The Unlimited Playgrounds of Fan Fiction
| News Media Commentary | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Unlimited Playgrounds of Fan Fiction |
| Commentator: | Amy Berner |
| Date(s): | 13 July 2004 |
| Venue: | DarkWorlds.com |
| Fandom: | media fandom |
| External Links: | The Unlimited Playgrounds of Fan Fiction at DarkWorlds The Unlimited Playgrounds of Fanfiction repost at Octaves |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Unlimited Playgrounds of Fan Fiction is a look at fanfic by Amy Berner originally published for DarkWorlds News. Its description was: Amy Berner on “Mary Sues,” “slash,” “PwP” and other aspects of “fanfic”.
This essay was reprinted in whole at Octaves.
Excerpt
There are fans out there who just can't let go. If you're reading this column about television shows that have been canceled, you might be one of those fans. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Heck, look at me - I'm the one still writing articles about them. But the cameras have stopped rolling for both BUFFY and ANGEL. You miss them, right? So, what are you going to do about it?Some fans have already answered that question. They're writing fiction about them. Adventures continue on thousands upon thousands of web pages all over the place. Fan fiction stories - often referred to as "fanfic" - are set before, after, during, and nowhere near the actual episodes, but they are out there, and new ones pop up daily. Why so many? Because writers are seeing that more stories are out there to be told. "I think that at its best, fan fiction fills in the blanks," explains fan fiction writer Tania Lang. "A 42-minute episode is by its very nature forced to omit things.... Even if it's only a ten-minute car ride, what was discussed in those moments, or even the silence, can be quite eloquently filled by a good piece of fanfic."
It's not just BUFFY and ANGEL who get this special treatment. Name any show or movie out there, and there's probably a fan fiction story or three about it. From stand-bys like STAR TREK and THE X-FILES to newer fannish obsessions such as HARRY POTTER and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, there's enough out there to fill more than a few libraries.
Who are these people, and why do they sit at their computers and write new stories around these characters? Good question. So I asked. The authors mostly go by internet "handles" or pen-names, and many tend to stay semi-anonymous. I believe this has to do with the negative image that fan fiction sadly has. Agilebrit mentions one reason for this: "I find it interesting that fan fiction seems to be held in contempt by many 'real' writers. You can't be creative, they say, if you're stealing someone else's characters and worlds. They conveniently ignore the fact that there are really only about 35 plots, that get recycled over and over and over again.... There is nothing truly original under the sun, and we all borrow from each other shamelessly. Fan fiction writers just admit that we do it."
Among the fan fiction writers and readers I polled, almost everyone agreed that the beauty of fan fiction is also the curse of fan fiction - anybody can get in on the fun. As writer Harmonyfb put it, "Anyone can participate, simply by virtue of picking up their pen. There's no license, no training, no board of high muckety-mucks who say whether one can or cannot write fan fiction." The good side of this is that people who normally would never consider writing any sort of story turn out a fantastic tale that never would have been written otherwise. The bad side is that there are a lot of people out there who should put down the keyboard and back away. Slowly.