I ship it: An history of fanfiction

To Aristotle, art is an imitation of nature. This might be true, but we sure are very good at imitating other humans too. No better example exists than our creative writing tendencies. Today, you might better know it as “fanfiction“ but, in truth, expanding existing characters and storylines has VERY deep roots in our literary tradition. Let me unearth some of that tradition to you today. We have a lot to cover, so let‘s jump in.

Nothing new under the sun

First and foremost, you must understand that imitating other people‘s work goes possibly as far back as human history itself. In fact, pastiches - deliberately derivative works - were not only more common in the past but not necessarily seen negatively. Some of the most notable works of the Western canon can be seen as pastiches. Dante‘s Inferno is a sort of fanfiction on Virgil. Virgil‘s Aeneid is also a fanfiction of Homere. Even Homere (or any other historical writer) can be seen as embellishing the feats of his ancestors. The appropriation of stories was not only different but characters themselves had sometimes a life of their own. The best example here is King Arthur. Was King Arthur an invention of one specific writer? Maybe. Nevertheless, by adopting some kind of mythical status, successive writers felt free to attach themselves to these characters and expand upon them. Chretien de Troyes, one of the first Arthurian writers we know of, explicitly states that he based himself on others. Thomas Malory would later base his “Le Morte d‘Arthur“ on Chretien de Troyes. More recently, T.H. White would do the same with “The Once and Future King“. Shakespeare himself based some of his plays (including Othello) on contemporary works from the Elizabethan era.

So what changed? Well, our vision of ownership changed. Since ancient times, pretty much only physical property mattered. Gradually, this would extend to goods and services. A shift to intellectual property would come forth with the first copyright laws. The 1710 Statute of Anne attributed some intellectual property which was regulated by government and courts - a first in the world. The pace would pick up from there. Highlights include the popularization of patents with the 1790 Patent Act of the United States Constitution and the advent of modern companies with the repeal of the 1720‘s Bubble Act in 1825. In that way, authorship was birthed and, with it, pastiches were seen more and more as threats…

Clandestine beginning (continuation?)

In the 19th century, the first apparent clashes between the author‘s officially supported narrative and the narrative his fans wished for happened. Here, we simply have to talk about Janeites (Jane Austen fans). With Jane Austen, we see the first still recorded boom of fanmade side stories. As you could expect, some of these stories tried to continue Jane Austen's stories including some on the lives of Elizabeth Benneth and Fitzwilliam Darcy Esquire after their marriage. But you might be surprised to hear that a good portion of these writings were imagined interactions between the fans and Jane Austen‘s characters. People saw themselves having dinner with Darcy. Jane Austen‘s niece even wrote a letter to Georgiana Darcy, passing it to Austen. But not only Janeites expanded their favourite worlds by writing. George Elliot‘s Middlemarch is another notable example. We have written evidence that some fans didn‘t agree that the despicable Rosamond Vincy ended in a better place at the end of the book than the heroine Dorothea Brooke. So they simply changed the ending. This did not seem to bother Geroge Elliot that much. In fact, she was a known fanfiction writer herself.

Some authors would not be as compromising as Elliot and Austen though. Possibly the most influential example here is Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes stories. Sherlockians (as we sometimes call Sherlock Holmes fans) started writing their own stories featuring Sherlock Holmes while Doyle was still writing them. These include Sherlock Holmes biographies, a play and even cookbooks. Doyle was aware of these writings and did not like what he saw. He would begin a scorched earth policy, suing as he pleased. He would even kill Sherlock Holmes in 1893 to silence imitators. It didn‘t work. Fans would hold public mournings and just continue writing what they pleased. As the years went by and the rise of cheap pulp magazines, fan writing would only become more accessible and common. Robert E. Howard‘s Conan is possibly the most pastiched character of the early 20th century.

To boldly go where no one has gone before

Our next significant jump would come in 1966 with the Star Trek original series. While lasting only three seasons, Star Trek would spark the first true fan community as we know it. No longer were fans isolated: they regrouped, they discussed, they analyzed, they speculated and, most importantly, they wrote. A lot. To fill in the sparse Star Trek official output of the time, articles, essays and fan art would spur everywhere. The Star Trek fandom is the first time we can safely say that fans felt confident enough to add their own flavour to the original material. Stories focusing on their concerns and preferred themes were common. This included meta stories and, of course, sex. Sex has long been associated with fanfiction. Some types of content and stories are discouraged by publishing companies. Fan writing for their own sake, would oblige what they felt was underserved. The Star Trek fandom was the first to commonly break taboos to explore stories as it wanted to in that way. Self-insert stories also became commonplace with this fandom. While some Janeities discussed with characters, it is with Star Trek that people truly wrote stories featuring themselves in the world and characters they cared about. The infamous Mary Sue was originally the main character of Paula Smith‘s 1973 short story “A Trekkie‘s Tale“.

Another writer of the time that would feed the fandom craze would be Anne Rice, in much the same way as Arthur Conan Doyle did. Anne Rice publicly opposed derivative works and often repressed fan content of her work. Well, it only made it worse. The world began to understand that you can‘t silence fans. Fans would realize it too.

Ship wars

After the 1970s, fandom was established but it would gain significant traction with the rise of the internet in the 1990s. One fandom dominates our story here: The X-Files. The X-Files fandom can be seen as the first true internet fandom, giving fan content a reach never seen before. Fans have always developed their own jargon but it will reach another level here. “ADBB“ (All done bye-bye) and “CITC“ (Conversation in the car) referenced important scenes to the fandom. Fans would delimit episodes with their own arcs (including the “Cancer Arc“). This is where ship wars would truly begin. “Shippers“ was first used on a fansite dedicated to X-Files (alt.tv.x-files.creative) possibly in 1993 to define fans who wished for a more romantic relationship between the two main characters of the show (Fox Mulder and Dana Scully). Opposing them were “Noromos“ wishing to keep a platonic relationship. The X-Files fandom was groundbreaking and would be imitated by pretty much any online fan community to follow. As I mentioned in another post, Terry Pratchett was among the first authors to recognize his fans on the Internet and interact with them (since 1992).

The golden age

The Internet would impose itself in our lives gradually and help put fandom firmly in the mainstream. At the end of the 1990s, modern fan writing was complete. From there on, fandom communities would be found on the web. More importantly, fandoms would start to not only recognize each other but also regroup. FanFiction.net (FFnet) would be the first important fandom repository featuring stories and discussions from diverse fandoms. In 2006, Wattpad would enter the scene. Today, the most important fandom repository is still possibly Archive of Our Own (AO3), first created in reaction to purges on FFnet in 2008. While fandom repositories imposed themselves, we can‘t forget that specialized fandom websites still abound. From the 2010s, some fandoms would gradually migrate to social media platforms (mainly Reddit and, in a way, discord). Specialized sites are still important.

Same as always

The amount of fanfiction produced today is staggering. Larger fandoms (such as Sherlock, Doctor Who, Marvel and Star Wars) produce new long-form stories every day. The Harry Potter fandom on FFnet alone has more than 500,000 written stories. That‘s about 50 stories a day since the release of the first book. Incredibly, some fanmade work now even attain much-deserved appreciation. The best-selling “Fifty Shades of Grey“ is at its core a fanmade story on the Twilight series. What‘s more, fandom has largely exceeded the boundaries of literary and filmed material - with several video games boasting their own large fandoms. As I said, imitation is not a new conception but I am happy to see how fan communities truly took on themselves to uphold it. Pastiches are still partially shooned by society but I expect that to change. Today, fanfiction is an expansive and diverse ecosystem of driven and passionate people. Fanfiction is a way to recognize where we come from and what we take to heart. While I am personally not of the fandom mindset, I can only praise the passion I see.

As always, see you next time.