No Longer a Newbie

[harmony_bites]

I came across an old post I made on a cross-fandom group asking why HP was so different-it’s a year old. Then I look at Ashwinder and notice I became a member on 9/23/05. So I guess it’s official-I’m not a newbie. Harry Potter fandom is different in so many ways, and I thought I’d list them here before I completely forget the shock and take it for

Comments

[harmony_bites]

Welcome to the fold Newbie *eg*

Heh, well compared to you... I think though once you lose your Freshman status you have no right to that name ::sniff:: It would have been nice to actually have finished my first story in the ship before reaching this status.

I know being a part of the ST:Voy (J/C) in particular, I was on the very edges of the fandom. We use the yahoo groups mostly and we had the J/C fic archive which was a collection of links to stories.

I was on the edges of Voy (and completely immersed in TOS) but involved enough that I knew some of the "later" JCers well--Rocky, Jemima, and Penny Proctor. Penny's "Revisionist History" was one of my intros to J/C--fantastic writer who went on to sell professionally. And though Peg and Macedon's Talking Stick/Circle was before my time, I'd still count it my fav fanfic in any fandom. I remember the JetC site--but as you said, really a set of links like Dark Sarcasm for SS/HG, not an archive the way we think of it. There was a group like that also I was aware of for J/P - Jupiter.

But certainly, nothing like we have in HP.

In Buffy fandom, people were a little more forgiving about WIPs. Although there were tons and tons of small unmoderated archives - it was hard to find stuff to read.

Buffy, like Trek, had a newsgroup, alt.buffytvs.creative, was the addy I think. I think most fic popped up there from what I gather from my friend who played in it a bit. Besides there, she pretty much just put it on FFN and her archive. Again, much more like Trek than HP.

Now, with BSG, the fandom is still very small. Most of it is conducted on LJ or the scifi boards.

I know many who rave about it as the best show out there. Which, btw, I think sometimes hurts a fandom. Its best if its good enough to hook, but with enough holes that people want to fill them. DS9 was acknowledged as one of the best Treks, maybe THE best, and VOY one of the worse ('till ENT definitively took that title) but VOY fanfic flourished while DS9 was moribound. DS9 was too satisfying I think. Plugged too many wholes, gave too much backstory.

[clare009]

I know many who rave about it as the best show out there. Which, btw, I think sometimes hurts a fandom. Its best if its good enough to hook, but with enough holes that people want to fill them. DS9 was acknowledged as one of the best Treks, maybe THE best, and VOY one of the worse ('till ENT definitively took that title) but VOY fanfic flourished while DS9 was moribound. DS9 was too satisfying I think. Plugged too many wholes, gave too much backstory.

I think in part that is true - BSG is a lot more polished than a lot of the shows out there, although the writers do love dangling cliffhangers and UST and all that other crap that keeps us suckers coming back for more. I would have to say that the fandom (despite my non-presence *g*) is actually thriving. Also despite the fact that the show has had an unusually long hiatus between season 2 and 3. The writers did something at the end of Season two which I don't think I've ever seen done in a TV show and which made everyone go WTF and even fed my imagination during the long months of hiatus.

I think my problem is that HP has spoiled me with its richness in fanfiction - I do believe that a series of Novels like HP which have years between new additions lends to the atmosphere of long WIPs by the fan writers. Its hard to write a WIP if next week you get new info about your characters and extra story to have to rewrite and add in. So people tend to veer towards one shots and PWPs and the only longer stories are, by neccesity, AU.

Of course, when a new HP book is released, the canon shift is almost cataclysmic!

[harmony_bites]

I do believe that a series of Novels like HP which have years between new additions lends to the atmosphere of long WIPs by the fan writers. Its hard to write a WIP if next week you get new info about your characters and extra story to have to rewrite and add in. So people tend to veer towards one shots and PWPs and the only longer stories are, by neccesity, AU.

I've heard this theory before but not quite as strikingly put. I think you must be right. That maybe it *is* the long hiatus driving the WIPs and longer works. Even the longer stories in Trek, I think tend to be written in hiatus, after a season finale hits like a ton of bricks raising questions about what happens next but before the Fall Season hits. My friend's one novel in Buffy was written in the hiatus between Season Five and Six. Voyager's "Revisionist History" by Penny Proctor, a short novel was one of the "return fics" written in the hiatus before the last season.

I was also a member of The Sugarquill by at least a few months before then (even made it to professor) although I've been yanked from their list for being a bad girl.

Ah, I missed commenting on this part before. Bad girl? What did you do? Did they discover you read and wrote *gasp* SS/HG? *snicker*

Seriously, I did a little tour of archives creating a guide and poking at the submission rules and what I found striking in their and other "canon pairing" sites were rules against "ship killers"--stories that showed a pairing as not working or dysfunctional. I can't imagine that rule on a SS/HG site. Guess R/Hr and H/G people don't want to let in a little rain into their sunny day vision.