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

[a_blackpanther]

I think it has more to do with the ongoing format of tv shows (and movies, with their sequels & prequels). But arguably, TV shows have the most fanfic. It's easier to take tv characters and make them go somewhere else, explore things the cannon doesn't.

Books are standalone stories, sometime spanning long periods of time - even lifetimes. The characters grow and develop, and reach their end there. There is no need for expansion.

[suryaofvulcan]

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?

I don’t think it’s fundamentally different, because usually we’re writing about what the characters are doing and feeling, not what they look like.

Is anything lost in translation when we try to describe in writing how someone sounds, their physical charactersitics and so on, or is this part of the appeal?It depends entirely on the skill of the writer. And for visual media, we don’t really need to describe the characters very often - fandom knows what they look like. So only characteristic mannerisms or expressions need to be described, and even then, not in detail. It’s actually a useful shorthand. Accents and speech patterns are more problematic. There’s a fine line between giving a flavour of an accent in written dialogue and overdoing it

[thelauderdale]

I think it is, in part, the communal aspect. There are more books, reading is a more solitary experience, and each person is often reading a different book. More people watch television and more people watch the same television program or movie: this means that more people write fiction based on a given show or movie, ergo it becomes more tempting to write about and display knowing others will see it.

As opposed to, say, if I wrote fanfiction about the book The Mouse and His Child. There are other reasons that would fail too, but I would also have to understand that there are a smaller number of readers who would know the source material.

Written works like, say, Harry Potter> or LOTR have infinitely huger reader bases, putting them on par with or surpassing many films and television shows - but note too that these books have film products associated with them, increasing their popularity and the likelihood of writing about them.

[deird1]

For me I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it is a different medium.

If I was writing Harry Potter fic, I'd really want my narrative style to sound like Rowling's - because otherwise, it wouldn't sound right. Just like if I was trying to make a Buffy fanvid using my friends as actors

[eowyn_315]

I totally agree! In fact, the issue of narrative style is one of the things that keeps me from even reading novel-based fanfic, let alone writing it. It's a lot harder to mimic the tone of a novel than it is to capture the feel of a TV show, and 99% of the time, it's not going to sound right. Maybe there are some brilliant writers out there who can perfectly mimic an author, but it's rare, and reading fanfic of a novel that doesn't sound like the novel will totally throw me out of the story.

I hadn't thought much about your other reasons, but they make a lot of sense as well.

[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