why write tv or film fanfic?

[thombron]

 I'm interested in why people write fanfiction based on tv shows or films, as opposed to prose fiction i.e. novels/short stories. Is the process of writing about someone who is embodied for us on screen any different from writing about a character who we have to imagine/visualise for ourselves? Is anything lost in translation when we try to

Comments

[laivine]

For me, I write fanfic to luxuriate in the world of my show, to have control over delicate nuance and the ability to say...I love when my show does this or when this character appears to really be an asshole, but only gives these slight visual cues to imply that he's not...and I can take that moment and imagine the thousand and one motiations, sources, potential meanings that the show can't stop and make material. But I also skew far away from the events of the show. I don't find playing with the toys in the sandbox quite as fun as taking the toys to my own beach, unlimited by space or the rules that both the medium and the fact that shows are produced as a business create.

So it's having this thing that I feel like I know firmly in my mind, a characterization, a smart-mouth way of talking, a setting that has, I guess...a canon of story that has weight, presence, but an open quality. Like I still am playing in the realm of possibility, even if it's this epic, trippy, psychoanalytical, unairable investigation...the door is still open for me to do that.