D-Ranger
12-06-2003, 08:44 PM
Thoughts on Writing Fanfiction.
Note: This is a collection of thoughts on the theory behind writing fan fiction, not a “how-to” guide, but a list of considerations about the meta-genre of fan-fiction. It is merely a collection of my own thoughts and observations on the subject, not a final word in any form, as to create a final word on the subject is not my goal. Take them for what they are worth…Discussion of them is invited, however I ask that any discussion include examples to ensure clarity if counter-arguments are proposed.
Definitions:
Fanfiction is not something that can simply be divided up into two categories, but I do think there are two polar ends to it: Direct Fanfiction and Sub-Genre fiction. Simply put, Direct Fanfiction is when a writer uses character and/or settings from established fictional worlds as a significant basis for their own writings. Sub-Genre fiction is when a writer uses the template of an established sub-genre as the significant basis for their own writings.
Fanfiction in general, of course, is a wild and highly varied beast and cannot easily be nailed down. For example, if I write a 98% original work, but borrow someone else’s character (just 1) am I writing fan-fiction? If I write in an established setting, say, the setting of Stargate SG-1, but use a completely original set of characters, am I still writing fan fiction? Some examples of fan fiction, where pre-existing characters and settings are used are obvious, others are not. For this reason I included the word “significant” in the above definitions because I assuming that the role the “borrowed” element plays is major, and not a “walk on” role within the work. (In really simple terms, if someone could make a case for “intellectual theft” and sue you for what you wrote, then you’re writing fan fiction. :) )
Sub-Genre fiction is slightly different. Sub-Genre fiction borrows the standard elements of a particular sub-genre of fiction without borrowing character or setting and then populates it with their own (theoretically) original characters and elements. I chose the term “sub-genre fiction” instead of “genre fiction” because “genre fiction” is too wide a term when usually you are writing using a very specific set of elements if you are writing this kind of fiction. (Otherwise it no longer can be considered any form of fan fiction.) There is a difference between writing “Tolkien Style Fantasy” and writing “Xanth Style Fantasy” or “Conan Style Fantasy” even though they are all technically “Fantasy Fan-Fiction”. The writer of sub-genre fiction is (theoretically) knowingly copying the “style” of an established story or story-type and then inserting their own characters and situations. (In really simple terms, if you saw this person’s work and thought to yourself “this is a (insert name here) rip-off/homage/copy/type-work then what you are looking at could probably be considered “Sub-Genre Fiction”. A perfect example of this is the Quinten Tarentino film “Kill Bill”, which is a piece of 70’s Asian Action Cinema Sub-Genre Fanfiction. (Say that 3 times fast!))
That said, this article is primarily about what I define above as “Direct Fanfiction” (the stuff you can get sued for if they were feeling mean), although some of it will apply to Sub-Genre Fiction as well.
Considerations:
Fanfiction has several advantages, especially for beginning writers.
1)You are using a known property, so your characters, their history an the background you are working in will be instantly known by fans of that property.
2)By virtue of using that property, you instantly gain an (often appreciative) audience for your work. Or at least a group of people who will “check it out” on the basis that you have used something they like as the basis for your work. Whether you can hold them or not is up to the writer and their own skills, but in the vast wilderness of the internet you have something which will catch the eye of at least one group of people and encourage them to check out what you wrote.
3)It’s like getting a “writing kit” with all the templates laid out and you just have to set it up and go! You don’t have to come up with your own base creative elements. Someone has already done all the creative grunt work of figuring everything out for you. There are a huge number of considerations which should go into producing a story (character, plot, setting, themes, style, target audience, etc) and these are all done for you when you write fan fiction. You just have to worry about how you are going to use what’s already there to tell cool stories.
4)You have gained “training wheels” as a writer, and the structure of the show you are following can help to hold you up and teach you how it’s done. Depending on your skill level or as you get better, you can choose whichever of the original structures you no longer need and slowly replace them with your own elements. (ie introduce (more) original characters, take the bigger story off into a different direction, try different styles of storytelling that the show usually doesn’t use, try taking the show into different settings and genres, etc.)
5)You are helping to introduce other people to things you think are cool, and possibly get them into it as well. (If they read it.)
6)You are getting what is perhaps the greatest thing a writer needs to become a good writer, practice.
7)You get to play with your favourite characters and settings and do (theoretically) whatever you want. :)
Fanfiction also has disadvantages:
1)No matter how brilliant a Buffy fanfic you just turned out, anyone who doesn’t like Buffy is not likely to read it. Because you are writing for a specific audience, whoever doesn’t care for your original source material is not going to be interested in reading your work. While you gained an audience by writing for a specific audience, at the same time you also lost an audience, and the majority of readers on the internet will likely have some form of bias towards a particular show or genre or sub-genre one way or the other. (Sometimes you’ll even get “haters” who hate your work because it’s based on something they don’t like and will never like it because of that no matter how good it is. People are like that.)
2)On the flipside, you are writing for an audience predisposed to like your work, so while you may be turning out what is considered brilliant work within your in-group that doesn’t mean a greater general audience will like it. As well, being the best in a tiny corner of the internet doesn’t mean much in the greater scheme of things. (Although, admittedly it doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t writing among the next generation of great writers either.)
3)Reading your fiction requires some level of pre-knowledge of the original source materials. This automatically means anyone who doesn’t know the source will be handicapped in their ability to read your work unless you take great care to make sure everything is explained adequately. (Which can lead to a lot of extra work and bog down your writing if you don’t handle it properly.) What was an advantage in using pre-existing materials suddenly can turn into a disadvantage as you try to adequately explain what everything means and who everyone is.
4)If you are writing “crossover” fiction for every extra “reality” you include you are dividing the number of people who can appreciate your work in half and doubling the amount of work to keep a reader who doesn’t know either piece of source material up to date. Also, when writing crossover fiction you never know if the reader has only experienced one of the two sources and which one of the two source they have experienced. So, if you want someone who is only familiar with say “Sailor Moon” to be able to read your “Sailor Moon-Gundam Wing” crossover megafic, be prepared to do a whole lot of explaining if you don’t want it to be only understandable by people who have see both shows. This can of course be minimized by using one work as the base reality and then adding only limited pieces of the other reality to your story. But again, you have to remember that each character is a pile of information that was built up in their own original story and you have to pass that on to the unknowing reader in as simple and efficient a form as possible. (Not hard if you know what you’re doing, but often it requires a lot of thought and work to do right and like any translation, something will be lost.)
5)Every Sub-Genre includes “isms” that readers of that Sub-Genre accept, often very specific ones. (see any of the “50 reasons you know you’ve watched too much XXXXXX” lists or the “laws of XXXXX” lists that float around almost every fandom group.) Consumers of that sub-genre accept these things within the context of the story without thought (“Yes, of course Giant Robots are the best designed fighting vehicles ever!”) but those unfamiliar with that sub-genre will probably have to get used to those “isms” and may even be confused or turned off by them. (Which is the “Sub-Genre Fanfiction” category equivalent of disadvantage #1 above. Ie. You had them until the characters “morphed“, at which point your story went from a “pretty cool character focussed action story“ to “lame Power Rangers crap“…)
6)You also gain the creative choices made by the producers of the original material. If they say “Vampires can walk in the sun on Tuesdays” and you write about your Vampires bursting into flame on Tuesdays then you better have a darn good explanation why that just happened. Even worse, your audience all know the material, so they know you just screwed up. Sure, you can change things to suit your story, but there will always be some people who get pissed off because you changed an element they liked.
7)Also, your original material limits you. If you have “Character A” acting or speaking completely different than they should be, and there’s no viable reason for it, then your audience is not going to be a bunch of happy campers. Using your source material “wrong” can be just as big a problem within your fandom group as presenting that fan-focussed material to people outside your group.
8)There are many different ways of writing a story, and you are learning a certain way of writing, but not the only way. Unless you keep in mind there are other ways to write, you can easily end up in a rut where everything you write can look like a story in your original fanfic style of choice. Once you write 100 Trek fanfics, it can be darn hard not to write a SF story which doesn’t look like a Trek Fanfic on some level. As the saying goes, “old habits are hard to break”.
9)You aren’t doing the base grunt creative work a producer of “original” fiction has to go through, so there is a whole set of skills you aren’t developing. In an ideal situation, a fanfic writer (assuming their desire is to write original fiction in time, which is not always the case) would slowly develop these skills by playing with the original choices made by the source material. (see #4 above) However, there is a very real danger of these skills never developing properly, or developing improperly if the writer is not aware that they have been using a “crutch“ and just keeps using it unknowingly. For example if the writer of a fanfic is too focussed on the story they adore, they may have trouble coming up with their own original characters that don't just look like pale copies of the ones they like so much. Even when they try switching to other sub-genres or try to branch out into the world of more general fiction, they may still end up always writing the same characters doing the same sorts of things.
10)You are often committing an illegal act by the copywrite laws of the United States of America. (Blame the guys who put in the “copywrites must be defended” clause, not me. In Japan where they don’t have that clause in their laws, fan fiction (in the form of “Doujinshi” comics) has become a major sub-industry and is actually supported by the corporations there as a means of promoting the products. They also consider the doujinshi production pool a source of future professionals, which on the bad side as produced a lot of comics which look a whole lot alike as the doujinshi artists can‘t seem to break out of their fandom origins...)
Personal Conclusions:
Throughout history, young artists have learned and studied under masters, it's the way of things. Often, which master a young disciple ended up with could literally determine their future course as an artist and would often have a huge influence on their own quality of work.
Thus, I am torn on the subject of fanfiction.
On the good side, I do think that it encourages prospective writers to get out of their shells and give writing a go, and even more importantly gives writers practice at writing, which is something they sorely need. Writers need to write, and they need to finish what they write. (as Robert Heinlein once said) And, fanfiction definitely encourages writing.
As well, it theoretically gives them a chance to indirectly study under the "masters" whose creative vision and style appeals to them.
Also, it's just plain fun! :) It's like a grown-up version of when your GI Joe action figures went up against the bad guys from He-Man and whupped ass!
On the bad side, the very nature of Direct Fanfiction actually limits it's authors for the above reasons, and I honestly wonder if it's worth the price.
Sub-Genre Fanfiction I consider a little better overall because it requires that the author put more work into it and go through the creative processes that a normal Direct Fanfiction writer doesn't need to do. It's harder to write good sub-genre fiction because you are standing more on your own, but if it works it can definitely be worth the cost.
That said, with Sub-Genre Fanfiction the writer must be aware of how much he is taking from the original sub-genre and chose which elements he wants to use carefully. It is still a form of fan fiction and has all the good and bad of any fanfiction associate with it. (Well, except the "getting sued" part, which in an information based society, I see as a big plus...Unlikely as it is to happen.)
I consider anyone who writes and finishes a creative work a writer, and fanfiction to be no less a valid expression of creativity as any other type. That said, however, whether you are a "good" writer or an "original" writer is a slightly different matter. Most people who write seem to have hopes someday of gaining popular acceptance for their works, which is normal and there's nothing wrong with that. But, if your goal is to write general fiction, then like a good student with any master, you have to be mindful of what you are being taught and know when to break away. Each "master" can only teach you so much, and you must develop your own style on your own if you hope to "fly".
If, on the other hand, you are just writing fanfics for kicks and don't have any real aspirations, then my advice to you is: go nuts! :) Have a blast, enjoy yourself and party on.
The key really is knowing why you are writing and what you want to accomplish. :)
Rob
Note: This is a collection of thoughts on the theory behind writing fan fiction, not a “how-to” guide, but a list of considerations about the meta-genre of fan-fiction. It is merely a collection of my own thoughts and observations on the subject, not a final word in any form, as to create a final word on the subject is not my goal. Take them for what they are worth…Discussion of them is invited, however I ask that any discussion include examples to ensure clarity if counter-arguments are proposed.
Definitions:
Fanfiction is not something that can simply be divided up into two categories, but I do think there are two polar ends to it: Direct Fanfiction and Sub-Genre fiction. Simply put, Direct Fanfiction is when a writer uses character and/or settings from established fictional worlds as a significant basis for their own writings. Sub-Genre fiction is when a writer uses the template of an established sub-genre as the significant basis for their own writings.
Fanfiction in general, of course, is a wild and highly varied beast and cannot easily be nailed down. For example, if I write a 98% original work, but borrow someone else’s character (just 1) am I writing fan-fiction? If I write in an established setting, say, the setting of Stargate SG-1, but use a completely original set of characters, am I still writing fan fiction? Some examples of fan fiction, where pre-existing characters and settings are used are obvious, others are not. For this reason I included the word “significant” in the above definitions because I assuming that the role the “borrowed” element plays is major, and not a “walk on” role within the work. (In really simple terms, if someone could make a case for “intellectual theft” and sue you for what you wrote, then you’re writing fan fiction. :) )
Sub-Genre fiction is slightly different. Sub-Genre fiction borrows the standard elements of a particular sub-genre of fiction without borrowing character or setting and then populates it with their own (theoretically) original characters and elements. I chose the term “sub-genre fiction” instead of “genre fiction” because “genre fiction” is too wide a term when usually you are writing using a very specific set of elements if you are writing this kind of fiction. (Otherwise it no longer can be considered any form of fan fiction.) There is a difference between writing “Tolkien Style Fantasy” and writing “Xanth Style Fantasy” or “Conan Style Fantasy” even though they are all technically “Fantasy Fan-Fiction”. The writer of sub-genre fiction is (theoretically) knowingly copying the “style” of an established story or story-type and then inserting their own characters and situations. (In really simple terms, if you saw this person’s work and thought to yourself “this is a (insert name here) rip-off/homage/copy/type-work then what you are looking at could probably be considered “Sub-Genre Fiction”. A perfect example of this is the Quinten Tarentino film “Kill Bill”, which is a piece of 70’s Asian Action Cinema Sub-Genre Fanfiction. (Say that 3 times fast!))
That said, this article is primarily about what I define above as “Direct Fanfiction” (the stuff you can get sued for if they were feeling mean), although some of it will apply to Sub-Genre Fiction as well.
Considerations:
Fanfiction has several advantages, especially for beginning writers.
1)You are using a known property, so your characters, their history an the background you are working in will be instantly known by fans of that property.
2)By virtue of using that property, you instantly gain an (often appreciative) audience for your work. Or at least a group of people who will “check it out” on the basis that you have used something they like as the basis for your work. Whether you can hold them or not is up to the writer and their own skills, but in the vast wilderness of the internet you have something which will catch the eye of at least one group of people and encourage them to check out what you wrote.
3)It’s like getting a “writing kit” with all the templates laid out and you just have to set it up and go! You don’t have to come up with your own base creative elements. Someone has already done all the creative grunt work of figuring everything out for you. There are a huge number of considerations which should go into producing a story (character, plot, setting, themes, style, target audience, etc) and these are all done for you when you write fan fiction. You just have to worry about how you are going to use what’s already there to tell cool stories.
4)You have gained “training wheels” as a writer, and the structure of the show you are following can help to hold you up and teach you how it’s done. Depending on your skill level or as you get better, you can choose whichever of the original structures you no longer need and slowly replace them with your own elements. (ie introduce (more) original characters, take the bigger story off into a different direction, try different styles of storytelling that the show usually doesn’t use, try taking the show into different settings and genres, etc.)
5)You are helping to introduce other people to things you think are cool, and possibly get them into it as well. (If they read it.)
6)You are getting what is perhaps the greatest thing a writer needs to become a good writer, practice.
7)You get to play with your favourite characters and settings and do (theoretically) whatever you want. :)
Fanfiction also has disadvantages:
1)No matter how brilliant a Buffy fanfic you just turned out, anyone who doesn’t like Buffy is not likely to read it. Because you are writing for a specific audience, whoever doesn’t care for your original source material is not going to be interested in reading your work. While you gained an audience by writing for a specific audience, at the same time you also lost an audience, and the majority of readers on the internet will likely have some form of bias towards a particular show or genre or sub-genre one way or the other. (Sometimes you’ll even get “haters” who hate your work because it’s based on something they don’t like and will never like it because of that no matter how good it is. People are like that.)
2)On the flipside, you are writing for an audience predisposed to like your work, so while you may be turning out what is considered brilliant work within your in-group that doesn’t mean a greater general audience will like it. As well, being the best in a tiny corner of the internet doesn’t mean much in the greater scheme of things. (Although, admittedly it doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t writing among the next generation of great writers either.)
3)Reading your fiction requires some level of pre-knowledge of the original source materials. This automatically means anyone who doesn’t know the source will be handicapped in their ability to read your work unless you take great care to make sure everything is explained adequately. (Which can lead to a lot of extra work and bog down your writing if you don’t handle it properly.) What was an advantage in using pre-existing materials suddenly can turn into a disadvantage as you try to adequately explain what everything means and who everyone is.
4)If you are writing “crossover” fiction for every extra “reality” you include you are dividing the number of people who can appreciate your work in half and doubling the amount of work to keep a reader who doesn’t know either piece of source material up to date. Also, when writing crossover fiction you never know if the reader has only experienced one of the two sources and which one of the two source they have experienced. So, if you want someone who is only familiar with say “Sailor Moon” to be able to read your “Sailor Moon-Gundam Wing” crossover megafic, be prepared to do a whole lot of explaining if you don’t want it to be only understandable by people who have see both shows. This can of course be minimized by using one work as the base reality and then adding only limited pieces of the other reality to your story. But again, you have to remember that each character is a pile of information that was built up in their own original story and you have to pass that on to the unknowing reader in as simple and efficient a form as possible. (Not hard if you know what you’re doing, but often it requires a lot of thought and work to do right and like any translation, something will be lost.)
5)Every Sub-Genre includes “isms” that readers of that Sub-Genre accept, often very specific ones. (see any of the “50 reasons you know you’ve watched too much XXXXXX” lists or the “laws of XXXXX” lists that float around almost every fandom group.) Consumers of that sub-genre accept these things within the context of the story without thought (“Yes, of course Giant Robots are the best designed fighting vehicles ever!”) but those unfamiliar with that sub-genre will probably have to get used to those “isms” and may even be confused or turned off by them. (Which is the “Sub-Genre Fanfiction” category equivalent of disadvantage #1 above. Ie. You had them until the characters “morphed“, at which point your story went from a “pretty cool character focussed action story“ to “lame Power Rangers crap“…)
6)You also gain the creative choices made by the producers of the original material. If they say “Vampires can walk in the sun on Tuesdays” and you write about your Vampires bursting into flame on Tuesdays then you better have a darn good explanation why that just happened. Even worse, your audience all know the material, so they know you just screwed up. Sure, you can change things to suit your story, but there will always be some people who get pissed off because you changed an element they liked.
7)Also, your original material limits you. If you have “Character A” acting or speaking completely different than they should be, and there’s no viable reason for it, then your audience is not going to be a bunch of happy campers. Using your source material “wrong” can be just as big a problem within your fandom group as presenting that fan-focussed material to people outside your group.
8)There are many different ways of writing a story, and you are learning a certain way of writing, but not the only way. Unless you keep in mind there are other ways to write, you can easily end up in a rut where everything you write can look like a story in your original fanfic style of choice. Once you write 100 Trek fanfics, it can be darn hard not to write a SF story which doesn’t look like a Trek Fanfic on some level. As the saying goes, “old habits are hard to break”.
9)You aren’t doing the base grunt creative work a producer of “original” fiction has to go through, so there is a whole set of skills you aren’t developing. In an ideal situation, a fanfic writer (assuming their desire is to write original fiction in time, which is not always the case) would slowly develop these skills by playing with the original choices made by the source material. (see #4 above) However, there is a very real danger of these skills never developing properly, or developing improperly if the writer is not aware that they have been using a “crutch“ and just keeps using it unknowingly. For example if the writer of a fanfic is too focussed on the story they adore, they may have trouble coming up with their own original characters that don't just look like pale copies of the ones they like so much. Even when they try switching to other sub-genres or try to branch out into the world of more general fiction, they may still end up always writing the same characters doing the same sorts of things.
10)You are often committing an illegal act by the copywrite laws of the United States of America. (Blame the guys who put in the “copywrites must be defended” clause, not me. In Japan where they don’t have that clause in their laws, fan fiction (in the form of “Doujinshi” comics) has become a major sub-industry and is actually supported by the corporations there as a means of promoting the products. They also consider the doujinshi production pool a source of future professionals, which on the bad side as produced a lot of comics which look a whole lot alike as the doujinshi artists can‘t seem to break out of their fandom origins...)
Personal Conclusions:
Throughout history, young artists have learned and studied under masters, it's the way of things. Often, which master a young disciple ended up with could literally determine their future course as an artist and would often have a huge influence on their own quality of work.
Thus, I am torn on the subject of fanfiction.
On the good side, I do think that it encourages prospective writers to get out of their shells and give writing a go, and even more importantly gives writers practice at writing, which is something they sorely need. Writers need to write, and they need to finish what they write. (as Robert Heinlein once said) And, fanfiction definitely encourages writing.
As well, it theoretically gives them a chance to indirectly study under the "masters" whose creative vision and style appeals to them.
Also, it's just plain fun! :) It's like a grown-up version of when your GI Joe action figures went up against the bad guys from He-Man and whupped ass!
On the bad side, the very nature of Direct Fanfiction actually limits it's authors for the above reasons, and I honestly wonder if it's worth the price.
Sub-Genre Fanfiction I consider a little better overall because it requires that the author put more work into it and go through the creative processes that a normal Direct Fanfiction writer doesn't need to do. It's harder to write good sub-genre fiction because you are standing more on your own, but if it works it can definitely be worth the cost.
That said, with Sub-Genre Fanfiction the writer must be aware of how much he is taking from the original sub-genre and chose which elements he wants to use carefully. It is still a form of fan fiction and has all the good and bad of any fanfiction associate with it. (Well, except the "getting sued" part, which in an information based society, I see as a big plus...Unlikely as it is to happen.)
I consider anyone who writes and finishes a creative work a writer, and fanfiction to be no less a valid expression of creativity as any other type. That said, however, whether you are a "good" writer or an "original" writer is a slightly different matter. Most people who write seem to have hopes someday of gaining popular acceptance for their works, which is normal and there's nothing wrong with that. But, if your goal is to write general fiction, then like a good student with any master, you have to be mindful of what you are being taught and know when to break away. Each "master" can only teach you so much, and you must develop your own style on your own if you hope to "fly".
If, on the other hand, you are just writing fanfics for kicks and don't have any real aspirations, then my advice to you is: go nuts! :) Have a blast, enjoy yourself and party on.
The key really is knowing why you are writing and what you want to accomplish. :)
Rob