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Fic by Anne Jamison is an academic analysis of the history and development of fanfiction and online fanfiction communities and it is *awesome*. It's fun and funny, fascinating and challenging, massively nostaligia-inducing and also a little bit horrifying in places. I was very heavily involved in several online fanfiction communities in the early 2000s and have written a ton of fanfiction in my time (and I do still dabble). So I loved reading about how this weird and wonderful sub-culture originated and grew over time. The book brought back a lot of fond memories of that time in my life, but also reinforced my view that I could never recapture that world, as online fandom has moved on a lot, expanded a huge amount and grown more difficult to interact with in the way that I would want.
The book also introduced me to a lot of stuff I was unaware of, which was all very interesting. In particular, a lot more information about the commercialisation of fanfiction than I previously knew. It solidified that I don't have a problem with this practice per se, but I do have a problem with published books giving fanfiction a bad name by being poorly written and researched, and also with published fanfiction authors subsequently being antagonistic to other people writing things based on their work.
The most interesting chapters were the ones about Real Person Fanfiction, which I've always been wholly against. But the book challenged my prejudices, educated me on the subject and raised some very interesting points of view I'd never previously considered. So, it gets an awful lot of points for making me more open-minded and showing me that I should know more about a thing before condemning it.
The book presents a lot of different points of view in a balanced and non-judgemental way, and allows a wide range of people to contribute via essays and interviews, with made for a varied and fascinating read.
I have to include some of my favourite quotes:
"Fic. Fan writers call it "playing in someone else's sandbox" or "borrowing someone's toys". I call it "writing". Opponents call it "stealing" - and I call that bullshit."
"Even devoted reader of erotica complain that such scenes have a tendency to become stale, rote. This can hold even more true when the scenes repeatedly unfold between (versions of) the same characters. As in fanfiction. Or, you know, in monogamy."
"Historians work by interweaving primary documents to create their version of the truth - historiography being, essentially, a larger framework of Humanity Fanon."
On trying to explain how the conflicts within fanfiction communities actually reflect those in the wider literary world:
"The people who ship writing/difficulty and writing/revolution don't talk to the people who ship writing/entertainment or writing/romance. The writing/money shippers have an uneasy detente with the writing/literature folks in the prose fandom, but almost none of them talk to the poetry people because how could you even? The writing/YA folks have a strong community or are cliquish, depending on who you ask, and everyone knows not to invite the writing/genre people to the same party as the writing/literary folks because it just ends up in a shouting match. Fandom would explain that this is why we can't have nice things."
Fantastic book - highly recommended to anyone who loves, knows about or is interested in knowing more about fanfiction.
The book also introduced me to a lot of stuff I was unaware of, which was all very interesting. In particular, a lot more information about the commercialisation of fanfiction than I previously knew. It solidified that I don't have a problem with this practice per se, but I do have a problem with published books giving fanfiction a bad name by being poorly written and researched, and also with published fanfiction authors subsequently being antagonistic to other people writing things based on their work.
The most interesting chapters were the ones about Real Person Fanfiction, which I've always been wholly against. But the book challenged my prejudices, educated me on the subject and raised some very interesting points of view I'd never previously considered. So, it gets an awful lot of points for making me more open-minded and showing me that I should know more about a thing before condemning it.
The book presents a lot of different points of view in a balanced and non-judgemental way, and allows a wide range of people to contribute via essays and interviews, with made for a varied and fascinating read.
I have to include some of my favourite quotes:
"Fic. Fan writers call it "playing in someone else's sandbox" or "borrowing someone's toys". I call it "writing". Opponents call it "stealing" - and I call that bullshit."
"Even devoted reader of erotica complain that such scenes have a tendency to become stale, rote. This can hold even more true when the scenes repeatedly unfold between (versions of) the same characters. As in fanfiction. Or, you know, in monogamy."
"Historians work by interweaving primary documents to create their version of the truth - historiography being, essentially, a larger framework of Humanity Fanon."
On trying to explain how the conflicts within fanfiction communities actually reflect those in the wider literary world:
"The people who ship writing/difficulty and writing/revolution don't talk to the people who ship writing/entertainment or writing/romance. The writing/money shippers have an uneasy detente with the writing/literature folks in the prose fandom, but almost none of them talk to the poetry people because how could you even? The writing/YA folks have a strong community or are cliquish, depending on who you ask, and everyone knows not to invite the writing/genre people to the same party as the writing/literary folks because it just ends up in a shouting match. Fandom would explain that this is why we can't have nice things."
Fantastic book - highly recommended to anyone who loves, knows about or is interested in knowing more about fanfiction.
