Happy Birthday Fer! I got you... em... an essay?
First of all: Happy Birthday fer1213
I hope you have a wonderful day with lots of hugs and cake!!!
Now I can’t write birthday fics at the drop of a hat (and why would I? Weird expression!), but I’ve been writing this essay for a while and I thought I’d post it today in your honour, since it’s about fanfic! Or more precisely about why people write fanfic in the first place - what is it about some shows/books/films that make people run to their keyboards, plot bunnies multiplying in their heads? I’m not saying that I know - I just came up with some ideas. I hope people find them interesting:
To start:
Some weeks ago now, my husband and I had a little discussion. I was reading someone's LJ and he said something about sad obsessives writing about Buffy. I answered that people had been analysing and writing about Shakespeare’s plays for centuries and no one took exception to that. To which he replied that they didn’t write b****y fanfiction about it! (pardon the swearing)
Which of course people don’t (I think? Is there a thriving ‘King Lear’ community out there?). But this made me wonder - why not? Why do some things (Buffy, Star Trek) inspire fanfic and others not at all?
So after a lot of thinking I’m going to write down what conclusions I came to.
(And I‘m excluding ‘FitB’s’ or ‘Missing Scenes’ from my definition of fanfic for the purposes of this essay, since the basic premise is different. I’ll deal with FitB’s separately at the end).
Also many, many thanks to lillianmorgan for the feedback and suggestions!
Essay: What entertainment genres inspire fanfiction and why
All shows - films, books, plays etc. need two things: A story and characters. Sometimes the story leads proceedings, sometimes the characters make the story.
Now I think that different genres tend to lean to either one or the other - and sometimes both. Let me try to show what I mean:
Theatre (and opera): Very much story driven. That’s not to say that plays can’t have exceptionally good characters - but the point of the show is the story. What matters is the particular journey the characters take. To pick an obvious example: ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The fact that their love is doomed is what makes it so compelling. If the families were best friends, and they got married and lived happily ever after, it might have been a nice romance, and they might still have been a sweet couple, but it would not have been captivating.
The story is the point of theatre.
Films: Now, here it gets more difficult. A lot of films lean toward the storytelling. Even when you get a whole series such as ‘The Godfather’: the point of that trilogy is to show how a young man loses all that is good and innocent and turns into a monster. And the fact that the characters are excellent, make the story better. But it is the story that’s important yet again. Even in films almost completely character-driven this applies. Take ‘Lost in Translation’: nothing really happens - it’s just two people thrown together by chance. But - I for one don’t want to know what happened after - that little segment we see is perfect and by adding anything you would take away from the completeness of the movie.
But - there are films that do not conform to this model. To take one of my favourites - 'The Pirates of the Caribbean': The story is good fun, but not really that important - it is easy to imagine different outcomes with out spoiling anything. Most big 'blockbusters' probably belong to this type. The spectacle is mostly what matters.
Books: Now books can be either/or - or both! There are books that are completely story-driven - those where you turn the pages desperate to know what happens next. There are those with amazingly intricate characters, where a conversation about muppets can be more exciting than sex. There are books - such as LotR - where a whole world is brought to life and you can delve into it as deep as you like. There are books where the writing is so beautiful, that you don’t care what it’s about, as long as the prose just keeps flowing.
And since fanfic is writing, books ought to be it’s natural home, but 'real' fanfic didn't happen until tv came along! But still - look at LotR and Harry Potter. The thing with these two books in particular is the attention to detail! We get so much information about supporting characters, about food and places and everyday life, that it’s very, very easy to get a full picture. Also they create new languages that you have to understand in order to fully participate. And of course these have both been turned into films - but films that work so much better if you know the books, because you understand so many things that there is no time to show. The main achievement of the films in fanfic terms is to give a coherent, shared visual for fans to draw upon.
Television: Now tv is nearly as adaptable as books I’d say - although since tv is dependent on many people working together, quality is not a given.
As the main inspiration for fanfic seems to come from long running TV-shows, that’s what I’ll concentrate on. Now tv-shows can be character or story-driven, but IMO for them to work as a base for fanfic, they need to be mainly character driven. There is only a limited number of stories to tell, but if your characters are good enough, you can take them on any journey you like. Let me explain:
What does all this character/story talk have to do with fanfic? Well, the main premise of fanfic is ‘what if...’. And my theory is that you need a character-driven story to enable this. Because fanfic is essentially using established characters and taking them somewhere different - somewhere other than or beyond where they originally went. And if the characters were only there to go on one journey - if their purpose was only to tell one story - then you can’t say ‘what if...?’ very easily. You could write a story where Hamlet's father wasn't murdered, but in doing so, you would rob the story of all it's power!
In my opinion, for the reasons above, I think that tv-shows are especially suited to fanfic - essentially that is what they are, if we substitute ‘writer’ for ‘fan’. And also because all viewers know what the characters look and sound like and what the surroundings are, it is easy to set a scene without overly long descriptions.
Now about characters and story... the more we know about a ‘verse and the characters within it, the better fanfic is possible. And - the wider the verse, the more possibilities for fanfic. I think it is no coincidence that the stories inspiring the most fanfic tend to be either sci-fi or fantasy. Since you can use the tools of either science or magic to achieve what would otherwise not be possible.
Also, the longer the tv-show runs (or the more books in a series) and the further the characters are taken, the deeper a knowledge we get and therefore fanfic can go more places. And I think it’s not surprising that Trekkies started fanfic - it was probably the first tv-show to have all these possibilities.
Although of course, nearly any character-driven show can inspire fanfic. Take f.ex. ‘Starsky & Hutch’, ‘Friends’ and ‘The West Wing’! The prime example of this is ‘The Simpsons’: We have a huge verse, populated with an awful lot of characters, and different episodes deal with different people and different situations rather than continuing storyarchs. What if Principal Skinner was an impostor? What if Milhouse’s parents got a divorce? And - as the ‘Treehouse of Horror’ are essentially AU - what if Maggie was an alien? What if everyone died and became zombies?
To touch upon another aspect, I’m going to quote J.R.R. Tolkien (this is from the foreword to LotR):
‘I cordially dislike allegory in all it’s manifestations, and have always done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect it’s presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with it’s varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of
the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.’
J.R.R.Tolkien
This is another distinction - if a story is an allegory it can not support fanfiction, because you can’t change it. Now Buffy was never an allegory. There were themes and messages - like female empowerment and High School being hell - but the show always told it’s own story and because of that it has become so much to so many. It is endlessly applicable to all sorts of situations - loss, depression, first love, growing apart, growing up... everyone watching can find something to relate to. And when ever ME went with an allegory (the best example being Willow’s magic-addiction) this sat very uncomfortably with the fans, because this was not something they were used to, and it seemed clumsy and preachy.
Finally getting to BtVS fanfiction, I think that the reason that fanfiction is so varied, is because the writers went to so many different places with the show and the characters. The characters were shown at their best and their worst:
We know that Buffy is capable of killing Angel, but not her sister (not until s7 anyway), we know that she shuts down emotionally when things get hard, we know that there is darkness in her, we know that she wants love, but is also scared of it. We know that Spike is capable of the greatest sacrifices, and that if pushed far enough (unsouled) he will snap. We also know that he can love selflessly, and that he can feel guilt and remorse even without a soul. We know that Angel can kill in cold blood if necessary and that he gives in to despair if he feels he has no purpose... to mention just a few examples. And however people might have disliked s6, it gave us insights into the characters that are extremely valuable, because we saw them at their worst and the better you know a character, the better you can write them.
So as writers we can take those characters and put them in any situation we want, and have a fairly good idea of how they will react. We know how far they will go, what will push them over the edge, who they would die for and who they would kill for. We know which characters spark when together, what interesting plots could be developed by changing just a small detail at any point - it’s almost like a box of LEGO where you have the same base components, but you can build something different every time. Because we know that Joss told his story, but we might like to tell another one. So, we’ll borrow his toys for a while to play with, since there is nothing as interesting as other people’s toys!
------
(About FitB’s: Because missing scenes can be slotted in anywhere, technically they could be used in any genre. My husband f.ex. when doing his English degree wrote a ‘missing scene’ from 'Romeo and Juliet' for an essay (he chose Juliet learning of Tybalt’s death from the POV of an old servant). This is why I didn’t include it in my definition of fanfic, although of course it’s such an important part!)
I hope that was not too long or peculiar Fer - I would like to give you something different, but this was all I had! ::hugs::
ETA: Have incorporated a point by azdak - thank you!
I hope you have a wonderful day with lots of hugs and cake!!!
Now I can’t write birthday fics at the drop of a hat (and why would I? Weird expression!), but I’ve been writing this essay for a while and I thought I’d post it today in your honour, since it’s about fanfic! Or more precisely about why people write fanfic in the first place - what is it about some shows/books/films that make people run to their keyboards, plot bunnies multiplying in their heads? I’m not saying that I know - I just came up with some ideas. I hope people find them interesting:
To start:
Some weeks ago now, my husband and I had a little discussion. I was reading someone's LJ and he said something about sad obsessives writing about Buffy. I answered that people had been analysing and writing about Shakespeare’s plays for centuries and no one took exception to that. To which he replied that they didn’t write b****y fanfiction about it! (pardon the swearing)
Which of course people don’t (I think? Is there a thriving ‘King Lear’ community out there?). But this made me wonder - why not? Why do some things (Buffy, Star Trek) inspire fanfic and others not at all?
So after a lot of thinking I’m going to write down what conclusions I came to.
(And I‘m excluding ‘FitB’s’ or ‘Missing Scenes’ from my definition of fanfic for the purposes of this essay, since the basic premise is different. I’ll deal with FitB’s separately at the end).
Also many, many thanks to lillianmorgan for the feedback and suggestions!
Essay: What entertainment genres inspire fanfiction and why
All shows - films, books, plays etc. need two things: A story and characters. Sometimes the story leads proceedings, sometimes the characters make the story.
Now I think that different genres tend to lean to either one or the other - and sometimes both. Let me try to show what I mean:
Theatre (and opera): Very much story driven. That’s not to say that plays can’t have exceptionally good characters - but the point of the show is the story. What matters is the particular journey the characters take. To pick an obvious example: ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The fact that their love is doomed is what makes it so compelling. If the families were best friends, and they got married and lived happily ever after, it might have been a nice romance, and they might still have been a sweet couple, but it would not have been captivating.
The story is the point of theatre.
Films: Now, here it gets more difficult. A lot of films lean toward the storytelling. Even when you get a whole series such as ‘The Godfather’: the point of that trilogy is to show how a young man loses all that is good and innocent and turns into a monster. And the fact that the characters are excellent, make the story better. But it is the story that’s important yet again. Even in films almost completely character-driven this applies. Take ‘Lost in Translation’: nothing really happens - it’s just two people thrown together by chance. But - I for one don’t want to know what happened after - that little segment we see is perfect and by adding anything you would take away from the completeness of the movie.
But - there are films that do not conform to this model. To take one of my favourites - 'The Pirates of the Caribbean': The story is good fun, but not really that important - it is easy to imagine different outcomes with out spoiling anything. Most big 'blockbusters' probably belong to this type. The spectacle is mostly what matters.
Books: Now books can be either/or - or both! There are books that are completely story-driven - those where you turn the pages desperate to know what happens next. There are those with amazingly intricate characters, where a conversation about muppets can be more exciting than sex. There are books - such as LotR - where a whole world is brought to life and you can delve into it as deep as you like. There are books where the writing is so beautiful, that you don’t care what it’s about, as long as the prose just keeps flowing.
And since fanfic is writing, books ought to be it’s natural home, but 'real' fanfic didn't happen until tv came along! But still - look at LotR and Harry Potter. The thing with these two books in particular is the attention to detail! We get so much information about supporting characters, about food and places and everyday life, that it’s very, very easy to get a full picture. Also they create new languages that you have to understand in order to fully participate. And of course these have both been turned into films - but films that work so much better if you know the books, because you understand so many things that there is no time to show. The main achievement of the films in fanfic terms is to give a coherent, shared visual for fans to draw upon.
Television: Now tv is nearly as adaptable as books I’d say - although since tv is dependent on many people working together, quality is not a given.
As the main inspiration for fanfic seems to come from long running TV-shows, that’s what I’ll concentrate on. Now tv-shows can be character or story-driven, but IMO for them to work as a base for fanfic, they need to be mainly character driven. There is only a limited number of stories to tell, but if your characters are good enough, you can take them on any journey you like. Let me explain:
What does all this character/story talk have to do with fanfic? Well, the main premise of fanfic is ‘what if...’. And my theory is that you need a character-driven story to enable this. Because fanfic is essentially using established characters and taking them somewhere different - somewhere other than or beyond where they originally went. And if the characters were only there to go on one journey - if their purpose was only to tell one story - then you can’t say ‘what if...?’ very easily. You could write a story where Hamlet's father wasn't murdered, but in doing so, you would rob the story of all it's power!
In my opinion, for the reasons above, I think that tv-shows are especially suited to fanfic - essentially that is what they are, if we substitute ‘writer’ for ‘fan’. And also because all viewers know what the characters look and sound like and what the surroundings are, it is easy to set a scene without overly long descriptions.
Now about characters and story... the more we know about a ‘verse and the characters within it, the better fanfic is possible. And - the wider the verse, the more possibilities for fanfic. I think it is no coincidence that the stories inspiring the most fanfic tend to be either sci-fi or fantasy. Since you can use the tools of either science or magic to achieve what would otherwise not be possible.
Also, the longer the tv-show runs (or the more books in a series) and the further the characters are taken, the deeper a knowledge we get and therefore fanfic can go more places. And I think it’s not surprising that Trekkies started fanfic - it was probably the first tv-show to have all these possibilities.
Although of course, nearly any character-driven show can inspire fanfic. Take f.ex. ‘Starsky & Hutch’, ‘Friends’ and ‘The West Wing’! The prime example of this is ‘The Simpsons’: We have a huge verse, populated with an awful lot of characters, and different episodes deal with different people and different situations rather than continuing storyarchs. What if Principal Skinner was an impostor? What if Milhouse’s parents got a divorce? And - as the ‘Treehouse of Horror’ are essentially AU - what if Maggie was an alien? What if everyone died and became zombies?
To touch upon another aspect, I’m going to quote J.R.R. Tolkien (this is from the foreword to LotR):
‘I cordially dislike allegory in all it’s manifestations, and have always done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect it’s presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with it’s varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of
the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.’
J.R.R.Tolkien
This is another distinction - if a story is an allegory it can not support fanfiction, because you can’t change it. Now Buffy was never an allegory. There were themes and messages - like female empowerment and High School being hell - but the show always told it’s own story and because of that it has become so much to so many. It is endlessly applicable to all sorts of situations - loss, depression, first love, growing apart, growing up... everyone watching can find something to relate to. And when ever ME went with an allegory (the best example being Willow’s magic-addiction) this sat very uncomfortably with the fans, because this was not something they were used to, and it seemed clumsy and preachy.
Finally getting to BtVS fanfiction, I think that the reason that fanfiction is so varied, is because the writers went to so many different places with the show and the characters. The characters were shown at their best and their worst:
We know that Buffy is capable of killing Angel, but not her sister (not until s7 anyway), we know that she shuts down emotionally when things get hard, we know that there is darkness in her, we know that she wants love, but is also scared of it. We know that Spike is capable of the greatest sacrifices, and that if pushed far enough (unsouled) he will snap. We also know that he can love selflessly, and that he can feel guilt and remorse even without a soul. We know that Angel can kill in cold blood if necessary and that he gives in to despair if he feels he has no purpose... to mention just a few examples. And however people might have disliked s6, it gave us insights into the characters that are extremely valuable, because we saw them at their worst and the better you know a character, the better you can write them.
So as writers we can take those characters and put them in any situation we want, and have a fairly good idea of how they will react. We know how far they will go, what will push them over the edge, who they would die for and who they would kill for. We know which characters spark when together, what interesting plots could be developed by changing just a small detail at any point - it’s almost like a box of LEGO where you have the same base components, but you can build something different every time. Because we know that Joss told his story, but we might like to tell another one. So, we’ll borrow his toys for a while to play with, since there is nothing as interesting as other people’s toys!
------
(About FitB’s: Because missing scenes can be slotted in anywhere, technically they could be used in any genre. My husband f.ex. when doing his English degree wrote a ‘missing scene’ from 'Romeo and Juliet' for an essay (he chose Juliet learning of Tybalt’s death from the POV of an old servant). This is why I didn’t include it in my definition of fanfic, although of course it’s such an important part!)
I hope that was not too long or peculiar Fer - I would like to give you something different, but this was all I had! ::hugs::
ETA: Have incorporated a point by azdak - thank you!