Fan fiction is the literary product of devotees of some particular author, situation, or set of characters. The fan fiction David introduced me to was all science fiction. It was distributed in 'zines, that were delivered to small parts of an in crowd.
In the early '60s, fan fiction was published on mimeographed and dittoed pages in people's basements. Dittoed pages could have a circulation of up to 40 before having to be retyped. Mimeographed documents could be reproduced in quantities of over 100.
Technology has transformed fan fiction, but it still fits the old mold. Xerox machines made reproduction easier. While multi-generation copies weren't much better than dittoed copy number 50, an original could, in theory, have an unlimited distribution.
The internet has made fan fiction an even more active enterprise. Today fan fiction apes not only science fiction like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Babylon 5, but other popular topics like Harry Potter, Northern Exposure, and (believe it or not) Scooby Do. The audiences vary from a few fans to thousands.
I learned about this because Nancy started reading fan fiction about Xena, Warrior Princess.
When you have seen and taped all the available episodes, a quick search on the world wide web will lead you to a large number of sites devoted to Xena fan fiction. It's divided into categories: some stories deal with the "legendary" characters as presented in the television series; others deal with Xena-like characters who live in present-day societies; many are lesbian fiction, others are not. At least one fan fiction writer did well enough to be hired to write scripts for the last season of the television series.
Henry Jenkins, director of media studies at MIT, has written that "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk." (from Textual Poachers: Television Fans And Participatory Culture, New York: Routledge, 1992.) Jenkins also wrote (with John Tulloch) Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek (New York : Routledge, 1995).
A purposely anonymous writer on one of the Xena fan fiction mailing lists says,
"One of his main premises in the first book is that fan fiction is an
attempt by people to return to that early tradition in storytelling where
someone would tell a story around a campfire, then others would repeat it,
adding interpretations of their own, then others would in turn change it some
more and so on until years later the story would just be part of the culture
with no real "owner".
"Our earliest legends and stories (like Beowulf for instance) are probably the
result of that cooperative storytelling. Initially there were no written stories
so there was no document with an author's name that could prove ownership. There
were also no copyright laws. People just shared stories and characters and
changed them at will. Today of course we have laws that give ownership rights to
the creators of stories and characters.
"On the one hand this is good because it ensures that people are appropriately
compensated for their creativity and talent and efforts. On the other hand,
though, to some extent it stifles creativity in others who might be inspired by
those same characters and settings to produce tales that while similar explore
new directions, new interpretations, etc.
"Fan fiction is the outlet people have found to revisit that old tradition which
allowed many different writers to share their own visions of particularly
compelling characters or situations.
"You know that old saying, 'the more things change, the more they stay the
same.'
"It's taken us a few thousand years but with the Internet in particular I
think we now have this seriously huge mega-campfire where we can all congregate
when we're introduced to a story or concept we like and add our own twists --
occasionally improving on the original, sometimes keeping the original idea
alive and well when the originators of the idea completely ruin it. You get the
picture."
This has the potential to rival the Napster controversy if the copyright lawyers can manage to prove economic losses. The lawyers' dilemma is that this activity involves the most fanatic of the audience for these entertainments. No publisher is going to go near these stories, but they can be "published" on the web. As a matter of fact, Nancy is in the process of writing some Xena fan fiction herself. You can Read At the Crossroads online.
And if your curiosity extends beyond one story, you could check out the awards given for Xena fan fiction by an on-line writers' group to which Nancy has contributed (as a volunteer editor for others' stories).
Go and explore for yourself. Log on to one of those unadorned search engines that doesn't restrict its listing to advertisers (my favorite at the moment is Google) and do a search for fan fiction. If you want to know more, ask. Nancy has offered to write about the topic here next time.
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