The Weird and Wonderful World of Fan Fiction
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Tyrion Lannister crossed over into the world of The Lord of the Rings? Don’t worry; someone has already written it for you. We take a look at the growing – and sometimes bizarre – world of fan fiction
The much-derided and enormously popular Fifty Shades of Grey has come to symbolise everything that critics hate about fan fiction. The deadly concoction of bad writing, bad sex and bad gender politics has, for its detractors, become synonymous with the literary subculture. The peculiarly conformist Grey stories, about a virginal female character being enticed by a hyper-masculine, rich, older man, started life on fan fiction websites as a homage to the Twilight series, and their immense popularity (Fifty Shades set the record for the fastest-selling paperback of all time in the UK) is illustrative of a shift for an increasing number of authors from the fan-culture corner of the web to the bestseller list.
Fan fiction – broadly defined as a work of fiction that uses major elements like character or setting from another work of fiction – includes work as diverse as Jean Rhys’s brilliant novel about Jane Eyre’s ‘madwoman in the attic,’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966); Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009); and Anna Todd’s attempt at One Direction erotica, After (2014). Its modern roots lie in the Japanese manga and science fiction fanzines of the 1960s, although retelling, both directly and indirectly, is an age-old literary tradition: Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens were famously concerned about writers ‘stealing’ and refashioning their plots and characters into new narratives. The combination of a modern, connected fandom and the growth of sites like Wattpad, FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own have led to an explosion in the number and variety of fan takes on existing stories.
Sex and fan fiction
The first thing that usually springs to mind when the term fan fiction comes up is a weird mental image of Harry, Ron and Hermione enjoying a threesome in the shadowy hallways of Hogwarts, or detailed passages about Sherlock handcuffing Watson to his bed. For the uninitiated, it may seem like fanfic is only interested in unlikely pairings entering into ever more complex sexual scenarios. However, the case for the literary-critic prosecution is somewhat overstated. Fan fiction is as interested in sex as any other cultural form and there is plenty of fanfic that doesn’t involve the unearthing of buried sexual fantasies.
Perhaps the most interesting element of the way fan fiction deals with sex scenes is that they only become a focal point of the plot when the original narrative is notably de-sexed. Stories written for teenagers, YA novels where hand-holding or kissing is the only suggested sexualised experience, sci-fi narratives where glances across the starship floor are secondary to the fight against the invading army, and period dramas where social restraints at the time of publication prevented any explicit references to sex, are the most popular genres for sexscapade fanfic.
A recurring theme is the need, on the part of writers, to fill in the gaps and oversights of established authors and also the wider literary canon; as any avid reader will know, airbrushed sexual encounters characterised by awful clichéd language are a common find across literature – just ask Morrissey. Fan fiction writers are attempting to rectify the erasure of the reality of sex in the books they read, even if that sometimes comes out as an off-kilter chapter about necrophilia and a deceased character.
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The urge to reflect experiences that are ignored or disregarded by literature is also echoed in the kind of characters that populate the fan fiction world. A popular subgenre is slash fiction, which portrays gay characters (who are often depicted as heterosexual in the original work) and their romantic entanglements. Writers of slash interpret the canon and retrospectively refit their narratives, so that they reflect the gay experience; searching fanfic archives, you will come across numerous Bingley/Darcy, Romeo/Mercutio, Bella/Rosalie, Daisy/Jordan stories.
While 'written like terrible fan fiction' appears to be the go-to slur spewed by unimpressed literary reviewers, these critics fail to recognise that fanfic is one of the few places where a raft of stories about experiences considered to be hidden, underground or non-mainstream can happily co-exist. Fan fiction sites are one of the few cultural spaces where stories about being into paganism, bisexual, or even goth are not only accepted, but abundant.
Writers versus fan fiction
Fan fiction has caused some ruffles among the literary community because it challenges the idea of the ‘original text.’ By taking apart the book, mashing up plots, altering endings and changing the relationships between characters, fans are dispelling the notion of the writer as a god-like genius, whose work must be preserved and conserved.
Author of Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice is one of the most obvious example of a writer attempting to exert their authorial authority. Writing to her fans, she said: “I do not allow fan fiction… It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters.” Of course, her attempts proved futile and she was swiftly ignored by some fan fiction writers. Rice’s attempt to maintain control failed because such writers are the antithesis of the copyright, consumerist wet dream – they write for free, openly playing with the ideas of others, sharing their work widely. Fan fiction writers aren’t passive readers, waiting in an orderly queue for an autograph; instead, they are taking an active role in the books they’re reading, reshaping texts to suit their own interests and demands.
This shifting power dynamic is threatening to some authors, who fear a return to the pre-printing press Middle Ages with no authors and no copyright ownership, but it doesn’t need to be an either/or. Fans can prop up and add to the original work in exciting ways, imaginatively readjusting the holes in the narrative while further publicising and emphasising the interesting work of its author. Either way, the age of the fan shows little sign of abating.