On fanfic

[hazelk]

Some thoughts about fic in response to a now friendslocked discussion of the relative merits of Buffy S8 and Buffy fanfic.

I used to read a lot of fic. There’s the usual 90% of everything is crap factor (and sometimes crap is exactly what you’re looking for) but I’ve certainly read fic that was more literary than S8. More poetic, more stylish, more funny and more disturbing (in both good and bad senses of the word). Having said that I think if I had to pinpoint a difference between all of those fics and S8 it would be is that S8 doesn’t feel safe. This is of course entirely subjective but I think I can justify it in a number of ways some of which apply specifically to Buffy fanfic (and me as a reader) and some to fanfic in general.

The specific reasons have to do not with literary qualities but with medium and community. BtVS was TV series and TV is a visual medium. Not that the dialogue wasn’t distinctive and important but it wasn’t (for me) the main thing. For evidence I’d offer the success of episodes like Hush and The Body which do without the trademark dialogue but also the experience of watching large swathes of the series with the sound off for vidding purposes and having it still feel like Buffy in a way that reading the scripts doesn’t. What reading the scripts does feel like is reading Buffy fandom, which on the interwebs is very much a text based medium. Fanfic is not only text based but a direct product of fandom and fandom conversations. I think it’s that and being myself a participant in those conversations that can makes fic appealing but also gives it a safety factor. I know these writers, not personally perhaps but what their positions are on fannish issues and where they fit within the various subcultures in a much more detailed and insider way than I know Joss Whedon or any of the comic writers. Even with a new writer it rarely takes long to figure out their fannish influences, where they’re coming from, where they fit. Plots may twist but although the specifics of the twist are not predictable the point of it almost always feels familiar, the snark is never a boondog or so you convince yourself to maintain social order. Published writers and their original stories can be predictable too but I don’t know them, they don’t know me and that outsider quality changes the nature of the contract between us.

The general reason is that, for me as a reader, fic’s relationship to its source text almost automatically acts as a filter between it and world. The most terrible things can happen or be touched in fanfic but because there’s always the source text to refer them to they don’t feel as real. I don’t get that sense of distance between the same characters and similar events in the original stories. Where there’s no fictional precedent it feels more as if you’re being exposed directly to the author’s naked brain or less grossly their experience of the world. Not always a good thing or even an interesting thing but naked brains are never entirely safe.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Those are some interesting thoughts on the issue of "safety" in viewing/reading. I think that may be particularly true with Buffy (and perhaps with a growing number of series these days) since from the start we were meant to get a sense that rules of TV storytelling were being broken. In fact, those twists in Buffy were what, I think, ultimately made it such an engaging series over a long period of time.

Your point about familiarity is also telling. It is, in fact, much easier to start predicting the writing of fanfic authors because their body of work can be so prolific in a short time and we have other meta factors in understanding their approach and POV. I do think the same can happen with non-fandom writers however. For example, to me, the comics have been disappointing exactly because they have exacerbated the tendencies of Joss's writing to me, where they are unfiltered by other writers and outside influences. Sometimes it only takes a few projects for this to become apparent (M. Night Shyamalan is one example I can think of).

Which might suggest that fanfic collaborations would raise the unpredictability of stories, only since these are entirely voluntary rather than professional associations, chances are it wouldn't since those writers would be in step with one another. The safety factor may be something that varies by reader though. I notice that the widespread aversion to character death in stories suggests that despite the removal and impermanence of anything happening in fanfic, canon isn't the only thing that has the power to jolt.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Safety is definitely an in the eye of the reader thing. Thinking back I did most fanfic reading when I was purely a lurker but since joining up it's got harder and harder to block out the fandom from the fic and with Buffy a big part of the problem is I still prefer the source (season seven fan remember) and feel defensive about it. For fic to work I think I would need it to be in a new fandom and I have found some of selenak's recs and writing in Heroes and Astonishing in X-men still works - I can read it without half a mind constantly on the source. It's also a laziness thing - between time being short and failing eyesight I read far less than I did. My primary fandom thing is vidding and if I want to try something new it's more likely to be a movie than a novel.