Fanfiction: You'll Never Believe Who's Writing It

WHERE "SLASH" DOESN'T MEAN THE ROCK STAR

Hello. My name is Veronica and I read fan fiction.

("Hi, Veronica," reply all the other readers of fan fiction.)

Fan fiction, if you don't know, refers to stories created by fans of movies, television shows, books, comics, plays, etc. and usually consists of short stories, novellas, or serialized works. Art work and video also have their places within fan fiction (or fanfic).

Source

In all fairness, I've read some pretty horrible fanfic. I've read some mediocre fanfic. But I've been fortunate to find quite a lot of beautifully written fic by some very talented writers. Now, this leads me down a rabbit hole of some thought-provoking questions. Consumers of fanfic, at least those who want to read good fanfic, have to devote some time to building community with other readers of fanfic. As for the writers of fanfic . . . Writing is a long and painful process; this isn't something they do for a couple hours a week to blow off steam. So I'm left to wonder. Who reads fanfic? Why doesn't anyone talk about it? Who writes fanfic? Why do they write it? I've read some very quality fanfic; why aren't these authors writing professionally?

There are some good answers as to why they aren't writing professionally, but it turns out, some fanfic authors are writing professionally. More professional authors than you might guess either got their start writing fanfic, or still write fanfic.

Types of Fanfic

Before we go any further, I should clarify some different types of fanfic. Some fanfics fill in "missing pieces" of the story; parts of the story that may have been left out because they weren't essential to the plot yet are still parts that fans are eager to know about. Some fanfics are a continuation of the end of the story, or tell what happened prior to the official start of the story; a sequel or prologue if you will.

Serialized adventures (Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, the "Monster of the Week" on Supernatural) lend themselves nicely to a third type of fanfic, a continuation of the adventures of the main characters. Fans just want more of the story! And sometimes fanfic will tell an existing story from another character's point of view. I had no idea when I wrote "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" from the Wolf's point of view for a college assignment that I was writing fanfic. I swear.

Other types of fanfic take a bit more creative license with their favorite characters and worlds. Often, epic chemistry already exists between characters who aren't romantically linked in the original work, and fanfic allows the fan to imagine "what if?" It could be a classic "will they, won't they" pairing like David and Addison on the television show Moonlighting, or a non-romantic pairing like fanfic godparents Kirk and Spock from the Star Trek franchise. Kirk and Spock's relationship is intense and goes beyond what many people consider mere friendship, sparking what may have been the original M/M (male-slash-male) romantic fanfic pairing. Other more creative fanfics will rework an original creation into a slightly different tale ("fixing" something they didn't like about the original), or will take established characters and place them in entirely different worlds and situations (called "alternate universe" stories). For example, Kirk and Spock might be college students who meet in a coffee shop, with the story set in 2012.

The Authors

Now that we understand what fanfiction is, let's look at who, exactly, is writing it. First, here are two authors who, quite frankly, don't fit in with any of the others I'm going to talk about.

Of course, we all know about E. L. James and the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy starting out as a Twilight "alternate universe" fanfic; it was titled Master of the Universe and written under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon. (Most fanfic is written under a pen name.) Pulling a piece of fanfic, changing minor details to avoid copyright issues, and publishing it is known in fandom as "filing off the serial numbers," and E. L. James wasn't a pioneer in the practice, believe it or not.

As far as I know, Neil Gaiman did not get his start in fanfic. However, a few of his published short stories meet the definition of fanfic. Two of these stories are published in Fragile Things. "The Problem of Susan," in a clever way, tells the story of the adult Susan Pevensie reflecting on her grief and life after the conclusion of The Chronicles of Narnia; Gaiman imagines what Susan's life was like after the original work concluded. In the introduction to "A Study in Emerald," Gaiman writes that the story was requested from an editor friend for an anthology: "I want a story in which Sherlock Holmes meets the world of H.P. Lovecraft." In fanfic culture, a request for a specific type of story is called a prompt; in this case, Gaiman delivered a "crossover" fic. "I, Cthulhu" is another Lovecraftian fic, this one available on Gaiman's website, with Gaiman giving Cthulhu the opportunity to share his origin story, imagining how Cthulhu came into existence and what his life was like before Lovecraft introduced him in "The Call of Cthulhu."



More typical are the authors who started writing fanfic and later published works with characters and worlds of their own creations. Let's look at a few.

Madeleine Urban, co-author of the first four books in the Wench favorite Cut & Run series, sharpened her writing skills on fanfic before publishing Caught Running with Cut & Run co-author Abigail Roux.

Cassandra Clare is the author of NY Times bestselling contemporary YA fantasy series The Mortal Instruments. Before that, she wrote as Cassandra Claire, author of a very popular, and very humorous, Lord of the Rings fanfic series called The Very Secret Diaries. She is also known for the Harry Potter fanfic Draco Trilogy.

Alas, like many published authors before her, she removed her fanfic before her books were published. Lucky for us, her work has been archived here with her permission.

Sometimes, fanfic inspires other works; in this case, a YouTube video inspired by Claire's The Very Secret Diary of Legolas:

Sarah Rees Brennan is the author of The Demon's Lexicon, a YA Urban Fantasy series set in England. Before netting a three-book, six-figure contract, Brennan wrote fanfic as "Maya" and was so successful that her fanfic had fanfic.

What's that? S.E. Hinton, beloved author of The Outsiders, writes fanfic? It's well-known within the Supernatural fandom that Hinton is a fan and supporter of the show. A show about a group of men on the fringes of society, who share a deep bond and who fight against the tyranny of evil? Sounds like perfect fodder for Hinton's writing skills to me. Now, if I could just figure out her pen name . . .

What's that? Don't believe me? Need proof?





Some authors are decidedly anti-fanfic, and a few have taken action to have fanfic based on their works removed from the Internet. Other authors don't see the harm in it, and some see the benefit to both the writer and themselves. Yet other authors are active advocates for fanfic.

R. J. Anderson is a YA author who writes science fiction, fantasy, and thrillers. She continues to write fanfic under her real name, and her HarperCollins bio page includes a link to her fanfic site on LiveJournal. Anderson sees no status difference between works of professionally published fiction (pro-fic) and works of fanfic, as stated on her LiveJournal blog:

"There's no reason anybody should pay more attention to my writing just because I'm professionally published, or consider my stories to be inherently better than the stories of the many amazing fanfic authors out there who are not professionally published. In fact, there's no good reason for me to mention that I'm a published author at all, because the writing should speak for itself. And just because you can write a novel and get it published doesn't necessarily mean you can write good stories about other people's characters."

NY Times bestseller Naomi Novik is the author of the Temeraire series, which has been optioned by none other than Peter Jackson. Novik started writing Star Trek fanfic and continues to write Sherlock Holmes and The Avengers fic. She is a founding board member of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit "dedicated to protecting the fair-use rights of fan creators." The OTW has created and maintained Archive of Our Own (for preserving fanfic) as well as Fanlore (for preserving the oral history of fandom). OTW also provides legal assistance with issues related to fan fiction, works to preserve artifacts such as 'zines and now-defunct Geocities websites, and publishes the peer-reviewed academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures.



Whew! That got a bit serious there for a minute. Let's have another Legolas diversion, shall we?




And lastly, we examine a final category of fanfic. Pro-fic that is over-the-top, no-doubt-about-it, obviously-sanctioned-by-all-parties fan fiction; pro-fanfic, if you will. This is work that is so obvious that it is often considered an homage to the original work, and one wouldn't think twice about copyright issues or even consider that something indecent had occurred.

Rebecca and Rowena: A Romance Upon Romance, William Thackeray's imagining (albeit in parody form) of what happens after Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a play by Tom Stoppard, is a fanfic to either Hamlet or Waiting for Godot. Perhaps it's a crossover (a genre of fanfic that incorporates 2+ original sources). In any case, the play is told from the point of view of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare's Hamlet. However, the style of the play definitely borrows from Waiting for Godot.

March is Geraldine Brooks' interpretation of Little Women from the point of view of the father. This fic won the 2006 Pulitzer for fiction.

Gregory Maguire's books. Take your pick of the stories and characters that appear in his books. The Wizard of Oz. Snow White. Cinderella. Dickens and Scrooge. Hamlet. Jack the Ripper. The Little Match Girl.

And, finally, let's take a look at the one work of fiction that likely holds the record for inspiring the highest volume of pro-fanfic ever: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Of course, there is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a pro-fanfic that spawned its own pro-fanfic in the form of a prequel and a sequel. Then there are countless retellings centering on Darcy, yet others focusing on Darcy's and Elizabeth's life after marriage, and any number of other twists on the story. A search on Amazon for "Pride and Prejudice variations" returned 235 results, "Pride and Prejudice sequels" returned 307 results, and "Fitzwilliam Darcy" returned a staggering 599 results. Those are all Amazon-suggested search terms, by the way.


There is a certain amount of secrecy in reading and in writing fan fiction, as though it is somehow "less" than professionally published fiction. The pro-fic versus fanfic debate is complicated and multi-faceted. But I don't think it has to be a "versus" situation, and many authors are starting to agree. By being open about their origins in writing fanfic, by continuing to be active in their fan communities, and by advocating for the rights of fanworks, published authors are working to legitimize the work of fanfic and other fan works. However, this increased attention can be a double-edged sword. Alas, that is a discussion for another time.

What about you, dear reader? Have you read fanfic or do you actively stay away from it? What have your experiences been? Are your experiences different depending on the fandom? Do you write fanfic? We'd love to hear from you.