The entire community is pretty gun-shy about this...well, that's not the right word. It's just that these articles are almost always someone on the outside, looking at the strange group of people, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, we've all seen mistakes too often. Conflating fan fiction with slash. Insisting that all slash is darkfic. Focusing only on the stuff that's prurient in some way.

I didn't mean to cast any aspersions on your friend. I'd love to see the article when it comes out.

I know, Dana. I've seen those "ha ha, what freaks!" articles about fanfic.

Even when they're not "what freaks" there's generally a tone of amused condescension that comes through. I'd love for someone to write an article with recognition that people have been doing this for centuries, and all the internet has done is allow us to share these stories.

The one danger is to come up with explanations for why people write it -- because there's no one reason for it, and making sweeping generalizations about it always ends up pissing someone off.

I can think of nothing more educational for a writer than fanfic. Immediate feedback from an impassioned--and around here very intelligent--audience. I suppose getting hooked up with a top-flight professional editor would be better, but I'm going out on a limb and say most writers don't get to take advantage of a situation like that.

YWriterEducationMV

Hey, I have this idea to present to Tom Devaney, the master of all stuff at the Writers House, that he should bring a program about *fic* for the WH next fall. Have a fun mini-lecture thing, a reading, bring some big names to the House for dinner. I'm going to present it to him as this vast underground moment that's been growing, recently, in the popular/academic eye. I'm very serious about it-- I'm going to come out as a ficcer to the Penn lit people; I'm going to write this bigass paper.

It'd be like a con, but supported by an ivy-league university!

I can think of nothing more educational for a writer than fanfic.

Word, Connie. I learned a hell of a lot more through writing and editing fic than I did in my one formal creative writing class (at an Ivy League institution, no less).

But that's not the content, it's the process. Fic is in many ways about community -- fic is how I engage with a show, and how I engage with a fandom. I leave to others the intense 30K character analyses and symbolic explications. Me, I write fic.

Ooh, I can't sleep, and I don't want to work, so I'm rereading my Smallville and dS fic favorites. This shit rocks. You know it's a good story-- or maybe you just know that you're a dork, which, also pretty applicable-- when you can't stop giggling from sheer vicarious happiness *and* you keep welling up with tears so you have to go to the bathroom and just sort of slump against the door for a minute making weird noises, and then blow your nose with toilet paper.

I learned a hell of a lot more through writing and editing fic than I did in my one formal creative writing class (at an Ivy League institution, no less).

Consuela is me. I've had more fun beta-reading for people from 14-40 than I ever did as a teacher. It's amazing to see someone really start to understand how a story works, how to feed exposition into the story, and so on.

I have a somewhat daring suggestion: What if we invited Rio's friend into the forum for a little while so he could ask questions and float some theories? Would that raise too many privacy red flags?

I know there's Dr Who as well - Kalima has some lovely Dr Who stories over at fanfiction net (and she's also published one Dr Who novel, co-authored with some chap) and it's, what, a dozen years since Dr Who was on air.

According to the Dr Who fandom and the BBC (which licenses the novels), Dr Who isn't dead, it's just moved to another medium. I know this because I supervised a (crappy) Honours thesis about it.

What if we invited Rio's friend into the forum for a little while so he could ask questions and float some theories? Would that raise too many privacy red flags?

Well, those of us who post publicly in this thread and talk about fic already admit to writing fic. I don't use my own name for a reason here. I suppose the interviewer could ask anyone he/she quotes whether they want to go by their pseud or their legal name.

But anyone, of course, is welcome to join in and talk here, so long as they comply with the community standards of courtesy and respect.

The stuff that wasn't covered in my formal creative writing class is legion. All I remember is "look in the mirror", which only helps if you're doing semi-autobiographical fiction. But I learned all about the mechanics of writing from fic: pov, voice, structure, metaphor and theme...