Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

[aadler]

 
Yesterday, I spotted the following statement — part of a longer post — on someone else’s LJ. I made my reply there, which reply follows the quoted excerpt:

… Fanfic is an inherently teenybopper activity, akin to cutting out pictures from fanzines and pasting them with glitter to your scrapbook. If they’re smart, and good, fanficcers grow up to be real authors. …

And my answer:

I don’t know if you’re citing common opinion while withholding your own, or if you agree with those sentiments. In either instance, I’ll take point in expressing my own disagreement.

Fanfic is typically young-adolescent behavior, in that it’s far more common among pre- or early-teens than in gainfully employed adults with functioning social lives. Is this because it represents immaturity, or just because grown-ups have less free time and more other things competing for priority? Play-acting, too, is more common among children than among adults, but that doesn’t mean all acting falls into the same category. Fanfic is no more inherently immature than is acting.

People who write fanfic do it for many different reasons. Yes, no question, I’ve seen that far too many of them do it for purposes of wish-fulfillment, self-insertion, gooey romanticism, or really awful porn. Some of them, though, do it for love of the fandom, appreciation of the characters, membership in a community, or simply because the original movie/book/series so excited their imaginations that they feel compelled to express the ideas thus generated.

My personal focus is on the Buffyverse. Granted, most Buffyfic is inferior, simply because most fiction period is inferior and fanfic has fewer filters. ‘Most’, however, doesn’t mean ‘all’. There are some really good writers out there, and the best of them turn out material that’s markedly superior to the authorized Buffy/Angel novels currently in print.

I don’t object to generalizations; they’re useful and largely accurate. I would suggest, however, that a prudent person would refrain from applying the generalization to every member of a group, insisting that it pertains equally to all of them merely because it holds true for many of them.

Comments

[aadler]

I tried not to be too snippy in my response, but I wanted to make my opinions very clear. Fanfic absolutely is a self-indulgence … but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a stupid self-indulgence, indicative of lesser mentality or stunted sensibilities, and it doesn’t at all mean that none of the work produced is worth recognition or respect.

It’s also obviously true that fanfic can serve as a training ground for a writer’s development toward publishable original fiction … but, again, that’s not the only function it serves or the only way it works. How else to explain those authors (unusual, but they’re there) who continue writing fanfic even after reaching the goal of having their own work published?

According to the popular model, if you spend all your time writing spec scripts, using the characters of established TV shows, as a means of demonstrating your ability to work in someone else’s venue, endlessly submitting these scripts but never getting one accepted, you’re a would-be writer. However, if you take the same ideas and post them online as fanfic, you’re a poseur, a time-wasting amateur, not to be taken seriously either by professionals or by those who appreciate professional writing. It’s an artificial distinction, based on observable norms of quality, but then used to issue a blanket decree of unworthiness. I don’t buy it, and I won’t let it pass without argument.

Most fanfic really is that bad. (Those of us who’ve been reading it for years can lose sight of the fact, because we’ve acquired a ‘stable’ of favorite authors and gotten ourselves into communities that recommend other works worth reading, but the fact remains: the vast majority of fanfic is utterly awful.) Likewise, most oysters contain nothing but oyster. Pearl divers keep diving, though, and the pearls they find are worth the effort.

[tessarin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely most fanfic is dross and I agree if you read a lot you sort of develop a natural filter. It is also as you say an indulgence born out of love or interest in the fandom. But then so are all hobbies. You don't see people getting so snippy about sports related hobbies.

I also think that the shared knowledge that is often the basis of fic both sometimes enables the reader to infer the detail that is necessary to smooth out the edges. This can be both a good and a bad thing.

In someways fanfic writing is as you say more analogous to spec writing. In that in some ways it is harder and requires more discipline to mimic the tone and voices of the original.

We have a program here called Newsnight review which is primarily an arts review program. They got very sniffy and snobbish when reviewing the LOTR movies and then wax lyrical about horrendous literature.

[aadler]

The last example you cite (slamming Lord of the Rings while celebrating mediocre efforts of the ‘right’ type) … this is basic identity politics, primitive group solidarity. You see that kind of stuff start before junior high school: membership in a group is based less on shared interests than on who is excluded. Most of it is harmless, much of it is annoying, some of it can be genuinely nasty (i.e., certain types of political/religious activism). We can’t really avoid that, even in ourselves, but we can recognize and head off some of it, and should do so as much as possible.