Chapter 3: Fan Fiction: a Prolific Practice
Chapter 3: Fan Fiction: a Prolific Practice
One of the areas of fan cultures which Jenkins (1992, 2006a) focused on in his work is the practice of writing and reading of fan fiction, with a specific interest in the fiction produced within, possibly the very first, participatory fan culture of Star Trek; ‘Many have traced the emergence of an organized media fan culture to late 1960s efforts to pressure NBC into returning Star Trek to the air […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:28) Many of the codes and conventions which inform and regulate the practice of fan writing are still abided by within multiple fan cultures today; the Supernatural fan culture is just one of them. However, in line with the technological advancements of the internet the ways in which fans produce, distribute and consume fan fiction has evolved and are now often core to the "knowledge communities" which Levy (1997) saw as the culmination of "collective intelligence".
Over the twenty years since Star Trek was first aired, fan writing has achieved semi-institutional status. Fan magazines, sometimes hand-typed, photocopied, and stapled, other times offset printed and commercially bound, are distributed through the mail and sold at conventions, frequently reaching international readership [...] (Jenkins, 2006a:42)
As Jenkins’ (1992, 2006a) work details, much of the early fan fiction was paper based and distributed from fan to fan via fanzines dedicated to a particular media text, a genre or even an index of other fanzines; ‘A typical issue lists some 258 different current publications (with a number of them having published 30 issues or more) and another 113 publications in planning stages.’ (Jenkins, 1992:156) These numbers show the popularity of fan participation within the vein of fan writing was constantly increasing to meet the demands for more zines.
Today, fan fiction is almost entirely written and exhibited digitally; posted on dedicated websites to fan fiction (www.fanfiction.net) or a particular text and to specific communities on the site LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) and the prolific nature of fan writing hasn’t slowed.
A Community of Readers and Writers
The site FanFiction.net caters to a broad range of interests such as Books, Movies, and TV Shows. There appears to be fan fiction written about any media text appealing to numerous fan cultures, including an index of crossover stories between texts - all a fan has to do is select the parameters of their search and the hundreds if not thousands of stories which match are a click away. ‘Members of the fan fiction community are able to read each other’s stories, write reviews of each other’s stories and seek assistance with aspects of their writing […]’ (Thomas, 2006:228) - An important element of the fandom is the mutual appreciation and support of all fan participation; ‘Readers and writers depend upon each other for the perpetuation of the fandom […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:160), sites such as FanFiction.net encourage this with the review section for each chapter or a story much like the ‘"Letters of Comment"’ (Jenkins, 1992:163) which appeared in the zines for the original fan cultures.
In the context of Supernatural and its fan culture it is interesting to note that it now has the most stories posted to FanFiction.net within the TV Show section - 47,653 (as of 22/4/11) in total, the second being one of the show’s predecessors in the fantasy genre; Buffy with 41,617. The number of Supernatural themed stories continues to climb, but as stated previously, this is not the only online location that fans can post their work to.
LiveJournal, while at its core is designed for individuals to post personal journal entries, now contains a large number of user journals which are used for the specific purpose of posting and sharing fan fiction, alongside the user moderated communities dedicated to specific shows, actors or pairings (two romantically involved characters, in canon and/or by fandom). These fan maintained journals and communities are evidence of Levy’s (1997) vision that;
‘The distinctions between authors and readers, producers and spectators, creators and interpreters will blend to form a reading-writing continuum, which will extend from machine and network designers to the ultimate recipient, each helping to sustain the activity of others (dissolution of the signature)’ (Levy, 1997:121)
The communities bring the readers and writers together; much like the review section of FanFiction.net, but to a further degree as they are able to converse easily in the comments for the entries or even send private messages to discuss a posted story or one which is in progress - providing positive commentary alongside critical advice. In addition to this, the specificity of focus of the communities makes the process of finding fan fiction which is to the readers’ tastes or matches the topic of the writers work considerably easier. In the context of Supernatural there are numerous dedicated communities; to the show in general, fan meet ups, canon based fiction, fan fiction recommendations and specific pairings, both heterosexual and "slash", which will be discussed later in the chapter.
Returning to the questionnaire mentioned in the previous chapter, a section of which was dedicated to the practice of reading and writing of fan fiction, only two of the participants were non-readers of fan fiction for two different reasons;
Participant 10: Basically, if you didn’t create the characters DON’T WRITE ABOUT THEM! IT USUALLY SUCKS!
Participant 8: I’m so entrenched with fan fiction for another fandom that it seems strange to read others! […] I don’t like to stray far from canon. I don’t like getting official mythology mixed up with things I’ve read online
Participant one’s reason has often been a stigma of fan fiction, whether it is the poor quality of the writing or it demonstrated one of the ways in which fans rewrite the original text, ‘Personalization’ as listed by Jenkins (1992), by including a "Mary Sue" character - ‘"Mary Sue" stories, which fit idealized images of the writers as young, pretty, intelligent recruits aboard the Enterprise, the TARDIS […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:171) These types of stories are often heavily criticized ‘because of their self-indulgence, their often hackneyed writing skills, their formulaic plots, and their violations of the established characterizations.’ (Jenkins, 2006a:51) A standard of quality and conforming to established rules appear to be a requirement to writing good fan fiction in any fandom, the inclusion of an original character is a gamble as they ‘are often scrutinized for any signs of autobiographical intent’ (Jenkins, 1992:173) Within Supernatural fan fiction this is even more of a gamble as the core characters are all male and the majority of female characters who appear are often enemies, potential love interests for a single episode or allies which do not fit within the love interest category. One solution to this is to write within the sub-genre of slash.
"Slashing up" the original text
‘The colourful term, "slash," refers to the convention of employing a stroke or "slash" to signify a same-sex relationship between two characters (Kirk/Spock or K/S) and specifics a genre of fan stories positing homoerotic affairs between series protagonists.’ (Jenkins, 1992:186)
Slash, much like fan fiction as a whole, can be traced back to the fan writing for Star Trek (NBC, 1966-1969) and the pairing of Spock and Kirk ‘as writers began to suggest, however timidly, that Kirk and Spock cared more deeply for each other than for any of the many female secondary characters […]’ however, it ‘was initially met with considerable resistance from fans who felt such writing was an improper use of program materials and violated the original characterizations (Jenkins, 1988).’ (Jenkins, 1992:187) Despite this, slash is still a constant within fan fiction, Supernatural fandom proves this and evidences that in some fan cultures, it is the dominant type of fiction - as seen in the data collated by the fan missyjack at her LiveJournal, detailing what was being written within the fandom from the shows premiere until August 2009. In the cumulative data, 58% is slash; 36% involving two male characters, 1% femme slash, 19% real person fiction (RPF) involving the two lead actors and the remaining 1% RPF with other pairings of same sex actors. A percentage of the Gen fiction written in this period may also have been considered slash, but Gen fiction is typically stories which do not focus on the romantic or sexual relationships and because of this missyjack has not included them within the slash percentage. Interestingly, the data does not include PWP - an acronym of the phrase "Plot, What Plot?" which refers to stories that are sexually explicit, with little to no actual plot - despite this being a popular area of slash.
The popularity of this sub-genre is seemingly backed up within the questionnaire results as seven of the participants have read slash fiction, five of which are regular readers; it is in fact the majority if not the only form of Supernatural fan writing which they read. When asked what it is they liked about slash, one reason was the apparent subtext already found within the canon narrative;
Participant 1: […] it enables us (readers and writers alike) to explore relationships that will never be explored fully on the show. It’s fun to play with the subtext and make it text.
Participant 2: […] in Supernatural we’re lucky that the writers are very much aware of the Slashers and definitely put the subtext in for us.
This awareness of "slashers" and the subtext provided by the writers will be discussed in Chapter 4, but it is interesting to note that Supernatural slash and the subtext the participants commented on is very similar to how fans of The Professionals (ITV, 1977-1981) found inspiration for slash;
‘If an actor, or a pair of them, are busy projecting rampant sexuality, the fan mindset is to look within the program for the object. [...] two men projecting subliminal sex appeal for all they’re worth, and nobody else on screen with any regularity. Certainly, no female characters.’ (Jenkins, 2006:69)
This could easily be applied to Supernatural and the two pairings of fictional characters within the slash sub-genre; Dean and Sam (referred to as "Wincest" - a portmanteau of the brothers surname Winchester and incest) and Dean and Castiel (typically referred to as "Destiel") While they are not the only pairings, they are common, the latter of the two a popular choice amongst the participants;
Participant 4: Cas/Dean - I like how this pairing explores the vulnerability of Dean who is otherwise filled with bravado.
Participant 2: My OTP is definitely Dean/Cas. I love their subtext.
Participant 1: Dean/Castiel - This is the pairing that sucked me into Supernatural fandom in the first place.
Despite this pairing being a new addition to the realm of Supernatural slash it has caught the imagination of numerous readers and writers - there is now a dedicated community for the pairing on LiveJournal, fittingly named "Groped by an Angel" - it is within these communities and more specifically the SupernaturalWiki that Levy’s "cosmopedia" (1997) has been realized; ‘[…] the cosmopedia combines a large number of different types of expression: static images, video, sound, interactive simulation, interactive maps, expert systems [...]’ (Levy, 1997:216) The SupernaturalWiki fulfils this with its range of information relating to both canon and fandom it makes ‘available to the collective intellect all of the pertinent knowledge available to it at a given moment,’ and is ‘the mediating fabric between the collective intellect and its world, between the collective intellect and itself.’ (Levy, 1997:217) While SupernaturalWiki is not the only example of a cosmopedia - Harry Potter fans will find up-to-date information at The Leaky Cauldron (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/) and Doctor Who fans both new and old have WhoFix (http://www.whofix.net/) - These online encyclopaedias are not dissimilar to the Zines which Jenkins (1992, 2006a) discussed but are a more easily accessed and stream-lined way of collating all knowledge relating to and created by the "collective intelligence" of the fan culture.
Another element of Levy’s (1997) "knowledge community" which is a common part of fan cultures is demonstrated in Participant 2’s comment about their "OTP"; which is an acronym for One True Pairing, a term applied to a preferred pairing of characters. It evidences ‘participation in the continuous invention of the language’ which are ‘signs of a community.’ (Levy, 1997:124) This construction come invention of a fan culture specific language is depicted in the creation of abbreviated terms, acronyms, and portmanteaus ("Wincest" and "Destiel") which relate to one fandom and the general terms used within the practice of fan writing across fandoms; labelling of genre and disclaimers of content. Both readers and writers are required to learn and then proficiently "speak" this language in order to participate in fan fiction properly - the cosmopedia is one of the tools available to achieve this, with its constantly updated entries relating to fan fiction.
One final intriguing fact about the slash fiction of the Supernatural fan culture is the popularity of RPF, as noted in the data provided by missyjack one of the popular forms involves the lead actors being in a romantic relationship. This pairing is an option for fans that may have issues with "Wincest";
Participant 2: I have a definite personal squick with incest, so I just can’t go there with Wincest [...]
Participant 1: I don’t read anything that has Sam/Dean as a pairing simply because I don’t see them as having that sort of relationship[...]
What is unique about the prevalence of RPF within Supernatural fan fiction is that ‘fandom has long maintained an ethical norm against producing erotica about real people rather than fictional characters.’ (Jenkins, 2006a:142) Despite this, it has been produced since the premiere season of Supernatural and continues to; four of the participants have read RPS, one of which reads only RPF, evidencing that it has a readership to cater to. Furthermore, the participants explain why RPF is not so dissimilar to traditional slash;
Participant 6: It’s fiction with real names. Nothing to do with them.
Participant 3: Personally, RPS is about a fictional side of the actors, and shouldn’t necessarily be read as being about the actual actors themselves.
Participant 1: [...] it’s not really the actors being written about here, it’s a fan version of them.
These rational explanations seem to void the assumption that it is ‘newer online fans who have asserted their rights to redefine fandom on their own terms’ (Jenkins, 2006a:142) that have brought RPS into the fan culture, at least in the case of the fans of Supernatural.
< Masterpost | Chapter 1: Introduction | Chapter 2: Asylum 5 a Fan Convention | Chapter 3: Fan Fiction: a Prolific Practice | Chapter 4: Postmodernism and Catering to the Fans | Chapter 5: New and Evolving Forms of Interaction | Chapter 6: Conclusion: Supernatural fan culture ahead of the game? | Filmography and Bibliography | Acknowledgments
One of the areas of fan cultures which Jenkins (1992, 2006a) focused on in his work is the practice of writing and reading of fan fiction, with a specific interest in the fiction produced within, possibly the very first, participatory fan culture of Star Trek; ‘Many have traced the emergence of an organized media fan culture to late 1960s efforts to pressure NBC into returning Star Trek to the air […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:28) Many of the codes and conventions which inform and regulate the practice of fan writing are still abided by within multiple fan cultures today; the Supernatural fan culture is just one of them. However, in line with the technological advancements of the internet the ways in which fans produce, distribute and consume fan fiction has evolved and are now often core to the "knowledge communities" which Levy (1997) saw as the culmination of "collective intelligence".
Over the twenty years since Star Trek was first aired, fan writing has achieved semi-institutional status. Fan magazines, sometimes hand-typed, photocopied, and stapled, other times offset printed and commercially bound, are distributed through the mail and sold at conventions, frequently reaching international readership [...] (Jenkins, 2006a:42)
As Jenkins’ (1992, 2006a) work details, much of the early fan fiction was paper based and distributed from fan to fan via fanzines dedicated to a particular media text, a genre or even an index of other fanzines; ‘A typical issue lists some 258 different current publications (with a number of them having published 30 issues or more) and another 113 publications in planning stages.’ (Jenkins, 1992:156) These numbers show the popularity of fan participation within the vein of fan writing was constantly increasing to meet the demands for more zines.
Today, fan fiction is almost entirely written and exhibited digitally; posted on dedicated websites to fan fiction (www.fanfiction.net) or a particular text and to specific communities on the site LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) and the prolific nature of fan writing hasn’t slowed.
A Community of Readers and Writers
The site FanFiction.net caters to a broad range of interests such as Books, Movies, and TV Shows. There appears to be fan fiction written about any media text appealing to numerous fan cultures, including an index of crossover stories between texts - all a fan has to do is select the parameters of their search and the hundreds if not thousands of stories which match are a click away. ‘Members of the fan fiction community are able to read each other’s stories, write reviews of each other’s stories and seek assistance with aspects of their writing […]’ (Thomas, 2006:228) - An important element of the fandom is the mutual appreciation and support of all fan participation; ‘Readers and writers depend upon each other for the perpetuation of the fandom […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:160), sites such as FanFiction.net encourage this with the review section for each chapter or a story much like the ‘"Letters of Comment"’ (Jenkins, 1992:163) which appeared in the zines for the original fan cultures.
In the context of Supernatural and its fan culture it is interesting to note that it now has the most stories posted to FanFiction.net within the TV Show section - 47,653 (as of 22/4/11) in total, the second being one of the show’s predecessors in the fantasy genre; Buffy with 41,617. The number of Supernatural themed stories continues to climb, but as stated previously, this is not the only online location that fans can post their work to.
LiveJournal, while at its core is designed for individuals to post personal journal entries, now contains a large number of user journals which are used for the specific purpose of posting and sharing fan fiction, alongside the user moderated communities dedicated to specific shows, actors or pairings (two romantically involved characters, in canon and/or by fandom). These fan maintained journals and communities are evidence of Levy’s (1997) vision that;
‘The distinctions between authors and readers, producers and spectators, creators and interpreters will blend to form a reading-writing continuum, which will extend from machine and network designers to the ultimate recipient, each helping to sustain the activity of others (dissolution of the signature)’ (Levy, 1997:121)
The communities bring the readers and writers together; much like the review section of FanFiction.net, but to a further degree as they are able to converse easily in the comments for the entries or even send private messages to discuss a posted story or one which is in progress - providing positive commentary alongside critical advice. In addition to this, the specificity of focus of the communities makes the process of finding fan fiction which is to the readers’ tastes or matches the topic of the writers work considerably easier. In the context of Supernatural there are numerous dedicated communities; to the show in general, fan meet ups, canon based fiction, fan fiction recommendations and specific pairings, both heterosexual and "slash", which will be discussed later in the chapter.
Returning to the questionnaire mentioned in the previous chapter, a section of which was dedicated to the practice of reading and writing of fan fiction, only two of the participants were non-readers of fan fiction for two different reasons;
Participant 10: Basically, if you didn’t create the characters DON’T WRITE ABOUT THEM! IT USUALLY SUCKS!
Participant 8: I’m so entrenched with fan fiction for another fandom that it seems strange to read others! […] I don’t like to stray far from canon. I don’t like getting official mythology mixed up with things I’ve read online
Participant one’s reason has often been a stigma of fan fiction, whether it is the poor quality of the writing or it demonstrated one of the ways in which fans rewrite the original text, ‘Personalization’ as listed by Jenkins (1992), by including a "Mary Sue" character - ‘"Mary Sue" stories, which fit idealized images of the writers as young, pretty, intelligent recruits aboard the Enterprise, the TARDIS […]’ (Jenkins, 1992:171) These types of stories are often heavily criticized ‘because of their self-indulgence, their often hackneyed writing skills, their formulaic plots, and their violations of the established characterizations.’ (Jenkins, 2006a:51) A standard of quality and conforming to established rules appear to be a requirement to writing good fan fiction in any fandom, the inclusion of an original character is a gamble as they ‘are often scrutinized for any signs of autobiographical intent’ (Jenkins, 1992:173) Within Supernatural fan fiction this is even more of a gamble as the core characters are all male and the majority of female characters who appear are often enemies, potential love interests for a single episode or allies which do not fit within the love interest category. One solution to this is to write within the sub-genre of slash.
"Slashing up" the original text
‘The colourful term, "slash," refers to the convention of employing a stroke or "slash" to signify a same-sex relationship between two characters (Kirk/Spock or K/S) and specifics a genre of fan stories positing homoerotic affairs between series protagonists.’ (Jenkins, 1992:186)
Slash, much like fan fiction as a whole, can be traced back to the fan writing for Star Trek (NBC, 1966-1969) and the pairing of Spock and Kirk ‘as writers began to suggest, however timidly, that Kirk and Spock cared more deeply for each other than for any of the many female secondary characters […]’ however, it ‘was initially met with considerable resistance from fans who felt such writing was an improper use of program materials and violated the original characterizations (Jenkins, 1988).’ (Jenkins, 1992:187) Despite this, slash is still a constant within fan fiction, Supernatural fandom proves this and evidences that in some fan cultures, it is the dominant type of fiction - as seen in the data collated by the fan missyjack at her LiveJournal, detailing what was being written within the fandom from the shows premiere until August 2009. In the cumulative data, 58% is slash; 36% involving two male characters, 1% femme slash, 19% real person fiction (RPF) involving the two lead actors and the remaining 1% RPF with other pairings of same sex actors. A percentage of the Gen fiction written in this period may also have been considered slash, but Gen fiction is typically stories which do not focus on the romantic or sexual relationships and because of this missyjack has not included them within the slash percentage. Interestingly, the data does not include PWP - an acronym of the phrase "Plot, What Plot?" which refers to stories that are sexually explicit, with little to no actual plot - despite this being a popular area of slash.
The popularity of this sub-genre is seemingly backed up within the questionnaire results as seven of the participants have read slash fiction, five of which are regular readers; it is in fact the majority if not the only form of Supernatural fan writing which they read. When asked what it is they liked about slash, one reason was the apparent subtext already found within the canon narrative;
Participant 1: […] it enables us (readers and writers alike) to explore relationships that will never be explored fully on the show. It’s fun to play with the subtext and make it text.
Participant 2: […] in Supernatural we’re lucky that the writers are very much aware of the Slashers and definitely put the subtext in for us.
This awareness of "slashers" and the subtext provided by the writers will be discussed in Chapter 4, but it is interesting to note that Supernatural slash and the subtext the participants commented on is very similar to how fans of The Professionals (ITV, 1977-1981) found inspiration for slash;
‘If an actor, or a pair of them, are busy projecting rampant sexuality, the fan mindset is to look within the program for the object. [...] two men projecting subliminal sex appeal for all they’re worth, and nobody else on screen with any regularity. Certainly, no female characters.’ (Jenkins, 2006:69)
This could easily be applied to Supernatural and the two pairings of fictional characters within the slash sub-genre; Dean and Sam (referred to as "Wincest" - a portmanteau of the brothers surname Winchester and incest) and Dean and Castiel (typically referred to as "Destiel") While they are not the only pairings, they are common, the latter of the two a popular choice amongst the participants;
Participant 4: Cas/Dean - I like how this pairing explores the vulnerability of Dean who is otherwise filled with bravado.
Participant 2: My OTP is definitely Dean/Cas. I love their subtext.
Participant 1: Dean/Castiel - This is the pairing that sucked me into Supernatural fandom in the first place.
Despite this pairing being a new addition to the realm of Supernatural slash it has caught the imagination of numerous readers and writers - there is now a dedicated community for the pairing on LiveJournal, fittingly named "Groped by an Angel" - it is within these communities and more specifically the SupernaturalWiki that Levy’s "cosmopedia" (1997) has been realized; ‘[…] the cosmopedia combines a large number of different types of expression: static images, video, sound, interactive simulation, interactive maps, expert systems [...]’ (Levy, 1997:216) The SupernaturalWiki fulfils this with its range of information relating to both canon and fandom it makes ‘available to the collective intellect all of the pertinent knowledge available to it at a given moment,’ and is ‘the mediating fabric between the collective intellect and its world, between the collective intellect and itself.’ (Levy, 1997:217) While SupernaturalWiki is not the only example of a cosmopedia - Harry Potter fans will find up-to-date information at The Leaky Cauldron (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/) and Doctor Who fans both new and old have WhoFix (http://www.whofix.net/) - These online encyclopaedias are not dissimilar to the Zines which Jenkins (1992, 2006a) discussed but are a more easily accessed and stream-lined way of collating all knowledge relating to and created by the "collective intelligence" of the fan culture.
Another element of Levy’s (1997) "knowledge community" which is a common part of fan cultures is demonstrated in Participant 2’s comment about their "OTP"; which is an acronym for One True Pairing, a term applied to a preferred pairing of characters. It evidences ‘participation in the continuous invention of the language’ which are ‘signs of a community.’ (Levy, 1997:124) This construction come invention of a fan culture specific language is depicted in the creation of abbreviated terms, acronyms, and portmanteaus ("Wincest" and "Destiel") which relate to one fandom and the general terms used within the practice of fan writing across fandoms; labelling of genre and disclaimers of content. Both readers and writers are required to learn and then proficiently "speak" this language in order to participate in fan fiction properly - the cosmopedia is one of the tools available to achieve this, with its constantly updated entries relating to fan fiction.
One final intriguing fact about the slash fiction of the Supernatural fan culture is the popularity of RPF, as noted in the data provided by missyjack one of the popular forms involves the lead actors being in a romantic relationship. This pairing is an option for fans that may have issues with "Wincest";
Participant 2: I have a definite personal squick with incest, so I just can’t go there with Wincest [...]
Participant 1: I don’t read anything that has Sam/Dean as a pairing simply because I don’t see them as having that sort of relationship[...]
What is unique about the prevalence of RPF within Supernatural fan fiction is that ‘fandom has long maintained an ethical norm against producing erotica about real people rather than fictional characters.’ (Jenkins, 2006a:142) Despite this, it has been produced since the premiere season of Supernatural and continues to; four of the participants have read RPS, one of which reads only RPF, evidencing that it has a readership to cater to. Furthermore, the participants explain why RPF is not so dissimilar to traditional slash;
Participant 6: It’s fiction with real names. Nothing to do with them.
Participant 3: Personally, RPS is about a fictional side of the actors, and shouldn’t necessarily be read as being about the actual actors themselves.
Participant 1: [...] it’s not really the actors being written about here, it’s a fan version of them.
These rational explanations seem to void the assumption that it is ‘newer online fans who have asserted their rights to redefine fandom on their own terms’ (Jenkins, 2006a:142) that have brought RPS into the fan culture, at least in the case of the fans of Supernatural.
< Masterpost | Chapter 1: Introduction | Chapter 2: Asylum 5 a Fan Convention | Chapter 3: Fan Fiction: a Prolific Practice | Chapter 4: Postmodernism and Catering to the Fans | Chapter 5: New and Evolving Forms of Interaction | Chapter 6: Conclusion: Supernatural fan culture ahead of the game? | Filmography and Bibliography | Acknowledgments