WHAT IS IT? With every new show produced, nowadays it is inevitable that fan fiction will be following closely behind. Fan fiction exists as a duality – that is, it exists to both create works that the original failed to deliver, and to continue the journey that the original took. Ultimately, it is a work of love. Love for the characters, plots, and the emotions it stirred. It represents an authors’ love of the original work as they write a continuation (called GEN or general universe or Canon), an alternative universe, viewpoint or description (called AU or alternative universe), or use settings or characters but placed within a completely different universe and with different contexts that replace original ones (called UBER). Fan fiction creates additional content about the original work the author already loves. They are fans, and are usually members of fandoms. These fandoms are massive online communities and membership is vast on popular fan fiction sites online (such as FanFiction, Quotev, Archive of Our Own). What is the best thing about the majority of fan fiction? - It is totally free (except for Kindle Worlds – where fan fiction is bought within the Kindle store). Originally, fan fiction existed only in print format. Print fan fiction or ‘zines’ (i.e. pre-Internet days) are hard to find because they were generally locality driven, and relied on postal services that both delayed readership response and was driven by cost (i.e. printing and posting costs, etc). These print based fan fiction communities are now examples of hardcore original fans that formed fandom communities before the days of the Internet. They were niche, small, but very popular. Nowadays, these types of fans are everywhere because of the accessibility of fan fiction through the Internet. WHY FAN FICTION? The appeal of fan fiction, at least to me, is that the characters can live on, morph, and generally have new life within these creations. When your favourite show (such as Buffy or Xena) finishes or a character dies (Xena or Lexa outrage, anyone?), fan fiction gives fans a place to access additional content, and more so engage with the fan fiction authors themselves (in my case, within the site archiveofourown.org). The popularity of mid-90’s teen television series (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dark Angel, Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, The X-Files, etc), coupled with increasing access to the Internet, caused an explosion in the visibility of and access to fan fiction, having been available only in limited print-based circles before that (e.g. print zines). If you’ve noticed a trend in the type of show above, you’re not alone. The most prolific genre for fan fiction is the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres (Kneale, 2005). I believe this is because these genres give free reign in world building, with almost unlimited scope for ideas and storylines. Because fan fiction is primarily located on the Internet, it is a unique text in that it is not limited by number of pages in a book, number of minutes in a film, or number of episodes within a television series. I have read epic works of fan fiction that have taken me months to get through, and am currently waiting to read updates from my favourite fan fiction stories that remain unfinished, alongside thousands of other fans. This form of text is also unique because it most often exists in beta format, that is, readers are reading the beta or unpolished version of the work, and are known as beta readers, similar to that of literary editors or test audiences for pre-released films – they can leave comments for the author, provide suggestions as to where to go next in the story, it is a unique relationship and a very close-knit community one. Pedagogically, I am excited to use this type of writing within my future practice as it is an exciting text that I believe has true value to use within the classroom; where students can expound on topics and create new works that can be read, shared and added to by others within the classroom, closely linking content to understanding by providing a platform where students can respond to and revise their creative works (Williams, 2015). Image: Lexa from “The 100”(left) and inspired fan art from DeviantArt (right). Retrieved from http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=lexa+the+100&offset=52 Fan fiction also serves to augment social networks and the sheer volume of texts within fan communities, and can be comprised of many different formats (not just story writing), including artwork, videos and podcasts inspired by the original show, which I would like to highlight by telling you all to go and visit Deviant Art (http://www.deviantart.com) if you haven’t already. The site is amazing in its’ breadth of content, and has some amazing and truly excellent art to appreciate. With all that is going for it in terms of popularity, I would argue that we are forgetting a possible nuclear pitfall – that of copyright law (Roth, 2016). Some of the problems associated with fan fiction are that they are in possible ‘legal limbo’ due to conflicting copyright laws, as well as the fact that the medium is perhaps not in itself taken as a serious text by many, especially teachers (Lord, 2015). Like all art, it seems inevitable that authors (at least, the very popular ones) will want to start making money for their output, such as in Kindle Worlds, where readers pay between $0.99 and $3.99 for a digital download that they can preview before they commit to buy (Amazon, 2016). This may trigger large-scale restructuring of fan fiction sites, where the reader pays for either an individual work or pays a fee for use (similar to music streaming sites – a monthly access fee). This could do either two things: trigger massive legal action by the copyright owners of the original works which may well put people off reading fan fiction entirely, or, it could cause an explosion of well-developed, proof-read and generally good fan fiction to be created because authors can now devote their time as they are getting paid to do so.
References: Amazon.com. (2016). Kindle worlds. Retrieved from https://kindleworlds.amazon.com AO3. (2016). Archive of our own: Home. Retrieved from https://archiveofourown.org BuffyWorld. (2016). BuffyWorld: A complete guide to all of the “buffy the vampire slayer” and “angel” episodes. Retrieved from http://www.buffyworld.com Deviant Art. (2016). Lexa: The 100. Retrieved from http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=lexa+the+100&offset=52 FanFiction.net. (2016). FanFiction: Home. Retrieved from https://www.fanfiction.net ‘GLPing’. (2016). HEDA [Image]. Retrieved October 2, 2016 from http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=lexa+the+100&offset =52. Kneale, H. (2005). The appeal of fan fiction. Retrieved from http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10165 Lord, E. (2015, March 24). 13 things fan fiction writers are very tired of explaining. Retrieved from https://www.bustle.com/articles/71438-13-things-fan-fiction-writers-are-very-tired-of-explaining Miller, L. (2016, September 11). The new powers that be: Harry Potter, the triumph of fandom, and the future of creativity. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_next_20/2016/09/online_harry_potter_fans_transformed_what_it_means_to_love_a_story.html Roth, D. (2016, September 30). Star Trek, Axanar, and the future of fan fiction. Retrieved from http://www.blastr.com/2016-9-30/star-trek-axanar-and-future-fan-fiction Williams, B. (2015). Digital technologies and creative writing pedagogy. In A. Peary & T. Hunley (Eds.), Creative writing pedagogies for the twenty-first century (pp. 243- 268). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
2 Comments
Dani
10/28/2016 10:18:32 pm
I found this post so interesting as I too have been looking at Fanfictions and I have been trying to work out their relevance to use in the classroom. I love your statement about the characters living on, this is something I wholeheartedly agree with and recently confessed in my post on the subject how I have been found in the past reading ‘Harry Potter’ fanfiction just to try and revisit some of the magic of the story again. I was talking about this subject with my boss not too long ago and she stated, as she has in the past, that she is always hesitant to encourage the promotion of it into our libraries due to some of the unsuitable content relating to fanfiction available online. She often references ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ which of course was originally a fanfiction based on Twilight and the issue of the highly mature topics written about in the book which never really helps my case. I personally believe fanfictions are much more than just those with inappropriate content and as you state should be taken more seriously by educators if not just for their sheer popularity but also as you mention they could can now be not just stories but also art, videos and music and could be examined in a wide range of subjects. It is interesting yu mention copyright as this is not an aspect I have really thought about before when looking at fanfiction but would also be a great way to generate discussion with students about publishing things online. This post has given me some great information to take away and build further discussions with staff at my school and has strangely inspired me to think about rewatching Buffy, it has been a while since of have seen the show! Thanks, I am off to take a look at Deviantart and perhaps get some ideas for another Library competition, perhaps it could be ‘drawing your favourite book character’!
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I was new to the world of fan fiction when I began the course. When I looked into it, I realised just how big that world is, which could have been overwhelming, but within the structured environment of this subject, I realised everyone was being introduced to new worlds (if their eyes were open).
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Liz SimsI am currently completing a Masters in Inclusive Education. I work as a teacher aide specialising in Music and Media Studies. ArchivesCategories |