Literary fanfiction
Jan. 22nd, 2004 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiJust before I went away, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
suelac posted an interesting essay on her discomfort with literary fanfiction; I've been thinking about the issue ever since, if only to try to understand why I don't consider my Harry Potter fanfiction different from my XF or Alias writing.
I admit that I did find Lord of the Rings fanfiction an odd thing, at first; the books are such an integral part of my mental landscape that adding onto them seemed strange. (And this "mental landscape" issue, which Suelac mentions in reference to the Lymond Chronicles, may be the reason I don't find Potterverse fanfic at all disturbing.) But should it have done so? The Tolkien corpus is constantly expanding, as more and more of his working notes are published; these form a kind of internal "alternate universe" to the universe. In addition, at a tender age I railroaded a good friend into roleplaying our way thought much of The Two Towers complete, I fear, with our pre-teen mary sues. On a less personally embarrassing note, most of the professionally published fantasy I've read is directly or indirectly derivative of Tolkien, sometimes painfully so.
Derivative fiction has a long and respectable history: the poet of the Odyssey, if not identical to the poet of the Iliad, is one of the most sensitive readers of and responders to that work. Ancient authors do not write in response to some general body of myth: they respond to each other, and especially to Homer (no doubt there's a good "anxiety of influence" book or article about this somewhere; we also call it intertextuality). They use the same characters to tell a different story (see any play by Euripides set during the Trojan War), or tell a variant of the same story with different characters (compare Dido and Aeneas in Virgil with Jason and Medea in Apollonius of Rhodes). Virgil is especially good at this: Aeneas, as he sails through the western Mediterranean, is always a few steps away from his old rival Odysseus. And he in turn receives the same treatment: there's at least one version of a thirteenth book of the Aeneid floating around. Continuing or expanding pre-existing works was a favorite activity in antiquity and the Middle Ages; I remember reading a set of replies to the letters of Ovid's Heroides, composed in Latin in the eighth century. Some of this is presented as homage, some as correction: it seems to me that the implied impulse behind works of this sort--I can tell this story better, there is a different story hiding behind this one, this story needs something more--would not be unfamiliar to most writers of fanfiction.
So much for the ancients.cassandre can say more about the derivative literature Medieval period. To cite one modern example, Kim Newman's Anno Dracula (which I heartily recommend) is full of characters from Victorian literature; the borrowed characters outnumber the original ones. And a few months ago I saw what seemed to be a continuation of Austen's Pride and Prejudice in a bookstore.
It's possible that all of this literary production is somewhat shady. Maybe copyright makes a difference, and maybe the question of whether the author is living or dead matters. There may be a difference between pastiche, homage, intertextuality and whatever we fanfiction writers are up to. I'm not sure, provided (in fanfiction) the usual disclaimers apply that is, that no one is passing off a derivative work as an original one.
I do see a separate problem with literary fanfiction, more to do with difficulty than legitimacy, and this comes back to the issue Suelac raises about "transformative use" (although in her argument the issue remains one of legitimacy). Literary fanfiction is in the same medium as its model. In a media fandom, where people write stories based on a movie or TV show, the implicit comparison in the reader's head isn't with the visual medium: it's with other works of fanfiction. In a literary fandom, the comparison is with the original work. The bar is higher in literary fanfiction, because the question lurking in the back of the reader's mind isn't "shall I read this story or go watch an episode of Farscape?" but "shall I read this story, or shall I go read some Tolkien?" It's that much easier to look at a piece of literary fanfiction and ask "why bother?" This is why I put down that Pride and Prejudice sequel.
These are my own thoughts: I may be making some incorrect assumptions about the way other people read.
There's another (in my view) important difference between visual and literary media. Episodic television is often produced in a hurry and under external pressures: characters are introduces and disappear, plot threads are raised and abandoned in response to factors external to the creator's (or creators') vision of the show. Producers and writers sometimes like to pretend that these pressures don't matter, but of course they do, and anyone who watches a show regularly can see them at work. I'd suggest that episodic television is by nature more prone toplot holes fanfic opportunities than literary media are: novels, for instance, ideally tell a single complete story, although they include the threads of other stories as well. The conclusion of a novel doesn't usually leave as much room for imaginative play as does the conclusion of a television series. (And as an aside, fact that the books are more epic than novel may be part of the success of Lord of the Rings fanfiction.)
There must be other factors at work: reading is a solitary activity, whereas television-watching is often a group activity. People all see an episode or a movie at once, and the fan responses tend to snowball. And this isn't to say that I'm uninterested in literary fanfiction; I'd really like to see stories based on the novels of Patrick O'Brian rather than on the film, particularly if they were about Stephen and Diana. I just think that literary fanfiction is often harder to pull off than media fanfiction.
suelac posted an interesting essay on her discomfort with literary fanfiction; I've been thinking about the issue ever since, if only to try to understand why I don't consider my Harry Potter fanfiction different from my XF or Alias writing.I admit that I did find Lord of the Rings fanfiction an odd thing, at first; the books are such an integral part of my mental landscape that adding onto them seemed strange. (And this "mental landscape" issue, which Suelac mentions in reference to the Lymond Chronicles, may be the reason I don't find Potterverse fanfic at all disturbing.) But should it have done so? The Tolkien corpus is constantly expanding, as more and more of his working notes are published; these form a kind of internal "alternate universe" to the universe. In addition, at a tender age I railroaded a good friend into roleplaying our way thought much of The Two Towers complete, I fear, with our pre-teen mary sues. On a less personally embarrassing note, most of the professionally published fantasy I've read is directly or indirectly derivative of Tolkien, sometimes painfully so.
Derivative fiction has a long and respectable history: the poet of the Odyssey, if not identical to the poet of the Iliad, is one of the most sensitive readers of and responders to that work. Ancient authors do not write in response to some general body of myth: they respond to each other, and especially to Homer (no doubt there's a good "anxiety of influence" book or article about this somewhere; we also call it intertextuality). They use the same characters to tell a different story (see any play by Euripides set during the Trojan War), or tell a variant of the same story with different characters (compare Dido and Aeneas in Virgil with Jason and Medea in Apollonius of Rhodes). Virgil is especially good at this: Aeneas, as he sails through the western Mediterranean, is always a few steps away from his old rival Odysseus. And he in turn receives the same treatment: there's at least one version of a thirteenth book of the Aeneid floating around. Continuing or expanding pre-existing works was a favorite activity in antiquity and the Middle Ages; I remember reading a set of replies to the letters of Ovid's Heroides, composed in Latin in the eighth century. Some of this is presented as homage, some as correction: it seems to me that the implied impulse behind works of this sort--I can tell this story better, there is a different story hiding behind this one, this story needs something more--would not be unfamiliar to most writers of fanfiction.
So much for the ancients.
cassandre can say more about the derivative literature Medieval period. To cite one modern example, Kim Newman's Anno Dracula (which I heartily recommend) is full of characters from Victorian literature; the borrowed characters outnumber the original ones. And a few months ago I saw what seemed to be a continuation of Austen's Pride and Prejudice in a bookstore.It's possible that all of this literary production is somewhat shady. Maybe copyright makes a difference, and maybe the question of whether the author is living or dead matters. There may be a difference between pastiche, homage, intertextuality and whatever we fanfiction writers are up to. I'm not sure, provided (in fanfiction) the usual disclaimers apply that is, that no one is passing off a derivative work as an original one.
I do see a separate problem with literary fanfiction, more to do with difficulty than legitimacy, and this comes back to the issue Suelac raises about "transformative use" (although in her argument the issue remains one of legitimacy). Literary fanfiction is in the same medium as its model. In a media fandom, where people write stories based on a movie or TV show, the implicit comparison in the reader's head isn't with the visual medium: it's with other works of fanfiction. In a literary fandom, the comparison is with the original work. The bar is higher in literary fanfiction, because the question lurking in the back of the reader's mind isn't "shall I read this story or go watch an episode of Farscape?" but "shall I read this story, or shall I go read some Tolkien?" It's that much easier to look at a piece of literary fanfiction and ask "why bother?" This is why I put down that Pride and Prejudice sequel.
These are my own thoughts: I may be making some incorrect assumptions about the way other people read.
There's another (in my view) important difference between visual and literary media. Episodic television is often produced in a hurry and under external pressures: characters are introduces and disappear, plot threads are raised and abandoned in response to factors external to the creator's (or creators') vision of the show. Producers and writers sometimes like to pretend that these pressures don't matter, but of course they do, and anyone who watches a show regularly can see them at work. I'd suggest that episodic television is by nature more prone to
There must be other factors at work: reading is a solitary activity, whereas television-watching is often a group activity. People all see an episode or a movie at once, and the fan responses tend to snowball. And this isn't to say that I'm uninterested in literary fanfiction; I'd really like to see stories based on the novels of Patrick O'Brian rather than on the film, particularly if they were about Stephen and Diana. I just think that literary fanfiction is often harder to pull off than media fanfiction.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 04:35 pm (UTC)Michael and Mollie Hardwicke and Nicholas Meyer spring immediately to mind. How can you NOT love "The Seven-Percent Solution" even if you totally don't buy it? "The West End Horror" is even better and so very true to the spirit of the original, though the Hardwicke's do better with the style.
And the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", the comics. Fantastic. How fun to see them all again through a different lens.
The best literary fanfic does this. It just gives us all more adventures like the original we loved. If it's too canon-bending, though (And I'm guilty of this as much as anyone.) I really don't think it's as effective as the stuff that stays closer to the mark. Not so much a value judgement or a squick, but a "one of these things is not like the other" issue.
And most regency romance novels are still people trying to do Austen and failing, IMHO.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 05:40 pm (UTC)For me, this is the biggest reason I don't find myself drawn to literary fanfic. I've read pieces here and there, but all too often I see the story as complete and am okay with it that way. Even LoTR feels complete for me -- it *is* epic and there are areas and characters to be explored, but I just don't necessarily feel the need to go beyond what Tolkien laid out.
Perhaps that is why HP is the one literary fandom (does that make sense?) where I've read the most -- in almost every way, the story is *not* complete. There are characters to be explored and storylines to be written about -- a future that hasn't yet been formed because Rowling is still in the process of drawing it herself.
And this brings me back to fanfic based on episodic television... I think you've stated above exactly why it feels so natural to write fanfic for a tv show. The story is spinning in multiple directions, there is no clear "end" and there are numerous opportunities to expand on characters or plot threads without feeling like you are playing with a story that is complete or a vision that can't be (or won't be) altered.
Thanks for the thoughts!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 12:42 pm (UTC)I like this point: the canon of the universe is still unformed, which seems to allow more room for the exercise of creativity. And there's much more time between novels than there is between episodes of a show, so that although people do get their stories overturned by the author, it doesn't happen right away.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 08:27 am (UTC)There may be a difference between pastiche, homage, intertextuality and whatever we fanfiction writers are up to.
I think, in some ways, it's got to do with independence. A successful 'sequel' or 'homage' or intertextual reference will tend to be a reference that points towards its source, but also stands on its own. My feeling is that fanfic doesn't stand on its own, nor do most continuations of the universes of dead novelists. Whereas, say, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid does stand on its own, and tell its own story, even though it relies on at least a passing knowledge of films noirs.
(For the sake of the argument, let's pretend I just said Tough Guide to Fantasyland and fantasy novels, instead of a Steve Martin movie! Not that the Jones book tells a story, but it does stand on its own.)
Dependent works aren't bad, per se, but they're dependent on the source, and I think you're right, when source and secondary work are the same medium, it becomes "Why should I read this,
instead of the source?" It does feel in some ways like a substitution, rather than an expansion. Movies and TV can be presumed to need/take canon-fixing and expansion, because for time reasons they are forced to ellipsize out every excruciating detail and conversation. Written works don't tend to have the same pressure.
All that said, I read (on recommendation) one very long, extremely Mary Sue, fanfic novel set in Middle-earth. It involved only lesser canonical characters, and did not change canon as it is set out in the novel; but it did have all sorts of interpretations and "further adventures of" and sex and some gentle canon-fixing. And I got to the end and sort of laughed at myself and said, "Why was I afraid of this piffle?" It's a good story, as fanfic goes: reasonably faithful to both plot and language, well-written, kind. But it felt like the flimsiest thing in the world, and no threat or reflection on the book.
That was reassuring, to me. I guess it was proof that, as with the movie adaptations, the making of fanfic does not unmake the source book. Not that I am leaping to read hard-core elf bondage now, but I think now that no amount of hard-core elf bondage can do anything to the source work -- it will always be there, and I will always be able to find people who want to talk about it, not its dependent descendants.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 12:39 pm (UTC)This is a good point (although I might categorize the "sequel" with fanfiction, rather than with "homage"). People can and do read fanfic without being familiar with the original source, but they aren't usually the author's imagined readers.
I think that my own attitudes toward literary fanfic depend on my attitudes to the original: I'd like to see fanfiction based on the Aubrey and Maturin novels because I think that O'Brian made some poor authorial decisions. In this case I see fanfiction as (potentially) another way of talking about the original, which is what media fanfiction sometimes seems to be--expansion rather than (only) substitution, perhaps.