Is It Live, or Is It Fan-Fic?
I was in a conversation with some friends last night about a review over at SB-TB, which I highlighted here at GGY [page down to end], because I felt that the work was… fan-fic. One of my friends said, So. It’s fanfic. What’s wrong with that? Well, I said: It’s being professionally printed, sold on a book shelf, and called SOMETHING ELSE! [I need to podcast this stuff]. This of course moved to a discussion on Fan fiction as something lame–which led us to a recent ‘fandom_discuss’ entry, talking about a fandom-secrets macro that lamented ’stop thinking I, a writer, am a moron because I write fan-fic’.
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Basically, if a copyright expires on something, then a publisher can produce an ‘adaptation’ to fit certain niche tastes, and label it in the press as ‘re-imagined’. Well…didn’t fan-fiction writers pretty much invent this? Why no love for the term? Now I admit, there’s a reason most people snicker at fiction from fandom and original erotica…many writers can and do produce crap; but there’s dozens of authors out there who produce some very brilliant pieces of work. These writers eventually move on to something original, some don’t [fear of pro rejection? I dunno]. Some stay in fandom because it’s a hobby; others dabble in it because it hones their skills until they’re ready for the big time, while still others [like me] play in fandoms because it’s a busman’s holiday from what’s expected of us.
I’m quite bothered that the word ‘fanfic’ holds such bad connotations because 80% of it is written to turn something benign, into something sexy or scandalous. I can honestly say that I’ve started watching a few shows and even reading some new comics based solely on the fans art and fiction for those shows. Would I have before this? NO. Sure you can say, there’s a tons of ‘gen fic’ out there Crat…why talk about the erotic/kink/relationship stuff? Dude, no one forms massive coms around “general” fanfiction [fan fiction that has no sex, or sexless pairing of characters, or any form of relationship driven plot]—no one wants to read a general take on what’s all ready…general. So what happens when a publisher pays a creator to spice things up, shake up the status quo and make an established body of work interesting to readers of a niche that would never have been into the ‘general’ story anyway? To me, that’s ‘sanctioned fan-fic’.
Again, I’m not using fan-fiction as a derogatory term here, the fact that these works exist mean that ‘fannish takes on general subjects’ does make for good reading, and just because publishers like to put labels on it like ‘re-imagined’ or ‘adaptation’ doesn’t make it something it’s not. They’ve found an author passionate about the material, and this author passionately writes her take on it in a way that she’s passionate about [if her fandom is kink, slash, a certain pairing...whatever!].
Hey Crat, it’s not really fan fic if it’s an ‘adaptation’ of something the company owns. So the upcoming Pride and Prejudice manga is an adaptation that Tokyo Pop paid the licensing for? They hired a writer to write a script and an artist to illustrate the GN. It stays true to the story, as it is just a ‘dramatic telling’ of the same story in a different medium. I don’t consider that fan-fiction or even fan-doujinshi, because they’re just retelling the original body of work—they’re not changing the setting, all the characters are the same, and the ending and/or original message of the author isn’t altered. That I consider that true adaptation.
Here’s what I consider some ‘sanctioned fan-fic’:
The erotic romance novel from Colette Gale, Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of the Opera –according to the review at SB-TB, it’s a ‘retelling’ with “erotic sexual scenes, a good dose of BDSM, and a whole new ending.” Basically, she’s added sex to it, made a pointed ‘shipping plot about Christina/Phantom, and made her own ending. 0_o. I won’t critique the content here, because I’ve not read it, I only go by what the pub tell me about it—but guess what? FAN FIC.
The sci-fi manga from GoComi! Masque of the Red Death, by Wendy Pini. She takes Prince Prospero, renames him something less regal, makes him bisexual on a technologically advanced planet somewhere, and drops him into some sort of weird relationship quadrangle of drama. [There’s him, his lover, this new guy, and Prosper’s sister—whom the new guy really loves?] Even the 1964 film by Roger Corman added its team of new characters to flesh out the drama between Poe’s Prospero and the Red Death, but they remained as true as they could to the themes and setting Poe originally wrote. This is obviously going for a specific audience, and it’s massively retelling what is otherwise an interesting piece of horror fiction–using original characters, and augmenting the established canon-characters. FAN FIC [it would be called, AU-fanfic--alternative universe.]
Author Gregory Maguire has made a career out of fan-fiction. Wicked [Wizard of Oz], Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister [Cinderella], and Mirror, Mirror [Snow White]. He chooses that one minor character that wasn’t developed enough in the original bodies of work, and crafts his own tale around while staying true to the original source material. FAN FIC - and in fan-speak, he’s ‘using OC’s in canon’! [Original Characters].
Side Note- I have a place in my heart for what Maguire does, because that’s the sort of doujinshi I used to make. I took the characters no one really wrote much about [not even the original creator] and gave them their own story—which were really MY stories. They weren’t my characters though, and I never made up new characters to add to the creators story- I stayed true, I had to, that’s the price of writing in the manga/anime fandom. Original characters combined with established ones are a big no-no and normally frowned upon.
Fans dictate what’s acceptable and what isn’t…
That leads me to another gripe, but won’t delve into much—it’s been done before, and by better pundits: This impression held by those outside the fandoms that “writers who write fan fiction have no idea of the discipline it takes to cultivate something palpable”.
First off, there’s no-one in this world more cruel and critical and harsh, than those who READ FANFICTION. Fan-fiction readers, and their communities and forums, are the ultimate lions den; if you have skills you rarely get verbal praise—but you will get readers. No they aren’t a vocal bunch, they don’t shower you with glorious reviews, but they know your name, they will collect your fics, they will visit your pages every time you update. Same holds true for fans of original slash, erotica, whatever…these lions enjoy you alive and writing, if they didn’t they would eat you. They’re not ignorant bastards, they’re just readers with keyboards and some numb social graces—so there’s no better lion’s den to thicken your skin, hone your skills and learn your craft, then writing and posting your fiction on the internets.
Those who can’t hang, they fade away into obscurity…if you get your feelings hurt by the fandom so bad that you can’t write anymore, then guess what? You’d never survive ‘a real rejection’ from a submissions editor. Those who take fandom crits on the chin but keep on writing, these are the authors that tough it out—they get better. Soon, the crits dry up, occasionally a nice review will come in, but web writers can’t develop a craving for them—they’ll starve. Instead, they’ll produce more and more, they’ll discover their plots are more interesting with their own original characters than someone else’s, and soon they submit to paying markets [eBook or print publishers]. These writers are ready. One or two paying-market rejections don’t mean a thing if you’ve made it to GAFF, at least once.
So let’s stop acting like writers born of fandoms and online writing communities are ‘ghetto’; I personally think they’re made of stronger stuff than some of these pros that publishers insist on hiring, in order to craft them something to crack ‘that elusive niche market.’
