing fanfic in high school. She wrote intensively for a while and still does as time permits. She has, at least at this point, no intention of ever becoming a published writer. She just likes to write. At first I thought that she should spend her time on something more “productive” but I rapidly concluded that there was value in any kind of practice putting words in order and getting feedback on whether you had successfully communicated the thought behind them. Not to mention that any kind of nondestructive teenage fun is perfectly worthwhile, as summed up in her t-shirt from Cafe Press that says “fanfic – my antidrug.”

Also, I fell off my high horse on remembering with great fondness my own longstanding Star Trek fanfic from high school, written interactively with several friends.

She does understand and respect author’s choice on whether it should be done or not, which is in my mind the main limitation.

[Alex Fayle]: I was going to say that I never write fanfic but then realized that my third novel is fanfic – it’s a sequel to Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass and while the characters are public domain, the story I wrote is basically fanfic. It sneaks in even when you least expect it!

[Jane]: Marion Zimmer Bradley used to publish anthologies of Darkover fanfic. She paid quite respectable rates for it, too. My first paid fiction publication was in one of them.

Alas, MZB had to stop this generous sharing when someone threatened to sue her, claiming that she’d stolen her (as I recall) idea. There’s always some bozo who just has to get greedy. Maybe these fools are Murphy’s evil cousins.

It’s fun to play in someone else’s yard sometimes. Fictional worlds can become so real to their readers that writing something set in that world is more like writing historical fiction than infringement. If an author doesn’t want fanfiction written in that author’s world, then of course people ought to respect that.

[Rochelle]: The story about Marion Zimmer Bradley being threatened with a lawsuit is not actually true, but has reached the level of urban myth. No fan threatened to sue her. When Marion Zimmer Bradley offered a fan $500 to incorporate parts of the fan’s story into her new novel, the fan asked for a byline, Marion Zimmer Bradley refused, and the book was never published. You can read all the details of the case here. It’s too bad this one very complicated situation, that includes a lot of collaboration, published fanfiction anthologies, ghostwriting, and the tragic ill health on the part of a beloved and nurturing author has become the anti-fanfiction policy-generating incident for so many others. But isn’t as simple as “if you read fanfiction, you will accidentally copy it and fans will sue you.” There’s probably something interesting to be said about how the power, participation, and autonomy of the pro writer was completely stripped out of the story as it became an urban myth. I don’t know why that happened. Fear? Bogeyman? In any case, there is no evidence whatsoever that any fan ever attempted to sue Marion Zimmer Bradley. As fanfiction becomes more acceptable, maybe we’ll see some of those terror policies change.

[Mary]: I have never, in my memory, written fanfiction. Certainly my writing draws from the experiences of reading I have had, and something like this goes on:

Brain: Wow! That was a great story I just read. Wish I could do something like that.

Imagination: Yep, it was. Hmm. She used XYZ technique here. Hey! That would work perfectly for my current writer’s block! Aha!

(Hyperactivity mode) Okay, I’ve got it. Next chapter, written. Get typing, brain.

Brain: That’s nice. You used the a variation technique she did, I see. It worked really well.

Imagination: Yes. I just formatted the tequnique that I saw another writer use to my own story and made it my own. It’s not the same technique anymore– it’s a new one!

That makes sense, I hope. Anyways, notice I said I never *wrote* fanfic. I often dream up complicated fanfic stuff with my new character (often me. Well, hey! I like the stories! What’s wrong with being an imaginary part of them?). Three cheers for imagination!