Cyber Literature Fan Fiction PDF

Contextualizing / appropriating the word ‘poach’
Michel de Certeau (1984) . . . [characterizes] . . . active reading

as “poaching,” an impertinent raid on the literary preserve that
takes away only those things that are useful or pleasurable to
the reader: “Far from being writers . . . readers are travellers;
they move across lands belonging to someone else, like
nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write,
despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it themselves” (174).
De Certeau’s “poaching” analogy characterizes the
relationship between readers and writers as an ongoing
struggle for possession of the text and for control over
its meanings.
“This fiction condemns consumers to subjection because

they are always going to be guilty of infidelity or
ignorance. . . . The text becomes a cultural weapon, a
private hunting reserve” (171).
Like the poachers of old, fans operate from a position of
cultural marginality and social weakness. Like other popular
readers, fans lack direct access to the means of commercial
cultural production and have only the most limited resources
with which to influence the entertainment industry’s
decisions.
Fans must beg with the networks to keep their favorite
shows on the air, must lobby producers to provide desired
plot developments or to protect the integrity of favorite
characters. Within the cultural economy, fans are peasants,
not proprietors, a recognition which must contextualize our
celebration of strategies of popular resistance.
De Certeau offers us another key insight into fan culture:
readers are not simply poachers; they are also “nomads,”
always in movement, “not here or there,” not constrained by
permanent property ownership but rather constantly
advancing upon another text, appropriating new materials,
making new meanings (174).
Jenkins' research in Textual Poachers
showed how fans construct their own
culture by appropriating and remixing—
"poaching"—content from mass culture.
Through this "poaching", the fans carried
out such creative cultural activities as
rethinking personal identity issues such as
gender and sexuality; writing stories to
shift focus onto a media "storyworld's"
secondary characters; producing content
to expand of the timelines of a
storyworld; or filling in missing scenes in
the storyworld's official narratives order
to better satisfy the fan community.
Participatory Culture
Jenkins noted that the development of “new” Media
(roughly post 2000) has accelerated “participatory
culture”, in which audiences are active and creative
participants rather than passive consumers. They create
online communities, produce new creative forms,
collaborate to solve problems, and shape the flow of
media. This generates what Jenkins describes as
“collective intelligence.”
3 Key Terms
Fandom refers to the social structures and cultural practices
created by the most passionately engaged consumers of mass
media properties.
Participatory culture refers more broadly to any kind of
cultural production which starts at the grassroots level and
which is open to broad participation
Web 2.0 is a business model that sustains many web-based
projects that rely on principles such as user-creation and
moderation, social networking, and "crowdsourcing."
What is Fan Fiction?
• Original fiction by fans of a show, movie, book or video
game.
• Involves the characters and/or the world they live in
• Usually non-profit
• Usually written without consent from the author/creator
• “Derivative works” in legal terminology
“Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented
from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-
culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for
money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up
online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent,
couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and
they talk back to the culture in its own language.”
Grossman, Author of The Magician Series
Fanfiction is what happens when enthusiasts create writing that is
based on published works such as favourite novels, TV shows, films,
comics and games (Collins, 2006; Jenkins, 2008).
Fanfiction is a grassroots movement that has grown exponentially with
the advent of the read/write web, but for ages readers have re-written
fairy tales, or rewritten stories with unsatisfactory endings, or written
new narratives with existing characters (Jessop, 2010). The more recent
incarnation of fanfiction can be traced to the fanzines that sprung up
around Star Trek in the 1960s (Jessop, 2010).
Fan communities are not limited to writing fiction; they also include
other transformative works like fan art and fan videos. A basic
understanding of digital fandom culture and its terminology is helpful
when first exploring this universe.
Terminologies
Canon
- Established history and characterizations of the show,
movie, book, etc.
- What is considered canon can differ from fandom to
fandom.
Fandom
- All fan activities around and about a particular canon.
Shipper
- From “relationship.” A fan who supports a particular
romantic pairing, whether or not it is canon.
For a more detailed source, visit this page:
http://expressions.populli.net/dictionary.html
Popular Genres within Fan fiction
Major Minor
Action/Adventure Angst
Mystery Spiritual
Sci-Fi Supernatural
Fantasy Hurt/Comfort
Drama Friendship
Romance Family
Horror Fluff
Parody AU (alternative-universe)
Crossover
So how do I write Fan fiction?
Brainstorm ideas
Could you pick a minor character and tell their story?
Could you tell what happens after your story ended?
Could you take the main character and have them make a
different choice at some point?
Could you create a scene that happens just before your story
started?
A Brief History of Fan Fiction
• 8th century BC. The Iliad and the Odyssey could be considered examples of oral fanfiction:
scholars believe it was the result of various storytellers composing songs/spoken poems
based on existing stories of mythical heroes and gods
• in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, European culture did not have a concept like ours
of an author “owning” a story—many works were published anonymously and anyone who
liked freely stole ideas or added onto previously existing works
• c. 1138 AD. Geoffrey of Monmouth based his narrative of King Arthur’s life on a Welsh
poetic tradition going back hundreds of years
• c. 1177. The character of Lancelot is added by a French poet.
• the legends around King Arthur underwent significant change over centuries and the stories
continue to be re-told and changed
Literary Thieves
• 1605. Cervantes publishes the first
part of Don Quixote
• 1614. A spurious Part Two is
published without permission by a
rival author, prompting Cervantes to
release his own Part Two the next
year.
Copyright
• 1710. British parliament enacted the Statute of Anne,
the first law enabling the government/courts to protect
copyright
• this law gave authors rights that they did not have
before and more control over what they created
• without copyright, the distinction between fanfiction
and an original work is blurry
Parody
• 1740. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, sometimes called
the first novel, is published.
• 1741. The next year Henry Fielding releases his parody
Shamela, which is quickly followed by several other
parodies by various authors.
The First Fanzines
• 1913.“Janeites” begin circulating fanfiction based on
the works of Jane Austen. Old Friends and New Fancies –
an Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen by Sybil
Brinton is the first piece published.
• 1934. two Sherlock Holmes fan societies, The Baker
Street Irregulars and the Sherlock Holmes Society, are
formed and start publishing amateur magazines
containing scholarship and fanfiction
Enter the Trekkies
• 1967. the first Star Trek fan zine, Spockanalia, contains some
fanfiction
• 1973.Paula Smith coins the term “Mary Sue” in her parody “A
Trekkie’s Tale” to refer to an over-the-top perfect female original
character in a piece of fanfiction
• 197?.
the word “slash” to refer to stories built around gay
romance is believed to originate with stories depicting romance
between Kirk and Spock, abbreviated K/S.
The Internet
• 1982.fans post discussions and fanfic on net.startrek,
an example of a precursor to modern web forums
• 1991.Eyrie Productions, which claims to be the oldest
archive for anime fan fiction, is created
• 1998. the aptly-named fanfiction.net goes online
• 1999. the first Harry Potter fanfic is published to
fanfiction.net
The Push-Back
• 1981. Lucasfilms sends a letter to several fanzines asserting
copyright and warning against writing pornographic fanfiction,
including a threat of possible legal action
• 1988. actors from the TV show Blakes 7 getuncomfortable after
being shown “slash fic,” leading one of them to try to ban slash
from the fan groups
• 1992. a fan accuses sci-fi/fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley
of stealing her ideas, causing Bradley’s publisher not to release
the offending novel and worrying other authors
Success?
• 2015. After being adapted from a Twilight
fanfic and originally self-published, Fifty
Shades of Grey has sold more than 125
million copies world wide.
• removing copyrighted material in order to
sell a fanfic, or “filing off the serial
numbers” is made cheaper and easier, if not
always profitable, by e-publishing
Where to Find/Read Fan Fiction?

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Contextualizing / appropriating the word ‘poach’

Michel de Certeau (1984) . . . [characterizes] . . . active reading

“This fiction condemns consumers to subjection because

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