Writing Blog Number 2

20240301 An Academic Essay On Fan Fiction

An Academic Essay On Fan Fiction

So, this is a pro-fan-fiction essay of around 2000 words including reference list. I will follow up with a shorter post about issues with fan fiction from a workshop.

This was a 2nd year essay in my Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) and I got a very good grade for it.

It is academic. It is dry. Sorry.

Title: Fan fiction as a tool for developing writing skills

The desire of some writers to develop the works created by others, be that written works, filmed works or graphic novels and the like, has led to the growth of a genre of writing known as fan fiction. In the broader writing community, the writers of fan fiction are looked down upon, especially by many whose works are appropriated by those who write fan fiction. However, despite being derided by many professional writers of fiction, fan fiction does have some benefits when it comes to cultivating creativity.

Fan fiction – “Fanfic” – as it is recognised today goes back to the 1930s, but it is said to have come to greater prominence out of the Star Trek fan community of the 1960s (Thomas, 2006, p. 226). The works were initially shared by means of home-made magazines mailed out to others interested in seeing what non-canon writers could create. However, with the growth of the Internet, this genre of writing has become a larger one, covering many works as bases and sources. It should be noted that it is generally accepted that fan fiction itself is only accorded that term if the use of characters and settings would otherwise violate copyright law (TV Tropes, 2013). What this does mean is that the writers of fan fiction come at an original work from a place of being a “fan” of the work, of having an actual enjoyment of the work which they wish to explore further, which informs their creativity.

Despite the fact that fan fiction comes from a place of affection, a number of famous authors do not like fan fiction of their works. Anne Rice (2009) asks her readers to come up with their own original works. George R.R. Martin says “[u]sing someone else’s world is the lazy way out.” (Hayman, 2016). Meanwhile, Orson Scott Card has threatened to sue writers who use his characters. (Hayman, 2016) However, not all writers are opposed to fan fiction. Joss Whedon, for example, says, “I absolutely love it. I wish I had grown up in the era of fan fiction.” (Arpe, 2004, n.p.) These mixed signals coming from original creators does not deter the writers of fan fiction, and it also shows an attitude of the originators that indicates the fact their works might be assisting some fledgling writers to hone their craft means less than their maintaining absolute control.

However, there is a growing section of the artistic and educational communities which sees positives in encouraging the writing of fan fiction. A study conducted by Sauro and Sundmark (2016) found that students learning English showed improved literacy outcomes through the writing of fan fiction. Thomas (2006, p. 227) looked at some of the reasons for this. One of the main literacy benefits she found was that because a beginning writer does not have to worry about developing characters or settings, they can concentrate more freely on the actual process of writing.

The act of writing fan fiction has been equated to the imaginary play of childhood (Barnes, 2015). In the general course of reading, a reader will often impose their own imaginative aspects upon what they are reading (p. 70). Through interviews with writers of fan fiction, it appears that the initial steps into writing fan fiction often stem from the writer fantasising about the original works and then going into an imaginative play way of looking at the work (p. 72). This imaginary play aspect can also involve writers inserting themselves into their stories, hybridising their own lives with the worlds they are fans of (Black, 2005, p. 123). Further, the online community of fan fiction is not as critical as a class-room, and so those learning English can put forth their work without being concerned about being overly criticised for technical aspects, creating a non-threatening place where they can show their work and demonstrate their ideas (Black, 2005, p. 118). This non-confrontational aspect underlies the idea of fan fiction as imaginary play.

There has been a further argument put forth that the writing of fan fiction enables a writer to become critical of the original text, especially in regards to the dominant discourse of the genre or works (Thomas, 2006, p. 234). The example Thomas uses is that science-fiction tends to be “male-dominated” (p. 235) and that fan fiction enables female fans of the genre to explore their own identities in a world where they would not otherwise see parallels with themselves. This has also been put forward as a reason a majority of fan fiction writers appear to be female – females often feel “marginalized” by the original works (Barnes, 2015, p. 74). The fan fiction community was also noted to be culturally sensitive (Black, 2005, p. 123), with many participants eager to learn about other cultures and ensure their works contained realistic depictions of those cultures, thus adding to the non-threatening nature of the fan fiction community.

Fan fiction writers are also readers, particularly of the source works. Reading is one of the most important things that leads to better writing. Reading gives a person a firm grasp on the actual process of writing (King, 2000, p. 150). Stephen King goes one step further when he says: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” (2000, p. 147). One thing fan fiction writers do is read. Even if it is in a narrow field based around their fandom, they are readers. This, as King points out, helps with all forms of writing. As will be discussed later, the fan fiction community promotes reading, including critical reading, of one another’s works. Reading in this regard helps those fledgling writers to see words in action. Reading for pleasure has also been shown to aid in academic achievement (Prior, 2019, p. 338), which would seem to indicate writers of fan fiction (and hence readers) put themselves at an advantage.

While the literacy assistance fan fiction can give to beginning writers through its focus on the writing and reading aspects, and the way it allows some societal groups to redress characterisation deficiencies in the source works, and the fact it encourages reading for pleasure, it seems to be that the greatest benefit of fan fiction to the writer is the “Fanfic” community itself. The fan fiction community is commonly portrayed as a strong one, one that offers support for all its members, regardless of background, experience or ability, a theme seen in the works of many academics and researchers (Black, 2005; Campbell, et al,; 2016; Evans, et al.; 2017; Thomas, 2006). The community that involves the writers of fan fiction is a form of social media that might be positive to the members, as opposed to most other forms of social media (O’Reilly, et al., 2018).

The fan fiction community is based around a shared fandom of whatever source material a particular group is writing about and around (Evans, et al., 2017, p. 259). What this tends to mean is that the members of the sub-groups have one strong aspect that binds them together. Further, because of this, fan fiction participants actively seek out like-minded adherents of a particular fandom, accentuating this automatic point of similarity with one another (Black, 2005, p. 119). This shared enjoyment tends to create a place for the writers where they feel safe and comfortable sharing their work (Campbell et al., 2016, p. 692). The basis for the new work is known and beloved, and so members are more open to exploring new ideas within the fandom, these coming from the works of fan fiction.

The community of fan fiction writers online is noted for the assistance and support they give to other members of the community. Through a process of reviewing which gives assistance and advice (Thomas, 2006, p. 228) through to giving one another support on an emotional level (Campbell et al., 2016, p. 699), the support is all-encompassing. It does, however, tend to be in the manner of information or story help (Thomas, 2006, p. 229) instead of purely technical writing help, though this certainly does occur. In fact, some English language learners will use illustrations, emoticons and emojis to make their work understood when their language skills are lacking (Black, 2005, p. 122), and this is accepted by the wider fan fiction community. It was found that the peer-reviewing, however, was seen as something that did help the technical aspects of writing, as noted by users of fan fiction websites (Evans et al, 2017, pp. 265-6).

One aspect of the fan fiction community that was noted as helpful was the organic development of an informal mentoring system (Campbell, et al., 2016; Evans, et al., 2017). Referred to as “distributed mentoring”, it is a system of mentoring that does not follow a pattern that would be considered usual. Instead of a one-on-one relationship between mentor and mentee, it involves a many-on-many mentee-mentor structure and is informal in its set-up (Evans, et al., 2017, p. 265). Writers develop relationships with a number of more experienced writers, while these more experienced workers assist a number of those they feel could benefit from their help. The feedback from participants indicates that it is felt this has been of great assistance to developing story-telling and technical writing skills (Evans, et al., 2017, pp. 265-6). In fact, it was noted that reviewers in fan fiction communities often take a writer’s English-speaking background into account when supplying feedback in these online fan fiction communities (Black, 2005, p. 126). This reinforces the aspect of the online fan fiction community being felt to be a safe place for writers learning their craft.

While many professional authors do not see fan fiction as a worthwhile endeavour, and some have not been encouraging of it, there does appear to be a number of advantages for writers to write fan fiction and to become involved in the online fan fiction community. The ability to focus on the technical writing aspects, to explore different discourses and to have the support of a large community all make the writing of fan fiction a positive creative experience for many.

 
REFERENCES

Arpe, M. (2004). Television’s afterlife. Retrieved from http://www.whedon.info/Television-s-afterlife-angel.html

Barnes, J.L. (2015). Fanfiction as imaginary play: What fan-written stories can tell us about the cognitive science of fiction. Poetics, 48(February), 69-82. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2014.12.004

Black, R.W. (2005). Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English-language learners in an online fanfiction community. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(2), 118-128. https://doi.org/ 10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4

Campbell, J., Aragon, C., Davis, K., Evans, S., Evans, A., & Randall, D. (2016, February 27-March 2). Thousands of positive reviews: Distributed mentoring in online fan communities. Paper presented at the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, 691-704. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2819934

Evans, S., Davis, K., Evans, A., Campbell, J.A., Randall, D.P., Yin, K., & Aragon, C. (2017, February 25-March 1). More than peer production: Fanfiction communities as sites of distributed mentoring. Paper presented at the 2017 ACM Conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing, 259-272. https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998342

Hayman, A. (2016, September 13). The battle of fanfiction: some authors despise it, while others encourage it. Retrieved from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/battle-fanfiction-authors-despise-others-encour...

King, S. (2000). On Writing: A memoir of the craft. New York: Simon & Schuster.

O’Reilly, M., Dogra, N., Whiteman, N., Hughes, J., Eruyar, S., & Reilly, P. (2018). Is social media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspectives of adolescents. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 23(4), 601-613. https://doi-org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1177/1359104518775154

Prior, K. (2019). Why we need to read. Academic Questions, 32(3), 334-341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12129-019-09814-4

Rice, A. (2009). Anne’s Messages to Fans. Retrieved from http://www.annerice.com/ReaderInteraction-MessagesToFans.html

Sauro, S., Sundmark, B. (2016). Report from Middle-Earth: Fan fiction tasks in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal, 70(4), 414–423. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccv075

Thomas, A. (2006). Fan fiction online: Engagement, critical response and affective play through writing. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(3), 226-239. https://search-informit-com-au.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=2504824...

TV Tropes. (2013). Fanfic. Retrieved from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Fanfic