Blurring the Lines
There’s a convention in fan fiction that stories are supposed to focus on the “canon” characters, settings and plots that have been introduced in the original source material. It’s an unwritten rule that makes sense; the purpose of most fan fiction is to extend the source material in some manner. In fact, it can be argued that fan fiction that doesn’t focus on the canonical elements isn’t really fan fiction at all; it’s original fiction, plain and simple.
For the most part, I tend to agree with this opinion. Until recently, I would have agreed with the opinion that this is the main difference between the two - one is fan fiction, one is original fiction. But beginning last December, I started working on some material that is blurring the lines and making me realize that the definition of fan fiction isn’t as cut-and-dried as one might think.
I’m referring, of course, to my Castle story Family Secrets and the follow-up I recently started posting, A Place in the Game. There’s at least one more story on the way, and right now there’s strong evidence that this is going to evolve into a full-blown, multi-part series.
It’s obvious from the first paragraph of “Family Secrets” that the focus of these stories is not on the canonical characters. I don’t explicitly tie the story into the Castle universe until the end of the first scene and it’s the third scene before any of the canonical characters show up. By the end of the first chapter, it’s been established that the focus of the story is on an original character named Marty. Future chapters introduce contemporaries who are also original characters, and she spends more time interacting with them than with canonical characters.
When I first posted “Family Secrets,” I acknowledged that it “broke the rules” and that I didn’t really expect a high readership because of that. Indeed, someone asked me what my point was. Why bother to write fan fiction that isn’t fan fiction?
In my mind, “Family Secrets” and its sequels are definitely fan fiction. The storyline itself started when I noticed an omission in one of Castle's central plot lines (a classic genesis of fan fiction stories), and Marty’s own existence is a predictable result of canonical events. Her experiences in the story, and many of the small details that she encounters as a part of her daily existence, are also directly derived from the original source material. The original canon is so firmly integrated into the story that, if I removed those elements, it would fall apart.
That’s why I assert that “Family Secrets” is fan fiction. It follows, then, that any sequel I write in that same canon will also be fan fiction, even though it may or may not relate back to the source material. But the person who asked me that question had a point: the story doesn’t use established characters or settings, and the plot is a derivation of the original plot line, not a continuation.
It wouldn’t really be that much work to file off the serial numbers and publish “Family Secrets” as an original story; it’d be much easier than it is with the majority of fan fiction. Does that mean it’s really a piece of original fiction masquerading as fan fiction? Or is it a bridge between fan fiction and original fiction? Where exactly is the line between the two, anyway?
I’m vocal in my opposition to real person fiction because it skates the edge of invading privacy, but I’ll admit that it’s legitimate fan fiction, particularly when the subject has an explicitly developed public image. I also assert that official tie-ins are little more than a sanctioned, and often sanitized, version of fan fiction - and this includes complicated story lines like the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which goes to places not even hinted at in the movies.
At the same time, though, I’m not sure I agree that all of the examples given in this very popular list really are fan fiction. (Cats the musical? Really? I call that an adaptation - especially given its separate plotline - and The Wind Done Gone was legally declared to be a parody.) No work of fiction is created in a vacuum, and all of them have outside influences. That doesn’t make them any less original, and influences aren’t the same as the explicit re-use of source material that goes on in fan fiction.
That list, though, demonstrates that the lines between the two aren’t quite as clear as one might think. The very fact that I consider parts of it arguable remind me of Damon Knight’s oft-repeated comment about science fiction:
[T]he term ‘science fiction’ is a misnomer, that trying to get two enthusiasts to agree on a definition of it leads only to bloody knuckles; that better labels have been devised (Heinlein’s suggestion, ‘speculative fiction’, is the best, I think), but that we’re stuck with this one; and that it will do us no particular harm if we remember that, like ‘The Saturday Evening Post’, it means what we point to when we say it. [Source]
I’m not sure that the term “fan fiction” is a misnomer, and unlike science fiction I think that there are instances which clearly are, and clearly are not, fan fiction. But one thing I’ve learned while writing “Family Secrets” is that there’s a fairly large grey area in the middle. I consider that particular story to be fan fiction, and I’d like to think that as the author my word carries some weight. But I can understand why someone else might not…and I’m not entirely certain that they’d be wrong.
Original Post: http://sonria.org/blog/2013/blurring-the-lines/. You can comment here or there.