The Death of the Author: Fan Fiction and the Creative Process

[memories_child]

As I said in a previous post, I've finally finished my first MA essay, looking at fan fiction and the creative process. It's shorter than I'd have liked as I had to cut a few hundred words, but I had some good feedback off my lecturer after he read an earlier draft, and overall I'm pleased with it

Comments

[memories_child]

Thank you, I’m really glad that you liked it, and thought it was well written. I wanted to keep it simple because my lecturers know very little about fanfic and I didn’t want to overload them.

Actually, I think a good writer can convince me that their characterizations are sound

Yeah talking about remaining ‘in character’ is a tough one, partly because it’s so subjective, like you say. I wanted to get across the idea that characterization is important because they have to be recognizably Mulder and Scully, otherwise I could just be writing original fiction using their names. There are some stories where I can recognise Mulder and Scully, even though they’re placed in a totally different context, because the reader makes me believe that it’s them. Then there are others where I can’t believe it’s them, even if they’re investigating a casefile, because the writer hasn’t convinced me enough. Talking about characterization was definitely an important part of the essay, because the point of fanfic, in some ways at least, is to persuade the reader that you are writing about the Mulder and Scully they know, or at least recognise. I didn’t want to talk about my original fiction because that would make me sound like a pretentious writer, and I really don’t want to do that. Talking about fanfic at least I could delve into some of the academic theories, and talk about ideas of authorship. It’s a shame I couldn’t have written a longer essay because I’ve have loved to get into ideas of character and perception.

That sounds good in theory. But how then do you explain the popularity of mediocre or even bad writers?

Theory was definitely what I was going for here. bravenewcentury made the same points as you when she took a look at the first draft for me, and while I agree totally with what you both said, there was no way I was going to be able to explain the peculiarities of fic readers’ feedback mechanisms in this essay *g* I figured, for this at least, it would be more straightforward to assume that most readers are discerning, and will avoid bad fic and leave comments for good fic. Thankfully, my lecturers will know no better! This is an area I find interesting as well though, and I definitely agree with you on the social-networking aspect of fic reading/writing. I find I don’t write in the genres that necessarily get more feedback, and I personally wouldn’t switch my writing style in order to become more popular (come on - I write about Fowley and I killed off Mulder!) so I don’t understand that aspect of it. Not that I’m saying I don’t agree with you - I think it’s definitely very plausible that people will write the stories where they’re likely to get more feedback. I think, in some ways, I might be lucky in that I haven’t seen many people do that. Most people on my friends list seem to be individual enough to write what they want (though wanting to write more of a certain kind of story in order to get feedback certainly would affect the creative process. Hmm, that’s got me thinking of another mini-essay I could write. Damnit!).

Yes, exactly. I see fan fiction as an opportunity for writers to correct some of the things that I disliked about the series

Definitely! Some of the writing I loved but some of it (Diana, the William storyline…) really could have been so much better. That’s what I tend to seek out in fanfic as well, because there are a lot of fanfic writers who can deal with those storylines and do it in a much better way. And Scully did have a lot of awful things done to her (another thing to look at in my PhD *g*).

The only editorial comment I have to offer is that in the body of the essay you use both "fanfiction" and "fan fiction." I would pick one or the other and stick with it, probably "fan fiction," since it just made Merriam-Webster. I also saw a misplaced comma but now I can't find it.

Oh thanks! I hadn’t even realised that I’d used both fanfiction and fan fiction. Oops. It’s too late to change it now as I’m on the train heading to uni to hand it in, but never mind. Hopefully whoever’s marking it won’t think it’s a big deal. If you find that comma, let me know.

And thank you so much for the feedback and comments =)