woe is me, the world at large thinks fanfic is stupid.
Let's make another public post!
Sometimes I wish I had a real hobby.
Well ok, that's not true, I do have real hobbies. I like cooking, and occasionally I play music for fun by myself, and I do really, really, really like to play The Sims. But here's the thing. I really only do all that in between real life and fanfic. When I read, I usually choose to read fanfic over published works (which is a gamble, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not). When I write, well, I also prefer to write fanfic. There are several reasons for this. The main reason is that I don't ever intend to make money from writing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it. I write a lot of things that no one ever reads and I write them for myself. I mean, there's always disappointment if you slave over a fic and don't get a lot of feedback, but really that's not why I write. But the thing is, I don't want to write a novel. It just feels like something I'd do and then I'd put it on the shelf and I'd never ever bother to do much more with it. And I don't really want to earn money from writing because I love it and making it work would ruin it. Plus, while I do often work well under pressure, deadlines scare the crap out of me creatively. (What? My muse has a habit of eloping with the dancers.)
So, fanfiction is hobby. Yes. Hi, I'm Paula and I'm a fic-a-holic. I like fanmixes too! And squeeing about spoilers. And analysing the crap out of tiny little details in TV shows that are most likely Not Symbolic, but I choose to believe they are. I love fandom. I love it to tiny little bits.
But here's the thing: you can't say that that's your hobby. No one is ever going write "fanfiction" on their resume underneath that heading. No one is ever going to answer "what are you doing on the weekend?" with the honest-to-God truth ("writing an space cowboy AU set in the Firefly verse using Castle and Beckett"* or "writing a nuanaced, thoughtful coming out story for Britney and Santana"**). And most of all, no one wants to tell their parents what they're actually doing all day on the Internet.
Fanfic is kind of shameful.
There's a huge misconception about what it entails in the wider community. Like, if you write fanfic you must be sitting at home finding ways to make the male characters from your favourite novel/TV show/band/anime/comic book gay. Ok, yes, a lot of people like slash, but it's NOT the only thing fans write about. I, for one, don't love m/m slash - I mean, sometimes I love a pairing, but explicit m/m sex is not something that turns me on. I rarely write it. I rarely read it, and if I do, I definitely prefer more intellectual, thought-out fics to PWP. (Side note: Not that there's anything wrong with m/m slash, if you love it, more power to you, but I don't.) Honestly? I pretty much exclusively write het, because I mostly love het pairings. I usually read f/f or f/m pairings, and I read a wide variety of ratings. I mean yes, I read porny, kinky fic. But I also read totally vanilla, gen fic. I AM A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL FAN DAMNIT, stop stereotyping me. I have LAYERS.
The second one I hate is that if you write fanfic, you're a bad writer. Look, we're not all at a professional standard. Not everything anyone writes is going to be of a publishable standard (although... lol, Twilight). We write for fun, not for profit. We also don't have the benefit of extensive editorial work - sure, many of us use a beta, but we do it in our spare time (cough, or when we should be working, cough) and our betas do it out of love. We're also publishing on the internet, so we're not too worried about extensive re-writes and re-workings of things that don't quite work. That aside, some of us aren't bad writers. Some of us read a fucking Dan Brown book and wonder why the hell we don't change the names in some of our novel length fanfics, add some exposition-y scenes and publish the fucker. Some of us are incredibly talented and some of us have slaved over our fanfic, plotted, re-plotted, drafted, re-drafted. I have read fanfics that put published authors to shame. I have read fanfics that brought tears to my eyes. I have read fanfics that have left me with goosebumps. We're a mixed bunch.
And, lastly, if you write fanfic it's because you can't come up with your own characters. Look, I've started many a novel in my day, but for the most part, I feel pretty directionless when I'm writing about original characters. I think it's because my preferred narrative medium is television. I think I could legitimately connect and love and want to tell the stories of my own original television characters. But the thing is, I don't have a production team at my disposal and frankly, I'm too lazy to go to school to learn about screenwriting and bust my ass to break into a business that's fairly impossible to get a leg up in. Even if I did invent my own original characters, see above re: no desire to publish, who would read about them? My family and friends, for sure, but honestly? I don't see why they can't read my fanfic. It's just as good as anything original I could come up with.
So here it is world: I write, read and love fanfic. It's fucking awesome. It's a legitimate hobby. So next time you ask me what I did over Christmas? I'm going to tell you the truth. I wrote a butt-load of yuletide fic, and yes, some of it was porny as all hell and some of it was about lesbians, but you know what? I love those things, so shut up. I'm not the best writer in the world, but I love the characters I write about and I tell their stories because they resonate with me. And because a TV show or a book or a comic or even real life can't tell all the stories that are possible. No one can. Opening up a work to re-interpretation enriches the depth and quality of the characters, of the canon. Fanfic lets every single movie be Sliding Doors, it allows every book have an epilogue and every cancelled TV show get a movie spin off.
People are strange in lots of ways. They collect stamps. They paint vaginas. They hunt for UFOs and chase tornados. They like to write smut about the pretty people that grace their televisions every week.
I really don't see why my hobby is so much weirder than any other.
Maybe it's the passion behind it. Because while there aren't many generalisations about fandom that I feel are accurate, there is this one: we are passionate about our canon text, we love our characters, we feel it. Honestly, as a creator, fanfic is the greatest love letter your creations will ever receive. Embrace it.
And to the rest of the world? May I suggest you try it some time. It's like sashimi. A little odd to get your head around at first, but very delicious if you get it from the right place.
*Totally going to do it at some point.
**May they be girl-kissing again on our televisions soon.
We (fandom) make very beautiful things.
Sometimes I wish I had a real hobby.
Well ok, that's not true, I do have real hobbies. I like cooking, and occasionally I play music for fun by myself, and I do really, really, really like to play The Sims. But here's the thing. I really only do all that in between real life and fanfic. When I read, I usually choose to read fanfic over published works (which is a gamble, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not). When I write, well, I also prefer to write fanfic. There are several reasons for this. The main reason is that I don't ever intend to make money from writing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it. I write a lot of things that no one ever reads and I write them for myself. I mean, there's always disappointment if you slave over a fic and don't get a lot of feedback, but really that's not why I write. But the thing is, I don't want to write a novel. It just feels like something I'd do and then I'd put it on the shelf and I'd never ever bother to do much more with it. And I don't really want to earn money from writing because I love it and making it work would ruin it. Plus, while I do often work well under pressure, deadlines scare the crap out of me creatively. (What? My muse has a habit of eloping with the dancers.)
So, fanfiction is hobby. Yes. Hi, I'm Paula and I'm a fic-a-holic. I like fanmixes too! And squeeing about spoilers. And analysing the crap out of tiny little details in TV shows that are most likely Not Symbolic, but I choose to believe they are. I love fandom. I love it to tiny little bits.
But here's the thing: you can't say that that's your hobby. No one is ever going write "fanfiction" on their resume underneath that heading. No one is ever going to answer "what are you doing on the weekend?" with the honest-to-God truth ("writing an space cowboy AU set in the Firefly verse using Castle and Beckett"* or "writing a nuanaced, thoughtful coming out story for Britney and Santana"**). And most of all, no one wants to tell their parents what they're actually doing all day on the Internet.
Fanfic is kind of shameful.
There's a huge misconception about what it entails in the wider community. Like, if you write fanfic you must be sitting at home finding ways to make the male characters from your favourite novel/TV show/band/anime/comic book gay. Ok, yes, a lot of people like slash, but it's NOT the only thing fans write about. I, for one, don't love m/m slash - I mean, sometimes I love a pairing, but explicit m/m sex is not something that turns me on. I rarely write it. I rarely read it, and if I do, I definitely prefer more intellectual, thought-out fics to PWP. (Side note: Not that there's anything wrong with m/m slash, if you love it, more power to you, but I don't.) Honestly? I pretty much exclusively write het, because I mostly love het pairings. I usually read f/f or f/m pairings, and I read a wide variety of ratings. I mean yes, I read porny, kinky fic. But I also read totally vanilla, gen fic. I AM A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL FAN DAMNIT, stop stereotyping me. I have LAYERS.
The second one I hate is that if you write fanfic, you're a bad writer. Look, we're not all at a professional standard. Not everything anyone writes is going to be of a publishable standard (although... lol, Twilight). We write for fun, not for profit. We also don't have the benefit of extensive editorial work - sure, many of us use a beta, but we do it in our spare time (cough, or when we should be working, cough) and our betas do it out of love. We're also publishing on the internet, so we're not too worried about extensive re-writes and re-workings of things that don't quite work. That aside, some of us aren't bad writers. Some of us read a fucking Dan Brown book and wonder why the hell we don't change the names in some of our novel length fanfics, add some exposition-y scenes and publish the fucker. Some of us are incredibly talented and some of us have slaved over our fanfic, plotted, re-plotted, drafted, re-drafted. I have read fanfics that put published authors to shame. I have read fanfics that brought tears to my eyes. I have read fanfics that have left me with goosebumps. We're a mixed bunch.
And, lastly, if you write fanfic it's because you can't come up with your own characters. Look, I've started many a novel in my day, but for the most part, I feel pretty directionless when I'm writing about original characters. I think it's because my preferred narrative medium is television. I think I could legitimately connect and love and want to tell the stories of my own original television characters. But the thing is, I don't have a production team at my disposal and frankly, I'm too lazy to go to school to learn about screenwriting and bust my ass to break into a business that's fairly impossible to get a leg up in. Even if I did invent my own original characters, see above re: no desire to publish, who would read about them? My family and friends, for sure, but honestly? I don't see why they can't read my fanfic. It's just as good as anything original I could come up with.
So here it is world: I write, read and love fanfic. It's fucking awesome. It's a legitimate hobby. So next time you ask me what I did over Christmas? I'm going to tell you the truth. I wrote a butt-load of yuletide fic, and yes, some of it was porny as all hell and some of it was about lesbians, but you know what? I love those things, so shut up. I'm not the best writer in the world, but I love the characters I write about and I tell their stories because they resonate with me. And because a TV show or a book or a comic or even real life can't tell all the stories that are possible. No one can. Opening up a work to re-interpretation enriches the depth and quality of the characters, of the canon. Fanfic lets every single movie be Sliding Doors, it allows every book have an epilogue and every cancelled TV show get a movie spin off.
People are strange in lots of ways. They collect stamps. They paint vaginas. They hunt for UFOs and chase tornados. They like to write smut about the pretty people that grace their televisions every week.
I really don't see why my hobby is so much weirder than any other.
Maybe it's the passion behind it. Because while there aren't many generalisations about fandom that I feel are accurate, there is this one: we are passionate about our canon text, we love our characters, we feel it. Honestly, as a creator, fanfic is the greatest love letter your creations will ever receive. Embrace it.
And to the rest of the world? May I suggest you try it some time. It's like sashimi. A little odd to get your head around at first, but very delicious if you get it from the right place.
*Totally going to do it at some point.
**May they be girl-kissing again on our televisions soon.
We (fandom) make very beautiful things.