Apples and Oranges

Via Jemima comes this rant against an author who views fanfiction sneeringly and demeaningly. Fanfiction, for those who don't know, is when fans of a television show (and occasionally of professional authors like Jane Austen or JK Rowling) take the characters and setting but write their own adventures. Frequently, relationships in these shows are explored further, into erotica and sex, or relationships not in the show are created because the fan just sees them. The most famous example is the whole genre of stories (fanfiction) about the romantic and sexual love between Star Trek's Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

Yours truly used to write Star Trek fanfiction. I was fair enough, winning some awards and acclaim. You can find it here. Enter my last name (Hollihan) into the author field and there you are. My forte was comedy, but I wrote some pretty decent serious short stories as well.

Anyway, that's what attracted me to the post linked above. A professional author attacks fanfiction while seeming to completely misunderstand it. Tom Simon takes her to task and dissects her argument into tiny, tiny bits. She argues that learning to be a writer by writing fanfiction is like learning to be a singer by singing karaoke. Simon points out that this is pretty much how singers do learn to sing, by singing the standards and learning a repertoire.

On the other hand, I can say from experience that writing fanfic does stretch some muscles but often leaves others unused. Since you begin with familiar characters and settings, it's often enough to say, "Captain Janeway sat in her Ready Room." We already know what Janeway looks and sounds like, and what the ready room looks like as well, thanks to the original television show. The writer doesn't have to waste any time -- and therefore not learn how to do it -- describing character and setting. It can deform writing style if not watched for.

You also often take for granted the relationship-building done by the show's writers. You don't have to spend paragraphs and chapters in incident after incident showing how two people fell in love and bonded. The show's done the work for you. Much fanfic takes that for granted as well and goes from there, assuming the entire backstory is already known by the reader.

On the gripping hand, fanfiction can go places the television shows won't or can't. Star Trek, as one example, doesn't deal in sex, so much fanfiction goes into the erotica the show won't touch. Sometimes there is a chemistry between two actors that's not utilised, or is badly mishandled, by the writers. Fanfic addresses that; for example with Janeway/Chakotay relationship stories. Another example is with Janeway/Seven of Nine fanfic, where two strong women meet as equals and fall in love.

Fanfic writers may go back and "fix" events that were mishandled. I thought the writers of Voyager had it all wrong. Still under the spell of Deep Space Nine I though very strongly that the ship should have stayed where it was. They could trade their technology for a place to stay (like the planet of kidnapped humans they found in the episode "The '37s.") and started to build a new Delta Federation. It's where my story "The End and The Beginning," my first fanfic, came from.

Another example was my story "Queen of the Lilac Time," in which I explored how a relationship between the two characters of Janeway and Chakotay could happen, and where would it go. Or "When the Sun Rises, I Will Not See," where the tensions of having a Maquis and a Federation crew forced to work side by side took over, and everything went very, very wrong. It's a kind of "Mirror, Mirror" story, one where every good decision they made was made differently, and badly. The story aimed straight for the heart of darkness, a place Voyager couldn't go, and hit dead center.

I once wondered how having a pet might "humanise" Seven of Nine and help her with her relationship with Harry Kim. The result was "The Reactions of Mammals to Dermal Stimulation." One episode of Voyager dealt with Seven of Nine's first date. I though "I could do better than that hapless twit." and so rewrote the episode with myself (as a Star Trek character) in it, "My Dinner With Seven." As you might can guess, I'm pretty proud of all of these.

But read around the archive of those stories and you'll see numerous examples of pastiche and parody. Stories done in the style of Shakespeare, Monty Python, Harlan Ellison; stories written as though for hobby magazines about fishing, chess, etc.; stories written like other television shows. The goal was to learn how to write by imitating others. Learn their technique and incorporate what you like into your own style.

But for many fanfic writers, it's not about becoming a "pro" writer. It's about a hobby. In the same way that people play piano or guitar, or paint, just for themselves, so some people write mostly for themselves. Something inside demands expression, and this is their chosen route. It may be derivative and poorly done, but it's sufficient to the expression.

In large part, I think comparing pro writing and fanfic is like comparing apples and oranges. Fundamentally, they are fruits, but beyond that they are different in feel and taste, and in how they're used. People who want to learn to bake pies should stick with apples, but if a tasty treat is all you want, an orange might just do the job.