On one of the Yahoo groups that I frequent, the Feisty Daniel Appreciation Society, there was recently a discussion on fan fiction. One of the group, Aloysius, had been told that she's a really good writer - true - followed by the somewhat insulting question about why did she 'waste her talent' writing fan fiction. The implication was that she should be writing fiction that is suitable for publication.
This raises two thoughts in my mind. One is about writing fan fiction; the other is about getting published - and paid. Taking the latter first, being a really good writer doesn't guarantee publication, certainly not in Britain. The tales of one rejection slip after another, whenever publishers bother to reply, are dishearteningly common. And if one is among the fortunate few, the rewards can be extremely small. A friend of ours was one of the lucky few, and the first print run of his book was of 250 copies.
If you're even luckier, you may submit your manuscript at a time when the genre of your story is just coming into vogue, as in the sudden popularity of 'chick fic.' following in the wake of 'Bridget Jones' Diary'. Otherwise, your work of genius will probably be sitting in a ceiling-high pile of other works of genius awaiting the jaundiced eye of the publisher. 8-(
Looking along the bookshelves in any 'good bookshop', one sees large numbers of titles by a small number of writers, suggesting that once a publisher
has discovered a title that sells, anything else written by its author will then be published. Much of what makes it on to the shelves is good, and well written, though I find a noticeable falling off in quality the more books that appear in a particular series. It seems to me that such an author is no longer writing for the joy of it but at the behest of the publisher pushing him or her to meet a deadline.
Another route to publication is to become famous in some other field. Anyone for Jeffrey Archer? No? {g} For the already rich and famous, 'autobiographies' in particular seem to be a dead cert. for getting published. In the past, when a famous person - usually a politician or veteran sportsman - retired, he wrote his memoirs. Now everyone's getting in on the act. Very few celebrities in their twenties have lived long enough to justify a ghost-written biography to my way of thinking, but they sell and so take up yards of shelf space in bookshops.
Also in the fiction market, there are books written around popular films and television shows. Take a look at all those 'Star Trek' stories. Anyone else think this is as close to published fan fiction as makes no matter? Guess what, there are even 'Stargate' books out there, which I may read if I ever run out of fan fiction to read on the 'net. Or not...
A friend of mine read, I think, the book of the film, 'Stargate', and was sufficiently incensed about it to produce a collection of examples of the crap writing in it. This ran to twenty-seven A4 pages which she duly presented to the editor at Penguin who was responsible for weeding out such horrors. A couple of examples:
"The hunter could move no faster than the walls of the cave that surrounded him."
"The shot went through his head like a ripe watermelon."
That one resulted in Tom Holt's creating the water-melon-cannon. LOL! So not all bad then.
Writing like this does make you wonder if connections in the business aren't more important than actual talent though. Unfortunately, the fact that such writing can somehow make it on to the shelves may mislead readers into thinking that fan fiction in general just has to be significantly worse.
I freely acknowledge that I approached fan fiction with extreme wariness, expecting it to be the work of love-struck teenaged girls, gushingly writing out their fantasies surrounding the leading man with little regard to reality - or grammar and spelling for that matter. I found I was way off beam.
While these do exist, and are probably adored by their friends - fine, everyone's got to start somewhere - there are a great many people out there in cyberspace who write mature stories with gripping well-thought-out plots and excellent characterization that are better by far than some of the work of professional writers.
Apart from the quality, I am also amazed by the vast quantity of fan fiction on the 'net. For instance, on one single specialized archive site, Area 52, there are currently 3,344 stories by 475 authors. These vary from short stories of a couple of thousand words to complete novels well in excess of 100,000 words. By comparison, the average length for a novel is around 85,000 words which works out at about 340 pages.
When you consider that this is effectively a sub-genre (slash fiction) of a sub-genre (fiction derived from a single television series, 'Stargate S.G.-1') of the science fiction genre, this gives some idea of the huge number of writers in all genres that there must be.
It seems that everywhere there's a fandom - 'Star Trek' and its spin-offs, 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer' and spin-offs, 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Harry Potter' etc., etc., etc. - there are people beavering away writing original fiction around the characters they like. Are the stories of these writers of any less value than those of writers who got paid for their time and effort? I don't think so.
Fan fiction gives a great deal of pleasure to a whole lot of people around the world. As a writer, I think it is far more fulfilling to offer one's stories free to anyone who might be entertained by them, however small the number of readers might be, than to have manuscripts gathering dust unread because the writer has the hope or expectation that his readers will someday pay for the privilege.
As regards the worldwide interest in fan fiction, my main website is monitored by a tracker that also gives the locations of those who access my site. The results are mind boggling. Besides the English speaking world, I've had hits from most European countries including Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, several east Asian countries - 'big in Japan' {g} - Israel, Turkey and Colombia. I've yet to reach Outer Mongolia or Vanuatu...
These are multiple hits, by the way, so I don't think they derive from individuals accidentally bumbling on to my site - or maybe they did, liked what they saw, and keep coming back? I assume that this goes for my fellow writers too, which suggests that fan fiction is a significantly important literary phenomenon.
I am wondering how long it will be before fan fiction becomes a regular subject of study at most universities. If this is so for the Beatles, once decried for their long hair - phht! - raucous music, banal lyrics and evil influence on the young by my parents' generation, then why not fan fiction? It gives me a good feeling to think of students being set essays such as:
"Examine the parts played by humour, angst and realism in Stargate fan fiction with reference to the works of Teand, Catspaw and Eos."
"The Quantum Mirror is essential for Stargate A.U. fan fiction. Discuss."
"Compare and Contrast the works of Wadjet and Dangermouse in Stargate/Sentinel crossovers."
"Consider the importance of sheep in the fan fiction of Beth Supersaint."
Don't laugh. It could happen. In some other universe, maybe it already has... 8-)
<~@~>
P.S. I finally got my car back around lunchtime on Tuesday.