Natasha Walter on fanfic

[altariel]

The eagle-eyed and excellent katlinel delivers another link into my inbox, this time to an article on fanfic by Natasha Walter.

"Later in life you work out how to become an onlooker of art, but in childhood you are free to live inside the stories you love."

(And some of us never bothered to get out of the sandpit.)

"The writers of fan fiction recapture that childish bravado, those easy movements from one narrative to another and in and out of real life. As they reweave these stories they remind us that the boundary of the published book, and the control exerted by the individual author over a tale, is a relatively recent phenomenon for art, both in history and in our individual lives.

Indeed, when it comes to fan fiction, the internet is giving us back something like an oral society, in which people can retell the stories that are most important to them and, in so doing, change them. For all the dross and smut they produce, these communities in which readers become writers, fans become creators and old tales become new, also give out blasts of energy. And they remind us that the power of these fantasy worlds are not built just on profit and loss, but on imagination responding to imagination."

Comments

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

When you first fell in love with literature, didn't you weave the characters right into your life, into your own fantasies?

Very interesting, indeed. Thanks so much for sharing the link. I particularly like her historical perspective about the recent nature of "owned" art and how fanfic reverts back to an oral storytelling culture sensibility. Reminds me of Henry Jenkins. And it underscores my thought that the creators of the medieval Arthurian romances, not to mention Homer himself, were great fanficcers.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

And Aeschylus the first slashwriter.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

You bet! :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I thought it showed a great deal of sensitivity. I wonder if she writes fanfic herself...?!

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

For all the dross and smut they produce, these communities in which readers become writers, fans become creators and old tales become new, also give out blasts of energy..

More than true. If not for Tolkien Fanfiction, my writing wouldn't have improved during the last year, and I would certainly not have the courage to continue a novel I already thought would never be finished. This is like a huge writing class, and there are lots and lots of people that help me to learn.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Fanfic, for me, is at least as much about the community as about the writing. I wouldn't have dared or learned to write without writing fanfic.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Thank God for people recognizing that there is a certain value to reading, writing and/or reviewing fanfiction! I have to keep my fondness of fandom secret from both my family and (nearly) all my RL friends because they would consider it infantile at best and insane at worst. So I'm really relieved that even The Guardian would consider me perfectly a perfectly normal person enjoying the power of imagination. :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It certainly makes a change to read an article that takes fanfic writers seriously.

I think I'm fairly well outed as a writer of fanfic by now ;-D

[aervir.livejournal.com]

I think I'm fairly well outed as a writer of fanfic by now ;-D
Well, in your case -- as a writer of quality fanfiction -- there's nothing you'd have to be anxious or ashamed about. As you've said yourself, writing fanfiction just helps you to practice your general writing abilities and creative processes. But if you are not one of the better-known writers and archivists like you or belegcuthalion , for example, only a reader for the sake of reading and enjoying it, writing an occasional review now and then, "outing" yourself, justifying your hobby and still being taken seriously could be quite difficult, I guess. Especially if you know a lot of people that write Literature with a capital "L" and imagine them having a look at a random page at www.fanfiction.net or at any NC-17 rated slash story.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

When I first dipped my toe into fandom on the net I didn't even think of using a pseudonym. I started using one for my Tolkien fanfic because all the romantic stuff I was coming out seemed to sit a bit oddly with the "bad people roam around space leading lives of violence and ambiguity" stuff that I do for my other fandoms. But I've been pretty luck and having my own name out there hasn't done any harm, e.g. for the academic stuff.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

When I first dipped my toe into fandom on the net I didn't even think of using a pseudonym. Oh. Perhaps I have simply got too paranoid a personality. ;)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm just very naive and trusting :-)

[mgkellner.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. Nice to hear an encouraging word.

I have to observe that those of us who are appropriating Tolkien's works for our fan fiction, are also those who have contributed most heavily to the Tolkien family trust. Those folks whom I hesitatingly describe as normal, at best own one copy of LoTR, or more likely, one copy of each movie, while I feel like a light weight for only owning a dozen Tolkien books to go with my movie collection. There are those among us with dolls, cutlery, and costumes, not to mention rubber Elf ears.

Right now my TV is interviewing a woman who stars in "Murder She Solved", which sounds like fan fiction to me, except of course, it is OT, and done for money. I am struck by how little of what the "Pros" in Hollywood produce is original. Clint Eastwood makes a quirky anti-hero cop movie about a guy who uses a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum, and suddenly everyone is making Dirty Harry movies. Even John Wayne made McQ, which is Dirty Harry fan fiction by any standard. At least we admit we are playing in the sand boxes of others.

mk

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Aren't there only seven plots, or whatever it is? I'd rather be playing with characters that I've come to care about, than be uninvested in ciphers.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

All thanks to Katlinel!

[kathyh]

Excellent article. Thanks for the link.

"Later in life you work out how to become an onlooker of art, but in childhood you are free to live inside the stories you love."

I noticed this when I was playing with my nephew the other day. He was inside several stories at once and adapting them for his own game. It's quite fascinating - a huge crossover fanfic was in progress in his head.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He sounds like a wonderfully imaginative little boy.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

"Later in life you work out how to become an onlooker of art, but in childhood you are free to live inside the stories you love."

Well, I never learnt how to become an onlooker, but that certainly summed up my childhood. I spent much of my early life as Christopher Robin, Paddington, Charlie Brown, Harriet the Spy, Mary Mary and sundry other characters you wouldn't have heard of. Now I write - then I dressed, ate, spoke and played my beloved characters. I spent several years in the 100 acre woods ;-) Being me I probably was just a touch obsessive about it (shame kids' drama groups didn't exist in those days) and it has left me half English even though I've no real connection to the country ;-) Mind you, given I studied quantum physics (just as a hobby) for Spock and learnt tp program computers for Avon as an *adult* I guess I really never did get out of the sandbox.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Me and my best mate played Blake's 7 together.

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

I saw that one - it was interesting. I find it a bit odd how each successive article in the mainstream press seems to treat fanfiction as some undiscovered phenomenon :), but the comments about how fanfic reaches back to traditions before the modern concepts of copyright were fascinating. I remember being really surprised, when doing a paper on early Christian history, to learn that it was considered not only acceptable but praiseworthy to rewrite scripture itself under inspiration - the canon only becoming fixed when Church politics made it so. And of course myths have always been common property, written and rewritten - does fanfic break down the conventional division between what is a 'world story' and what is seen to belong to a specific creator?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

does fanfic break down the conventional division between what is a 'world story' and what is seen to belong to a specific creator?

I was pondering this one as I ambled round to Tesco's for my afternoon chocolate. Theoretically, yes: though the BNF phenomenon seems to suggest that fandoms often create their own authoritative interpreters, not to mention the phenomenon of fanon (oof, that's a tongue-twister).

And this isn't limited to book-fandoms by any stretch: TV fandoms have BNFs too, despite the nature of writing on TV shows being much more obviously collaborative.