Who is Fanfiction Written For, the Reader or the Writer?
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| Title: | Who is Fanfiction Written For, the Reader or the Writer? |
| Creator: | Flamingo |
| Date(s): | June 28, 2001 |
| Medium: | post to a mailing list |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Who is Fanfiction Written For, the Reader or the Writer? is a 2001 essay by Flamingo.
It was posted in response to the question: "If people are only writing to please themselves, why the heck are they letting other people read their stuff? ...I think readers are *the* most important part of the writing process. Again, if an author has no concern about what readers think of her stuff, then why the heck is she publishing her stuff in places where other people can read it? The point of writing something for publication is so that it can be read. What other purpose is there?"
It was posted to VenicePlace, a Starsky & Hutch mailing list on June 28, 2001 and is quoted here on Fanlore with Flamingo's permission.
Some Topics Discussed
- drawerfic
- is fanfic written for the reader or the writer?
- feedback, critique and self-censorship
- transformative fandom as a female space
The Essay
I straddle the fence on parts of this issue (and if you think that's comfortable...), but I can't agree with giving the readers that level of importance. (No disrespect intended to any readers, after all, I am one.)
I believe it is critically important for a writer to write only for herself, to ignore the voice that says to her, as mine does constantly, "They're not going to like that!" Writers who write specifically to please an audience will invariably be disappointed since the audience is incredibly fickle and what they like and dislike changes with the wind and from individual to individual. Writers who yield to editorial demands to have a specific kind of ending only betray their own abilities and prevent their creativity from expanding. I'm referring to people who already had one kind of an ending in mind, but in order to be published changed it radically because the zine only accepts certain kinds of endings, or a specific editor thinks it's a downer or whatever.
Sometimes we do this when no one has asked us to change things, simply because we're afraid they *might*. On the slash archive are two stories, [1] one of which has a certain ending, not the original ending the author intended, because a friend told her "no one will publish it with that ending" so she changed it before sending it to the editor. She had no way of knowing if the editor might've accepted it or not, but the editor's track record indicated she probably would have. It's interesting because I was only familiar with the published version and she offered me the original version -- never published -- so I was able to post both on the Archives. The fun of Archiving! ;-) We edit ourselves unnecessary all the time, sometimes just because we're women and have had it pounded into us what we should or should not say, act, or do, so of course, it's going to affect how we write.
Getting past that self-censorship is hard enough without giving the reader such a level of importance. The reader is the audience -- they should *not* be part of the creative process. If they are, why not let them write what they want and leave us out of it completely? (One of the reasons movies have become so incredibly vapid is because of "testing" in front of audiences, giving the audience a voice in what should be totally a creative process. Endings, middles, entire plots get changed because the audience gets this vote.)
So, "if an author has no concern about what readers think of her stuff, then why the heck is she publishing her stuff in places where other people can read it?" Because, as Harlan Ellison once told me, the author's ego -- something the author must have in order to write and
- publish* in the first place -- tells the author that what they are
writing is so *important* other people *must* read it, for their edification and pleasure. We may not feel that way in our conscious brain -- women are usually too ingrained with the culturally-induced belief that anything they may have to say is unimportant to feel this way right up front -- but somewhere in our untrammeled subconscious is the belief that this will bring so much pleasure to others, we must publish it and RIGHT AWAY, TOO! Most writers have nearly uncontrollable urges, after finishing a piece, to run into the street waving it and demanding someone read it RIGHT NOW! I firmly believe that was why the internet was created, so writers could relieve this urge by publishing immediately while the electrons were still hot, not waiting to run it through the spell-checker, or getting a trusted friend to check it over for plot inconsistencies and all those pesky grammar problems. Okay, to confirm: I am kidding. Sort of. But it is this ego need that makes it so hard for writers to accept criticism over their stories (hence, the defensiveness of some). It's because they're stunned. They published it because their ego told them the world needed this wonderful thing. They have to get accustomed to the fact that everyone may not think it is that wonderful. I know I had to. Again, women are trained to believe they shouldn't have egos, that they should subjugate their needs to everyone else's -- husband, child, parents, etc. So this whole ego need is hard for women to accept. But it's real.
However, I do believe that a story that is not published has little value. A story has no value until it is read, it may as well not exist. If you only write for yourself, as Emily Dickenson did, then the stories might as well not exist. If it pleases the author, it has some value, but its true value -- or lack of -- is only revealed in publication.
While I believe writers should write for themselves first and foremost, I agree totally with the comment that writing in a black hole of silence is worse than getting negative feedback. It goes back to the story having value. If the story is published it is because the writer wants it to be read, otherwise why not keep it at home where no one will make fun of it or point out the missing word in sentence 10 that turns the entire dramatic point into absurdist humor. And a black hole if silence tells the writer that no one is reading this thing. (I always knew when people *hated* my stuff -- they write first.) And if no one's reading this thing then what is the point of publishing it, which makes you wonder what is the point of writing it. It takes time to write it, energy, emotional hell sometimes. While I might strongly desire to write stories, which I have since the age of 7, when nothing comes back it makes you start thinking about doing the Emily Dickenson bit or just giving up and having fun on the weekends instead. That black hole of silence helped push me out of Miami Vice and it has cooled my ardor about professional publishing quite a bit. It's hard to fight against it. I do fight against it and struggle to write, through incredible depression, through self-doubt and self-censorship, through fan discouragement that urges me to believe "They're not going to like *that*." Why? Because Harlan is right...somewhere inside me I believe the world is better off with my writing.
Man, what an *ego*!