I was correcting someone's conflation of fic terms (slash==porn), and they also mentioned "aren't most writers 16-20?" So I got all handwavey no, but wondered--what are the numbers? Surely there have been a few surveys in the past few years that would give more representative ages?

I found this: [link] but I don't know much about the sources for the study (and I side-eye language like "Contrary to expectations, it is the older and more experienced authors who do have a betareader" anyway), but it did put the age at 26. Also, it's obviously dated and its fandom numbers not so relevant right now.

The problem is that fanfic is community-based. I wouldn't be surprised if the average age at FFN skews younger than it does on AO3, for instance, but even that is going to vary by fandom.

So a survey, no matter how well-designed, gives you only a snapshot of a particular subset, or multiple subsets, and pretty much cannot be scaled to represent the whole of fic-writing fandom, because there's so much variation between the communities.

Hmm. I was wondering if anyone had hit up the major audiences during the kinda recent acafen push. It seems like defining the characteristics of the population might be high on the list of identification and definition.

I didn't check to see the other pages on that link's website because I haven't had a moment yet, but I would be interested to know what communities s/he was polling then.

I was wondering if anyone had hit up the major audiences during the kinda recent acafen push

Oh, there's been a ton of surveys. But any academic worth their salt, and who is familiar with fandom, should know better than to extrapolate beyond, "The 373 individuals who took this survey, who mostly post their fiction on Livejournal, Fanfiction.net, and the AO3, are x% between the ages of 9-13, y% between the ages of 14-19, [etc etc etc]." That's about all one could say, which is hardly dispositive.

There is no central gathering place where one is guaranteed to get a cross-section of fic-writers from all the separate communities, and even if one were able to locate and post the survey in many of the separate communities, the response rate itself would likely vary greatly. There is a strong anti-intellectual/anti-academic strain in some places, which would result in either low response, or unreliable data.

Much as I support the idea that fandom merits study, it's surpassingly hard to do any kind of quantitative work that can be survive scrutiny.

That's about all one could say, which is hardly dispositive.

It is really all that I'm looking for, though. As long as it's accurately qualified, I find it informative.

And aggravatingly, as a reader, this is something that I am hugely interested by. What are the ratio of stories set in juvenile settings by writers actually existing in juvenile settings. And the somewhat reverse; the more mature fics (not porn, per se) that have some gravitas that are written by those still school-aged. And yet again, who is over forty and writing highschool angst. I WANT TO KNOW!

(and never will, I know).

It's . . . I know what stories I like, and what I suspect the writers are, but I'm still insanely curious. Especially since, if I can't even acurately guess the sex of the writers, which is fifty-fifty, how can I really gauge the age of the writer. They could be a really intelligent and talented 17 year old, or a really crappy 50 y/o "writer".

I'm deeply reassured that the mere existence of a 50-year-old fic writer isn't considered odd. One of the many things that has been kicking me in the brain since turning 50 was "Why am I still writing stories about TV shows!" I've had a hard time redefining what it means to be 50.

Connie, one of my favorite Mentalist fic writers (who also beta-read my monster fic) is 53. Her stories have well-balanced emotional depth that so many writers whom I know to be in their 20s cannot manage. Her skill with character voices makes her dialogue a joy to read. I believe that part of her brilliance is having the maturity to not impose her own wish-fulfillment urges on the characters as she writes. I also envy her ability to create original characters.

Wind, that's very comforting. And I've still got people emailing me about stories I wrote ten years ago, so at least I'm reaching people and, dare I say, touching them somehow. And my sub-brain immediately went "Bad touch!"

I wonder how many hundreds of dollars I would have had to spend on therapy if not for this board.

Fanfic serves a lot different purposes. It fills in blanks and gaps in the official narrative. It fills in the gaps left by end-of-season hiatuses (and the mini-hiatuses). It brings a show's characters under microscopes to examine motivations and other aspects of the inner life. It allows writers to interact with the characters (and the readers get to go along for the ride). It allows both writers and readers to explore what happens when the characters are put into different situations than what appears on screen. It does allow for wish-fulfillment. There are as many reasons for fic as there are writers. Some of them are pretty darn good reasons. Fanfic is part of what makes a fandom more than the sum of its parts. There is no reason why any of that should be less appropriate after a certain age. If you are not convinced, find some Doctor Who or Star Trek fans who watched from the beginning and ask them what they think.