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I'm still puzzling over a repeated interaction I see in the Great Fanfic Legitimacy Debate. There's a reason given for why fanfic can never be Real Literature that's patently false, yet given with such earnestness it begs to be believed.
I'm talking about interactions that go like this:
Person 1: Fanfic can't be real literature because it doesn't use your own original plots and characters
Person 2: Then Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton didn't write "real literature"
Person 1: Oh please, you are NOT them
Person 1: Fanfic can't be real literature because it doesn't use your own original plots and characters
Person 2: Then Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton didn't write "real literature"
Person 1: Oh please, you are NOT them
It is patently obvious that works can use pre-existing plots and characters and be "real literature". There is some OTHER unspoken quality that makes fanfiction ineligible for the category.
And yet, Person 1 usually denies any suggestions for other criteria they might be using.
And yet, Person 1 usually denies any suggestions for other criteria they might be using.
Persons 1 generally insist it's not fanfic's queerness that disqualifies it (indeed, it's usually not queer *enough*, or not the right type of queer) nor will they say juvenile fiction can't be literature, or anything else. They'll usually just go back to "it's unoriginal."
"It doesn't stand on its own," they say.
One of the common responses I've been getting to my article is, "I read that book! I never guessed it was fanfic. Oh my god, that adds an entirely new interpretation to it!"
Books the authors advertised on Tumblr *as covert fanfic*.
One of the common responses I've been getting to my article is, "I read that book! I never guessed it was fanfic. Oh my god, that adds an entirely new interpretation to it!"
Books the authors advertised on Tumblr *as covert fanfic*.
Gazing into an absolute stranger's navel is generally unproductive, but still the question gnaws at me.
Is it because a lot of fanfic is bad, so none of it can ever be good? (Fanfic archives are the slush pile publishers generally keep the public from ever seeing)
Is it because a lot of fanfic is bad, so none of it can ever be good? (Fanfic archives are the slush pile publishers generally keep the public from ever seeing)
Is it because fanfiction lacks prestige, lacks gatekeepers, is a field more in tune with gushing teenage girls than erudite critics?
Is it because it's cringe? Too enthusiastic, too optimistic, laying the desires of its audience too bare?
Is it because it's cringe? Too enthusiastic, too optimistic, laying the desires of its audience too bare?
It feels like the "bad" or "unoriginal" thing about fanfic is actually its frequent promise of comfort and a happy ending. Yes, gen and angst fic exists, but these critics know as much as any fan that they don't draw an audience the way OTPs do.
Fanfiction tends not to organize its genres based on content, but rather, relationship to canon, story arc, and emotional experience for the reader. AU, filler scene, fixit; slow burn, pwp, first time; fluff, angst, hurt/comfort.
We say what we want and then get it.
We say what we want and then get it.
So often it feels like a certain kind of writer NEEDS to be in control of their audience. NEEDS to be smarter, cooler, more inventive. Writers who'd rather burn down their entire series into awful slag nobody predicted than write a clever ending a few fans guessed.
That feels like a big part of the unspoken reason. We don't fit the lone genius archetype. WE, fanfic writers, could never masterfully grip our audience by the throat and say, "I am going to shock and dazzle and enthrall you and you will love me and despair."
(Ha. The best of us TOTALLY could.)
It honestly just feels like it's "Fanfic will never be real literature because I just don't respect you and until you stop playing those silly little games and grow up enough to appear powerful to me, I never will."
Fanficcers know this deep in our bones and generally say fuck your power games. The ultimate flex in fanfic has traditionally been to take the stupidest premise in the WORLD and dazzle and enthrall your readers with a story they could never describe without blushing.
(Or the weirdest kink, which is how A/B/O started. Someone requested something absolutely buck wild, and waited for someone talented and amazing and crazy enough to throw back their drink and say, "Me. I'm gonna do it. And you'll like it.")
So yeah. That's my theory for the night. Fanfic "can never be real literature" because our attitudes towards prestige and optics have totally broken from the rest of the arts. Our greatest works are also the ones that embrace our cringe without hesitation.
I always think people in the SFF world will intuitively get this, since they too come from a trashy marginalized genre that does its best work when it loses its shame about being itself, and am always amazed that they don't.
I could learn better, but frankly, the rest of the world could just catch up.
